Tibet anc 
 Turkest a n 
 
 Oscar Terry Crosby 
 
REESE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
TIBET AND 
 TURKESTAN 
 
 A JOURNEY THROUGH OLD LANDS 
 
 AND A STUDY OF NEW 
 
 CONDITIONS 
 
 BY 
 OSCAR TERRY CROSBY, F.R.G.S. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 Gbe luiicfcerbocfeer 
 
 1905 
 
REESE 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905 
 
 BY 
 OSCAR TERRY CROSBY 
 
 ttbe fwfcfcerbocfcer press, new ?orft 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE reader need not fear that he is here invited 
 to traverse the weary marches of a traveller's 
 diary. In the following, pages, incidents have been 
 subordinated to the things suggested by them. 
 
 The journey herein recounted was made in the lat- 
 ter half of the year 1903. As I have many other duties 
 in life than those of travel and writing, the prepara- 
 tion of this book has been of fitful and slow process. 
 
 Although originally undertaking the expedition 
 alone, it was by happy chance that I met in Tiflis 
 Captain Fernand Anginieur of the French Army, 
 who became a companion for the journey and a 
 friend for life. He shared with me the responsibili- 
 ties of every kind that were to be met after a tele- 
 graphed authorisation from his War Minister per- 
 mitted him definitely to cast his lot with mine. 
 
 I wish more of my compatriots could meet and 
 know such Frenchmen as are typified in Anginieur. 
 "Brilliant but superficial and frivolous" is a hasty 
 judgment which one often hears from English- 
 speaking critics of the French. "Brilliant, loyal, 
 and earnest" such is the type whom one finds in 
 making the acquaintance of my friend Anginieur. 
 
 As to the route followed by us: starting at the 
 Caspian Sea, we went by rail eastward through Rus- 
 sian Turkestan to Andijan ; thence by caravan, over 
 the Trans-Alai Mountains to Kashgar in Chinese 
 
 1 56473 
 
IV 
 
 Preface 
 
 Turkestan ; thence skirting the Taklamakan desert, 
 through Yarkand and Khotan to Polu, a village on 
 the slopes of the Kuen Lun Mountains ; thence up 
 to the Tibetan plateau, whose north-west corner we 
 explored, passing through the unknown region called 
 Aksai Chin ; thence out through Ladak and Kashmir 
 to Rawal Pindi on the railway; thence to Bombay. 
 
 The disasters which overtook us on the plateau 
 were those more or less familiar in the recitals of 
 other adventurers into this most difficult land. We 
 travelled for eight weeks, never at altitudes less than 
 15,500 feet, often rising to 18,500 feet. The country 
 is quite barren and uninhabited, and the cold is ex- 
 treme. Hence the ponies rapidly die, thus imperil- 
 ling the lives of men, who, at such elevations, must 
 have transport. The hardships were in every re- 
 spect more severe than those experienced by me in 
 a considerable journey in Africa from Somaliland 
 to Khartoum. 
 
 The Turkestan region, at a much lower level than 
 Tibet (about 3500 feet), offered little difficulty. Its 
 historical interest is great, and has direct relation with 
 the development of European civilisation. Geo- 
 graphically and topographically the Central Asian 
 region differs so much from familiar lands that it 
 must be closely studied in order to be understood. 
 
 In many parts of Asia (but not all), the civilisa- 
 tions, both past and present, have had as their 
 physical basis a highly developed irrigation system. 
 Consideration of the facts presented to the traveller 
 and to the student has led me to conclude that irri- 
 gation-civilisations are of a special type. They are 
 easily distinguishable, not only from commercial or 
 
Preface v 
 
 military societies, but also from agricultural societies 
 of the kind familiar to us in Europe and America. 
 Such a view of the matter, when properly worked 
 out in detail of proof and conclusion, seems to me 
 to contain the key to certain historical problems of 
 the first importance. In the following pages it has 
 not been possible to do much more than to state the 
 theme; I hope to give it full treatment at a later 
 date. Meanwhile, I shall be gratified if the interest 
 of some inquiring and critical minds should be 
 awakened by the suggestions now presented. 
 
 In Western and Eastern Turkestan, respectively, 
 the traveller may observe, and compare, Russian 
 and Chinese colonial administration. Most inter- 
 esting are the indications thus given of the charac- 
 teristics of two peoples now challenging the world's 
 closest attention. Incidentally, one is of course 
 drawn to consider the general relation of Europe to 
 Asia. I trust that if any of my readers have been 
 uneasy as to the Yellow Peril, these pages may 
 quiet some fears and awaken some charities. 
 
 The recent British attack upon Tibet is of much 
 more moment, I believe, than would be inferred 
 from the isolated situation and relative weakness of 
 the Tibetan people. Although at this writing the 
 withdrawal of all British representation from Tibet 
 may seem to leave matters almost in statu quo ante, 
 it can scarcely be presumed that so considerable an 
 effort will be permanently left without result. The 
 whole affair seems to have been largely due to one 
 man the late Viceroy, Lord Curzon. London in- 
 fluences seem never to have gone heartily into this 
 lamentable excursion, and the treaty dictated by 
 
vi Preface 
 
 the Viceroy was emasculated by the Home Govern- 
 ment. But a fixed source of irritation has been 
 created. Ultimate re-conquest by the stronger 
 party will doubtless be the result; and permanent 
 occupation of Tibet, as provided by the Curzon or 
 Younghusband treaty, will doubtless be established. 
 In such case a new situation arises in Asian politics. 
 The two great rivals, Russia and England, will 
 knock at China's back door, hidden from our view. 
 
 Discussion of the history and institutions of Tibet 
 and of the present political situation occupies a con- 
 siderable part of my text. Knowledge of the geo- 
 graphical situation is of the utmost importance in 
 dealing with these topics. I feel myself fortunate 
 in that no official obligation of any kind burdens me 
 in the expression of the opinions that have arisen 
 from such direct observation and subsequent study 
 as I have made. It is, I believe, true that all others 
 (save perhaps Sven Hedin) who have visited these 
 secluded regions in recent years are more or less 
 embarrassed by some official or personal ties. It is 
 not meant by this to assail the honesty of the views 
 expressed by the two correspondents (Messrs. Lan- 
 don and Candler) who were permitted to go with 
 Colonel Younghusband, and who have written very 
 interesting and valuable accounts of the historic 
 march to Lhasa. Yet it may fairly be expected 
 that men who have been given such unique favour 
 by official influence should either openly approve 
 the official policy or maintain a gentlemanly re- 
 serve. In differing with the authors just named as 
 to the wisdom of the Tibetan War, considered only 
 as affecting the material interests of the Empire, I 
 
Preface vii 
 
 find myself in accord with many opinions emanating 
 from men of weight in England. The moral aspects 
 of the matter demand the deepest concern of all 
 citizens of the predatory states constituting the 
 "civilised world." That this particular war finds, 
 even in England, only apologists rather than parti- 
 sans, must be taken as a sign of progress away from 
 violence. 
 
 In considering polyandry, the peculiar marriage 
 institution of the Tibetans, I have been led to 
 point out the dependence of all marital forms upon 
 property considerations. The special adaptation of 
 Tibetan unions (of various sorts) to peculiar land- 
 conditions is, I trust, presented in a manner which 
 will convince without offending. 
 
 Perhaps many of those who may read this book 
 are less concerned than is the writer about religion 
 in general. To such it will doubtless seem that the 
 faith and the works of Mohammedans and Buddhists 
 are too frequently put in contrast with the corre- 
 sponding elements in the life of Christendom. And 
 to some it may seem that this contrast is urged with 
 prejudice against the religion of our Western world. 
 But prejudice lies not in the mind of one who be- 
 lieves, as I do, that all thoughts, acts, and things 
 are, alike, the creations of one Power. Hence con- 
 cerning the philosophisings which may be encoun- 
 tered in these pages only two charges may be held 
 possible honest error in the substance and uncon- 
 scious faults in the treatment. 
 
 Among recent works (not given in the bibliography 
 of Tibet in the Encyclopedia Britannica, ninth edi- 
 tion), the following may be mentioned as helpful. 
 
Vlll 
 
 Preface 
 
 Mr. W. W. Rockhill's Land of the Lamas, M. Ore- 
 nard's Le Tibet, and Mr. Landon's Opening of 
 Tibet are the most important works, in English or 
 French, bearing on this subject. The recital of 
 Sarat Chandra Das, an East Indian surveyor who 
 went to Lhasa some ten years ago, is of value and 
 is in English. The journeys made by Sven Hedin, 
 Welby, Deasey, Bowers, Littledale, and Bonvalot 
 have been also put before the world in instructive 
 form. The British Blue-books are as a mine of 
 wealth but the gold must be separated from the 
 dross therein, which is bulky and cumbersome be- 
 cause of the repetitions involved in printing hier- 
 archical correspondence. The British public chiefly, 
 and the general reading world beside, have been 
 already stirred by the revelations contained in the 
 Blue-books from which considerable extracts appear 
 in appendices to this volume. The careful reader 
 will desire to be refreshed concerning his recollec- 
 tions of these official recitals; hence the rather 
 lengthy citations. 
 
 It is hoped that the Tibetan songs appearing in 
 an appendix will be appreciated, not only for their 
 literary value, but also for the intimate view afforded 
 by them of the characteristics of a people who are 
 as yet very unfamiliar to us. A considerable collec- 
 tion of such songs has been made by several of the 
 Moravian missionaries at Leh. This graceful work, 
 added to their more serious undertaking, should win 
 for these noble men a general gratitude. 
 
 O. T. C. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., U. S. A. 
 September i, 1905. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 RUSSIAN TURKESTAN ACROSS BLACK SANDS FROM 
 
 KRASNOVODSK TO ANDIJAN .... I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ANDIJAN TO KASHGAR OVER THE HILLS AND FAR 
 
 AWAY 23 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 KASHGAR THE YELLOW PERIL TAOTAI AND CON- 
 SUL GENERAL 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 KHOTAN DREAMS OF THE PAST DOUBTS OF THE 
 
 PRESENT 52 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 ON TO POLU AND THE LURE OF THE UNKNOWN. 64 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A PLUNGE TO WHITHER-AWAY THE AKSAI CHIN 
 
 OR WHITE DESERT 78 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CAMP PURGATORY PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION VS. 
 
 PROBABLE DEATH KIRGHIZ SAMARITANS . 97 
 
 ix 
 
x Contents 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 GLACIERS, YAKS, SKELETONS, A LOVE AFFAIR, AND 
 
 A HIGH SONG ON THE KARAKORAM ROUTE . 108 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 TREES, TIBETANS, AND THE TELEGRAPH PANAMIK 
 
 AND LADAK LEH I2O 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LADAK LEH TO RAWAL PINDI FROM YAK TO RAIL- 
 WAY VIA PONY TRAIL, OVER THE HIMALAYAS, 
 INTO THE VALE OF KASHMIR . . . .131 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 A LITTLE STUDY OF THE MAP .... 141 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE TIBETAN PEOPLE POLYANDRY AND MONAS- 
 
 TICISM 146 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 RELIGION . -. 167 
 
 / CHAPTER XIV 
 
 INDUSTRY AND ART TIBETAN ARCHITECTS CARA- 
 VAN VS. RAILWAY ...... 178 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 SKETCH OF TIBETAN HISTORY FROM MISTY BEGIN- 
 NINGS, 350 A.D. (?), TO JOHN BULL'S APPEAR- 
 ANCE 185 
 
Contents xi 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A CENTURY OF IRRITATIONS THE FUMES OF THE 
 
 OPIUM WAR CLOUD THE POLITICAL SKY 
 
 FATHERS HUC AND GABET .... 2OO 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CHASTENING OF HERBERT SPENCER BRITISH POLICY 
 CONTEST FOR A BARE BONE PRESENT PO- 
 LITICAL SITUATION 214 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB COMMERCIAL CON- 
 VENTIONS AND CHRIST'S CODE WHAT is 
 
 THE RIGHT ? . . . . . . . 228 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 COUNSELS OF PERFECTION 248 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 THE SACRIFICE OF YOUNGHUSBAND WHAT NEXT ? 255 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF TURKESTAN . . 260 
 
 APPENDICES 274 
 
 INDEX 325 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 YAK-CARAVAN ON THE SASER GLACIER, IN A SNOW- 
 MIST, 18,000 FEET ELEVATION . Frontispiece 
 
 IN THE HEART OF 'BOKHARA " CITY WATER- 
 WORKS" 6 
 
 Photo by Comte Berlier. 
 
 BEAUTIES (?) OF BOKHARA 10 
 
 THE BOY-BAYADERES OF BOKHARA ... 14 
 
 ONE OF THE CITY GATES, BOKHARA 18 
 
 Photo by Comte Berlier. 
 
 A SAMARCAND JEWESS IN CEREMONIAL ATTIRE . 22 
 
 From Turkestan Russe, by M. H. Kraflft. 
 
 THE RIGHISTAN, SAMARCAND .... 26 
 
 RUINS AT SAMARCAND 30 
 
 TAKING A REST IN SAMARCAND .... 34 
 
 COMMITTEE OF RECEPTION IN A VILLAGE OF CHI- 
 NESE TURKESTAN 40 
 
 MADRASAH KHODJA-AKHBAR, NEAR SAMARCAND . 46 
 From Turkestan Russe, by M. H. Krafft. 
 
 RUSSIAN CHAPEL AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE 
 
 ANDIJAN 50 
 
 IN FRONT OF THE OFFICERS' CLUB AT OSH . . 56 
 RIVER BANK AT OSH ...... 60 
 
 Photo by Comte Berlier. 
 
 YOUTH AND MIDDLE AGE IN OSH ... 64 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TYPICAL IRRIGATED REGION NEAR OSH . . 70 
 
 RUSSIAN OFFICER COMMANDING THE BORDER-POST 
 
 NEAR RUSSIAN-CHINESE FRONTIER . . 74 
 
 CROSSING THE TRANS- ALAI MOUNTAINS . . 80 
 
 A COTTON-CARAVAN TRANS- ALA! MOUNTAINS . 84 
 
 A KIRGHIZ FAMILY UNDER OBSERVATION . . 90 
 
 HOLLAND, AMERICA, ENGLAND, AND RUSSIA IN 
 
 KASHGAR . . . . . .94 
 
 A KASHGAR CROWD 100 
 
 A MORNING BATH AT KASHGAR .... 106 
 
 A BUSY CORNER IN KASHGAR . . . .no 
 
 KASHGAR TYPES . . . . . . .114 
 
 FATHER HENDRICKS IN HIS PRIVATE CAR . . 118 
 
 A TYPE IN KHOTAN 122 
 
 BUSY TRADERS IN KHOT AN 126 
 
 SPECIMENS OF MANUSCRIPT RECOVERED FROM A 
 SAND-BURIED CITY OF THE TAKLAMAKAN 
 
 DESERT 130 
 
 SPECIMENS OF MANUSCRIPT RECOVERED FROM A 
 SAND-BURIED CITY OF THE TAKLAMAKAN 
 
 DESERT ....... 136 
 
 CLAY ORNAMENTS FOUND IN A SAND-BURIED CITY 
 
 OF THE TAKLAMAKAN DESERT . . . 140 
 
 OUR RESCUE PARTY AT CAMP PURGATORY . . 146 
 
 CAVE-DWELLERS NEAR POLU 150 
 
 THE BEG OF POLU AND CALIBAN .... 156 
 
 FRIENDS OF RAS WORKE", ABYSSINIA . . . 162 
 Photo by Mr. J. H. Baird. 
 
Illustrations xv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A STIFF BIT OF UP-GRADE NEAR POLU . . 168 
 
 OUR GRAIN TRANSPORT UP POLU GORGE . . 174 
 
 RELOADING AFTER A BREAK-NECK PULL . . 180 
 
 THE AUTHOR AT KARAKORAM PASS . . .186 
 
 CAPTAIN ANGINIEUR TAKEN AT ELEVATION OF 
 
 18,000 FEET 190 
 
 THE PILGRIMS AT AN ELEVATION OF 18,000 
 
 FEET ........ 196 
 
 SEEKING A WAY THROUGH UNKNOWN MOUNTAINS . 202 
 
 MAN-HANDLING THE LOADS. MIR MULLAH IN 
 
 MIDDLE GROUND 210 
 
 THE AUTHOR TAKEN AT ELEVATION OF 18,000 
 
 FEET 214 
 
 TIBETANS OF NOBRA VALLEY . . . 218 
 
 WAYSIDE TOMBS (CHORTENS) IN THE NOBRA VAL- 
 LEY . . . . 226 
 
 A HAPPY HOME IN TURKESTAN .... 230 
 
 EXAMPLE OF MYRIAD PRAYER-STONES (HALF 
 
 NATURAL SIZE IN THIS CASE) . . . 234 
 
 " Om mani padme Hun." 
 
 WHERE WATERED SANDS BURST INTO LIFE . . 240 
 TYPICAL CHORTEN IN TIBET .... 244 
 
 KING'S PALACE AND REMARKABLE GROUP OF 
 
 CHORTENS IN LADAK LEH .... 248 
 
 A VIEW IN LHASA 252 
 
 Photo by the Buriat Dorjieff. Furnished through cour- 
 tesy of the National Geographic Society. 
 
xvi Illustrations 
 
 PACK 
 
 A CORNER IN LHASA 256 
 
 Photo by the Buriat Dorjieff. Furnished through cour- 
 tesy of the National Geographic Society. 
 
 A STRUCTURE IN LHASA 260 
 
 Photo by the Buriat Dorjieff. Furnished through cour- 
 tesy of the National Geographic Society. 
 
 TIBETAN BOOK, AS TAKEN FROM THE " LIBRARY." 
 
 LEAVES FROM TIBETAN BOOK . . . 264 
 
 MAP OF CENTRAL ASIA ... .AT END 
 Showing route of Captain F. Anginieur and Mr. Crosby. 
 
TIBET AND TURKESTAN 
 
TIBET AND TURKESTAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 RUSSIAN TURKESTAN ACROSS BLACK SANDS 
 FROM KRASNOVODSK TO ANDIJAN 
 
 OERIOUS changes, of international importance, 
 O are about to be made in Central Asia, where 
 conditions are known but vaguely, except to certain 
 officials who can speak only in accord with the poli- 
 cies they serve, and to a few travellers. Concern- 
 ing the actualities in Turkestan and Tibet, there is 
 an English administration point of view which is 
 loudly proclaimed; a Russian administration point 
 of view which is imperfectly known to Western 
 Europe; a Chinese administration point of view, 
 which cannot be frankly expressed by the Peking 
 Government; a Tibetan point of view, which is 
 vainly uttered to the unresponsive snows; and an 
 independent point of view, which I endeavour here 
 to set forth. When one observes the activities of 
 three great empires, four great religions, and a dozen 
 races, interacting among conditions whose simplicity 
 permits sharp definition, he may perchance see things 
 that are somewhat hidden in the larger, overwhelm- 
 ing world to which we belong. 
 
2 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 On the map of Central Asia, not many years ago, 
 it was all Turkestan. Now it is Russian Turkestan 
 and Chinese Turkestan. Soon it will be simply 
 Russia. 
 
 You may, if you care to, get aboard with me at 
 Krasnovodsk, on Caspia's shores, and sweep across 
 the black deserts to Bokhara, Samarcand, Andijan ; 
 thence onward, but not by rail, to far Tibet. The 
 little special car which you enter will make us com- 
 fortable enough that is, comfortable as may be in 
 a July crossing of hot sands. I shall first telegraph 
 my thanks, anent the car, to the Russian Railway 
 Minister, acknowledging his great courtesy in car- 
 ing for an American traveller who has no special 
 claims upon him. Then let me introduce to you 
 your travelling companions Captain Fernand An- 
 ginieur of the French army, and myself. He and 
 I have known each other just three days. We met 
 in Tiflis, over there in the Caucasus, on the other 
 side of the sea. Captain Anginieur intends going 
 the length of the Trans-Caspian railway ; and since 
 he has heard of my plans in re Tibet, is already re- 
 volving a request to his Ministry for permission to 
 go with me. You are to know him very well, and 
 hence you will like him very well. Meanwhile he 
 helps to fill with cheerfulness the cozy little carriage, 
 which contains a bedroom, a sitting-room, a wee 
 storeroom, where the moujik makes tea, and a 
 toilet room with a shower-bath! Think of that, O 
 dusty traveller, even of the first class! Think of 
 that and envy us, while we vow many candles to 
 Prince Khilkoff, Minister of Railways. 
 
 Whether the moujik stands up all night in the 
 
Russian Turkestan 3 
 
 kitchen or whether he sleeps in the narrow corridor, 
 we know not ; he is always at hand, always making 
 tea, which we are always drinking. He is an ideal 
 porter-valet-cook combination. Let me present to 
 you also Joseph, our interpreter. He was found in 
 Tiflis ; he speaks French admirably, and of Oriental 
 tongues, Russian, Persian, Turki, Armenian, a little 
 Arabic, and, if there be a surviving dialect of it, 
 Chaldean, for by race Joseph is a Chaldean; he 
 lived until recently in Persia ; he was educated by a 
 French missionary ; has journeyed as far as Kashgar 
 with French travellers, and promises to go there, 
 yea, even beyond Kashgar with us. He is a rather 
 weak little man, honest, I believe, and well informed 
 altogether a superior representative of that disap- 
 pointing class, Asiatic Christians. He called me 
 "Excellence" until he discovered that my purse and 
 manner made no special response. Joseph is trav- 
 elling second-class, but he is a neat person and 
 does n't look rumpled in the mornings. He forages 
 at the well-appointed railway restaurants which are 
 a precious fruit of Russian civilisation. We go for- 
 ward to the dining-car ; yes there is a dining-car in 
 Turkestan! In it are plenteous vegetable soups, 
 cucumbers ad infinitum, good meats, cold drinks. 
 The service is slow, but clean enough. Here you 
 meet the Russian officials and their wives going to 
 distant duty in the queer places which now bear the 
 Czar's yoke and enjoy the Czar's peace. Here, too, 
 you may meet, on this particular journey, three 
 charming young French gentlemen, who are going 
 as far as Samarcand, thence returning, and up the 
 Volga thence across Siberia. Two of them are 
 
4 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Ecole Polytechnique men both sons of prominent 
 railway officials. Their culture is wider and deeper 
 than that of young American or English engineers. 
 In observing a given thing they see more of its re- 
 lations with the rest of the universe than we ordi- 
 narily see. 
 
 You and I, O Anglo-Saxon spirit-companion, 
 shall find that our forty-year wisdom may learn 
 much from twenty-five-year French intuition, and 
 we shall learn to doubt the meaning of the word 
 "decadence" as applied to the ripest but not 
 rottenest people of our European world. A sug- 
 gestive thing it was to watch Anginieur and these 
 other temperate, complicated, critical, sensitive, in- 
 tellectual Frenchmen in their amused association 
 with the lusty, simple, strong, confident, physical 
 Russians. What strange secrets hath nature in the 
 mixing of clay to make men ! Some sure bond there 
 undoubtedly is between chemistry and psychology, 
 but alas! the formula of that bond is the Great 
 Secret which man, I think, shall never know. Thus 
 it was that I could but ruminate and wonder, while 
 listening for hours to the explosive French jargon of 
 a young Russian officer, whose hairy breast heaved, 
 whose bold, kind eyes glistened, whose brow ran 
 wet while he drank at us, jested with us, rattled all 
 the cups of the dining-car, and explained by his sole 
 personality the measureless strength of his people. 
 A mere commentary on this personality seemed the 
 conquered deserts through whose heats we travelled, 
 whose children we saw quietly gathered at the 
 stations which had been battle-fields whereon the 
 Cossack Christ overcame the Turcoman Mahomet. 
 
Russian Turkestan 5 
 
 When the great bridge across the Amou Daria 
 the classic Oxus has been passed, when our re- 
 luctant eyes have again turned from its cool flow to 
 the dark, hot sands, the Russian officer recalls to us 
 the hardship his people suffered in constructing this 
 railway, which is a mighty engine of war, and a 
 yet stronger implement for peace. The Oxus once 
 flowed to the Caspian Sea but the Amou Daria 
 flows to the Aral basin ; truly an erratic, radical 
 change to be made by a great, dignified river. Yet 
 not less radical has been the change in the political 
 destiny of all the vast region which the river trav- 
 erses. And as there is now no other basin to 
 which it would seem possible that its waters could 
 run, so there seems no other power than Russia 
 which could govern this Central Asian region. 
 Neither of these parallel propositions shall here be 
 argued at length, but a relief map and a skeleton 
 history would establish both. 
 
 Bokhara is our first halting-place. We find and 
 monopolise the three rooms of a decent boarding- 
 house near the station, in the small Russian 
 settlement. Here is the residence of the Czar's 
 representative who "advises " the Emir and whose 
 advice is so singularly sound that it is always 
 followed. The relation thus established is one of 
 the oldest in political history, and may safely be 
 recommended to any strong power desiring to econ- 
 omise its strength, while never ceasing to threaten 
 and "protect " the weaker one. 
 
