The force then assembled consisted of two guns, No. 7 Mountain Battery, Royal Artillery; a Maxim gun detachment of the Norfolk Regiment; two guns, 7-pounders, 8th Gurkhas; half-company 2nd Sappers; eight companies 23rd Sikh Pioneers; six companies 8th Gurkhas; with field hospitals, engineer field park, ammunition column, telegraph, postal, and survey department detachments. In spite of foot-and-mouth disease among the pack-bullocks, of sickness and desertion amongst the Nepalese Coolie Corps, and of rinderpest, Major Bretherton had succeeded in accumulating a month’s supply for the troops and ten days’ fodder for the animals, and General Macdonald was able to make a short march on the 11th to the foot of the Jelap-la (pass) with the first column, consisting of 1,150 fighting men, four guns, and four Maxims.
On December 12 we crossed the pass itself. It is 14,390 feet in height, and leads, not across the main watershed of the Himalayas, but across the range dividing Sikkim from Chumbi, a sharp, bare, rocky ridge. The ascent to it was very steep, and, as the ridge formed the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet, it was possible we might be opposed at the summit.
But on the question of opposition I had had some communication with the Tibetans. News of the assembly of troops and of the preparations we were making had naturally reached the Tibetans, and on November 28 Captain Parr, who was in Chinese employ, associated with the Chinese delegate, informed me that the Tibetans were expecting that, before any advance was made into their country, the British Government would make a formal declaration of their intention; that if they intended to make war they would make a formal declaration of war. I replied that no more formal declaration would be made than that conveyed in the letter from the Viceroy to the Chinese Resident. If the progress of the Mission were obstructed, General Macdonald would use force to clear a way for the passage of the Mission. If no opposition were offered, he would not attack the Tibetans. We were prepared to fight if fighting were forced upon us; we were equally ready to negotiate if the Chinese and Tibetans would send proper delegates to negotiate with us.