General Macdonald had to halt for some days, completing his arrangements for supplies and transport, and while we were halted we were joined by Mr. Wilton, Captain Ryder, R.E., the Survey Officer, and Mr. Hayden, the geologist, who had all come in from Khamba Jong. They had had a very cold and very trying time after I left, and their retirement was an extremely delicate operation. The Tibetan troops hovered about, and with a 17,000 feet pass to cross in December, Captain Bethune had about as difficult a manœuvre to perform as often falls to the lot of a soldier. The Tibetans occupied our camp in triumph, but never actually attacked, and the retirement was safely effected.
Both Captain Ryder and Mr. Hayden had done excellent work. The former had surveyed all the neighbourhood, fixing many new peaks far into Tibet; and Mr. Hayden, roaming over the hills, had made interesting discoveries of fossil-bearing beds, which enabled him to determine the age of the strata in those parts.
General Macdonald, with a flying column of 795 fighting men, started on the 18th for Phari, through a piece of country which had never before been traversed by a European. It was reported that there was a Tibetan force there ready to oppose us. The first march beyond the permanent camp at the meeting of the Amo-chu and the Rilo-chu was easy; but the second march was over a very bad road, ascending steeply through a narrow wooded gorge, where a few determined men could have greatly delayed the advance of the column. The hardships of the march were increased by the almost total absence of fuel at Kamparab camping-ground, which was two miles beyond the wood limit. A certain amount of fuel had been taken on spare mules, and this, with yak-dung in small quantities, had to suffice. On the 20th General Macdonald reached Phari, marching over open country, where the only obstacle to rapid marching was the great altitude and numerous frozen streams. The Jong (fort) he found unoccupied. It was a strong, lofty, masonry-castellated structure, at the junction of the road to the Tang-la (pass), with a road to Bhutan, up which Bogle, Turner, and Manning had proceeded to Tibet so many years before.
In this Jong General Macdonald stationed two companies of the 8th Gurkhas and one 7-pounder gun, while the remainder of the column camped on the plain outside. To the Tibetan and Chinese officials General Macdonald explained that he was only safeguarding the road for the advance of the Mission, and guarding against the regrettable display of force with which the Tibetans had endeavoured to intimidate the Mission at Khamba Jong. He stayed there a couple of nights, during which the cold was intense, the thermometer registering about 40° of frost at night. The ground was frozen so hard that a working party of twelve men only succeeded, after two hours’ hard work, in excavating some 33 cubic feet of earth, and as neither turf nor stones were available, it was impossible to construct any entrenchments.