 From the Russian town we drive over to the 
 native city fifty thousand people or more pro- 
 tected by several miles of sand from the rush of the 
 
6 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 desecrating locomotive. The bazaars are like ani- 
 mated tunnels, being narrow streets covered over 
 with matting or boughs that the sun's intemperate 
 rays may not burn up the busy movement of parti- 
 coloured people who patter back and forth, passing 
 the squatting merchants. You enter by way of 
 melons quantities of them, on both sides the big 
 city gate; you progress through brass-work, iron- 
 mongery, saddlery, butchery, cookery; then you 
 are in a sort of focus of bazaars, and the appetising 
 fumes from open-air restaurants may float tempta- 
 tion in half-a-dozen directions. Near by are sweet- 
 meats, then brilliant skullcaps, then European 
 calicos, then true, fascinating Bokhara silks; then, 
 around a corner, are equally fascinating rugs, then 
 sweetmeats, then spices, vegetables and all garden 
 truck and then and then so it goes through all the 
 series of wants of this Mussulman ant-hill. Not many 
 women are seen, but the colour-effects of the crowd 
 are made startling by the backs of men clad in 
 gay hues. At the silk counters are a few ladies, 
 formless in their all-enclosing cloaks, the long black 
 veils falling like a great ink stain on a coloured page. 
 Through little windows sewed jealously in the veil- 
 ing, or around its perilous edge, their unseen eyes 
 peer at the soft tissues of strange designs, and their 
 low, controlled voices urge a zestful bargain to tardy 
 conclusion, so sweet is that universal communion 
 between Possession and Desire. The very close 
 concealment of women's faces seems here to be pro- 
 portioned, when compared with fashion in other 
 Mussulman cities, to the reputation for superior 
 sanctity so long enjoyed by Bokhara. Its teachers 
 
i: 
 
 V 
 
 : m 
 \ | 
 
 1 u 
 
 o 
 
 PQ 
 
Of THE 
 
Russian Turkestan 7 
 
 have gone out to preach the very letter of the Koran 
 the letter of rigid practice among the Faithful, 
 and of rigid hate against the Infidel. Until the day 
 of the railway, the European's presence in any one 
 of Bokhara's eighty mosques (somehow fabled to be 
 three hundred and sixty-five) was ever a probable 
 cause of riot. 
 
 But all this has been changed by the Russians. 
 One is now as safe in the Emir's territory as in Mos- 
 cow. His army, which we saw manoeuvring hand- 
 somely under its native officers, has been organised 
 by Russian advice and is tamely uniformed and 
 armed in European fashion. Because he feels irri- 
 tated by the watchful supervision of the Muscovite ; 
 because he is saddened by the vain show of emascu- 
 lated power, which is now all that remains of a 
 former omnipotence; because he is a lazy lover of 
 luxurious ease for one or all of sucli' surmised 
 reasons, the Emir has left the rather tawdry palace 
 just outside the city's walls, and now dwells in re- 
 tirement some thirty or forty miles away, returning 
 only on state occasions or when some unusual oc- 
 currence draws him to his capital. We were told 
 that such visits were not relished by his subjects, 
 over whom the vestige of his power may yet be 
 tyrannically exercised in many petty matters. 
 
 One must not, however, take too literally the 
 point of view adopted by European administrators, 
 or their native sycophants, in a subjugated Asiatic 
 state. Practices that seem the sheerest abuse of 
 power, even to the Russian, may yet be not disliked 
 in these communities, whose traditions and whose 
 present sentiments we but dimly apprehend. Nor 
 
8 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 should occasional violence be taken as conclusive 
 evidence of a radically bad status. Were the game 
 of interference played among populations less pli- 
 able than those making up the majorities in Central 
 Asia, it would certainly be found that the benefit of 
 mere regularity in a foreign-born government would 
 not be accepted as against native, though violent 
 and tyrannical rule. The truth of this proposition 
 has been abundantly shown in the fierce resistance 
 of Bokhara's neighbour state Afghanistan to 
 British or Russian domination. But the Turkestan 
 majorities are sheep-like people, accustomed ever to 
 be mastered by some hardier, wandering folk from 
 the far east plains of Mongolia or the nearer steppes 
 and mountain valleys wherein irrigation methods 
 are impossible, and hence where the struggle of man 
 for daily bread and comfortable shelter develops 
 those qualities which make conquerors of wanderers, 
 or more yielding rebels of those who plough the 
 stiff soil for an uncertain crop. 
 
 Not generally in the study of history's lessons 
 have we sufficiently emphasised the special charac- 
 teristics due to the unvarying fertility, the enervat- 
 ing facility, and the great vulnerability of irrrigation 
 systems. Societies have been divided into nomadic, 
 agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial types. 
 The distinction that has not been clearly made and 
 studied in its very important results is that which 
 makes a separate class of the irrigating agriculturist 
 safe against climatic risks; crowded in small 
 holdings; dependent on combined action for the 
 construction of irrigation works; the ready victim of 
 any violence which seizes some certain ditch. Con- 
 
Russian Turkestan 9 
 
 trast him with his brother who lives by the grace of 
 uncertain rains ; forced to a prevision which makes 
 the lean year borrow from the fat ; able to live wide 
 away from his neighbour, developing thereby an 
 independent individualism which may ripen into 
 civil order and liberty ; each farmer whose land has 
 its own water-supply capable of making some mili- 
 tary resistance. 
 
 There is not space in these pages to develop an un- 
 familiar principle which has its demonstrations and 
 applications in the foundation and growth of almost 
 all human history. We must ask a large exercise 
 of inferential reasoning, based upon the scant sug- 
 gestions which have been outlined, or a large faith 
 on the part of those whose tastes refuse to drudge 
 the details out of which generalisations are made. 
 To leave this subject, without leaving the country 
 through which our journey now takes us, is hard 
 indeed; yet it is a duty which one owes to the 
 general reader, who, according to all sound morality, 
 should not be dragooned into being a specialist. Let 
 it go at this the dense, settled populations of culti- 
 vators and small tradesmen in all the great artificial 
 oases of Turkestan (Russian and Chinese) are like 
 so many fat sheep when viewed by predatory wolves 
 such as you and I, or such as the fierce mountain 
 tribes or hardy nomads. Down any bazaar in Bo- 
 khara, Samarcand, Andijan, Kashgar, Yarkand, 
 Khotan, you and I, each armed with but a shillalah, 
 might victoriously drive the herded, happy people, 
 provided always that there chanced not to be within 
 the herd some Kirghiz, mountain Afghan, or no- 
 mad Turcoman. What you and I can do others 
 
io Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 have done and thus the checkered history of Cen- 
 tral Asia and India has been written for lo ! these 
 many centuries. 1 
 
 Again we rumble over black sands, leaving the 
 gardens and groves of Bokhara behind us. We 
 have seen the city as Alexander saw it, save that it 
 was larger, I think, in his day, and perhaps there 
 were no cotton-fields round about. Now we shall 
 see Samarcand glorious from Tamerlane's day 
 notable indeed when, as Marcando, it was destroyed 
 by his great Greek predecessor. A little farther he 
 marched north-eastward, but Samarcand may fairly 
 be said to be the proper monument of Alexander's 
 extremest reach in this direction, and only the Czar's 
 recent conquests have ever carried European arms 
 farther into Asia's heart. Here also may be marked 
 the western verge of China's power, whose long arm 
 once reached only to be withdrawn toward the 
 great monuments which Tamerlane had left. This 
 conqueror, who was of the Mongolian, virile strain, 
 
 1 The vast development of irrigation work now progressing in the 
 far Western States of America will inexorably produce, generations 
 hence, a type far less hardy in mental constitution than that which 
 we now present. Were it not that these new regions are part of a 
 vast country chiefly filled with people who must fight uncertainties, 
 and were it not that no great neighbour lies close to their irrigated 
 field, we might well hesitate to produce the conditions which shall, 
 in turn, be the source of enormous wealth and little virility. Meso- 
 potamia, Egypt, Bengal, Middle China, Mexico ! Since the first 
 ditch was dug in your yielding soils how many billions of slaves 
 have been engendered, fed, and reclaimed in death by your thirsting 
 sands ! How many fretting tyrants have come down, with the fresh 
 mountain dews upon their brows, to riot in your slave-breeding 
 plains, and fatally to breed a later race of slaves, whose necks have 
 also bent to later mountain men! 
 
Russian Turkestan 11 
 
 put upon Samarcand the crown of empire. Here 
 he builded and some rulers after him the great 
 mosques and tombs whose white-and-blue beauty it 
 is so hard to suggest in words. Under their spell, 
 even an unimaginative American may feel the same 
 enthusiasm which moved a cultivated French travel- 
 ler, M. Hugues Krafft, to express himself as follows: 
 
 "Worthy of taking rank among the masterpieces of 
 architecture, the 'great monuments of Samarcand ' ought 
 to be known equally with the most majestic edifices 
 of the Greeks, the Romans, our Gothic cathedrals of 
 France, and the most celebrated creations of the Italian 
 Renaissance. 
 
 " Beyond the bridge commences the native city. The 
 shops, the tea-counters follow each other, almost without 
 interruption, along a gentle rise, up to the basin which 
 immediately precedes the Reghistan. Here one is at the 
 heart of 'old Samarcand,' at the centre of all the bazaars 
 and in the midst of the population's most feverish move- 
 ment. . . . Should I live a hundred years I should 
 ever retain the extraordinary impression left upon me by 
 the first sight of the Reghistan, with its madrasas and its 
 many-coloured masses. . . . The horses of our light 
 phaeton moving at a furious gallop, we made way through 
 the Asiatic crowd ranged, immobile, on either side of the 
 highway, and through people on foot and on horse, whom 
 the stationed police scattered as best they could. Along 
 the whole distance, the Sarts, hands crossed on breast, 
 bowed and bent one after the other; and I might have 
 thought myself an Oriental sovereign passing before his 
 subjects, had I not known that these humble salutations 
 were addressed solely to my companion (the Russian 
 
12 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Governor). Thus there was a hasty view of the Reghis- 
 tan rilled with moving shops and with Mussulmans; of 
 porticos and of minarets bright with shining faience 
 which glistened in the sun. Beyond, there was the first 
 sight of the majestic walls of Bibi Khanim and of the 
 innumerable multitude which surged around them. 
 Then, still farther, the marvellous view which dominates 
 the plateau of Afrasiab and the sandy slopes occupied by 
 the mosques of the Chah-Zindi. The impression which 
 I experienced from this succession of fairy-like spectacles 
 was so strong that I could scarce utter a word, wholly 
 overcome by an extraordinary emotion, little guessed by 
 my companion, doubtless long since accustomed to so 
 much splendour. How many times since have I seen 
 these scintillating monuments, that motley crowd, with- 
 out ever tiring of the sight! " 
 
 The most graceful of the marvellous structures, 
 raised here by a tyrant's power, is a monument to 
 the power of a yet more universal tyrant, him whom 
 all delight to honour, the great god Love. Tamer- 
 lane had many wives, probably loved many ; for it 
 is a proof of a certain largeness of nature that a 
 man's heart should go out to many women, willing, 
 wanting to be loved. But chiefly this heart of many 
 mansions was filled by love for Bibi Khanim, a fair 
 maid from far Cathay. And when God took her 
 away from the Emperor, he commanded her name 
 to be given to this structure, great and beautiful as 
 their love had been. Later, when mountain and 
 desert and river had been crossed, I saw in the world 
 of India another most beautiful monument to a dead 
 queen, who pleased another Mussulman Emperor, 
 and whose bones now lie in the Taj Mahal, at 
 
Russian Turkestan 13 
 
 Agra in the Taj Mahal, priceless pearl of archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 Think of it polygamous Asia's two most lovely 
 structures are monuments to the triumph of wo- 
 man's charm for man. Can the system, then, be all 
 unjust, or all unhappy, or all wrong for the given 
 conditions of climate, geography, topography, and, 
 finally, of temperament? Perhaps so yet, then, a 
 wrong ordained by the Power. We of European 
 condition have been made to develop much mono- 
 gamy with responsibilities, and some polygamy 
 without responsibilities. Asia and Africa have been 
 made to develop much polygamy, some monogamy, 
 and some polyandry, all with responsibility. There 
 is plainly a difference of social adaptability as there 
 are differences of flora and fauna. Let us cease to 
 curse our divergent neighbour. Let us cease to 
 worship tribal gods, race gods, continental gods, 
 let us try to feel that all trees and all men and all 
 relations of things have been made by the same 
 power and that they constantly obey it. 
 
 At Samarcand Captain Anginieur and I were 
 agreeably entertained by General Madinsky, Gov- 
 ernor-General, in the spacious, handsome official 
 residence. His goodness took practical form in the 
 gift to me of an excellent Smith and Wesson. So 
 perfect is the Czar's peace, that the General said he 
 was tired of keeping a loaded weapon, a use for 
 which had not occurred in many years of wandering 
 throughout Russian Turkestan. I was glad to get 
 even so small an addition to my armory which 
 then consisted only of one Mauser pistol. The woes 
 are many of him who would acquire arms of defence 
 
14 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 in Russia. The old army rifles, now discarded, 
 are tantalisingly numerous in the arsenals, and 
 tantalisingly cheap, if only one could obtain per- 
 mission to buy them. But even for a Russian officer 
 such permission is by no means a matter of course 
 and only the War Minister may give it. Of course, 
 a dealer cannot handle military arms only sporting 
 pieces and pistols ; perhaps you may buy the shot- 
 guns (smooth-bores) without permit : for pistols, 
 written permission is required, and report must be 
 made of the purchase. The impromptu is not en- 
 couraged in Russia. 
 
 Surely, surely, the Russian, soldier or civilian, 
 will woefully lack initiative surely he is but a weak 
 competitor with, let us say, the American, if meas- 
 ured man for man in the strife of war or industry. 
 A hard saying, it may be thought, when one's mind 
 dwells upon the brilliant intellects which may be 
 met in St. Petersburg, or the faithful, patient moujik 
 who is seen all over the great Empire. A hard say- 
 ing, it may seem, when one thinks also of the cour- 
 teous, watchful, intelligent officers who administer 
 the wide lands through which our journey takes us 
 who have created the substantial little white cities 
 that guard the big black native towns. But they 
 are too few -too few. And it remains, that if the 
 average individual were strong in himself, then we 
 should not see the cancelled columns of newspapers 
 in hotel reading-rooms for the man in the street 
 would then be wise enough to read whatever the 
 London, Paris, or New York papers chose to pub- 
 lish. We would not see the Jewish woman I chanced 
 to meet in the Moscow police office, asking in vain 
 
Russian Turkestan 15 
 
 that she be allowed, without special report on each 
 occasion, to go and come between the city and a 
 near-by suburb whither her work carried her twice a 
 week; for the average Russian would then be able 
 to protect himself against the Jewish competition by 
 ordinary means; while now his inferior intelligence 
 makes necessary the brutal methods of protection 
 which American workmen once used against Chinese 
 coolies. We would not hear Russian officers con- 
 gratulating themselves on having duty in the rela- 
 tively easy-going borders of the Empire, because 
 there excessive bureaucracy is sheer impossibility. 
 
 It is in these border lands, I believe, that Russia 
 will learn the lesson of ordered individualism which 
 shall transform and glorify her future. I cannot 
 forget the most vivacious Russian whom I met en 
 route from Moscow to Tiflis a young electrical 
 engineer who emphasised the fact that he was a 
 Siberian, and because of that he insisted that he 
 could understand America. Nor shall I forget the 
 jolly station-master at Krasnovodsk, who refused 
 the fifteen roubles offered out of deference to the 
 false tradition which makes every Russian a bribe- 
 taker, while he indicated that he would accept a lot 
 of French magazines because their outlook was larger 
 than the native literature. Nor shall I forget the 
 ladies in the household of the Natchalik colonel 
 commanding the Osh District. There were mother 
 and daughter, and two young friends from Tash- 
 kent, capital of Turkestan. One of these was a 
 telegraph operator orphan, of a good family; all 
 three were cultured young women, better musicians 
 than the average well-educated American girl 
 
1 6 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 speaking French, dancing prettily, nucleus of a true 
 frontier aristocracy of refinement. They had been 
 educated at Orenburg in Siberia, had never seen 
 the Moscow-Petersburg form of Russian society, and 
 would probably marry officers or civilians who like- 
 wise know nothing of European Russia. 
 
 So it was in far Kashgar. The old retiring 
 Consul-General had spent a lifetime in Asia and 
 now, the end of labour drawing near, he had decided 
 to die, not in one of the great towns of the West, 
 but in Tashkent, in the very heart of Russian Turk- 
 estan. In Kashgar, too, were several civilians who 
 had never been west of the Ural Mountains. It has 
 been impossible to subject those frontier folk to 
 Moscow discipline. True, there is always one re- 
 servation due to the very essence of the Russian 
 system, and which sharply marks off any Russian 
 from any American, that is, he rarely talks politics 
 with strangers; never, at least, any radical politics. 
 He might though this is not on my part experi- 
 mental knowledge question the wisdom of the pro- 
 tection policy of his Government, or any such similar 
 policy, but the form of his government seems to be 
 adopted as a necessary background to life as a 
 "form of thought." Either a loyalty, almost uni- 
 versal, or a fear, equally universal (the former, I 
 think), prevents the average Russian mind from 
 entering this region, mysterious to him, familiar 
 and vital to nearly all Europeans and Americans. 
 Once outside this reservation, these frontiersmen in 
 Asia show much of the self-reliance, the mental 
 temerity which characterise our own frontier, or any 
 other frontier occupied by strong men. 
 
Russian Turkestan 17 
 
 Now the conditions of life at the circumference 
 are unlike those at the centre; the acceptable social 
 organisation at St. Petersburg is not the same as 
 that at Samarcand or Irkutsk. Sacred as are the 
 old traditions now, for the period of expansion is 
 short, it seems that they must be inevitably weak- 
 ened by time and distance. Even now one may 
 note, because this addresses the eye, that in the 
 new cities men show less than in the old of fetish 
 worship for the religious thing or priest; there is 
 less genuflexion, bowing, and crossing, but not less 
 of morality in practical life. In Russia, the Church, 
 with all its forms, is part of the form of the State. 
 He who finds himself unconsciously drifting from 
 the one set of forms is also departing from the other. 
 If the existing political body is unfit for the devel- 
 opment of a great people, we may feel that in the 
 ceaseless extension of its frontier the aristocracy is 
 preparing conditions which shall operate to peace- 
 fully modify those institutions which are inconsistent 
 with reasonable individual liberty. Powerful as will 
 be this retroaction from circumference back to cen- 
 tre, it will not, I surmise, be of the violent character 
 which may be expected in the centre itself. For 
 these colonisations which have carried the Czar's flag 
 so far, are made by men of old patriarchal customs. 
 
 The father has himself a highly centralised au- 
 thority ; he teaches and would enforce the tradition 
 of loyalty to the Czar. Generations must pass be- 
 fore you could make a radical of him. Indeed he 
 might be expected to indefinitely propagate Czar- 
 worshippers if it were not that the frontier ceases to 
 be frontier. It has its big towns, in time; and a 
 
1 8 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 big town that is vigorous not a Rome of the second 
 century, or an Antioch is a favouring environment 
 for the liberty germ. And such movements as may 
 hereinafter begin in Siberian towns will have, if not 
 too radical, a support from the farming class which, 
 in Russia proper, is almost wholly lacking. There 
 the peasantry is a black mass in which the town- 
 lighted fire must burn slowly; it is a mass of coagu- 
 lated ignorance and superstition. And it is moulded 
 by the old landlord class, who are not in any coun- 
 try good revolutionists. In the new Russia there 
 are more settlers who own their lands they are in 
 conditions which encourage wide-awakefulness ; and 
 though the central Government endeavours to con- 
 trol everywhere the consumption of that dangerous 
 drug, education, yet it cannot wholly refuse satis- 
 faction to a strong appetite prevailing in a great 
 distant province. 
 
 The cause of Reform in Russia will, then, I think, 
 be something like this: In European Russia, vio- 
 lent explosions in cities, violently repressed by the 
 dull strength of the moujik; in Asiatic Russia, stub- 
 born resistance against class privilege and against 
 official tyranny of the irritating sort ; finally, steady 
 demand for moderate reform in the direction of 
 local (provincial) representative government, freed 
 from bureaucratic veto-power, which now so largely 
 stultifies the action of various elective bodies in 
 Russia. Indeed it is not difficult to imagine these 
 eastern provinces as being the seats of progressive, 
 almost self-governing states, long before it will seem 
 possible to yield reasonable quantities of reform to 
 the older communities, made up as they are of a 
 

 
Russian Turkestan 19 
 
 thin layer of highly febrile material, overtopping a 
 very thick layer of an inert mass. But however 
 variant may be the progress in the Empire's wide 
 stretch, I see nothing to suggest destruction of the 
 essential unity of that Empire, or any cataclysmic 
 change in its form. 
 
 The local irritations in Finland, Poland, and the 
 Caucasus, however justifiable they may be, cannot 
 go to the length of establishing independent gov- 
 ernments in an age which demands consolidation. 
 Geographic and ethnical resemblances will tend to 
 hold together all the vast tract H*om Moscow to 
 Vladivostok save in the Turkestan -region which 
 we are now traversing. Here, too, there is basis for 
 unity of empire since all these regions must be 
 administered by the superior race, whose members 
 will never be considerable in these territories. 
 They are a common heritage to the Russian people. 
 When an inheritance is not easily divisible it be- 
 comes a force tending to conserve unity or union 
 among its owners. While thus of common interest, 
 yet they give political might chiefly to the new 
 Russia in Siberia. The best administrators for 
 Turkestan certainly the majority of the forceful 
 ones whom I met, are men who knew not St. Peters- 
 burg. The case is analogous to that which would 
 have arisen had not Mexico redeemed herself within 
 the last twenty years. Under pressure from our 
 Western States the Southern territory would have 
 been annexed, and, not being ripe for amalgama- 
 tion to our 'forms, would have been ruled by men 
 from Iowa, Colorado, California. 
 
 The man from Denver and the man from Omsk 
 
20 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 are better frontier governors, generally, than the 
 man from Boston or Moscow. Whatever may have 
 been their birthplaces, General Medinsky at Samar- 
 cand, and Colonel Saitseff at Osh, remain in my mind 
 as fine types of the Californian, less one-tenth of his 
 verve and nine-tenths of his political instinct. 
 
 The Smith and Wesson, silent so long, exploded 
 into a political discourse which now is ended, leav- 
 ing us free to take train again for Kokand the first 
 big town beyond Samarcand. Here the Russian 
 quarter is again found ; avenues poplar-shaded and 
 wide ; substantial white houses ; public carriages at 
 the station offering a somewhat rickety service, but 
 cheap and rapid. No monuments here to beguile 
 us, but we meet a most agreeable Frenchman, one 
 of several engaged in purchasing silk for shipment 
 to Lyons. Besides the Russians, they seem to be 
 the only Europeans having business interests in 
 Turkestan. The very sharp discrimination of the 
 Government in favour of its own subjects makes 
 commerce an up-hill work for the foreigner. The Ko- 
 kand bazaar is less interesting than that at Bokhara, 
 but in a fairly good Russian shop we were able to 
 make some purchases of dry groceries and canned 
 goods, none of fine quality, all quite expensive and 
 very Russian. Joseph assured us that Osh though 
 thirty miles beyond the railway terminus, would be 
 found to offer superior stocks because of the large 
 garrison there, and the fact that it was a point of 
 distribution to distant troops. So it was that we 
 passed on to Andijan, poor tumble-down, earth- 
 quake-shaken Andijan, southwestern terminus of 
 the great Trans-Caspian Railway. 
 
Russian Turkestan 21 
 
 Here about three years ago ten thousand human 
 lives and some dogs and horses were suddenly 
 snuffed out because of something which a solar- 
 system physician might diagnose as being merely a 
 mild case of Asiatic colic. Our Mother Earth was 
 indisposed, and she swallowed ten thousand of her 
 children while shaking herself to rights. The death 
 of each one of us, however regularly and decorously 
 it befalls, does exemplify this singular appetite of 
 the great mother, but an Andijan earthquake-feast 
 advertises it, proclaims aloud the universal requiem 
 "to dust returnest," and changes the ever-sorrowful 
 " why " of our yearning race into the groan of one 
 who is stunned to black unconsciousness. 
 
 In the general ruin one sees the broken cross that 
 crowned a Christian church, and there the muezzin 
 tower, scattered now into mere fragments, that, fall- 
 ing, crushed the roof of its mosque, consecrated by 
 generations of prayer cross and crescent alike gone 
 down in helpless confusion. But whate'er betide 
 the dead, we know that the faith of the living faints 
 but for a moment, and the yearning for help never 
 dies. So it is, that now in fallen Andijan, until the 
 mason shall again lift the graceful dome, we hear 
 the prayers of the believers go up from the enclosure 
 of hasty earthen walls, through a roof of thatch, 
 half open to the sky. And I am awakened by the 
 early chant of a Russian priest who, in his chapel 
 on wheels blesses the union of two young moujiks. 
 They have come, ere the sun is fairly up, from 
 among the long line of railway carriages which 
 shelter hundreds of their kind. They are wed- 
 ded; and leaving the churchly car, while still the 
 
22 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 attendants chant, they stumble across the rails, 
 stolid, apparently unmoved; a few friends, smiling 
 faintly, follow the pair with significant, but not joy- 
 ous glances. Verily your Russian peasant is a mas- 
 ter in concealing his emotions if he has any. Nay, 
 but he surely has emotions of sorts ; for this railway 
 chapel would not otherwise minister to people 
 shaken from their homes, and the young peasants 
 would not have demanded the priestly blessing on a 
 venture to which they are invited by Mother Nature, 
 who wants another crop, and another, and another 
 for her perennial devouring. 
 
