They sang in order, ending with a basso profundo.

The Tibetans had encroached upon our territory in Sikkim, they had established a customs post at Giao-gong, fifteen miles inside the frontier, and had forbidden British subjects to pass their outposts there; they had thrown down the boundary pillars which had been set up along the undisputed water-shed between the Tista and the Ammo chu. They had insulted the treaty rights of the British by building a wall across the only road from Tibet to the market of Yatung, which had been thrown open to trade with India by the stipulations of the Convention of 1890-3; more than this, they returned unopened letters sent by the Viceroy to the Grand Lama in Lhasa.

a ruddy-complexioned country gentleman

The more I see of moving pictures the less I am able to understand many abracadabrant things about them.