A Samarcand Jewess in ceremonial attire. 
 
 From Turkestan Russe, by M. H. Krafft. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ANDIJAN TO KASHGAR OVER THE HILLS AND FAR 
 AWAY 
 
 AN affectionate good-bye to the special car, and 
 we are off for a day's smart, hot drive to Osh. 
 We stop there at the post-house, in charge of a 
 simple Russian whose sick wife looks on while he 
 tries to cook for the travellers. That he can make 
 chai (tea) is incontestable. An all-comprehending 
 soup he also makes. As to anything else, we prefer 
 simple fare rather than watch his sloppy prepara- 
 tions. The stable is very near, the flies are nearer, 
 the smells are nearest, and the man's methods are 
 dirty. We do not like him. Even his just division 
 of labour between the cooking of our dinner and the 
 washing of his little child, insistent at certain critical 
 moments, could not disarm our hostility. But the 
 morrow shall bring a change, for we know there are 
 Russian officers at the sobranje, or club. To these 
 we make ourselves known and soon are invited to 
 make our beds in a comfortable room. 
 
 And now we must stir, for Osh is the limit of 
 wheeled transportation. A caravan must be organ- 
 ised. Colonel Saitseff, local governor at Natcholik, 
 looks at a letter which is addressed, not to him, but 
 to Consul-General Petrovsky at Kashgar. It is our 
 only authorisation, and was given me by the Minister 
 
 23 
 
24 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 of Foreign Affairs at Petersburg. We had not 
 known that special permission from the Provincial 
 Governor would be required for leaving Russian 
 territory. Anginieur, who has now decided to go 
 as far as Kashgar, thinks that his quality as an 
 officer of the nation, amie ct allice, may diminish 
 difficulties. There are several days of uncertain, but 
 courteous, negotiation. Colonel Saitseff heliographs 
 and telegraphs. He then calls to say there is no one 
 at Marghelan, the provincial capital, who could give 
 the pass, but perhaps a personal note from him 
 will be accepted by the Chinese frontier officials. 
 An hour later we go to his office, where his aide, 
 Captain Kuropatkin, brother of the famous general, 
 surprises us by saying that the Marghelan governor 
 has given consent. We are bewildered, but con- 
 tent. The passes for ourselves, our men, and our 
 ponies are duly made out in two languages, and 
 when we hasten to bid adieu to the Colonel his 
 daughter says he is asleep, but will see us when he 
 wakes. A few minutes later his wife says he is 
 not asleep, but has had a headache for several 
 hours and begs to be excused. We are sorry and 
 ride away, never having thoroughly understood the 
 situation. Yet eventually all went well. The cara- 
 van had been gotten together by the authority 
 of the Natchalik, who evidently kept its prepara- 
 tion wholly under control. When the permission 
 to depart was promised for a certain day, the 
 ponies were to be had at the moment ; when helio- 
 graph delays occurred, the difficulty as to ponies 
 began; when the delay ended, the ponies promptly 
 reappeared. Perhaps the simple story of our 
 
Andijan to Kashgar 25 
 
 chanceful meeting at Tiflis seemed a superlative 
 machiavellianism, invented to cover some interna- 
 tional deviltry. The combination of an American, 
 going as far as he could towards Lhasa, with a 
 Frenchman who thought he also might make the 
 venture, but would first go only to Kashgar, mean- 
 time telegraphing to Paris for further instructions 
 all this, occurring at military Osh, doubtless seemed 
 to Russian official minds a thing to outwardly ap- 
 prove and inwardly doubt. However, we were at 
 last able to canter away from the Residency, hats 
 off to Madame and Mademoiselle, feigning ease, 
 all of us, as to the Colonel's non-appearance. 
 
 Our little caravan of seven ponies was now well 
 under way : we were off for Kashgar, about two hun- 
 dred and fifty miles south-east, in Chinese Turkes- 
 tan. There we must reorganise, for these men from 
 Osh would go no farther. We had engaged a good- 
 humoured Sart as cook and general helper. There 
 were three men to take care of the ponies with bur- 
 dens. We had paid the proper head man at Osh 
 half the caravan hire, which amounted to $7.00 per 
 pony for the whole journey. The Sart was to have 
 $12.50 per month. Joseph was our luxury $2.50 
 per day and his food while with us, and half-pay 
 for a reasonable period covering his return. This 
 is princely hire, but what is to be done without an 
 interpreter? Our food-supply had been increased 
 by the purchase of a considerable quantity of coarse 
 canned goods, some macaroni, rice, sugar, etc. 
 Joseph had misunderstood Osh as a market-place, 
 and consequently we fared badly for many days 
 thereafter. 
 
26 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Just as we rode away I went to the postmaster, 
 making what I thought to be a very clear arrange- 
 ment as to the forwarding by next carrier of my 
 chronometer (of the montre-torpilleur type), which 
 had been notified to me as being at Andijan straight 
 from a Petersburg dealer. The unresponsive official 
 was asked to see the Colonel, if any sort of doubt 
 could arise as to the immediate forwarding; we had 
 already wasted some days, were anxious to go on, 
 and in a moment of weakness I left the matter in 
 that condition. Just why a man of some experience 
 in travel should commit such folly I know not. A 
 few months later there was full and fair punishment 
 for my error. Indeed, my whole experience in life 
 leaves me unconvinced concerning the necessity of 
 a purgatory much less a hell as a device for 
 "getting square" between justice and myself. 
 Even you, gentle reader, who may be a profligate 
 a seven-ways sinner could satisfy all of my 
 mind's requirements for justice merely by having 
 less of heaven, not more of hell than should fall to 
 your righteous pastor, or to myself. 
 
 The road was dusty, and it was hot, because Cen- 
 tral Asia in July is always hot. But our mounts 
 were fairly good; the country was green all about 
 us through the twenty-mile strip of irrigation ; the 
 people were interested and interesting. Altogether 
 a fair start, only the recollection of the Colonel's 
 compound of courtesy and of curtness to worry us. 
 The first night out we slept happily under the 
 spreading trees that sheltered an old Kirghiz, having 
 two wives. He was a rare bird, by the way for the 
 Kirghiz is almost universally a monogamic nomad. 
 
c 
 
 oo 
 
 bo 
 
 3 
 
Andijan to Kashgar 27 
 
 And now comes the question how much, O 
 gentle, general reader, do you want of detail about 
 a journey across the Ala'i Mountains, from Osh, in 
 Russian Turkestan, to Kashgar, in Chinese Tur- 
 kestan? Half a dozen Russian telegraph-engineers, 
 two small garrisons in Russian Turkestan, one small 
 garrison in Chinese Turkestan, so much for the 
 evidences of fixed civilisation along the two hundred 
 miles of caravan route between the suburban villages 
 of Osh and those of Kashgar. The Chinese frontier 
 officer was more polished, less forceful, than the 
 Russian post commanders. The only native in- 
 habitants seen were Kirghiz, perhaps a half-dozen 
 groups of tents, three or four in a group. We slept 
 at times in these yurtes, smoky and smelly enough 
 to make us prefer open-air beds except at most 
 freezing elevations. The pasturage near the caravan 
 route seemed not to be used to its full capacity. 
 Joseph was told by the Sart that the Kirghiz com- 
 plained of being forced by Russian soldiers to sell 
 sheep for less than their proper value. Hence, he 
 said, they had retired to secluded valleys. We 
 passed many caravans, chiefly those bearing diminu- 
 tive bales of raw cotton, trifles hoisted over the 
 mountains by a toss of the horns of bulls rampant 
 in New York and New Orleans for surely nothing 
 less than fifteen cents per pound could pay such 
 toilsome transportation. 
 
 At the top of the Taldyk Pass, 11,800 feet above 
 sea, we gave thanks to the Russian engineer who 
 had smoothed the zigzag route, and memorial- 
 ised himself in stone at the dizzy top. Here the 
 complacent and prophetic Slav may widely gaze 
 
 OF THE 
 
 31tY 
 
28 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 upon mountain-desert, already won, and, eastward, 
 sweep horizons which still salute the throne of far 
 Pekin. Unless your mind be wholly given to con- 
 templation of things abstract and general, or to 
 things concrete and narrowly personal, you must 
 feel something of thrill when, after Taldyk's descent, 
 you stumble into the first Chinese station. The 
 simple Cossack officer, with whom we ate black 
 bread three days ago, was commissioned by a magic- 
 worshipping, devout Christian tyrant in St. Peters- 
 burg. This courteous yellow man, whose ragged 
 soldiers light the way with paper lanterns, lives by 
 the breath of an old woman who guesses at outside 
 things from Pekin's thick-shadowed imperial gar- 
 den. That barren ridge behind is the political 
 ridge-pole of Asia. On one side are the electric light 
 and the cherished rifle, on the other the fantastic 
 lantern and the neglected battle-axe. On which 
 side shall be found the greater number of units of 
 happiness per capita of human beings I do not 
 know. Three hundred years ago it would have 
 been easy to say on which side could be found the 
 greater light of human reason and civility and worth 
 of all kinds save that of savage strength. Where 
 shall be found fifty years hence the balance of value, 
 merely as measured by European standards, we may 
 not know. Playing prophet is but risky business 
 since Japan began using Christian devices and has 
 adopted our most popular paraphrase of the Sermon 
 on the Mount, in which "blessed" is changed to 
 "cursed," and the whole is spoken in sprightly tones 
 by field artillery, accents given by magazine rifles, 
 and the gathered fragments are legs and arms disjecta. 
 
Andijan to Kashgar 29 
 
 We have now our first experience in circumlocu- 
 tory interpretation from French to Chinese. Joseph, 
 receiving in French, transmits in his variety of Turki 
 to our Sart, who repeats in the Kashgar variety to 
 a local Beg, who roars it in Chinese to our host. 
 Joseph's general education may have reached that 
 of a high-school boy ; the Sart and the Beg may be 
 classed as to book-learning among the infants. 
 When my courteous French companion started this 
 sentence on its travels, ''Tell him, Joseph, that in 
 my country we are deeply interested in the phi- 
 losophy of Confucius, and are constantly increasing 
 our knowledge of all Oriental classics," it was 
 wrecked at the first station out. 
 
 Floundering across the Kizil Zu (Red Water) on 
 camels, our ponies swimming free; drinking cool, 
 acrid Kumyss on the hot mountain-side, frightening 
 the upstart marmots into their underground homes; 
 urging vainly the Sart to use his falsely credited art 
 as cook ; encouraging and scolding the inept Joseph, 
 whose lantern jaws declared that rough riding and 
 doubtful fare were no longer possible for him thus 
 we reached the villages which announced Kashgar, 
 still three days distant. Food was again plentiful 
 chicken, eggs, sheep, fruit and melons now re- 
 freshed rebellious stomachs, giving complete inde- 
 pendence of the deceptive Sart. The Turki people 
 were curious and cringing; the Chinese, masters of 
 the country, were indifferent, but not ugly. In an 
 earthquake-wrecked village we climbed to their di- 
 lapidated little temple, whose gods had not saved 
 the people from ruin, and were correspondingly 
 held, it seemed, in light esteem. 
 
30 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 The twelfth day brought its promised reward, 
 arrival at Kashgar, historic, populous, wide-scat- 
 tered. Nearly three hours we marched our dusty 
 way, past farms and villages, without interval ; past 
 Mohammedan cemeteries whose coffined citizens 
 were slipping down into the great rut which is the 
 main highway; past groups of Turki workmen, 
 ditch-digging under Chinese bosses ; past a great mud 
 fortification wall into the heart of the town, focus 
 of the oasis that breeds half a million souls nay, 
 for what do I know of souls? half a million bodies. 
 The small ones this year's crop are rolling about 
 under our horses' hoofs, splashing naked into the 
 little ditches that wondrously combine the office of 
 aqueduct and sewer, and in fatal rhythm generate 
 and destroy the brown masses that can surfer, enjoy, 
 and die. Looking at lovely white women, elabor- 
 ately covered, one may doubt a little that crude 
 saying, "Dust thou art"; but here! Bah! there 's 
 the dust, there 's the water. You feel that any one 
 might have rolled the muck into the little bifurcated 
 trunks which sprawl everywhere in the spawning 
 sun. 
 
 And now where shall we go ? Caravanserais there 
 doubtless are, but that Europeans should lodge 
 among natives that is infra dig., super-dirty, 
 vexatious to all. Ordinarily you go to any resi- 
 dent European, if such there be, and ask advice; 
 or, if you know him, you bluntly ask a roof. My 
 letter to M. Petrovsky should help us; and as to 
 Anginieur, is not France friend and ally to great 
 Russia? The caravan is discreetly halted a little 
 way from the consular compound. We enter, are 
 

 en 
 C 
 
 I 
 
Andijan to Kashgar 31 
 
 shuffled about by a loutish soldier, whom finally we 
 browbeat into immediate delivery of the letter, 
 which goes not to M. Petrovsky, who is old and 
 wisely sleeps at 2 P.M., but to his assistant, a young 
 officer, fortunately speaking French. We are court- 
 eously received. Our host is evidently embarrassed 
 when we ask about quarters ; at last, he helplessly 
 asks if we know Colonel Miles, the British repre- 
 sentative. "No," I reply, "but of course we shall; 
 and may he not be able to direct us to quarters?" 
 "Yes indeed!" This said rather eagerly sent us 
 straight to our impatient caravan. Again we thread 
 through narrow bazaars, defenceless gates and blind 
 alleys, until the British compound is reached. 
 What moral and physical security one feels on 
 reaching, in the earth's far-away corners, Eng- 
 land's straightforward officers, speaking one's native 
 tongue! No, I am not an Anglomaniac, and I 've 
 made a fine list of British faults waiting to be aired ; 
 but when I think of Sir Rennell Rodd at Cairo, 
 General Creagh at Aden, Captain Harold at Zeila, 
 Sir John Harrington and Mr. Baird at Adis Ababa 
 (Menelik's capital), Major Parker at Roseires on the 
 Blue Nile, a lot of kind hearts at Khartoum, Miles 
 here at Kashgar, Colonel Sullivan at Srinagar (in 
 Kashmir) then I must make sure that manliness, 
 kindliness, steadiness, frankness, shall be italicised 
 as counterpoise to various misdemeanours which the 
 list shall disclose. 
 
 "This is Colonel Miles?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "This is Captain Anginieur, of the French army, 
 and I am Mr. Crosby, an American traveller. I 
 
32 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 have no letters to you, Colonel, but am sure we 
 have mutual friends in London. We have just 
 come over from Osh, and would like to know where 
 we may find lodging in Kashgar." 
 
 "Why not stop here with me?" 
 
 "Gladly, Colonel." 
 
 Such was the beginning of a six days' "at home" 
 with this sole Britisher in all Turkestan. His mis- 
 sion is that of sentinel on the picket line of empire. 
 Uncomplainingly he labours under the awkward 
 title, "Temporary Assistant to the Resident at 
 Srinagar for Chinese Affairs." And Consul General 
 Petrovsky had a habit of saying, whenever questions 
 arose between British and Russian subjects, ''Mr. 
 Miles, my good friend, we shall discuss this matter, 
 not because you have any official position justifying 
 a demand, but because I like you." There was un- 
 necessary emphasis on the "Mr.," for Miles's rank 
 in the Indian army is independent of his temporary 
 duty. Yet, in a way, M. Petrovsky was right 
 Colonel Miles's civil title is an absurd and embarrass- 
 ing one, save on the theory that London might 
 in some crisis freely disavow or adopt the acts 
 of an official in Chinese Turkestan, who is a mere 
 assistant to an official in "independent" Srinagar, 
 who is in turn named by an official in Calcutta, who 
 reports to the Secretary of State for India. The 
 enjoyment of such independence in Downing Street 
 may easily outweigh many years of annoyance to 
 the lonely sentinel in Kashgar. 
 
 Colonel Miles helped us much in finding men 
 and horses for the journey. The latter are easy, 
 the former are hard, to obtain. The ordinary 
 
Andijan to Kashgar 33 
 
 Kashgari is not adventurous. Our three recruits 
 for permanent service were: one an Afghan, Mir 
 Mullah ; one a Ladaki, Lassoo ; and one a half-breed 
 boy, a Yarkand-Kashmir cross, Achbar by name; 
 he came at the eleventh hour, was joyously wel- 
 comed, and as an interpreter for many days strenu- 
 ously tried us. His vocabulary was painfully 
 extended from twenty-five up to fifty words, and 
 one blank stare. Achbar was the only human being 
 available as interpreter in all the province about us. 
 Joseph was exhausted ; he must return to the soft 
 care of civilisation in Tiflis. The persons speaking 
 European languages in Kashgar were the members 
 of the Russian colony : Colonel Miles and his moon- 
 shee (clerk), from India ; Father Hendricks, Catho- 
 lic missionary; a Swedish missionary family of 
 Lutheran persuasion ; and Achbar, whose English 
 had come from another Swedish missionary, now 
 dead. He had taught the boy to call the Bible 
 "Angel Book," and enough of Christian doctrine to 
 make of him an indifferent polytheist, ready to give 
 youthful credence to any set of supernaturals pre- 
 sented by any respectable authority. 
 
 With all reverence for our Occidental faith, it may 
 fairly be wished and believed that Achbar should 
 soon be firmly re-established in the faith of his 
 fathers, since, in the nature of the case, he could 
 never be other than a hazy, slipshod Christian. 
 His theology clearly resembled his English. After 
 two days' labour to teach him the word "now" he 
 startled me by stolidly saying: "You mean 'at 
 present/ And when despair had come to close 
 further exertion on the word "perhaps," there came 
 
34 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 quietly this: "You mean 'probably.' ! So it was 
 that all simple, basic ideas about God had been 
 obscured by the good Swede's zeal to superpose 
 Christ and St. John upon a still vivid background 
 of early Mussulman teaching. Far from the full 
 stature of the ideal convert was Achbar, yet he 
 seemed to be the most complete accomplishment 
 resulting from years of devout work by the Swedish 
 mission. One other, indeed, an humble Chinaman, 
 was thought to be nearly ready to adopt definitely 
 the Christian title, his inner consciousness being left 
 to negotiate a compromise like unto that which has 
 already admirably conjoined Confucianism, Taoism, 
 and Buddhism into a vague triple control of Chinese 
 morals. 
 
 Lassoo, the Ladaki, was, for our purposes, almost 
 pure gold. The ways of the sahibs were known to 
 him as familiarly as his money-pocket, for he had 
 served in the household of Colonel Miles's predeces- 
 sor, who had regretfully dismissed him as discipline 
 for some wrong done to one of his Kashgar wives. 
 So it was, I remember, with my caravan in Africa 
 the cleverest native of the lot left Adis Ababa 
 under some marital cloud, which should roll away 
 as we wandered far; while he courted Danger's 
 face, time might heal the bruised, too numerous 
 tendrils of his unbroken heart. Must it be ever 
 thus? Must the sprightly and inventive mind be 
 found only in the shifting lover? To us Lassoo was 
 faithful. Whether his fidelity ran to the person or 
 to the rupee of the Christian dog, his employer, I 
 know not; but he was steadfast and intelligent in 
 moments of great trial. 
 
' 
 Andijanto'Kashgar 35 
 
 Mir Mullah, an eminently respectable merchant 
 and horse-trader, had threaded the mountain passes 
 of Afghanistan and Hindostan for many years yes, 
 for too many years, as the event proved; when 
 hardship and danger came the old man's strength 
 wasted. The only valiant work he could do was 
 that of prayer, while the need was but that is 
 theology again. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 KASHGAR THE YELLOW PERIL TAOTAI AND 
 CONSUL GENERAL 
 
 ASH GAR is the seat of a provincial govern- 
 ment whose head is a Taotai. His power 
 extends to that western verge of empire over whose 
 rough border we have just passed. Among all the 
 Chinese governors he is farthest removed by distance 
 from the source of authority in Pekin. To what- 
 ever difficulty this condition may create is added 
 that inherent in the task of governing a population 
 alien in race and religion, and the yet greater diffi- 
 culty due to the aggressiveness of the neighbour- 
 ing Russians. Between the Taotai and the throne 
 there is, in the official hierarchy, one other magnate 
 a viceroy, stationed about six hundred miles east- 
 ward, and having all of Chinese Turkestan within 
 his administration. As numbers go in Chinese pro- 
 vinces, this proconsulate cannot be ranked high, 
 with its one or two million souls, as against an aver- 
 age of fifteen or twenty millions for the Eighteen 
 Provinces. But its peculiar constitution and its 
 exposed situation must give it importance as long 
 as there exists in Pekin a government cherishing 
 the prestige of the Great Empire. It was through 
 this region that Mohammedanism has blazed its way 
 
 36 
 
Kashgar 37 
 
 into China. The older faith there is peaceful, toler- 
 ant; the younger faith, like its rival in Europe, is 
 virile, militant, intolerant ; whence great wars in 
 China proper, and revolt here in Turkestan, where 
 bloody deeds were being enacted in the self-same 
 epoch with Gettysburg and the Wilderness. The 
 forty years that have passed since those great days 
 seem to have worked out, in Western China, a status 
 for the Mussulman fairly satisfactory to him and to 
 his neighbour. Doubtless this might also be said 
 of the Turki Mussulman (for his subjection to China 
 is of long date), but that here the situation is again 
 made complex by the " Russian advance." The 
 importance and the sensitiveness of affairs in Kash- 
 garia, as they are viewed in Pekin, seem clearly 
 manifested by the fact that China has built and 
 maintains a telegraph line from Pekin to Kashgar 
 more than two thousand miles. We were aston- 
 ished to learn this, more astonished on reflecting 
 that this work, quite stupendous for China, had 
 been completed without blowing of trumpets in- 
 deed, so quietly that many well-informed Europeans 
 have never given the matter a thought. It seemed 
 to me most significant as to the unheralded develop- 
 ment of material strength which may go on in China 
 when her own scientifically educated people, or the 
 headlong Japanese, shall be running in multitudes 
 to and fro in the land. 
 
 Invention's great miracles telegraphy, telephony 
 are thus made an offering by America, the young- 
 est to China, the oldest among great nations. 
 Over this desert-spanning line, and from its terminus 
 at Pekin, through the great submarine lines, the 
 
38 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 heart of Asia may be put in simultaneous pulse 
 with the heart of America. 
 
 It is believed by some that when Asia shall have 
 eaten of the fruit of the tree of modern knowledge, 
 there shall arise a Yellow Peril, threatening the 
 peace of the Caucasian world. That some dis- 
 turbance of the present balance of things may be 
 produced seems indeed not unlikely. But shall In- 
 dustry be affrighted at the prospect of the birth of 
 more coats, chairs, ploughs, and loaves in a world 
 which ceases not to find that the appetites of men 
 (white, black, and yellow) grow with feeding? And 
 if we are really to be overwhelmed, is there not tariff 
 and non-intercourse policy to keep us poor? Shall 
 Morality be affrighted when mothers, all the world 
 over, shall hear, each the other's common cry of 
 pain and common speech of love? When Charity in 
 one clime shall hear and answer the prayer of suffer- 
 ing in every other? When Honour shall find a mir- 
 ror, now held up in East and now in West, its 
 lineaments everywhere the same? Shall Letters be 
 affrighted when through the magic of the printing- 
 press the rich stores of temple and of monastery 
 shall be spread broadcast to feed and inspire thou- 
 sands of hungry minds? Shall Religion grow pale? 
 Nay, whoever hath the truth, let him rejoice, for 
 the way shall be open to the preacher as it never 
 was in all our dream-haunted past! It remains 
 that these yellow men, become gods even as we are, 
 shall perhaps desire to possess us as we now possess 
 others. They may enviously study our accom- 
 plished facts in India, Egypt, Manila, Algiers. 
 They may dig up the history of the foretime dwel- 
 
Kashgar 39 
 
 lers in the two Americas. Yes, it is true, the strong 
 shall possess the weak ; to their own good, we say. 
 Then, when we shall be the relatively weak, our 
 wisdom should be that of submission. If out of 
 the long, death-like sleep of old age in the East (so 
 it seems to some of us) there shall now be born a 
 new youth, let it attend our senile steps, if so be 
 we are now going a breaking pace which shall lead 
 to premature decay. But that reversal of things, 
 if indeed the Fates shall ever decree it, must be 
 set off to a date so distant that wisdom refuses its 
 consideration, and only jest or idle fancy paints the 
 picture in. 
 
 Within the interesting future say one hundred 
 and fifty years any threat of a military movement 
 of the United East against Europe would result in 
 a United States of Europe and America an invin- 
 cible, probably beneficent union. One might almost 
 wish for some high heat of war to produce a fusion 
 in which should be seared to death many childish 
 differences childish, yet pregnant with strife and 
 sorrow. Let the weak become strong 't will be 
 easier to establish a balance. Let the weak become 
 strong 't will be harder to make markets by the 
 cannon's roar. Let the weak become strong 
 't will be easier to stifle a national avarice when 
 its gratifications shall be made dangerous. 
 
 Taking into account the covetousness and the 
 kindness that are in us, the wisdom and the folly, 
 it appears clear that there can be no condition of 
 stable equilibrium until there be developed in the 
 great national units a condition of approximately 
 uniform strength military strength, manifest or 
 
40 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 potential. Now, in respect to military strength, 
 ignorance of physical science is weakness. If the 
 Chinese, possessing organisation, intelligence, expe- 
 rience, patience, and character, but lacking science, 
 should be put under European rule, it could be only 
 temporary : they would thus, perforce, get science 
 and be strong. They will enter the syndicate of 
 those who rule the weak. And these, the weak, we 
 shall ever have among us because of certain ineradi- 
 cable climatic race-differences which will always 
 cause certain races to be subject to their neighbours 
 of sterner mould. The great moral and intellectual 
 qualities which have made the Chinese Emperor to 
 be the "Elder Brother" to all Eastern Asia suffi- 
 ciently mark the potentialities of this powerful 
 people. Until these larger movements, shall have 
 taken place it is profitable to the occasional Western 
 traveller to study the dignity, the poise, the civil- 
 isation of such a man as the Taotai of Kashgar. 
 
 To this worthy official we paid due visit, interpre- 
 tation being done by Colonel Miles's cultivated 
 moonshee, a Mohammedan gentleman from Lahore, 
 who tabulated his ancestry through the Prophet to 
 Adam's self. Conversation ran in well-worn ruts 
 health, age, number of children, nativity, present 
 objective. When I pointedly asked that we might 
 have letters of safe-conduct to Khotan and Polu, 
 the old gentleman simply did n't answer, and soon 
 began sipping his tea, a decorous signal that the in- 
 terview was closed. We felt "in our bones" that 
 the cautious Mandarin wanted to hear from M. 
 Petrovsky before committing himself. We were, in 
 a measure, under Colonel Miles's wing, yet, as we 
 
Kashgar 41 
 
 were in no way accredited to him, it was impossible 
 that he should officially adopt us and ask the Taotai's 
 good offices. The presence of his moonshee and our 
 temporary establishment in his quarters went far to 
 give us good character; yet, after all, we were chance 
 wanderers, save in so far as the sealed letter to M. 
 Petrovsky might give to me the harmless character 
 of an American citizen without a mission, while 
 Anginieur's claim to be a French officer entitled him 
 to a certain consideration. But whether our simple 
 story of accidental association was believed by M. 
 Petrovsky we never knew. In our first interview 
 with him, before visiting the Taotai, he had seemed 
 to warm genially toward us, but utterly discouraged 
 the venture up the plateau. He made no offer of 
 assistance save that he would write to his repre- 
 sentative in Khotan to help us there. Farther than 
 Khotan, even if so far, he thought we should not 
 go. If by chance we should reach the inhabited 
 portion of Tibet he believed we would be killed, 
 etc. 
 
 Now, the old gentleman's conduct was a bit an- 
 noying, yet reasonable enough from the Russian 
 point of view. We were fairly under some suspi- 
 cion as to our motives, and even if the simple facts 
 were believed, it remained that our presence might 
 produce complications in a region where Europeans 
 are events, and where Russia's present preponder- 
 ance of influence has been expected at any time to 
 become Russian control. Such a situation is always 
 delicate until worked to an accepted conclusion. 
 China is still the actual and effective ruler. Great 
 Britain is still an eager critic of all Central Asian 
 
42 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 happenings, and ready, if to her it shall seem good, 
 to write her criticism in the blood of men. Hence 
 much discretion, much patience on the part of Rus- 
 sia. The sixty of M. Petrovsky's consular guard, 
 and the similar body strangely stationed at Tash- 
 kurgan, up there on the shoulder of the Pamirs a 
 hundred miles away, must idle away hours, days, 
 years perhaps, before they shall be told to destroy 
 the Chinese force, whose mean appearance suggests 
 that butchers of men and butchers of cattle occupy 
 the same grade in Chinese philosophy. The Tibet 
 expedition of the British-Indian Government was 
 not yet undertaken. Its normal effect would be to 
 hasten the Cossacks' march of conquest from Kash- 
 gar to Khotan, as a reprisal at China's expense. 
 But the Japanese war, on the other hand, must tend 
 to check him, if for no other reason than that every 
 spring of action in St. Petersburg is now bent to- 
 wards Manchuria. Meantime it is not to be desired 
 by Russia that the minds of the Turkestan native 
 should, by intrusive travellers, be disturbed from 
 their simple conceptions. "We must be ruled by 
 somebody. The rulers of the earth are the Chinese, 
 who now possess us; the English, who possess 
 India, and who do not seem much concerned about 
 us, since there is but one sahib here, and he has no 
 soldiers; and the Russians, who possess all the 
 world to the north of us, and whose officer, with 
 soldiers and merchants at his back, is able to do 
 almost as he will with our Chinese masters. Besides 
 these three great peoples there are none other rulers 
 of men on earth." 
 
 Such being the sentiments of a million or more 
 
Kashgar 43 
 
 of docile folk whom you would benevolently exploit 
 by firm government and an exclusive commercial 
 system, it appears plain as a pikestaff that vagrant 
 French and Americans should not be encouraged to 
 spy out the land and perhaps to create incidents out 
 of which new ideas might be born. Would Cortez 
 have welcomed independent English or French 
 travellers in Mexico while he was preaching to won- 
 dering Aztecs the doctrine of his master's universal 
 dominion? Would the British have left a free latch- 
 string to indiscriminate Europeans when they had 
 undone the work of Dupleix in India, and were 
 considered as special envoys of the gods, irresistible? 
 Already the Russians have done much political and 
 commercial pioneering in Chinese Turkestan. Our 
 international code gives them what we call a "right" 
 to garner the fruits of seed sown in wild places. 
 
 We watched the play between Petrovsky and 
 Miles with some amusement and much serious 
 concern as to our plans. The cards ran to Miles. 
 A parade of other nationalities through Turkestan 
 could do no harm to British designs, which cannot 
 reasonably look to conquest north of Tibet. And, 
 small as was our individual importance, we might a 
 little disturb the Muscovite program. 
 
 The powerful Consul General could probably de- 
 termine the Taotai's mind for or against us. As to 
 the result we were left in dangling doubt until the 
 very morning which we had set for our departure. 
 Then came the Taotai's smug young secretary bear- 
 ing letters which we might present to the Ambans 
 in Yarkand and Khotan, and telling us that other 
 letters would be written to the chiefs of nomad 
 
44 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 tribes in the corner of the plateau still under Chinese 
 direct control. M. Petrovsky also called in formal 
 fashion, mounted Cossacks riding before and behind 
 a quaint low carriage which looked homesick. He 
 said that since he had so promised he would write his 
 Aksakol (=zwhite-beard=chief of merchants) at 
 Khotan to advise him of our coming. And, in- 
 deed, the sleek Andijani who spoke for the Consul 
 in Khotan was on the qui vive and watched us well, 
 and did naught else. Whether our later misfor- 
 tunes were in any way connected with the sealed 
 letter, or were caused by the left hand of Chinese 
 policy undoing the work of the right hand we never 
 knew. Most probably 't was only the duplicity of 
 the timid native Begs which undid us. 
 
 A pleasant visit we had from a young Mandarin 
 of great name, acting as mayor of Kashgar, under 
 general direction of the Provisional Governor 
 (Taotai). This young man was the son of a Man- 
 chu general who reconquered, forty years ago, all 
 Turkestan from the failing power of Yakoob Beg, 
 whose rise and fall make the last great epic of ambi- 
 tion which has been played across these sands and 
 within these waving oases. 
 
 While this delicate-featured, refined, peace-loving 
 Asiatic was making his call, there came another 
 caller, another Asiatic (?) whose personality, in its 
 strong contrast with that of the young mayor, 
 seemed to present the whole Russo-Chinese ques- 
 tion. He was a captain of Cossacks, who might 
 have been the original of the Russian officer in Kip- 
 ling's powerful sketch, The Man Who Was. He 
 had entertained us with song and drink, with tossing 
 
Kashgar 45 
 
 us up on the strong arms of his soldiers, who caught 
 us in breathless fall, as rubber balls are caught ; he 
 had reviewed military history in masterly order, and 
 in the two languages we used ; he had declared, in 
 good-humoured banter, that might is right, that his 
 people had the might to take what they wished, and 
 that they wished much of Asia. His manner was 
 nervous with surcharge of energy; his spirit was 
 vexed by inaction. He was impatient Aggression. 
 The young Chinese aristocrat was patient Resist- 
 ance, and between them Colonel Miles was interested 
 Peacemaker. A fourth characteristic personality in 
 the international good-bye assemblage was Father 
 Hendricks, Hollander by birth, Christian priest by 
 profession, Mongolian citizen by love of his heart, 
 dweller in Kashgar by love of change, I suppose. 
 A good man, a polyglot, a missionary without fol- 
 lowers, a priest without a bishop, reporting only to 
 the great one in Rome, and to him only as moved 
 by the spirit ; a European plunged deep into Asia 
 for, thirty years ; a lone man dreaming new sciences 
 out of multitudinous but inaccurate data; hated by 
 Petrovsky because he represented something other 
 than Russia; liked by Miles for the same reason, 
 and because of his goodness, his versatility, and his 
 loneliness ; loved by some of the natives, who con- 
 sumed his medicines; celebrating mass on a table 
 whose untidiness measured the loss of one Dutch 
 trait by a lifetime in Asia. Such was Father 
 Hendricks. 
 
 If his heart harboured any malice, 't was some- 
 thing impersonal in the way of Russophobia justi- 
 fied, he believed, by biblical condemnation. "They 
 
46 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 are the cursed people of the north," said he. "But 
 the Russians were not known to the old Hebrews," 
 said I, ignorant. "Nay," he answered, "read you 
 this." Then he must run over to the Swedish mis- 
 sion, borrow a Swedish Bible, and show me Ezek. 
 xxxviii., 1-4, reading in our King James Version 
 as follows: "And the word of the Lord came unto 
 me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, 
 the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and 
 Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith 
 the Lord God : Behold I am against thee, O Gog, 
 the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal ; and I will 
 turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws," etc. 
 Now in the Swedish edition, plain as print can make 
 it, stand the words "Prince of Russ," instead of 
 "chief prince," for reasons good unto Swedish phi- 
 lologists and unto all who love not the wide-spread- 
 ing Slav. 1 A great comfort was this to one whose 
 nature and whose creed forbade that he should curse 
 the persecuting Petrovsky ! Behold, now, him and 
 his all cursed together by Ezekiel ! 
 
 The indifference which marks the attitude of all 
 highly developed peoples toward religion appears in 
 the relations between Father Hendricks and the 
 various dramatis persona on our far - away scene. 
 It is political or personal sympathy which binds 
 or loosens amity here. If their national or indi- 
 vidual interests chance to clash, no consuming zeal 
 for common Christianity can weld together the half- 
 dozen Europeans found far in a most sequestered 
 
 1 1 find our English Revised Version also reads as follows : " Set 
 thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of 
 Meshech, and Tubal," etc. 
 
c 
 
 rt 
 O 
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 rt 
 
 5 
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 C/3 
 t-i 
 cti 
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Kashgar 47 
 
 population of unbelievers. The Christian official 
 will brother to the Mohammedan or Buddhist more 
 firmly than to his fellow-servant in Christ if so be 
 that worldly profit cometh from the heathen. 
 
 Now if humanity be wider and more vital than 
 dogma, this subordination of creed to life may be 
 accounted as progress. Whether it be so rated or 
 not, it is undoubtedly pleasant to put behind one 
 the dividing creeds of Christianity and Moham- 
 medanism, and ride forth merrily as we did, cheek 
 by jowl; Indian moonshee, good Mussulman; Chi- 
 nese moonshee, good Confucian ; Cossack captain, 
 good Orthodox; Miles, good Anglican; Father 
 Hendricks and Anginieur, good Catholics; Mr. 
 
 (the Swede), good Lutheran; and myself, 
 
 good American. And our parting was the parting 
 of men who liked each other of mutually helpful 
 beings thrown together, thrown apart, by the Power 
 which made your eyes brown or blue and your faith 
 whatever it may be. 
 
 Of this fraternal cavalcade all turned back after 
 a five-mile gallop save the two Catholics and the 
 American. Father Hendricks had agreed to travel 
 with us as far as Khotan a most fortunate happen- 
 ing. Achbar was thus coached for two weeks before 
 it became necessary to put him into play; man- 
 darins, merchants, and horse-dealers were met in a 
 variety of tongues; our evening meal was spiced 
 with a potpourri of mechanics, philosophy, theo- 
 logy, history, philology, the germs of which were 
 drawn from Father Hendricks's Latin notes. An- 
 ginieur and I were unable to assimilate much of the 
 classic original, being far from our Arma virumque 
 
48 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 days. But the good Father's French seemed to 
 have taken on no rust in Central Asia, hence he and 
 I were able to dispute our radically divergent views 
 on nearly all abstract topics, while in philology his 
 superior wisdom changed discussion into authorita- 
 tive declaration. 
 
 In such days and in such ways it is learned how 
 slight are the material requirements for satisfactory 
 existence in either one of two planes that of the 
 lazy, dirty, sensuous, or that of contemplation. 
 We, contemplative, were happy in learning new 
 finite facts about a part of our earth, and in specu- 
 lations concerning things infinite, unknowable; and, 
 being few, we were free from pose, almost free from 
 vanity. The daily march across the heated desert, 
 the nightly shake-down in langar (empty road- 
 house) or in the comfortable mud home of some 
 village notable, kept body and mind in good me- 
 chanical condition and produced a sense of solidarity 
 with stars and sand and trees and men. Without 
 woman, art, or ambition those chief elements of 
 general life value in living may yet be found, for 
 a time at least, merely in regulated exercise of body 
 and mind. 
 
 As for the values given by the lazy, dirty, and 
 sensuous life, they were abundantly, incontestably 
 in evidence everywhere about us. Leprosy may 
 claim its fiftieth, goitre its fifth, unseen disease its 
 third, dirt its four-fifths, political tyranny its nine- 
 tenths, yet let me fill the belly, destroy ambition, 
 and pour sunshine over all, and I shall guarantee 
 something that a jury of wise men must call happi- 
 ness though not the variety which grows in New 
 
Kashgar 49 
 
 England, yet a modest, evenly distributed growth, 
 which might be called " Asia's early and late spe- 
 cial," and which, when the years shall be old, may 
 grow a little in Southern Europe. A nearly related 
 variety may now be seen in Mexico. 
 
 The cleanest-looking people, and the handsomest, 
 whom we saw in Turkestan were the Hindoo mer- 
 chants. Of these a prosperous colony is found in 
 each of the three big cities Kashgar, Yarkand, 
 Khotan. In the two latter, we were met by a com- 
 mittee of these gentle-folk, whose official leader or 
 Aksakol, named by Colonel Miles, prepared our 
 quarters, sent us fruit and sweetmeats, aided us in 
 purchasing horses and provisions, and in all ways 
 showed us as much hospitality as is permitted in a 
 world of caste, which builds walls between the most 
 loving friends. 
 
 These Hindoo merchants are the bankers of 
 Turkestan. Frightful as is the route which connects 
 Kashmir with Yarkand, it is yet so much shorter 
 than the lines reaching toward the far eastern centres 
 of Chinese wealth, that the shrewd celestial leaves 
 the field largely to his southern rival. Because of 
 the railway to Andijan, only twenty days by camel- 
 caravan from Kashgar, Russian goods and Russian 
 money are coming rapidly into competition with 
 Chinese and Hindoo products. A branch of the 
 Russo-Chinese Bank, recently established at Kashgar, 
 (how the world changes !) gave me Russian gold on 
 a New York letter of credit. This Muscovite move- 
 ment, however, is slow as yet to cross the sands 
 stretching between Kashgar and Yarkand. One 
 sole Russian was said to be in the latter city, a 
 
50 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 cotton buyer, but he was some sort of Asiatic 
 Russian. No true European residents are found 
 east of Kashgar. At Yarkand you are in Asia, rien 
 que qa. Our best acquisition made here was Mo- 
 hammed Joo Kashmir man, Mohammedan horse- 
 trader, follower of Captain Deasey in his journey 
 across Western Tibet and Turkestan. He had just 
 come down from the Himalayas a week's softening 
 in Yarkand was enough for such a sturdy traveller. 
 Danger and toil at twelve dollars per month were 
 preferred to inglorious ease and nothing per day. 
 He and Lassoo live in our memories as associate 
 heroes and saviours. We learned later that the 
 Kashmir man generally is, in North India, con- 
 sidered to be a commercial craven, fair prey for the 
 warlike Dogra people, who now rule him. But 
 Mohammed Joo had sucked strength into his bones 
 from a thousand mountain-sides. In the morning 
 he rose with might. The day was filled with his 
 good counsel ; by watchfulness he brought peace for 
 the night. Whether his heart would be stout against 
 the glint of steel or the loud report of powder, I do 
 not know, but as against the menace of starvation 
 and death in loneliness, his courage failed not. And 
 what a master of horses! He soon out-generalled 
 good Mir Mullah at every point and modestly took 
 away from him, at our direction, the title and func- 
 tion of caravanbashi. The wonders of trans- 
 portation contained in the history of Asiatic horde- 
 movements become in part understandable, when 
 one sees Gordian knots untied without swords; 
 horses made to ascend impossible mountains, yet 
 without Pegasus' wings; hoofs shod under con- 
 
Russian chapel, after the earthquake Andijan. 
 
Kashgar 5 1 
 
 ditions that would discourage Vulcan's self; men 
 plodding across gasping deserts, and again across 
 shivering snows without the protection, in either 
 case, which would be given to a manikin in Europe; 
 and through it all a patience which knows not 
 neurasthenia. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 KHOTAN DREAMS OF THE PAST DOUBTS OF THE 
 PRESENT 
 
 REINFORCED by Mohammed Joo and another 
 f\ helper (his pay was five dollars per month), 
 we fared forth from Yarkand and in nine days 
 reached Khotan, last of the big oases in Turkestan. 
 The two hundred miles intervening between these 
 cities, like the shorter stretch between Kashgar and 
 Yarkand, is chiefly desert. The big towns and the 
 little intermediate ones may all be said to lie on the 
 irregular border of the Taklamakan desert, which 
 the general reader may perhaps best consider as the 
 south-western corner of the Gobi. The streams that 
 fall from the Ala'i and Kuen Lun ranges crawl as 
 best they can across the sandy wastes. The smaller 
 are lost. The larger conjoin to make the Tarim, 
 and eventually reach Lob-nor, a great inland basin. 
 The towns are found not far from the mountain 
 range, whose cold white heights may be seen to the 
 south, as one swelters across the hot sands. This 
 distant line is about sixteen thousand feet high, the 
 desert from which we gaze is not more than four 
 thousand. Some of the reaches of sand are close to 
 forty miles in width i. e. y from irrigated tree to 
 irrigated tree. In certain exposed stretches where 
 the wind has a habit of putting the traveller into a 
 
 52 
 
Khotan 53 
 
 deep night of sand-clouds, we found stakes driven 
 where the trail ought to be a sort of raised-letter- 
 print for the blind and groping caravan. 
 
 At intervals of about fifteen miles the Chinese 
 Government has had langars built, houses of stone, 
 without furniture, but offering welcome shelter from 
 sun or snow or sand. If near a farm, one could buy 
 horse provender, perhaps chickens or a sheep. We 
 paid the attendant fifteen cents per night for this 
 shelter covering ten men and as many horses. 
 Generally the same sum was paid as rent to a private 
 owner for our rooms and a court where our men and 
 horses wei e lodged. Chickens usually cost five cents 
 each; wood for cooking dinner and breakfast, an- 
 other five cents a little more if in the blank desert. 
 Forage for horses cost about ten cents per day per 
 head. The scale of expense is pleasing, is it not? 
 Trading generally seems all retail straight from 
 producer to consumer without intervention of the 
 wholesaler. The turn-over is quick, I fancy. The 
 stock may be incredibly small. While developing 
 Achbar's English I one day painfully conversed 
 thus: 
 
 "What did you do before you came with us?" 
 
 "Merchant." 
 
 "In the bazaar?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Who bought your goods when you left? " 
 
 "My brother." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "Nineteen tenga." 
 
 Now a tenga in Chinese Turkestan is worth about 
 five cents, so it appears that Achbar's daily bread 
 
54 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 was made from the profit on a stock worth ninety- 
 five cents. 
 
 During a bad quarter of an hour of wounded 
 vanity, I wondered whether in the universally re- 
 duced scale of things the native estimation of my 
 honor's worth had likewise shrunk to the dimensions 
 of a rupee. It happened a few miles out of Khotan, 
 when we were met by a committee of the Hindoo 
 merchants, all eager to do honour to the friends of 
 Miles Sahib, who doubtless were mighty sahibs 
 themselves. As each man advanced, dismounted to 
 my saddle, there were many "Salaam, salaam, 
 Sahib," and then I felt a palmed coin drop into my 
 hand from each welcoming Hindoo grasp. It was 
 instantly returned, and accepted, without a word on 
 either side. My rising indignation was well dis- 
 sembled until it quite disappeared in the light of the 
 explanation given by Father Hendricks. 
 
 'T was tribute money offered to their lord a 
 pretty compliment of which the most appreciated 
 element is the giver's confidence that the coin will 
 not be kept. Would any save the satiated High- 
 born release the rupee in his grasp? What a gallery 
 of pictures was opened to the mind by that touch of 
 Indian silver on the palm of the Man on Horseback ! 
 I am no longer an humble, khaki-clad, peaceful 
 traveller, with but a dozen ponies and armoured 
 only in the courtesy of a Chinese Taotai and of a 
 British Assistant to the Resident at Srinagar for 
 Chinese Affairs. Nay, I am a great emperor, my 
 name it is Timour, it is Aurungzeb, it is Clive; I 
 am clad in the dress of pomp and of power. In my 
 hand is a sword which drinks men's blood. For 
 
Khotan 55 
 
 escort there rides behind me an army in myriads. 
 My will is their law. In my heart is the lust of do- 
 minion and glory. Suppliant to my knee are come 
 these merchants thousands of them from Lahore, 
 Amritzar, Delhi, Lucknow, Benares, from a hundred 
 cities of the plain are they come, begging of me the 
 privilege to live, urgently praying that, for a price 
 paid to me, they may have their lives, their wives, 
 their children, their goods, all the things that were 
 their own until I came, until in the name of the 
 great gods and by might of the warriors whom the 
 gods gave me as a sure sign of my divine agency, I 
 had declared that the land with all its fatness of 
 men and of beast and of grain, was mine. Where- 
 upon I had killed many of the men (what matters 
 it? they must soon rot), and am now permitting 
 these to live, upon strict condition that they support 
 myself and my army, even as is meet for the Heaven- 
 born and his friends. And in this brown mud city 
 of Khotan I shall erect a great palace ; shall hang it 
 with silken rugs, for the Khotanese slaves are famous 
 rug-makers ; and shall establish a harem of delight, 
 for the women here are reputed fair above the wo- 
 men of all the land. Thus it was in the days that 
 are now as dreams. Thus it is now. Thus it shall 
 be again. When the great conquering lord is also a 
 great administrator, able to make a system by which 
 all the rupees shall closely come to his treasury, 
 whence they may go out as sufficient largess to the 
 small lords then are these small lords men of 
 honour, like the English officials of to-day, spurning 
 the surreptitious silver. If the conqueror knows 
 not the art of the exchequer, and has not the 
 
56 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 practices of systematised official generosity, then the 
 small lord welcomes the furtive coin, like the Eng- 
 lish official of yesterday, the Chinese official of to- 
 day, or the American alderman. Therefore the 
 Hindoo who honoured me by presenting a rupee 
 which, he well believed, would not lose the warmth 
 of his own palm ere it would be returned from mine, 
 had marked me as a satiated sahib. 
 
 When Father Hendricks had explained that I had 
 been complimented, not insulted, and when I had 
 come back from meditating upon the troubled his- 
 tory which the custom of the tribute money sug- 
 gested, I enjoyed all the more our cheerful entry into 
 ancient Khotan, survivor of many sister cities now 
 asleep under the moving sands. The welcoming 
 escort, eight or ten well-mounted, well-dressed men, 
 galloped bravely along, their white turbans and 
 bright-hued silken "Sunday clothes," conspicuous 
 and gay in contrast with the dirty cottons of the 
 increasing stream of natives flowing in and out of 
 the busy central bazaars. Quite in advance, with 
 much show of zeal and authority, rode the Russian 
 Aksakol, an Andijani, a trans- Alai Turkestani, and 
 here on the dusty road to do us honour and much 
 lip-service. He had gone even farther than the 
 Hindoos to meet us, had seemed to take possession 
 of us, but we learned from Mir Mullah, who had 
 been sent on one march ahead, that it was the Hin- 
 doo, not" the Andijani, who had placed at our dis- 
 posal a large house, with garden and court. 
 
 The appearance of this smart-looking chap, and 
 his many protestations, had much surprised us, until 
 we learned that he had been ordered by M. Pe- 
 
In front of the Officers' Club at Osh. 
 
Khotan 57 
 
 trovsky to meet us and offer his help. At news of 
 this, remembering the cautious, ineffectiveness of 
 the Consul General at Kashgar, we expressed grati- 
 tude, but were the more content to feel the Hindoo 
 at our side. Father Hendricks was keen to discon- 
 cert the Andijani, particularly when the latter prof- 
 fered to present us to the Amban, to his very good 
 friend the Amban. 
 
 "Thank you," said our wily man of God, in 
 Turkestani, "but he is my good friend also it is I 
 who will present these sahibs." Then, to us, in 
 French: "The rascal! He wants to take you in 
 leading-strings and with blinders, but I am sharper 
 than two Andijanis. It is true I do not know this 
 Amban, but his predecessor, who died suddenly of 
 apoplexy two years ago, was one of my best friends ; 
 that is enough truth for this man ; we shall not let 
 Petrovsky beat us we shall win ! ' ' 
 
 We were still uncertain as to whether the way 
 would be left clear for us to go to Polu, a village on 
 the Kuen Lun slope, and thence up to Tibet. The 
 Amban of Khotan governed this Polu territory, and 
 we were in his hands. What instructions had been 
 given by M. Petrovsky to his Aksakol we did not 
 know. Father Hendricks, in the double zeal of his 
 friendship for us and his almost-animosity toward 
 the Russian, moved on the very ragged edge of 
 policy in his rejection of the Andijani's obtrusive 
 aid. Even to his saintly mind, satisfaction came 
 from pitching French invective in the very face of 
 the unconscious Aksakol, who curvetted in yellow 
 silk dignity and drove the common people before 
 our cavalcade as we splashed over irrigation ditches, 
 
58 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 crawled over the occasional fearsome little bridge, 
 shied from a wayside beggar, disappeared into the 
 man-high, centuries-old ruts which are roads; and 
 finally along a well-shaded avenue, marked by the 
 dull mud garden walls, we get into the maze of 
 alleys, paths, streets, which for more than two 
 thousand years has been a well-known breeding- 
 place of men. From the main bazaar, where a 
 submissive but curious crowd can scarcely let us 
 pass, we turn into an alley, skirting an empty en- 
 closure whose stench quite staggers us. We thread 
 our way between lines of expectant horse-holders, 
 then enter the gate of a respectable court, flanked 
 by roomy quarters for our men, and closed by a re- 
 ception platform. This is under cover, and consti- 
 tutes the front part of the building in which are four 
 good rooms the quarters for the sahibs ; back of 
 those rooms, a garden of fruit trees and some flowers, 
 all growing in thick disorder. Personal cleanliness 
 one does see among high-class Asiatics, but general 
 neatness, order, decorum, in all surroundings that 
 is European. We were very comfortable, however; 
 our bedding was soon put in its proper corner, and 
 a few rickety chairs were found for our use, this 
 house having already received Sven Hedin, Dr. 
 Stein, Captain Deasey, and perhaps other white 
 men before us. As the two Americans (Mr. Morse 
 and Mr. Abbot) who had preceded me in Turkestan 
 had not gone as far east as Khotan, that ancient 
 city now felt its first thrill from contact with the 
 Very New. 
 
 To fleece the sheep bearing wool-of-gold is a 
 hereditary right of all communities small enough to 
 
Khotan 59 
 
 be sensibly disturbed by the sheep's demands for 
 food and shelter. Yet we think that in Yarkand 
 and Khotan our purchases were made at rates not 
 inordinately above the market. Our ordinary ponies 
 cost an average of about $17. For special mounts 
 of excellent blood we went as high as $35, and in 
 one case $50. Big coats of undressed sheepskin, 
 carrying the wool, cost about $2 each; native shoes, 
 a sort of high-quartered moccasin, cost fifty cents 
 each. Saddles of painted wood, with excellent felt 
 pads, complete with girths, stirrup, and bridle, cost 
 $10. Pack-saddles, shaped like a long letter U and 
 filled with straw (ah, how it burned up there on the 
 cold plateau, when the horse lay stiff on the sand !), 
 cost about one dollar each. Wheat was approxi- 
 mately forty cents per bushel, and the bread made 
 by the natives was excellent and seemed to be abun- 
 dantly provided in the bazaars of all considerable 
 places. Meat also, in the large towns, was appar- 
 ently plentiful, market and butchery being generally 
 combined in one unedifying shop. 
 
 Silk carpets, for which in old days Khotan was 
 famous, are not as fine as those made in Persia. 
 Even here the mineral dye has done its meretricious 
 work. We saw a very big carpet in the making for 
 some equally big mandarin. Part of its hundred 
 feet of length was rolled around a beam resting on 
 the ground, thence rising to a yard-arm fixed athwart 
 the top of a tall tree-trunk. Forty feet of width ex- 
 posed a brilliant but well controlled design. The in- 
 dustrious workmen sit under a rainless sky and quietly 
 weave the giant fabric. What clattering of looms, 
 what paling of faces, what straining of nerves would 
 
60 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 be the price of the mandarin's luxury if he and his 
 carpet were of our manufacture! Rugs of raw silk, 
 not fine in any way, and about five feet by nine^ 
 cost us $12 each; rather dear, we thought. But if 
 ever there was soreness of heart caused by Khotan- 
 ese prices there came a day which salved and healed 
 it all, a day when I bought a mass of old paper, 
 mere scraps are many of the pieces, but so old, and 
 so miraculously preserved with their messages from 
 the dead ! 
 
 Dead twelve hundred years ago are they who 
 wrote the strange characters and fashioned the 
 strange clay heads whose images you see in illustra- 
 tions here. Forgotten are the societies to which 
 those dead belonged. Buried in the desert sands 
 are the cities in which those societies dwelt. Choked 
 and obliterated are the streams which gave to those 
 cities the water of life. Can the busy, noisy present 
 spare a moment to hear the story of the silent 
 past? 
 
 In 1895-96 Sven Hedin discovered ruins of ancient 
 dwellings in the Taklamakan desert of Eastern (or 
 Chinese) Turkestan. These ruins are in no sense 
 impressive from the architect's point of view, being 
 quite similar to the ordinary Turkestan dwelling of 
 to-day plaster or adobe around wooden frames. 
 But historically they are of prime interest. For 
 testimony is thus given that civilisation once existed 
 in regions which are now quite uninhabitable be- 
 cause they are completely without water. As the 
 distance of the ruins from present watercourses is 
 too great to justify the supposition of irrigation 
 ditches stretching from the one to the other, we are 
 
Khotan 61 
 
 forced to conclude that the same great sand move- 
 ments which destroyed the towns must have resulted 
 in a shifting of the stream-beds which were once the 
 source of life. 
 
 In addition to the sites discovered by Sven Hedin 
 in several great journeys, others have been found 
 by Dr. M. A. Stein of the Indian Educational Ser- 
 vice. His admirable work at a number of points 
 around the modern city of Khotan, together with 
 the philological research of Prof. Hoerule, now at 
 Oxford, may be taken as the basis of a special body 
 of learning which we shall call the archaeology of the 
 sand-buried cities of Turkestan. 
 
 It may seem strange that even in Khotan one 
 must be on guard against forgery in ancient manu- 
 scripts. Yet Dr. Stein, by close cross-questioning, 
 forced confession from a clever native, who for 
 several years, and until" 1 901,' fed the Aksakols, and 
 through them the great museums in London and 
 St. Petersburg, with mysterious bits of yellow paper 
 over which the wise men vainly studied. They were 
 particularly puzzled, and at last made suspicious 
 by the fact that a number of different alphabets, all 
 unknown, were represented in these cabalistic writ- 
 ings. Now, alphabets are generally less numerous 
 than languages, and when Dr. Stein, fresh from his 
 own personal unearthings, saw that the genuine 
 manuscript showed no letters similar to those that 
 had been coming from this industrious forger, he 
 was able to confound him and turn him over to the 
 mandarin for punishment. 
 
 The true manuscripts are hard enough for the 
 paleographs, since they seem to contain, in separate 
 
62 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 pieces, three distinct languages one is Sanskrit, 
 one a language simply called Central Asian, and 
 Prof. Hoerule, to whom I showed the bundle bought 
 by me, says a third language, not yet deciphered, 
 also appears in some of the fragments. 
 
 Whether all the leaves in the manuscript as handed 
 to me had been taken from the same site, Father 
 Hendricks could not learn. Those in Sanskrit are 
 almost wholly Buddhist sacred literature, and they 
 constitute the bulk of the whole. Their approxi- 
 mate date is 750 A.D. The other fragments have 
 not yet been studied sufficiently to fix a date. 
 
 Prof. Hoerule, in the short afternoon which we 
 spent together at Oxford, was able to determine 
 only this as to the non-sacred, non-Sanskrit pieces 
 that they seemed to contain a contract for agri- 
 cultural materials. I hope some of our scholars may 
 be interested to probe deeper. Prof. Hoerule was 
 good enough to say that he would be glad to corre- 
 spond with any one desiring the aid of his work, 
 which stands almost alone in this field. As it is not 
 probable that other examples of these finds will be 
 seen in this country for some time, I have placed 
 these in the Congressional Library, with request that 
 they be made available, as far as possible, to any 
 inquiring paleograph. 
 
 The discoveries thus far made indicate that during 
 a period of about four hundred years there was a 
 progressive diminishment of the habitable area. It 
 is ever shrinking toward the sources of the streams, 
 which find it ever more difficult to fix a constant 
 course across the wind-swept sands. Thus we see 
 the desert as destroyer, the desert as preserver, but 
 
Khotan 63 
 
 as preserver only of the empty husks of that life 
 which for a season was permitted to flourish. 
 
 These fatal movements, however, were not cata- 
 clysmic. There is no reason to suppose that our 
 forgotten brethren of the destroyed oases were 
 smothered instantly, as were those of Pompeii or 
 Martinique. There was, perhaps, time to starve 
 through many years until, hopeless, they aban- 
 doned home and farm to seek some friendlier spot 
 where they might meanly support their diminished 
 numbers. 
 
 Some unconsidered trifles they left behind, to be 
 folded in the warm bosom of the sand while the 
 centuries moved on. These we now cherish as 
 mementos of that drama, intimate to each one of 
 us the drama of human life and death. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ON TO POLU AND THE LURE OF THE UNKNOWN 
 
 A CHEERFUL, probably a sincere individual 
 we found the Chinese Amban of Khotan. 
 He urged us not to go to Polu, the village which 
 should mark the beginning of our ascent to the 
 great plateau. He thought it foolish to try un- 
 known dangers, when Ladak, our nominal objective, 
 could be reached by the arduous but familiar route 
 via Yarkand. Whether or not we should have 
 frankly told him that we wanted to make a try to- 
 ward Lhasa, I do not know. Father Hendricks 
 thought not. He believed we would not be per- 
 mitted to even start for Central Tibet as our avowed 
 objective, nor, thought he, could we try to provision 
 for so long a journey without arousing suspicion. 
 So we talked Ladak a province once belonging to 
 Tibet, now lately stolen away by the Maharajah of 
 Kashmir and thought Rudok, a village in terri- 
 tory that is still Tibetan, and where we hoped to 
 reprovision ; and where, if pressure of time required 
 it, Anginieur, whose year's leave approached its end, 
 could start for Ladak, and I might try again for the 
 East, eventually returning to Ladak. 
 
 The Amban advised, but did not command ; and 
 after a four-days' stop in Khotan, we were off one 
 fine day with Father Hendricks, the Hindoo Aksa- 
 
 64 
 
I 
 
 a 
 
 & 
 e 
 
 <U 
 
 .1 
 
' 
 
 
 OF 
 
 :-'' 
 
On to Polu 65 
 
 kol, and a collection of Begs escorting us to a big 
 surburban bazaar about five miles from the town. 
 Then came horseback good-byes, our hearts quite 
 upset at leaving the good priest behind us, and we 
 were away to struggle with the desert, the mount- 
 ain, the deathly cold, and with Achbar. 
 
 Think of it your comfort, and, as befell us ere 
 many moons, your life, depending on the painful 
 marshalling together of about fifty words over the 
 empty parade-ground of a boy's mind ! That we 
 came out alive has been a marvel to us that Achbar 
 lives, is a double marvel. 
 
 'T was a week to Polu, much like the earlier desert 
 march, except that the oases became narrower as we 
 entered the rougher foot-hill country, and the human 
 type became also rougher and more sturdy. Those 
 whom we met en route were shepherds driving 
 sheep, goats, and inferior yaks down to the Khotan 
 abattoir. The yak of moderate altitudes is doomed 
 to slaughter. His usefulness as a moving machine 
 is in the high places. In every village we were hos- 
 pitably received, plenteous food was purchasable; 
 often there were offerings of fruit, apparently with- 
 out thought of pay. No Chinese, either official or 
 private, were seen after leaving Khotan, but the 
 Amban's messenger announced our coming and gave 
 directions as to our privilege of travel. The general 
 kindly conduct of the people toward us seemed, 
 however, to be wholly unofficial. 
 
 In Polu we hurried our final preparations for ascent 
 to the plateau, spurred by fear of some complication 
 with the authorities, and by desire to cover as much 
 ground as possible before being forced to make for 
 
66 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 the passes ere the winter set in. Our haste was also 
 in part due to the mere fascination one feels in 
 affronting the unknown as such. Why, by the 
 way, may not this sentiment, of common occurrence 
 in respect to things mundane, offer an element of 
 character which, if carefully "bred to," should take 
 away all the terrors of journeying to the unexplored 
 land called Death? 
 
 The village was not entirely a stranger to Euro- 
 peans. Seven years ago it had sheltered Captain 
 Grombtchevsky of the Russian army while he sur- 
 veyed the tortured country around it, possibly 
 dreaming of Muscovite empire, to be won in peril 
 and suffering by a soldiery that thinks not, but 
 obeys. Przhevalsky also reached it from the north. 
 Both the Russian travellers considered the place as 
 an impossible starting-point for long journeying on 
 the plateau. Then the fated Frenchman, Dutreuil 
 du Rhins, with his brave companion, M. Grenard, 
 twice visited Polu during their unhappy but fruitful 
 travels. Captain Deasey, in 1901, again put Polu 
 on the map, and as far away as 1886 Carey had 
 descended from the plateau by way of the wretched 
 river-bed which we were to climb. It is this absurd, 
 but possible, trail between the plateau and the 
 lower desert, this slanting fissure in the northern 
 slope of the Kuen Lun range, which gives to Polu 
 its geographic prominence. 
 
 Even while we were still bearing the scrutiny of 
 many curious eyes, it was announced that another 
 white man was in Polu, and we wondered greatly 
 how this had come to pass in the very jumping-off 
 place of Turkestan, for we had heard no rumour of 
 
On to Polu 67 
 
 a European in the hundreds of miles traversed since 
 we left Kashgar. Soon he came to our quarters, 
 truly a white man, a Russian ; but whether a man 
 born in Siberia and never west of the Ural Mount- 
 ains, should be called European or Asiatic let each 
 determine as he will. A genteel chap he seemed, 
 and kindly, as we had reason to know when he gave 
 us Chinese money for Russian gold. His mission 
 was a queer one. On the surface, he had no other 
 occupation in life than to astound the natives by a 
 graphophone performance a polyglot machine that 
 spoke Russian mostly, but also gave echoes of the 
 Boulevards and of the Bowery words and music 
 that almost denied the existence of the deep Asiatic 
 world around us. Through a clever Andijani our 
 Russian friend seemed to be presenting the grapho- 
 phone as a miracle of his own people. No fee was 
 charged, at least while we were present, nor did it 
 seem possible that the venture into these remote 
 and small villages could have a commercial motive. 
 Rather it seemed political propaganda eccentric, 
 childish, but perhaps effective. Had he been sent 
 by M. Petrovsky to follow our trail a bit? Or was 
 the probability of meeting him the secret of the 
 Consul General's opposition to our eastward wander- 
 ing? Certainly he and the Andijani would not be 
 holding hither and thither across the Turkestan 
 desert without knowledge and consent of M. Pe- 
 trovsky. And then, when later our troubles began 
 but why speculate thus in the trackless air? More- 
 over we learned, the second day out, of a sounder 
 and more familiar reason than political misgiving to 
 explain such double-dealing as may have been meted 
 
68 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 out to us. 'T was lust for gold that inspired the 
 first limping effort of the natives to scale the rough 
 valley of the tumbling stream above Polu. Guided 
 in part by the dead bodies of their predecessors, in 
 part by the dizzy, man-made trail, the patient don- 
 keys strive up and down the gorge, laden, down- 
 ward, with the placer " concentrates," upward with 
 bread and tea for the score or more of Turkestani 
 toilers who do the bidding of their Chinese masters. 
 
 One group of gnome-like miners appealed to us, 
 through Achbar, lamenting their enforced stay away 
 from the village, and praying the sahibs to intervene 
 with the Kitai (Chinese) in their behalf. But the 
 men did not seem hungry or overworked, and we 
 left them, absorbed as we were in trouble of our 
 own. Their methods, compared with placer work 
 which I had chanced to see in Mexico, California, 
 and Alaska, appeared very crude. The number of 
 worked-out pockets, multiplied by their evidently 
 small rate of daily progress, attested long usage. 
 The village entrepdt showed no sign of garnered 
 wealth from the operations, which must be a strict 
 government monopoly, let out, perhaps, on some 
 royalty basis to the Amban, one hundred and twenty 
 miles away in Khotan. 
 
 Looking back now upon the troubles which befell 
 us after our departure from Polu, and which seemed 
 to be born of treachery, I am reminded of sim- 
 ilar troubles occurring when I chanced to stumble 
 into a gold-bearing territory far in the interior of 
 Abyssinia. As in the present case, I knew nothing 
 of the gold until close upon it. But the local digni- 
 tary, a handsome, courtly Ras or duke fairly 
 
On to Polu 69 
 
 suspected me of the universal cupidity which marks 
 us all, and felt that even Menelik's passport was not 
 sufficient warrant for permitting a white man to 
 enter territory theretofore unknown to our race. 
 Fearing to contravene the King's authority, con- 
 cerned because I insisted upon going to a village 
 which to me was only the outpost of an unknown 
 territory, but to him was known as a native gold 
 market, he finally resorted to deception, telling me 
 of impossible trails and of the fearsome Shankalis, 
 not yet thoroughly subdued, he said, by Abyssinian 
 arms. "I love you as a brother," said he; "you 
 tell me that you have a wife and children whom you 
 love ; then for your sake and for theirs, I tell you, 
 do not go to Gomer." He furnished me with an 
 intelligent guide and evidently told him to lead 
 me away from the desired village. 
 
 Fortunately, the map and compass showed me 
 that we were being drifted north instead of properly 
 to the south ; the guide repeated the stories of im- 
 possible roads, then when I persisted he yielded and 
 looked troubled. About this time came two run- 
 ners, Jewish-looking Abyssinians, I remember, an- 
 nouncing that, wherever I may have been thus far 
 taken by the guide, I was to now know that I 
 should go where I chose, and not where the guide 
 willed. The "Duke" had probably had time to re- 
 ceive assurances from Menelik that he really meant 
 me to go anywhere along the Blue Nile. Then the 
 whole thing came out. We reached Gomer by some 
 of the best trails that fell to me in Africa. There 
 were no threatening Shankalis, but the natives were 
 trading gold in the sky-covered market, filling the 
 
70 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 dust into quills for one measure, and weighing small 
 nuggets against pebbles for another. Moreover, my 
 interpreter found that Gomer also boasted another 
 lucrative trade, which the Ras fairly supposed should 
 be concealed from the European, for have not the 
 white men cajoled Menelik into some sort of agree- 
 ment to suppress the slave trade in his realm? But 
 his great vassals, far in the interior, where the 
 troubling European had never been seen, feel no 
 hesitation in maintaining the patriarchal relation of 
 master to such Shankalis or other low tribes as may 
 sell themselves or be seized in war. 
 
 Now, the Ras did not like to lie to me, I feel sure 
 of that, for he was very much a gentleman ; but in 
 statecraft, alas! who is spotless? He fenced with a 
 lie, while seeking a sure footing between new policy 
 on the one hand and consecrated tradition on the 
 other. So perhaps it was at Polu. We knew no- 
 thing of their wretched little placers (they may be 
 direfully rich for aught I know), but when, within 
 the short period of twenty years, four different sets 
 of white men poke into an almost impassable valley 
 and spy at things through tubes and are seen to 
 write in books every night, is it not fair to presume 
 that they are possessed of the Devil of gold-love, 
 which is known to enter white and black and brown 
 and yellow hearts all alike? And if you are snugly 
 ensconced in life as the Beg of Polu, making by the 
 sweat of the miner's brow an honest living for your 
 hard-earned wives and children, would you not feel 
 constrained to set a pitfall under the feet of a spy- 
 ing stranger? Ras Worke, Lord of marches in far 
 Godjam, and you, humble Beg of little Polu! a 
 
O 
 
 'S, 
 
 pj^> 
 
 H 
 
On to Polu 7 1 
 
 great circle's quadrant separates you in space, a 
 hundred kowtows separate you in social rank, but 
 you stand together in one white man's memory as 
 having given him, each of you, a bushel of trouble 
 for an even bushel of reasonable suspicion against 
 him ! 
 
 Now, the things which the Beg did, or inspired, 
 or seemed to inspire, were these : the desertion of 
 the head-and-tail holders for our ponies before the 
 plateau was reached; the disappearance of the 
 donkey-caravan, bearing two-thirds of our grain- 
 supply, of which a part was recovered ; and the de- 
 sertion of our guide before he had taken us to an 
 agreed point on the plateau, beyond which neither 
 he nor we knew the way, but which we wanted as a 
 tie-point on the map. It all smelled of treachery. 
 But one never knows. We dealt through the un- 
 speakable Achbar. There was room for some 
 misunderstanding. 
 
 The assistant caravan-men, eight in number, did 
 excellent work for three days, fording the ice-cold 
 stream scores of times, legs bare, coats soaked in the 
 swirling torrent, no possibility of warming their half- 
 frozen limbs. Then, all the frightful steps saving 
 the last two having been surmounted, they disap- 
 peared one after the other. The caravan was badly 
 strung out impossible to watch them. Hence 
 Achbar was told to promise backsheesh when the 
 end should be gained. Their regular pay, fifteen 
 cents per day, had been deposited with the Beg. 
 The backsheesh would have nearly doubled it. 
 The donkey men started away from Polu ahead 
 of us. We stipulated that they should take 
 
72 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 their burdens of grain, together with a live sheep 
 and the bread-supply of one of our regular men, 
 up to the top of the pass, thus relieving our 
 own ponies. These were now sixteen in number, 
 and their strength must be husbanded against the 
 unknown, but surely great, demands which awaited 
 them. 
 
 We passed the donkeys the second day out on 
 our way up; they were struggling bravely against 
 mighty odds. We were harassed during four try- 
 ing days, from Polu to the pass: horses falling in 
 the torrents and slipping on the narrow trail, men 
 and beasts breathing harder as we climbed into the 
 thin upper air ; sahibs as well as servants sleeping 
 in holes in the ground or in the open cold, because 
 all were too tired to mend a broken tent-pole. But 
 at last it was over, and we were camped about ten 
 miles beyond the pass, which looks northward over 
 all Turkestan and southward over the far-rolling, 
 mountain-marked plateau of Tibet. We were 
 warmed by a splendid sun ; the waters of a little 
 lake shone at our feet, the tent was cosily set, there 
 were grass-roots from which fire could be had to 
 boil a pot of water for brewing tea, and for the 
 softening of a hare which Anginieur had killed at 
 fifteen thousand feet elevation; wild ducks and 
 geese invited us to make resounding shots in the 
 empty waste; we were tired, but happy, and we 
 waited for the donkeys. Each one of us in turn 
 played Sister Anna, mounted on some bare hillock 
 and far-gazing across the desert which closed around 
 us. No signs of life save an occasional hare and a 
 troop of wild dogs. These must have been a hungry 
 
On to Polu 73 
 
 lot, as we saw no prey for them during several days' 
 march, save one wild horse. 
 
 A day and a half we remained in the lazy lap of 
 repose. Then the sky clouded, literally and figur- 
 atively. Each meal given to men and horses meant 
 a shortening of the possible journey across the in- 
 hospitable region which Mohammed Joo described 
 as "Adam Yok," "There is no man," and which 
 certainly extended a hundred miles or more in every 
 direction. Two good men were sent back to search 
 for the truants. They took three ponies, and on 
 the next day returned, quite played out, but in a 
 measure triumphant. No hide or hair of man or 
 donkey had been seen, but they found, cast down 
 by the trail-side, a part of our grain and our sheep, 
 its throat having been thoughtfully cut. The miss- 
 ing grain may have been stolen, or, more probably, 
 lost in the torrents. The three ponies were just 
 able to bring the salvage. On taking stock we 
 found about a thousand pounds of grain. If each 
 horse were given four pounds a day we were good for 
 fifteen days. If we found occasional grass, or if we 
 shot some horses as their loads were consumed, 
 we could hold out yet longer. If we had no bad 
 luck we ought to reach Rudok in about twelve 
 days. As to the men, we were provisioned for 
 thirty days. 
 
 Perhaps we should have gone back, made a row, 
 gotten more grain, and made a fresh start. But the 
 trail behind us was a fearsome thing, worse now by 
 reason of a snow-fall since the ascent, and we could 
 not be sure of better treatment a second time. If 
 we were to make a try at the plateau, it seemed best 
 
74 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 to push on ; we might reach Rudok or meet nomadic 
 Kirghiz. So off we started. 
 
 Our guide, Caliban's double, had been ugly from 
 the moment we crossed the pass, and Mohammed 
 Joo had thumped him a little to keep him from 
 balking. He was, or pretended to be, ill ; remem- 
 bering that the mountaineers are occasionally sub- 
 ject to nausea when taken to unusual elevations, we 
 put Caliban on a pony, though none of our own 
 men complained of anything more serious than 
 shortening of the breath. We were then at an 
 elevation of about sixteen thousand feet. It seemed 
 wise to tie our Mercury to a less volatile element, 
 and Mir Mullah was chosen for the role of anchor 
 by night and shadow by day. Except for the cords 
 that bound his legs to Mir Mullah's the fellow was 
 well treated, and was promised backsheesh, besides 
 the unpaid half of his hire, if he duly led us past 
 Baba Hatun, an ancient, deserted Tibetan fort, to a 
 point which had been agreed upon by Mohammed 
 Joo and the Beg, and which we hoped to identify 
 on the map. We were therefore disgusted and 
 troubled when at the end of two long marches from 
 the lake the guide was understood to say that we 
 had already left Baba Hatun to the rear. Remon- 
 strance was useless. We were told that the Beg 
 had ordered us to be taken by another road, but 
 that we should reach the other agreed point in two 
 days. I remembered similar trouble in Africa. Not 
 infrequently and not unwisely the simple native re- 
 fuses to take explorers into his country if it has 
 heretofore been free from the curiosity that finally 
 upsets him. We wanted to be fair, and were forced 
 
bD 
 
On to Polu 75 
 
 to be patient. When we pitched camp at the end 
 of a day's tortuous march Caliban was more cheer- 
 ful than usual, chatting with our men in human 
 fashion. The next morning Mir Mullah awoke with 
 a free leg Caliban had vanished. With only a 
 crust of bread he started alone and on foot across 
 the trackless and bitter cold desert. His good 
 humour had probably resulted in a loosening of the 
 bonds that held him to Mir Mullah, who now could 
 only sheepishly report that he had slept heavily and 
 knew nothing of the escape. The man safely re- 
 gained Polu, as we learned months later when in- 
 quiry was made through Mr. MacCartney, now 
 representing Great Britain at Kashgar. And our 
 complaint of desertion is answered by Caliban's 
 statement that we were forcing him to follow a bad 
 road ! Poor lamb ! Now, indeed, was the summer 
 of our content made dismal winter by this inglorious 
 son of Belial. He had bestowed us at the end of a 
 valley, whose blackened volcanic sides gave it a 
 more than usually sinister visage. But no question 
 of appearance would have weighed against it if we 
 had only known where it was I mean if we had 
 known with that satisfying intimacy which latitude 
 and longitude alone can supply. 
 
 I had left behind me all hope of recovering my 
 chronometer, lost by reason of the mulish delay 
 of the Osh postmaster. That meant no longitude. 
 But latitude by meridian passages is determinable 
 without a chronometer, provided you know the de- 
 clinations of the bodies observed. These, with all 
 other required astronomical data, are given in 
 nautical almanacs, and nautical almanacs should not 
 
76 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 be lost. But when a thorough search of all our kit 
 at the lake encampment failed to find the precious 
 book of figures, I knew that latitudes also must be 
 rare. 
 
 Even a very exact determination of position 
 would not have given us a trail, but could have 
 determined general directions toward an objective 
 and the distance to be traversed. As things were, 
 we had nothing save compass readings for guidance. 
 My instrument was small, not well made, and I did 
 not know the magnetic variation on the Tibetan 
 plateau. Experience had taught me in other jour- 
 neys that results, sometimes remarkably accurate, 
 may be had by compass work, assuming an average 
 rate for caravan speed. This must vary with the 
 animals used. Thus, Somali camels go steadily at 
 about two and a quarter miles per hour; Abyssinian 
 mules may be counted to do three miles per hour 
 over anything but very rough country. Our Tur- 
 kestan ponies, as we had determined on the lower 
 desert, were good also for three miles. And this 
 figure was, for a time, assumed on the plateau, 
 making specific allowance for all stops over one 
 minute. It proved to be too high, the animals 
 being slowed down by the rarified air and equally 
 rarified food. 
 
 During the first five days beyond the pass the 
 error of magnetic variation was of small account, as 
 our course had been generally southward with ap- 
 proximately equal east and west diversions. It be- 
 came serious on the long westerly course soon to be 
 pursued. The compass course pointed a wavering 
 and inaccurate path across the untracked wastes. 
 
On to Polu 77 
 
 When later corrections were made by tying to 
 known points at the ends of the journey over the 
 unexplored region, and checked by corrected, inter- 
 mediate latitudes, 1 a fairly good result was reached. 
 
 1 Meridian passages of the sun were observed, declination being 
 calculated, after return to civilisation, based on approximate longi- 
 tudes. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A PLUNGE TO WHITHER-AWAY THE AKSAI CHIN 
 OR WHITE DESERT 
 
 THIS dissertation on survey methods seems not 
 to belong to the narrative which brought us 
 up short at the end of a scoriae valley. It is prob- 
 ably here as a reflex from memories of the halting 
 and embarrassment experienced while getting out 
 of that valley. Caliban's desertion led to the dis- 
 covery of a curious mental phenomenon. He had 
 already deceived us in the important matter of the 
 fort. He seemed brutally ignorant, and we feared 
 he would make a bad use of such small intelligence 
 as God had granted him. Yet we were sorry to lose 
 him. There were seven of us left, but we felt lonely 
 on that great desert without Caliban. It is the 
 power of a word, and of faith, irrational faith, I 
 suppose. We had engaged him as a guide, and, 
 indeed, he had taken us to the lakes, which were on 
 the map. We very much needed a guide. After 
 the lake, Caliban had only pretended to know, or 
 had actually deceived us. Yet he was our guide. 
 The word is a noble one, full of sentiment. Trust 
 on the one side, helpful knowledge, all the way up 
 to omniscience, on the other. That is what the 
 word implies. And though all these elements of 
 sentiment were lacking in our case, yet, for a few 
 
 78 
 
A Plunge to Whither-Away 79 
 
 minutes, we mourned for our guide. But it is one 
 of the fixed laws of travel in a foodless, fireless, 
 houseless, roadless land that no feeling, however 
 sacred, can be indulged, standing still. "Move 
 on ! " That is Alpha and Omega as you must learn 
 them there, provided you wish to remain You. So 
 it was that, cursing Caliban lightly for the bad heart 
 that was in him and for his evil face, yet hoping he 
 might not suffer on his long journey homeward, we 
 saddled up and began to speer a way outward and 
 onward. 
 
 We said we must travel south-westward toward 
 Rudok and we hoped to find trace of some path, 
 or an occasional pile of stones laid by the hand of 
 man. It was a grievous job, I remember, getting 
 out of the valley. The gorge, which was its vermi- 
 form appendix, was attempted by us, but refused us 
 admission, scattering boulder behind boulder. So 
 we turned away from it, and climbed out, having to 
 unload the ponies and man-handle our goods in the 
 first quarter mile, covering, all told, about a mile 
 of progress in three hours of labour. Some of the 
 ponies were badly shaken up and bruised from fall- 
 ing, but we had lost none: Here, as in the Polu 
 gorge, Mohammed Joo ranged on the field, a valor- 
 ous Achilles, saving, not destroying. 
 
 More than once our most precious packs had trem- 
 bled to their fall, as the ponies slipped and gripped 
 against a thousand-foot roll down the luring slope, 
 which seeing I, at the rear, unable to pass, could but 
 cry out for our Achilles, who then, holding in some 
 spider-fashion to the face of the steep, found his 
 way to the point of peril, got foot-hold or hand-hold 
 
8o Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 under the horse's belly, let the burden gently down, 
 urged the animal past the projecting rock, re- 
 gained the trail, moved forward the loads to some 
 safe, wide-stretching plain that might measure four 
 feet in width, where the charge was repacked and 
 our nervous march resumed. He told the ponies in 
 their native tongue how he expected to pull them 
 out of the snarl of packs and rocks into which they 
 may have fallen. The rest of us did such obvious, 
 but not always helpful, things as might occur to 
 strangers looking at some family trouble, but only 
 those two, Mohammed Joo and the beast, knew 
 how four-foot was to be rolled over to come up, all- 
 standing, on some scarce perceptible bench that 
 broke the smooth face of the steep descent. 
 
 Something of remorseful zeal burned, I think, in 
 the breast of Mohammed Joo, now that we were 
 thrown helpless on an unknown desert. He had 
 believed that he would be able to take us to a point 
 from which the route to Rudok would not be diffi- 
 cult to pick up. Now, only four days from the 
 pass which puts one on the plateau, he found that 
 the mountains and valleys traversed three years 
 before with Captain Deasey were confused in 
 memory with thousands of their kind that cover all 
 this roof-region of the world over which his endless 
 journeys were ever leading him. The sahibs now 
 must determine the march which should result in life 
 or death for all of us. Mohammed Joo would nobly 
 do his part in nursing the afflicted ponies, prolonging 
 their lives beyond the span which would reasonably 
 be measured to them in terms of the hunger and cold 
 and fatigue which were their daily discipline. Dis- 
 

 bO 
 
 C 
 
A Plunge to Whither- Away 81 
 
 cipline? That is the theological term under which 
 many of our ills are covered. What is it for the 
 poor beast? What is the object of his discipline? 
 Briefly, we do not know neither as to horse nor as 
 to man. Suffering is a part of the universe, in- 
 herent as is joy. While watching them, one after the 
 other, stagger to their death I could see only this : 
 a mass of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen, 
 which, for reasons unknown to me, or to you, had 
 for a time been endowed with the fatal gift of con- 
 sciousness. And a man-corpse suggests nothing 
 different, save a less weight of carbon, oxygen, hy- 
 drogen, and nitrogen, with a greater weight of con- 
 sciousness. That is all we may know ; but there are 
 infinities for which we may hope. 
 
 In getting out of Caliban's valley we were led up 
 over a ridge 18,300 feet above the sea, and then, at 
 the end of two days' march, we were down again to 
 about 16,500. As to direction, we yielded to the 
 welcome constraint of mountain and valley, glad to 
 note that our general trend was south-westward. 
 So powerful is the reasoning of desire, we had con- 
 vinced ourselves that we could identify certain 
 ranges as shown on the meagre maps, and for a few 
 days we actually saw, at about five-mile intervals, 
 artificial heaps of stone, probably marking some 
 native trail of rarest use, from Polu to the salt lakes 
 or to Rudok. But we now know that we depended 
 too much on maps that were necessarily sketches 
 only. 
 
 We turned away westward from the best course 
 to Rudok, earlier by a good two days' march than 
 should have been done, and were thus thrown in 
 
82 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 the desert known as Aksai Chin White Desert. 
 This region had not been anywhere traversed by 
 Europeans, but the compilers of the maps had, as 
 is customary, put in certain features as vaguely re- 
 ported by natives. These were erroneous, but we, 
 not then knowing definitely our position, were mis- 
 led by giving some faith to the representations. 
 Finding the mountain system very different from 
 that indicated for what was our actual latitude, and 
 very similar to that indicated for a lower latitude, 
 we were thus confirmed in an error which at the end 
 came near costing us "life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness." 
 
 On each day we were sternly asked, by each of 
 the four elements, certain embarrassing questions, 
 and the witness must answer. The Fire Spirit said : 
 "How shall you find me, that you may have hot 
 water for your tea and for the warming of your 
 tinned foods ? ' ' And we answered : ' ' With the happy 
 trove of yak dung, or the grass-roots, or, these fail- 
 ing, with splinters of our two wooden packing-cases ; 
 and these being sacrificed, with this straw torn from 
 pack-saddles, whose bearers are stretched stiff there 
 a mile behind us. Thus, O Fire Spirit, we shall 
 seek you and conjure you to the end that we may 
 have tea, and we shall not ask then your direct com- 
 forting of our bones." And the Air Spirit spoke, 
 saying: "How shall you protect your pulpy bodies 
 from me, relentless, cold, as I seek to steal away 
 from them the heat which is their life? " And we 
 answered: "With the sheep's wool, and his hide; 
 and these protections against your sharp tooth we 
 shall not at any time put aside. And at night the 
 
A Plunge to Whither-Away 83 
 
 tender ^Europeans shall sleep in a tent, and the 
 Asiatics shall sleep on the uncovered ground and 
 pile up packing-cases against your blast." 
 
 Then the Water Spirit spoke, saying: "You may 
 perchance live without hot tea, you may, with food 
 in your packs, burn those internal fires whose pro- 
 tected warmth shall defy the Air Spirit. But how 
 shall you deal with me when I shall mock at you as 
 a mirage, when I shall sink into the sands at your 
 feet, when I shall change into stone before your 
 eyes? How shall you possess me, the Indispen- 
 sable? " And for answer we could but say : "When 
 you mock at us with a shining lie, we shall yet seek 
 after you ; when you are buried in the sand, we 
 shall go yet farther to find your reappearance ; when 
 you have turned into stone, we shall be the bet- 
 ter able to carry you from place to place until 
 you shall melt to the wooing of the Fire Spirit. 
 We shall thirst for you, and struggle for you, but 
 you shall yield, you shall comfort us." And, lastly, 
 the Earth Spirit spoke, saying: "I have trapped 
 you here, you who have come into my sanctuary 
 which I have kept apart for its quietness. You 
 shall see doors in my mountain walls, they shall 
 seem to be open, but they shall be closed against 
 you. Your feet shall be heavy, your breathing 
 shall be as a bellows that creaks. This land I have 
 lifted far above the thick air which your lungs de- 
 sire for the quick cleansing of your blood. This 
 land is not made for man. You have sinned against 
 me in leaving the habitations which I have widely 
 prepared for you, to come into my high solitudes." 
 And we answer: "The shut door shall we leave, 
 
84 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 seeking yet another, though the feet be heavy. 
 Your solitude shall then be respected; open only 
 the way. Let no strange skeletons be mingled here 
 with those of the yak, the gazelle, the wild dog 
 proper offerings on this your barren altar." 
 
 Thus may struggle the spirit of man with the 
 spirits of all the conspiring elements. But the 
 ponies? Ah! they could but answer to the shrill 
 jibe of the death-bearing night wind: "We bear the 
 burdens of man, his will must we serve while we 
 live, yours to-morrow when we die." How the 
 poor brutes churned and churned all night long! 
 They were tied in pairs, head to tail. Thus they 
 could move, but could not stray. Little rest for 
 them, this all-night milling round and round. But 
 to stand still meant death. 
 
 The loss of one's ponies is the peril that hangs 
 over all travel in this fatal region. It is impossible 
 to soften the frightful conditions in which they 
 strive to exist. They must travel to the limit of 
 their endurance, because the land is foodless. They 
 cannot be relieved from the effect of excessive alti- 
 tude ; nor can they be protected at night from ex- 
 cessive cold. If the journey be long, they must 
 be fed on small rations. A fair load for a pony in 
 rough country is one hundred and fifty pounds, or 
 say two hundred. If he were fed ten pounds a day, 
 he could carry nothing more than his own food for 
 a twenty-day journey. The occasional grass one 
 meets counts for something, and we always sought 
 to camp near even the meanest-looking patch of it. 
 But one cannot rely upon it, and in the short time 
 available for grazing over sparse growth, the animal 
 
A Plunge to Whither-Away 85 
 
 gets only a lunch not a dinner. If one starts from 
 a mountain-base, such as Darjeeling or Ladak Leh, 
 the animals are hardier than those recruited in Tur- 
 kestan. But even these are not accustomed to 
 regular life at elevations above fourteen thousand 
 feet, and the increase to an average of sixteen 
 thousand feet, which must be met in any consider- 
 able journey on the plateau, seems to tell on even 
 the hardiest. 
 
 The first to succumb was Captain Anginieur's 
 mount, a high-bred animal with too much mettle. 
 For about ten days after ascending the Polu gorge 
 he continued to be ready for a morning gallop. He 
 soon dropped, fell several times under his rider, 
 tried to follow the caravan, bearing a nominal load ; 
 then, on another day, without load, he stumbled 
 forward several times, bleeding at the mouth as he 
 recovered ; finally, gave it up, and when I last saw 
 him he was on his knees. Anginieur did not like 
 the thought of shooting him ; the cold of the night 
 must have promptly done the bullet's quicker work. 
 My own mount, an excellent Kashgar purchase, 
 died one night a few days after he had made a noble 
 effort for his salvation and mine. We had made a 
 hard march the day before and went into a dry 
 camp, moistened a little, however, by water carried 
 in my rubber bed from the previous camp. 
 
 We were moving in a valley about ten miles wide. 
 Small streams coming from the neighbouring snow- 
 tops wandered lazily over level surfaces, and often 
 disappeared almost while you watched them. At 
 night they were frozen. We ought to reach them 
 early enough to let the animals drink liquid water. 
 
86 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Ten miles is a wide stretch to cross and re-cross, 
 unless you have nothing else to do. But we wanted 
 to move forward as rapidly as possible. At about 
 twelve o'clock noon I left the caravan, which was 
 near the middle of the valley, agreeing with Angi- 
 nieur that he should keep the march headed on a 
 selected peak far in front of us, while I sought for 
 water near the foot of one of our bounding ranges. 
 At about four o'clock, finding none, I turned 
 to rejoin the caravan, and soon reached the line 
 of the front-and-rear peaks agreed on in the 
 morning. 
 
 The caravan was not seen, nor the trail. For a 
 time we kept on the supposed line of march, but 
 when no trail was found and the sun sank low both 
 horse and I were troubled. Finally, quite against 
 his will, I turned the animal square across the val- 
 ley, determined thus to find the trail before dark, or 
 prove that the caravan had not gone so far. The 
 poor beast flagged now; he thought I was wrong 
 and he knew he was tired. But when the tracks 
 were seen, what an intelligent leap he made ! Turn- 
 ing freely to follow, now forward, he again tried to 
 gallop. But the fire was gone. Thus we passed 
 on, hoping every moment to see the caravan in 
 motion or the tent set for a cheerless night. Then 
 came a stony stretch, the moon sank in clouds, the 
 trail was gone. 
 
 It was no longer possible to make out anything in 
 the dark. Just what to do was a puzzle. I must 
 not stop too long, as that meant sleeping and freez- 
 ing, but I was very tired ; hence I concluded to lie 
 down for a while, keeping the bridle on my arm. 
 
A Plunge to Whither-Away 87 
 
 Then, remembering a crust of bread in my saddle- 
 bag, I providentially moved round the horse's head 
 to get it, when a flash no sound, but an instant's 
 flash struck through the black night. As we were 
 the only men for several hundreds of miles about, 
 that flash was conclusive evidence that the camp 
 was near. Now we need not fight the bitter night 
 through against hunger and the killing cold. I 
 sprang to the saddle and again urged forward the 
 over-worn horse. The signal he could not under- 
 stand, yet he forged on, dejectedly but patiently. 
 
 In less than half an hour we were splashing 
 through a good stream. Shot after shot guided us 
 on, then shout after shout, then hand -grasp after 
 hand-grasp, for even the men put aside the reserve 
 of station to welcome the lost sahib. But the poor 
 horse never recovered his spirit. He had endeav- 
 oured, yea, accomplished, too much. He could 
 scarce make the next day's march, and, though he 
 showed again a bit of energy, in a week he was 
 dead. Even when an enforced halt had come to the 
 caravan, and he had days of repose ahead of him, he 
 chose eternal rest. Our trouble had arisen, like 
 many others less serious, from a mirage. My long 
 absence from the caravan caused Anginieur to feel 
 that he must look out for water. A beautiful little 
 lake spread out to the left of our agreed line of 
 march. He veered over toward the vision, which 
 was n't water, but only the ghost of it. That ac- 
 counted for the long loop in the trail and my failure 
 to pick it up when I reached the line of the direction 
 peaks. Moral. When you have been long sepa- 
 rated from your friends, remember that they may 
 
88 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 have excellent reasons for changing rules of conduct 
 supposedly fixed. 
 
 The caravan was in motion about ten hours dur- 
 ing the day just described ; that is a long pull for 
 weak, underfed horses, so we had to shoot one on 
 breaking camp next morning. The straw of the 
 now useless pack-saddle was given in part to the 
 tea-making fire, and in part to the famished horses, 
 each one striving for a mouthful of the woody 
 fibre. 
 
 We are now nearly at the end of the long, flat 
 valley in which we had marched for eight or ten 
 days. It was closed just ahead of us, and there was 
 thus closed one chapter in the history of our woes. 
 Yet withal a few pleasant elements had entered into 
 the experience. Two lakes were discovered, one 
 drinkable, the other salt. The fresh water lay beau- 
 tifully blue at the foot of sharply rising mountains 
 and gladdened our eyes for two days. Around the 
 other tracks were found, some quite new, and these 
 lifted our hopes. But the trails thinned out into 
 the silent hills. They were evidently made by wild 
 horses coming to the salt licks. Both the lakes were 
 new to the maps. 
 
 It was near the sweet water that we had a half 
 day's diversion furnished by a herd of wild yak. 
 Miles had given us a Berdan rifle. With this and 
 the Mauser gun-pistol we taught the yaks and the 
 virgin echoes how noisy and how harmless may be 
 the artillery of the breath-spent hunter. That we 
 were exhausted by our vain stalking efforts was of 
 small concern ; that we failed to get fresh meat was 
 a disappointment, particularly for the men, who 
 
A Plunge to Whither-Away 89 
 
 worked hard and shivered much during thirty days 
 or more on a diet of tea and bread, while we had 
 sustaining tins of sausage and pork in various other 
 forms ; also dreadful Russian fish. The folded val- 
 ley in which we saw the yaks contained a bit of 
 grazing, which would have been relished by the 
 ponies, but we had to retreat from its impassable 
 sides and regain the broader desert in which our 
 course had been held. Even here occasional ga- 
 zelles browsed invisible grass, and invariably flung 
 away, rejoicing, from our long-range shots. 
 
 Except for these things, the lakes, the yaks, and 
 the gazelles, yes, and the sunshine, and the solitude 
 and the snow-tops around us, I can think of nothing 
 agreeable in connection with the long valley which 
 stretches across the Aksai Chin. Except for these, 
 life there was but a constant strain of search for 
 water, for fuel of roots or dung, for a bit of grazing, 
 and always for a trail that never was found, because 
 it never had been. 
 
 Now, ahead of us the mountains closed the way. 
 They were not ugly heights ; we felt that they could 
 be climbed, or a way threaded between them. The 
 portentous question was, which way? We had evi- 
 dently passed beyond any opening, if it existed, 
 that would lead us by short line to Rudok. Might 
 we not be near Lanak Pass? That is on the map. 
 Several explorers had crossed it. Indeed, Moham- 
 med Joo now took courage and declared that he 
 recognised the black mountain there in front. We 
 microscoped the rumour-made maps more closely 
 than ever and then plunged into the heights which 
 confronted us. Soon we were up again to eighteen 
 
90 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 thousand feet, then down again to sixteen thousand 
 five hundred, in a rather narrow valley. Lassoo now 
 began to revive memories of his march with Captain 
 Welby. His little yellow face was turned know- 
 ingly from side to side, and he soon delighted us by 
 declaring to Achbar that we were going in the wrong 
 direction. Think of it, somebody who knew what 
 was the wrong direction ! The next morning we 
 gave Lassoo his head, and were soon scaling another 
 eighteen-thousand-foot ridge, down into another 
 valley at about sixteen thousand five hundred feet 
 elevation. Mohammed Joo, ever an optimist, said 
 that was Lanak Pass. Lassoo said it was not, but 
 he could take us to Lanak and probably find shep- 
 herds there. Our hearts swelled with satisfaction. 
 A shepherd meant a trail ; a trail meant a way back 
 to the world where people lived, where the map 
 should no longer be blank and where the ear 
 should no longer be hurt by the refrain "Adam 
 Yok!" 
 
 Another day we followed Lassoo, who held down 
 the valley wherein a friendly stream accompanied us 
 for a while. But now the little compass read N. 
 W., and all day long N. W., and there were no 
 shepherds. But men had been in this valley. Lassoo 
 triumphantly chuckled over a piece of pottery found 
 near to three blackened stones, dear to the eyes of 
 the trail-seeker. Then we passed a curious line of 
 little stone-piles about a foot high, two feet apart, 
 and stretching a clean mile across the valley, with a 
 six-foot opening about the middle. I think it 
 served to cull the foolish flocks that may have 
 grazed last year, or a hundred years ago, or a thou- 
 
A Plunge to Whither- Away 91 
 
 sand, on the hillsides, that now bore, here and there, 
 only a little furze like the three days' beard on a 
 man's chin. 
 
 Night came on, and our stream had left us by 
 burying itself alive. We turned up a side valley 
 and pitched camp in the dark, all very blue. We 
 had not filled the rubber bed in the morning, and 
 all my previous exhortations in respect to water 
 bottles resulted only in two mine and Achbar's. 
 Two pints of water for seven men. Achbar's bottle 
 went to the men. They would not accept the 
 whiskey I offered, and whose use under such cir- 
 cumstances I thought even the Prophet himself 
 would have allowed ; but he was not there to make 
 a dispensation. 
 
 And now the worst of it came. Poor Anginieur 
 had been always more affected by the altitude than 
 the rest of us. He was forced tp^open his lips for 
 breathing. We had been riding for days into the 
 teeth of a cruel wind, which, I suppose, inflamed 
 the exposed tonsils and made things worse. It was 
 impossible to keep warm enough for continuous 
 sleep at night, though we wore all our day-clothing 
 and got under everything else available. This lack 
 of sleep produced general feverishness, and now a 
 long night had to be passed with only one cup of 
 water, a body temperature of 103 F., and an 
 atmospheric temperature of 20 F. 
 
 My little stock of medicines had not seemed to 
 be selected to meet this case, though they had been 
 rather liberally applied during the past few days. 
 Moreover, I never treat Europeans with the same 
 confidence which spreads from patient to doctor 
 
92 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 when the patient is a native. In Africa, where I 
 had a flourishing practice, another condition added 
 to my professional aplomb. I was always moving 
 forward and thus left my clients behind me, cured 
 by faith, I trust. Now, when the case seemed grave, 
 and was that of my friend, I felt miserable in my 
 ignorance. Icould but give quinine and look cheer- 
 ful ; it was a hard night for Anginieur, whose fever 
 gasped for water, though he must be covered cap-a- 
 pie to keep from freezing. Very early we were up, 
 looking about for H 2 O in any form. 
 
 Mohammed Joo climbed to a forbidding niche 
 about a mile away and came back about seven 
 o'clock with a bucket full of reviving snow. Then 
 Lassoo explored a near-by elevation, found abun- 
 dant running water within a quarter of a mile, and 
 soon the rubber bed was full. Perilous as was our 
 position now, a day's rest for the invalid became im- 
 perative. And it was equally imperative that the 
 caravan should be lightened. We had now eleven 
 horses and grain enough to quarter-feed them all for 
 about five days. Unless some of them were better 
 fed, all would soon die. So we made a pile contain- 
 ing civilised clothing, books (about a dozen good 
 heavy ones that had come with me all the way from 
 London), our little camp table and chairs, my sex- 
 tant, and various odds and ends, altogether amount- 
 ing to about two loads. Then we redistributed the 
 packs and found that we could get rid of at least 
 three animals. Mohammed Joo was told to give 
 no grain to these three, to let them follow, if they 
 chose, in the hope of some sudden relief, or, if he 
 preferred, to shoot them. As his heart was half 
 
A Plunge to Whither-Away 93 
 
 horse, he did not shoot them and did, I fear, sneak 
 them a mouthful of food. 
 
 After one day's rest, Anginieur was again able to 
 get in the saddle. In an hour's march we had 
 picked up our disappearing, re-appearing stream, 
 and in another hour it was running strong wherever 
 it could break through its fetters of ice. But the 
 valley trended stubbornly north-west. This seemed 
 to mean that we should soon be in the open desert 
 again, and certainly we were wearing away from 
 Lanak Pass away from possible food and life. So 
 when a wide opening appeared, looking south-west, 
 we felt that reason pointed toward the new valley. 
 I had many misgivings about leaving a descending 
 stream to ascend a long valley. Lassoo's leathery 
 face almost changed colour when he saw us leading 
 away on a new tack, and my conversation with him 
 was thus : 
 
 "The sahibs will surely die if they leave this 
 stream." 
 
 "But how do you know we shall not die if we 
 follow it?" 
 
 "At Lanak Pass there was big water, and this too 
 is big." 
 
 But I am sure now that we are far from Lanak ; 
 the sun has told me so." 
 
 "Even if we are, this is good water." 
 
 "But many times we have seen the streams die in 
 the sands why not this one? " 
 
 "There are fish here. I saw some under the ice 
 as long as two hands ; such fish are not in the waters 
 that die in the sands. And we now go down, that 
 is good. If we go up the horses will die first. The 
 
94 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 sahibs cannot sleep without horses to carry their 
 food and their blankets. Even we cannot walk and 
 bear burdens in this land; we shall all die." 
 
 "But this stream goes ever in the wrong direc- 
 tion." 
 
 "It will change if it does not yet I shall soon 
 find men shepherds of the Botmen (Tibetans) or 
 the Kirghiz, perhaps." 
 
 I felt that Lassoo's talk was good medicine, but 
 the compass and the maps won the day and carried 
 us on to further trials. One of our ponies had 
 dropped just before we changed direction. Another 
 considerately went down a short time before we 
 camped, thus assuring us a straw fire for our tea. 
 The next night, a bitter one in a snow-fall at an 
 elevation of seventeen thousand five hundred feet, 
 was cheered by this sort of death-flame. Three 
 ponies had now eliminated themselves from the 
 grain equation without help of powder and shot. 
 By noon of the following day we had clambered out 
 of the upper defiles of our tempting valley and 
 found ourselves on a mountain-top, the very abomi- 
 nation of desolation. Again we looked at the world 
 from an elevation of eighteen thousand five hundred 
 feet, and it was not good to behold; magnificent, 
 but not good. Vast snow-crowned heights, like 
 gigantic foam billows, met at every point a now 
 threatening sky. A deep valley looked up at us 
 from the west, but visible issue there was none. 
 There was absolutely nothing to suggest a way out 
 of the wildly massed region of snow save death or 
 retreat. Again the little leathery face of Lassoo 
 seemed drawn as by cords, yet composedly he said 
 
03 
 
 'Hb 
 
 c 
 W 
 
A Plunge to Whither-Away 95 
 
 to Achbar, who composedly interpreted to us: 
 "Now the sahibs see that we must all die if we 
 go on; and shall we go there, or there, or there? 
 It is all the same. Last night the ponies were 
 nearly all dead in the snow. All of us were very 
 cold. You see it is worse around us. But it is not 
 too late, I think, if we go back! " 
 
 Just then, at the psychological moment, the snow 
 began falling around us, and even Anginieur, who 
 sympathised less with Lassoo's views than I, felt 
 that our lives were now hung on a slender thread, 
 which pulled us backward. Lassoo was all wrong 
 about Lanak Pass, but he was all right in respect to 
 the wisdom of sticking closer than a brother to a 
 good descending stream. And now we could hold 
 out but a few days longer, for our grain supply was 
 just two bushels. We had been travelling for more 
 than twenty days without seeing a human being and 
 had no idea where to find them, andwe were simply 
 lost. So down we went. There remained much to 
 surfer, but that decision saved us eventually. I re- 
 member just a little regret at leaving so splendid, so 
 savage a view. And, as we knew later, the spot was 
 geographically of unique interest. The ridge which 
 stretched its forlorn length to right and left of us 
 separates the Hindustan plains from the central 
 desert. It is the true ridge-pole of the Asiatic con- 
 tinental mass. The snowflakes that fell around us 
 might be divided even as they melted, part going to 
 the hungry sands of the cold northern wastes, part 
 to be warmed in the glistening bosom of the Indian 
 Ocean. Here is such a frontier as Titans would de- 
 clare for fending wide apart their jealous empires. 
 
96 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 And here is such a seat as Icy Death would sit upon 
 for throne. 
 
 In a day and a half we were again camped in the 
 big valley near the point where we had left it, an 
 unusually fine grass-patch near us, abundant water 
 at our feet, and a fair supply of yak dung, garnered 
 there by passing decades. On the way down we 
 had proposed to Mohammed Joo and Lassoo that 
 they should go alone down the good stream to seek 
 help, while the rest of us remained in camp, thus 
 avoiding transport of five men and our European 
 necessities, tent, and heavier bedding. They 
 eagerly assented. Indeed, it was evidently the 
 only course possible. We had now just one bushel 
 of grain. That would keep two horses going several 
 days, and at good speed, but it would last eight 
 horses only two days, at half rations. Lassoo was 
 calmly confident that he could return in six days. 
 Just why he said six instead of sixteen I don't know, 
 unless he merely wanted to comfort us, for we could 
 live comfortably for ten days on the food remaining 
 to us, and we hoped the idle horses might keep their 
 life-sparks burning by consumption of the grass. 
 
 Our two messengers then fared forth to ask of the 
 silent mountains whether we were to be granted a 
 few more years of respiration, of see-saw 'twixt pain 
 and pleasure. How grave it all seemed to us! 
 How indifferent to the dumb world around us! 
 How petty to the babbling world of men to which 
 we once belonged ! Perhaps a few broken hearts 
 there, grief -filled for a season, then the salve of 
 time and routine, then, for them also, the sovereign 
 cure-all, death. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CAMP PURGATORY PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION 
 VS. PROBABLE DEATH KIRGHIZ SAMARITANS 
 
 THE tardy sun reached the black mountain-tops 
 and slanted his arrows upon our tent some- 
 what after eight in the morning. When thus we 
 were invited forth from our covers on the first day 
 of our sojourn in Camp Purgatory (for so we called 
 it), it came to pass that another blow from Fortune's 
 hammer fell upon us. Now it struck Anginieur's 
 leg, and the effect thereof is called phlebitis, and 
 the effect of phlebitis is acute pain, a sort of paraly- 
 sis. A short cable's length of assisted promenade, 
 that was a day's work for a so stricken leg. For 
 the upkeeping-of our courage we had talked much 
 and fallaciously about walking toward safety, when 
 the ponies should all have died; scheming to use 
 them inside of us when they could no longer bear 
 us as burdens on their backs. But if no help came 
 from down stream, whither our messengers had 
 gone, we should be forced back into the maze of 
 fatal mountains which had encircled us since we left 
 the Aksai Chin valley. Even the natives felt the 
 hopelessness of such an effort for themselves. 
 
 The attempts that I had made to give relief to 
 my pitiful mount whenever the uphill work halted 
 him had made it clear to me that even a well man, 
 
 97 
 
98 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 burdened with a few pounds of food and the cover- 
 ing necessary to protect from freezing at night, 
 would be able to make not more than three or four 
 miles per day. Now, as we frequently had to travel 
 twenty miles a day to secure water, the shorter 
 march might be fatal. Of course, the immortal 
 principle of Micawber would doubtless keep a live 
 body moving as long as motion was possible, but I 
 had now revolved the situation in many different 
 lights, and had become convinced that relief could 
 come only from the down-stream course of the black 
 valley in which we found ourselves. If not there, 
 then a good dose of Mauser lead could at least 
 shorten heartache and hunger pangs. 
 
 Anginieur's spirit had for days been far stronger 
 than his body, and even now, when this sore afflic- 
 tion fell upon him, he always joined me in whiling 
 away the long hours by talking about what we 
 should do when we should get out. When several 
 days had passed, and our poor ministrations to the 
 invalid leg were shown to be futile, there came so 
 secret and complex are mental processes a sort of 
 resignation to our inactivity, a sort of restful finality 
 concerning the impossiblity of walking out of our 
 trouble. As the days wore on we even tried to bar 
 the wearisome discussion of what to do if the men 
 came not back within the necessary limits of days, 
 or if they came back empty-handed. And in this 
 the phlebitis helped us. Nursing it gave occupa- 
 tion to sunlit hours that came staring at us, and to 
 rushlit hours that came peering at us, inquiring, 
 "What can you do with us? We must be lived 
 unto our death." Anginieur's leg and the Bible, 
 
Camp Purgatory 99 
 
 these were the two diversions, the two clean-picked 
 bones of discussion. 
 
 The story of how the Bible came to Camp Purga- 
 tory is this : I have told you that before making our 
 dash up Disappointment Valley we had cast aside 
 all save the indispensables. Now, we found our- 
 selves about ten miles below Camp Abandon, im- 
 prisoned for a time or for eternity. My little library 
 spoke to me through the solid earth, and I longed 
 for it. The intricacies, the profundities, the absurdi- 
 ties which should be found in Kant, Spinoza, Des- 
 cartes, the Koran, the Bible, Buddha's Meditations 
 these would lead one away from self, a too intimate 
 personage when his existence seems threatened. 
 The little collection had been put in a leather box 
 and named Kitab, this being Hindustani for book. 
 
 Mir Mullah now was sent with two ponies that 
 could walk to recover Kitab, ten miles away. The 
 old man had done nothing thoroughly, save his 
 prayers, but there seemed little chance for error. 
 "Go back to the abandoned camp and recover 
 Kitab, also some shoes." We reckoned not, how- 
 ever, with the possibilities of Achbar's translations 
 falling upon a mind vacant and now disturbed. 
 Mir Mullah returned, after a day and a half, bringing 
 my trunk, Kitab still ten miles away. Both were 
 of leather. On this similarity Mir Mullah stumbled. 
 The trunk contained evening dress, summer clothes, 
 and the Bible ; and weighed twice as much as Kitab ; 
 the wretched pony died of it two days later. The 
 book had been accidentally separated from its com- 
 panion volumes. It was ungracious that one, even 
 nominally a Christian, should curse a Mussulman for 
 
ioo Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 bringing him the Bible, but I could fairly scold the 
 poor old stupid for putting half a normal load on a 
 pony having only one-tenth its normal strength, and 
 no grain at the end of the journey. When men look 
 at you with the deep, patient eyes that light those 
 Asiatic faces, and when one's wrath must filter 
 through Achbar's brain and Achbar's tongue, the 
 victim still lives when you have finished with 
 him. 
 
 And the morning and the evening were the second 
 day when I began to read the Bible to Anginieur. 
 Ere a week had passed, even my orthodox Catholic 
 friend felt that the early books of slaughter and the 
 vitriolic prophets left much to be desired as an ele- 
 vating preparation for probable death. Job, the 
 patient and Ecclesiastes, struck a more sympathetic 
 note. The ante- Abraham traditions were suggest- 
 ive, even absorbing, to the intellect that would in- 
 quire critically into the history of religion. So, 
 also, though of far less hold upon one's interest, 
 the childish babbling of the dream-interpreters, 
 down to Daniel. Much of all this turns around 
 life, but the life of a nation rather than of an indi- 
 vidual. It could enter little into the meditations 
 of those whose chances of living were down to the 
 Camp Purgatory measure. Ruth, Esther, and the 
 Songs of Solomon were read, together with some 
 torn pages of Childe Harold, which had been hid- 
 den in our kit ; all these spoke to us of the Heaven 
 of woman's love, from which we seemed to be per- 
 manently exiled. To the life of Christ, he of 
 Christian childhood, though long since forced be- 
 yond the fold, might fancy that he could more con- 
 


 
Camp Purgatory 101 
 
 fidingly turn for inspiration and for solace. But 
 those who were chosen to tell us the story of this 
 great life piled Pelion on Ossa of intellectual diffi- 
 culty Pelion of resurrection on Ossa of virgin 
 birth. Frightened by these uplifted rocks, we are 
 then forced to sail between the Scylla of individual 
 interpretation of ancient writings, on the one hand, 
 and, on the other, the Charybdis of severe church 
 authority, rising from foundations of musty tradi- 
 tion. Under the lee of this Charybdis rock, Angi- 
 nieur's bark, driven by fate, had been anchored, and 
 some peace found, but a peace disturbed by thoughts 
 of the many who seemed to have vanished out into 
 the far sea of unbelief. And lo ! there, where the 
 storm of doubt has been outridden, there also is 
 peace. There one sees his neighbour-barks sink 
 quietly, sails all furled, into the 'sea from which 
 they rose. Some, in the gradual engulfment of 
 age, seem but to nestle back into the water as the 
 tired child seeks its couch. Others, downward drawn 
 by a law more sudden and more secret in its drift, 
 swirl quickly out of vision. 
 
 As the mariner goes down, the clear sky around 
 him is not peopled by fantastic forms of Jewish, 
 Egyptian, Greek, or German myth. Under the 
 smooth sea which receives him, no Satan, no Pluton 
 dwells. The law gave him birth, set him to move 
 athwart the sea of existence, called the voyage Life ; 
 is now about to end it, and for whatever he may 
 now be, something or nothing, he is still held by 
 the law. Or so it all seemed to me in the black 
 silence of the nights when the days were ended and 
 their hopes were buried with the setting sun. The 
 
102 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 silence and the darkness were as waters to quench 
 the thirst for identity, for separateness. 
 
 Although it was clear that Lassoo's six-day limit 
 was purely fanciful, we could not but feel a bit more 
 lost when the seventh day's sun rose on our un- 
 broken solitude. Our men would undoubtedly have 
 made great effort to return on the appointed day. 
 Moreover, their horses must now be dead unless 
 they had found help. The grain, less than a bushel, 
 could not keep them going more than six days of 
 hard work. We counted our paltry store of tins 
 and hefted our bag of rice. This had now to be 
 divided among our three servants whose bread stock 
 was very low, Mohammed Joo and Lassoo having 
 been supplied generously for ten days' constant 
 riding or walking. Allowing Anginieur and myself 
 together one box of sardines, a one-pint tin of pork 
 swimming in water, a cup of rice, and four ounces 
 of bread, and to the men a cup of rice and eight 
 ounces of bread (for the three), we were still good 
 for eight days. Happily the tea supply would go 
 even a little longer. Oh, blessed beverage ! As we 
 were quite inactive, the rations would have been 
 satisfactory but for the extreme cold, which de- 
 manded the production of a lot of heat units. We 
 usually spent fifteen hours in bed, covered in due 
 form with all our trappings, thus minimising the 
 heat losses. 
 
 It was, perhaps, an hygienic regime ; we could 
 not eat enough to satisfy appetite, but we had 
 enough to tame hunger. The only severe trials 
 proceeding from our larder came when some un- 
 readable label gave us a mere mess of cabbage, with- 
 
Camp Purgatory 103 
 
 out meat, for our pihe de resistance. Then we 
 gripped our belts and had doubts as to Russian 
 civilisation. The men were stolid and uncomplain- 
 ing, though Mir Mullah's resigned assertion that 
 Allah had surely chosen this spot, as his burial- 
 ground did not tend to make the two younger ones 
 light-hearted. And the old man's voice was dis- 
 tressingly broken and womanish when lifted up in 
 long prayers which every day became more plaintive. 
 There was a note of dissolution in it, of incorporeal- 
 ity, which shivered one's nerves. Was it ugly of 
 me to have Achbar tell him to pray like a man, not 
 like a weeping child? 
 
 When we had been in Camp Purgatory a week 
 three crows began to visit us, our only friends. 
 Achbar said these birds would eat nothing but men 
 and horses, and that they knew three days in ad- 
 vance when God meant to give them a feast. We 
 laughed at him and flung stones at the crows. 
 Then we discovered some fish insultingly curling 
 under the ice of a near-by pond. Here was occu- 
 pation and food, if we were successful. Fish-hooks 
 were found and let down through ice-holes. The 
 cunning beasts viewed our stratagem and sailed 
 away. Several hours of several days were patiently 
 dedicated to such wiles, but each night closed up 
 our silly breaches in their walls, glazing over an 
 undiminished number of these water foxes. 
 
 The tenth night was a blue one, for we had laid 
 great stress, when instructing our messengers, upon 
 the importance of sending some word on that day, 
 in case help had been found, even if our men could 
 not themselves return. However, nothing remained 
 
104 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 to us but to await the designs of slow-moving 
 Fate. 
 
 Three of our ponies, having nothing else to do, 
 had now died. The others were festering racks, 
 their proper sores having spread and grown more 
 malignant under the pack-saddles, which Mir Mullah 
 had not removed during the whole period of inactiv- 
 ity. Anginieur was still a prisoner to his leg, 
 charging himself at times with being a burden upon 
 the move, which now, he thought, we ought to at- 
 tempt. But it was not difficult to convince him 
 that, without a single horse that could carry a bur- 
 den, we were not all tied to his leg, but that all were 
 separately tied to our desolate prison ground in 
 a common inability to cope with conditions all 
 awry. 
 
 The eleventh day wore away to its afternoon; 
 for distraction it was suggested that the fishes be 
 bombarded behind their ice-fortress. Perhaps our 
 smooth-bore, belching out duck-shot, would break 
 the ice, and repeated cannonading might somehow 
 reach the finny garrison. Three futile shots had 
 set the echoes ringing, when lo ! an answering, dis- 
 tant sound rolled up from the valley's hidden stretch 
 below us. The long strain was ended. That single 
 rifle-shot meant life. Then masters and men looked 
 into each other's eyes as brothers and strained away 
 their gaze toward the black cliff which closed the 
 down-stream view. When the sober, silent joy of 
 first relief had changed to laughing gaiety that felt 
 its right to live, our anxious watch discovered two 
 horsemen urging up the valley. In half an hour 
 they were at our sides, the faithful two, weary with 
 
Camp Purgatory 105 
 
 long travel, radiant with success, happy because 
 they had saved their friends. 
 
 Achbar's halting words were spurred to tell the 
 story. Four and a half days down the valley, their 
 ponies pushed to the limit of endurance, they had 
 at last found man. The thirty-day refrain of "Adam 
 Yok" was ended. Three Kirghiz tents, set where 
 the valley widened and bore abundant grass, shel- 
 tered a kindly people. The exhausted ponies, the 
 way-worn men, were fed. But the paterfamilias 
 being absent, nothing there could be done for our 
 relief. Nearly two days' away were two other 
 tents. There the elders had gone, there our mes- 
 sengers must hasten, on fresh ponies now. The 
 good Kirghiz were quick to act. Three men, four 
 camels, and two extra ponies were at once set in 
 motion. Grain for the going and for the return, 
 and food for all, were promptly gathered. The 
 Kirghiz knew the valley well, though none had gone 
 as far up as was our camp. Travelling fast, under 
 the friendly constraint of our servants, they covered 
 in four days what we afterwards covered, with fair 
 marches, in seven. They were now only an hour 
 behind our Achilles and Ulysses. Soon we saw the 
 familiar swing of the camels rounding the black 
 rocks, and ere the sun set, we were a happy camp 
 of friends. So material a thing is life that we must 
 mark the reassurance of it by eating away all hunger 
 and all appetite; the fresh mutton was good, the 
 yak's butter was good, and the yak's clotted cream 
 was good. 
 
 Good and surprising it was also to learn where we 
 were. The great valley was that of the Karakash, 
 
io6 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 one of the principal rivers that digs a torrential 
 course down the Kuen Lun Mountains, to fret its 
 way through the slow sands of the Taklamakan, 
 and to die of inanition as part of the great Tarim 
 stream. The waters which appeared between Camp 
 Abandon and Camp Purgatory were evidently its 
 permanent sources, instead of the much more dis- 
 tant points which the maps had heretofore assigned 
 to that character. Thus our stumbling among the 
 mountains turned to some good account in the 
 laborious effort which man has made to know 
 the globe he inhabits. 
 
 Then came the blow to my hopes. The Kirghiz 
 would not go farther from their tents; they could 
 not help me to get back to Rudok. We must go 
 out, if we wanted to be saved, by going northward, 
 back to their grazing ground, thence westward until 
 we should reach the Karakoram caravan route be- 
 tween Yarkand and Ladak Leh. They had not grain 
 enough to furnish me forth for another journey, 
 even if I had the horses, and they could not afford 
 to part with such animals as I should need for such 
 an attempt. Man is an essentially Unsatisfied De- 
 sire and an Irritated Sensibility. These people had 
 come in the nick of time to save my life; their 
 refusal to help me Rudokward was in every way 
 reasonable, yet there was a moment of rebellious in- 
 dignation. Soon, however, It-might-have-been was 
 buried deep in It-is, and we turned towards thoughts 
 of departure. Something like thirty days must pass 
 ere we could reach the railway on the far north of 
 India, but the route was known to our Kirghiz as 
 far as the link that should bind Camp Purgatory to 
 
A morning bath at Kashgar. 
 
Camp Purgatory 107 
 
 a well-known trail, thence to all the Yarkand-Ladak 
 world. And at Ladak we knew the telegraph could 
 be reached that was only twenty days away. 
 
 There should be some hardship still the Karako- 
 ram route is not Rotten Row but, barring such 
 accidents as are always possible in crossing glaciers, 
 snow masses, and narrow defiles, we might now 
 consider ourselves at the railway station in Rawal 
 Pindi, or in Paris, for that matter. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GLACIERS, YAKS, SKELETONS, A LOVE AFFAIR, AND 
 A HIGH SONG ON THE KARAKORAM ROUTE 
 
 A RETRIEVE of the luggage at Camp Abandon, 
 a day of rest for the weary ones, plenty of 
 grain in the bellies of the surviving ponies, and we 
 were off again down the dismal valley whence had 
 come our salvation. We were delighted to find that 
 Anginieur, once trussed up on his mount, could 
 "stay put" without much suffering. Then, the 
 third day out, came a sensation, and for the game 
 leg the beginning of its cure. We had a roaring fire 
 made of shrubs that grew at least three feet high, 
 the most gigantic vegetable we had seen since leav- 
 ing Polu. The leg was fairly roasted by the leaping 
 flames, and a luxurious bien fare took hold of Angi- 
 nieur's soul. 
 
 Then two days later came the triumphal entry 
 into the Kirghiz camp. What a simple, hearty 
 welcome from these good people! Their little 
 population normally filled the three lodges those 
 felt-warmed, lattice- framed tents which sparsely dot 
 all the wilds of Central Asia. One was given to the 
 sahibs; one received all the men, a dozen of them; 
 while women and children swarmed in the third. It 
 would be pleasant to believe that one-fourth of all 
 the Christians whom one must meet in an ordinary 
 
 108 
 
Glaciers, Yaks, Skeletons 109 
 
 life should possess the elementary virtues developed 
 as they were in this band of nomads, dwelling in 
 the western wilds of Tibet, hundreds of miles from 
 their kind. They were dignified, yet respectful; 
 they were poor, but honest ; they were hospitable, 
 but not fawning; we were helpless in their power, 
 and they sold their scant provisions and their labour 
 (vital to us) for the usual Central Asian prices. On 
 the mere word of our men they took Russian gold 
 in payment, though they were familiar with no 
 money save the Chinese silver, and must send the 
 gold to Yarkand or Kashgar for exchange. 
 
 The service of the camels that brought us out, 
 including the men who tended them, was charged 
 at forty cents per day each. The ponies which we 
 rode were also forty cents each per day, including 
 the necessary grain, which is here very precious, as 
 it must be brought by caravan from Yarkand. The 
 Good Samaritan could not have better played the 
 role which he created than did these Mussulmen, 
 astray from temple and from mosque. Judging 
 from the glimpses of Kirghiz life which we had 
 while crossing the Ala'i Mountains from Osh to 
 Kashgar, I had thought these nomads quite careless 
 about all religious ceremonial, as, indeed, must be 
 probable, since they are never in communities where 
 they may be assembled in pious celebrations. Yet 
 so strong was the hold of the Prophet's law that the 
 morning sun, looking into their cheerless camp, 
 found all the men in genuflexion toward Mecca. 
 This persistent but unostentatious performance of 
 the prayer rite is well, it is not European, or, shall 
 I say, not Protestant European. 
 
no Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Yaks, camels, horses, sheep, these are their 
 wealth. Tradition seems to give the right of graz- 
 ing in certain valleys to certain families, who must 
 have several places of accustomed resort in order to 
 keep their animals in condition. Few, I believe, 
 have been found living at higher elevations than our 
 friends, who spent regularly a part of each year in 
 the spot which received us, at an elevation of four- 
 teen thousand feet above sea. If their pasturage is 
 good they may eat meat not infrequently ; if scant, 
 they must not vary from milk, in many forms, and 
 bread. This they obtain, by exchange of skins or 
 condensed milk, from the caravans that may pass 
 nearest their camps. So also they obtain their 
 clothing, which is generally heavy and well made. 
 Their rugs are home-made and excellent. The 
 women are modest, though not veiled. The high, 
 white turban of myriad folds seems never to be laid 
 aside, though the whole day is filled with a leisurely 
 industry, milking, cooking, weaving, nursing babies. 
 They work quietly; one never hears the scolding 
 and quarrelling which so frequently advertise the 
 concourse of working women in civilised lands. 
 Their faces are strong and comely, but not viva- 
 cious. Both men and women seem gentle with 
 children, who, like their parents, are not noisy. 
 The babies cry but little, unless ill. They all 
 seem to suffer from colds, nasal catarrh being not 
 uncommon. 
 
 While our new caravan was being organised, 
 clothes patched, and bread cooked, we passed two 
 days in Capuan ease at Camp Kirghiz. The tent 
 was warm, and one's eyes harden to the smoke. 
 
Glaciers, Yaks, Skeletons m 
 
 We put our camp folding-table in commission again, 
 stretched our legs, all four of them, in defiance of 
 phlebitis, and voted the world a merry one. Then 
 we were off, following the stately camels, not to be 
 warm again for a week or more ; but there was food 
 a-plenty and action a-plenty. We were bound for 
 Sasar, several days' march beyond the junction with 
 the Yarkand-Leh caravan route. There we must 
 change camels for yaks, thus to get over the great 
 glacier on which pad-feet would slip and ingloriously 
 sprawl the humped majesty of Asia. 
 
 In the week's hard march we passed one habita- 
 tion, a single Kirghiz tent, whose owner's cattle 
 struggled for existence in as dismal a loneliness as 
 hermit could desire. We stopped there while our 
 attendants gathered a few small sticks from the 
 furze-growth. The men of the family were absent, 
 but we were permitted to sit by the scant fire and 
 watch the household life of the women. One of 
 the daughters wore the matron's turban ; her sisters, 
 comely girls, were not yet mated. One of them, 
 however, was the fianc/e of a young man in our 
 caravan. It was a pretty play of hide-and-seek we 
 witnessed. When his voice was heard approaching 
 the tent, she bustled quickly behind a screen, where 
 she must remain while he warmed his fingers. Sur- 
 rounding nature's severity is thus reflected in their 
 customs. He must not see her during the year of 
 their engagement, then, with guise of swift violence, 
 he will seize her away to some lonely neighbouring 
 tent, distant fifty miles or more. Does the picture 
 please you, O Araminta? No matter: there are 
 deep reasons for it, which I could better explain to 
 
ii2 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 your mother than to you. In the decent veil of 
 figure, the fact may thus be presented : If the pent- 
 up volume of some mountain lake can find but one 
 outlet, down into some one valley whose wasting 
 sands shall be fertilised into life by the rushing 
 waters, and if the due season be not come for the 
 flood-letting, then it is better that the valley be 
 hidden from the covetous lake by some great dam 
 (or slender screen) of custom. 
 
 The women were neatly clad in Bokhara patterns 
 of the cheap silks, which give colour to brown 
 humanity in Central Asia. When I wondered, 
 through Achbar, where our hostess did her shop- 
 ping, "From the caravan," she said. "Have you 
 ever been to Yarkand, only ten days away to the 
 north-west?" "No." "Or to Leh, only ten days 
 away to the southward?" "No, the caravans pass 
 two days from here." So this happy, incurious 
 female had never seen the bazaars, palpitating with 
 men and women, though to say ten days' journey 
 there is as a few hours to our nervous selves. Had 
 she not, for neighbours, those whom we had left 
 three days ago? Yes, she had even seen one Euro- 
 pean before, when in another camp. Was not her 
 existence full enough? 
 
 When, a few days later, we struck the main trail 
 beaten by the foot-fall of the centuries we felt that 
 we were again suddenly caught in the whirl of life's 
 currents. Now caravans were met one, two, or 
 three each day. Now we got tobacco and sugar; 
 we even had news of a friend, the Hindoo Aksakol 
 from Yarkand, en route to his old home in the Pun- 
 jab and now just a day ahead of us. All the while 
 
Glaciers, Yaks, Skeletons 113 
 
 we were gaining elevation, the cold growing sharper ; 
 water carried in ice-cakes to provide the dry camps ; 
 fuel in precious bundles on camel-back, two stretches 
 of four days each being wholly without vegetation. 
 When we mounted the great Karakoram Pass we 
 were eighteen thousand three hundred feet above 
 the sea, the fourth time we had exceeded eighteen 
 thousand feet since leaving Polu. The route, which 
 is often designated by naming this pass, is abomi- 
 nable, but the divide itself, while rough and cold, is 
 not perilous save when snow-covered. We crossed 
 without difficulty, but were reminded of the true 
 merit underlying the reputation given to the spot, 
 by an almost unbelievable number of horse-skeletons 
 which blaze the way for more than a day's march 
 on either side. Where the death-harvest had been 
 most rich, they could be counted a hundred to the 
 quarter mile. Legs ridiculously in the air, heads 
 absurdly ducked between legs, backs broken, backs 
 curved, necks defiantly lurched upward, rampant, 
 bodies half set up on haunches, every possible fan- 
 tastic position was seen, as resultants of three forces 
 rigor mortis, gravitation, and vulture. Thus in 
 regions uninhabitable, death remains the only evi- 
 dent monument of the transient life that ventures 
 here. 
 
 Throughout the vast length of the Karakoram and 
 Himalayan ranges Nature seems to have raised these 
 tremendous masses that here, wrapped in spotless 
 white, she might sleep undisturbed by her inquisi- 
 tive progeny, her enfant terrible, restless man. But 
 in vain. Children of the desert, children of the 
 delta, led by love of gain, led by lust of war, for 
 
ii4 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 thousands of years they have climbed and crawled 
 over the frowning mountains. Religion too has cast 
 its spell over the minds of men, to send them across 
 these uplifted sands and snows, some uttering the 
 battle-cry of Mohammed, some chanting Buddha's 
 peaceful name. And after the fever of it all reigns 
 Icy Death. 
 
 It was the chill hand of night which drew us into 
 the unwonted life of Camp Sasar, the bourne to 
 which our Kirghiz led us, the term of their travel, 
 the limit of the camel's usefulness. Here were en- 
 closures, unroofed walls of stone, mute prophecies 
 of return to the world of man. The lune, the demi- 
 lune of brooding nature's refuge were now taken ; it 
 remained to storm the citadel's self, the bleak 
 heights of snow and ice which put a cruel crown on 
 Sasar's head. It had been hard to understand Ach- 
 bar's report of this strange sentinel-post of com- 
 merce. We had learned that it was a point of 
 exchange and of deposit for goods of all kinds, but 
 that, save for the passing caravan men, it was still 
 "Adam Yok." How can precious bales be left, 
 guarded only by the untenanted rocks? Yet so it 
 is opium lies here in many two-hundred-pound 
 masses left by Kirghiz or Turkestan's caravans 
 which turn backward to the north, taking with them 
 bales of silk or cotton, which, perhaps a month 
 before, were here deposited by some yak caravan, 
 shuttling between Leh and Sasar. Meanwhile 
 caravans have come and have gone, "through" 
 caravans of ponies paying tribute of dead to the 
 mountain spirits, and "shuttle" caravans of camels 
 working between Sasar and the north. 
 
Glaciers, Yaks, Skeletons 115 
 
 Opportunity breeds the act, and here the Euro- 
 pean would look for theft and deem it a wrong 
 almost condoned, provoked by negligence. But 
 this upheaved world is only seeming wide. The 
 perilous track which we have followed is its whole 
 width, for man ; and some hundreds of Ladakis and 
 Yarkandis, bound in a sort of acquaintance-guild, 
 are its population. Familiar to each other are they, 
 nor less familiar their yaks, camels, and ponies. 
 These honest brutes, in conspiracy with the very 
 snows and sands, spread over this too-narrow world 
 their tell-tale tracks, the entangling meshes of a 
 Bertillon system ; and the keen Hindoo merchants, 
 squatting at Srinagar, Leh, Kashgar, and Yarkand, 
 those master minds which defy nature for traffic's 
 sake, would not easily let go the unseen threads 
 which bind the caravan-man; they are harmless 
 guiding threads if the opium and the silk find their 
 true way over the passes to the destined recess of 
 the noisy bazaar, but sure strangling ropes if aught 
 should go awry. So honesty salutes necessity as her 
 mother, and the riches of the Hindoo may be left for 
 days visited only by that blustering roundsman, the 
 night wind. 
 
 We were three caravans camped cheek by jowl 
 among Sasar's rocks, all content with much hot tea, 
 wherein was brewed also a certain sense of brotherly 
 love, of sympathy with each other, compacted to- 
 gether in struggle against the night, the mountains, 
 and the bitter cold. Even the luxury of giving to 
 the poor was not denied us, shaggy-haired, dark- 
 faced men from the Balti country coming to the 
 camp-fire, asking bread and warmth that they might 
 
n6 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 continue some hard, wild venture across the mys- 
 terious mountains stretching westward. 
 
 One of the caravans of Sasar was that of our old 
 friend, the Aksakol of Yarkand. What a clear-cut 
 face he had ! Our European type seems gross when 
 set against the bronze cameo features of the high- 
 bred Hindoos. And such hospitality in his wel- 
 come, in his congratulations over our escape, in his 
 pleasure over this chance meeting within the heart 
 of the great mountains! His little tent, where we 
 sat to smoke and tea-drink, seemed, because of his 
 kindness, a nest-like home, and Achbar, squat in 
 the tent-door, redeemed himself with fluent phrases, 
 employing at least fifty words. And all this court- 
 esy, this true charity and gentlemanly spirit, grew 
 out of a stomach which had not known meat no, 
 not even pre-natally for generations unnumbered. 
 His caste (one of the subdivisions of the four basic 
 castes) forbade that animal life should feed on animal 
 death. 
 
 It was a glorious, breathless, freezing struggle we 
 made on the morrow, up and over the great glacier 
 and the vast fields of feathery whiteness. Starting 
 at sixteen thousand five hundred feet, we were soon 
 testing the thin, keen air of eighteen thousand feet 
 elevation ere the icy crest was gained. And from 
 the serene, glistening heights five thousand feet 
 above us we felt the reproving eyes of the Himala- 
 yas looking down upon the toiling ants that strove 
 and sank and rose again in the rifted green, in the 
 drifting white. The vision that comes back to 
 me is one of supernal clarity ; across it, here and 
 there, a veil of snow-born, wind-driven mist ; pressing 
 
Glaciers, Yaks, Skeletons 1.17 
 
 through it, a line of small black figures, men and 
 yaks and ponies, surging slowly forward to some 
 end known only to these heavily burdened, uncouth 
 Tibetans striding cheerfully in the van of the pant- 
 ing column. Sound is dead. It lives again in the 
 heavy grunt of some shaggy beast as he slips, re- 
 covers, and struggles forward. Then up to the 
 high, clear heaven floats the wild song of the moun- 
 taineers. It rings in the empty air, a triumphant 
 bugle-cry flung into the face of Mother Nature, 
 who, with icy fingers, would slay her children and 
 shroud them here in the eternal silent snows. It is 
 a brave, confident, manly note. By memory's trick 
 comes back to me, as my soul rises to the carol, 
 another song of Asia the last-heard music ere this 
 three months agone, in fetid Bokhara. 'T is the 
 low whining and womanish drone of the boy bay- 
 adere, the voice of weakness and of shame. 
 
 And if, indeed, in the tired tumult of the city 
 the only concord heard is that which sated luxury 
 sounds, forget not that Asia has yet her mountain- 
 tops and her mountain tribes, who shall lift their 
 incorrigible heads to shout and to echo the cry of a 
 strong man's heart. We may spurn the heavy-eyed 
 sloth of the crowded town, but this man of the hills 
 is our brother. 
 
 Another memory of the great glacier is that which 
 pictures two among the exhausted toilers, slow, 
 overcome, but persistent. Last of all were they to 
 reach the spent camp at nightfall. They had joined 
 us near the Kirghiz tents, the good Hadji (pilgrim) 
 and his wife. Bound from some obscure town in 
 Western China, they had reached Yarkand in sixty 
 
n8 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 days; had, through mischance, been separated from 
 the caravan with which they journeyed thence; had 
 been befriended by the nomad Kirghiz, had waited 
 ten days for our coming, and for another ten days 
 had now been our patient, courteous companions. 
 Each rode a stout pony, which must carry also a 
 twenty days' provision of bread and tea, and such 
 thick clothing as was not permanently worn on the 
 body. No daintiness in this, my lady fair, but if 
 your husband be full of zeal for the life to come, if 
 your duty and your pleasure be to follow him, and 
 mayhap gain heaven also, if you live in Western 
 China, and if Mecca lie across vast deserts, titanic 
 mountains, burning sands and freezing snows, then, 
 O lady fair, you must, like the rest of us, Hadjis 
 and explorers, bundle your delicate body in many 
 warm folds and leave it there for many cold days. 
 The good man had already won the green turban, 
 but now his soul yearned again for the sacred city, 
 and this time he goes to live in the shadow of the 
 Kaaba until his spirit shall have been caught up to 
 its awaiting joys, welcomed home by the compas- 
 sionate Prophet, whose word is the Law. And she 
 goes with him, a plain, brown woman, forty-five or 
 more, unconscious of her heroism. 
 
 She has done more for duty on earth and for hope 
 of heaven than you, average man or woman, may 
 dream of doing. Her home life was of scant com- 
 fort, you would consider it hard, indeed, but it 
 was languorous ease compared with the strain which 
 for weeks she had now uncomplainingly borne. It 
 is three months since she quitted some quiet shelter- 
 ing roof, another month or more ere they may reach 
 
Glaciers, Yaks, Skeletons 119 
 
 the railway, then pell-mell in the crowded carriages 
 of slow trains, to Bombay or to Karachi. Thence, as 
 steerage passengers, a weary, suffocating voyage to 
 Jeddah; then the short, dusty, teeming, glorious 
 march to Mecca, the body begrimed and worn, the 
 soul enraptured. And if disease and death be met 
 on the way, they are seen to have angelic smiling 
 faces they are the welcome guides to Paradise. Of 
 true truth in all this, nothing I suppose; but of 
 dream truth, of life-supporting, joy-making, faith- 
 begotten, heart-believed truth, a great deal. The 
 Mohammedan Hadji really believes in immortality 
 and makes light of things mundane, as you and I 
 would do if the creed of after-life were fixed in our 
 minds as is the creed of next winter's cold weather. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 TREES, TIBETANS, AND THE TELEGRAPH PANAMIK 
 AND LADAK LEH 
 
 O PLENDID visions of mountain majesty, wrapped 
 O in cloudy glory, ten thousand feet above Sasar's 
 crest; gorges riven as though by a giant's thrust at 
 the heart of mighty hills ; quick avalanches crashing 
 down the startled slopes ; torrents of boulders, wait- 
 ing to be unleashed by some puny force, that they 
 may rush to fill a valley or destroy a fated caravan ; 
 such are the memories that come and go as now, in 
 slippered ease, I nimbly fly where once I crawled. 
 They are memories that will not tether to the pen. 
 But there comes another image more tractable. At 
 the turn of the dizzy trail, we look across the chasm 
 whose sides we scale, and lo ! a tree, the first to wave 
 familiar salute since fifty days or more. Then the 
 naked mountains, as if resenting the too intimate 
 prying of man, now soon to be seen in his dwellings, 
 began to clothe all their secret places with leafy 
 growth. 
 
 The eglantine overhung our crag-encircling path, 
 and its perfume subtly evoked memories of the wild 
 approaches to Harar in distant Abyssinia, of plan- 
 tation lanes in sunny Louisiana, of youth and man- 
 hood garlanded, perfumed by this sweet, bold, 
 flower. While our delighted eyes are not yet wonted 
 
 120 
 
Trees, Tibetans, and the Telegraph 121 
 
 to these lovely sights, when we have climbed by 
 an ever-reversing, ever-returning trail far up the 
 granite facing of a high cliff, there lay far below us 
 the wondrous Nubra valley, green, gold, and russet 
 groves, yellowing fields of grain, and behold ! there 
 were men's houses! White, squared, well-roofed, 
 walled about, and set in orderly array, trooping 
 toward a goodly village called Panamirgh. A 
 nobler sight one may not see than this Himalayan 
 vale set against the far-shining snow -peaks from 
 which the high gods look down to bless. Here 
 Lamaism, sheltered by Sasar's icy rampart on the 
 north, by Kardung's glassy heights on the south, 
 still turns its prayer-wheels, flutters its painted ap- 
 peals to the passing breeze, builds its white shrines 
 more numerous than the living men, piles its myriad 
 carved stones on roadside monuments, sounds its 
 solemn drums, teaches Buddha's distorted word, 
 yet practises a peaceful life and a resigned death, 
 all unmindful of the thin streams of Hinduism or 
 [ohammedanism, flowing backward, forward, along 
 the road which time and Asia's genius, Patience, 
 have worn through the tranquil valley, over the for- 
 bidding mountains, this way to Yarkand and far 
 Kitai, and there to Leh, Kashmir, and all the In- 
 dian world beyond. 
 
 Dark superstitions may haunt the minds of these 
 remote valley people, but the outward expression 
 of religious feeling is seemly enough. The chortens 
 wayside tombs of saints and shrines for living 
 prayer are white, shapely structures, so much be- 
 yond the building capacity of any one generation 
 of this sparse people that they attest the secular 
 
122 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 piety of many ancestors. So, too, the long, low 
 mounds whereon are placed countless stones re- 
 sembling this book in size, each bearing in neat 
 carving the myriad -throated prayer, "Om mani 
 padma Hum." From twenty to a thousand feet 
 in length, from ten to thirty feet in width, these 
 masses built up of rubble walls bear not less than 
 millions of these mute appeals for grace and this 
 in a valley some sixty miles long, and containing 
 not more than six thousand souls. The people 
 have been hewn from the political body to which 
 they belonged. Lhasa is now only their spiritual 
 capital since the Maharajah of Kashmir, some forty 
 years ago, struck at Leh, where reigned a Ladaki 
 king who bent to the distant Dalai Lama's sway. 
 Now the king's palace is empty, and Kashmiri offi- 
 cials lord it over a land whose cue-wearing heads 
 avouch the long reach of China's emperor, overlord 
 to wide-stretched Tibet. 
 
 The present rulers from the West seem to have 
 emptied, by fright or famine, several of the big 
 monasteries, even here in secluded Nubra, distant 
 three hard days from Leh. But now again the 
 dingy red robes thread back and forth, carrying 
 consolation to satisfied believers. Groups are seen, 
 wayworn, of calm face and worthy mien, who are 
 just in from Lhasa, five hundred miles away. 
 They bring superstition, inspiration, and direc- 
 tion, as it would be brought from Rome to a 
 secluded valley in Spain or Mexico, by some pilgrim 
 priest of long ago. Perhaps because of the recent 
 exodus of priests to Lhasa, the lamas now, in all the 
 Ladak country, are not a devouring horde of locusts, 
 
Trees, Tibetans, and the Telegraph 123 
 
 eating up the people's plenty, but seem to be a re- 
 served and dignified body not over-numerous for 
 men so profoundly religious as are the Tibetans. 
 Throughout this vale of delight there seemed to be 
 a reasonable comfort, and with less apparent dis- 
 tinction between very rich and very poor than I 
 have seen elsewhere. The houses are rather large, 
 generally of two stories and of solid build ; the 
 monasteries, from three to six stones high, rose in 
 dignity from all but inaccessible rocks. Supplica- 
 tion to heaven is literally "in the air." Nearly 
 every dwelling floats a closely written flag of prayer. 
 Occasionally a vertical cylinder, set in an outer 
 niche, permits the passing worship to be made by a 
 respectful twirl, or the deposit of another prayer- 
 slip that shall find its way to others inside the cylin- 
 der; whence, if there be a listening God, I think its 
 spirit shall fly to Him, for in His sight there should 
 be no little and no big, no poor and no rich, no 
 ridiculous and no solemn in religious ceremonial. 
 Your softly breathed prayer, but for the thought in 
 your heart, is only a vibration of the air. The 
 cylinder-prayer makes also a vibration of the air, 
 and as there is a thought behind it, the celestial 
 values may be equal. 
 
 In each village we were shown to some proper 
 place for receiving the stranger ; abundant food was 
 procured, that is, chickens, eggs, milk, and bread, 
 and no effort was anywhere made to annoy us by 
 extortion. A pleasing drink, tasting 'twixt wine and 
 beer, cheered the thirsting palate. Curiosity to 
 watch our movements was strong but bridled. The 
 women looked frankly at us and merited our admiring 
 
124 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 glances at their comely features and their turquoise- 
 decked tresses. The men were genial, frank, and 
 dirty. We once more had become sensitive in 
 the matter of cleanliness, we could again criticise 
 the unwashed, for had we not bathed? Yea, at the 
 first village, riding up the mountain-side near a 
 high-perched monastery, we found a hot spring, a 
 blessed gift from the Plutonian deeps ! The awful 
 need which it subserved, the revelling joy which it 
 produced, give to that water a perennial current 
 through memory's greenest field. 
 
 The Maharajah of Kashmir was mighty enough 
 to send conquering armies from Srinagar, sixteen 
 marches distant from Leh, and reduce a country 
 whose military vigour had been sapped for ages by 
 partial application of the non-resistance principle 
 dear to the hearts of Gautama and of Jesus. But 
 the Maharajah himself was not mighty enough to 
 escape the "protection" of a valorous European 
 people whose hearts, like those of all their brethren, 
 have never learned to love humility. So it came 
 to pass that in Panamirgh, twenty marches distant 
 from the nearest permanent British official, we came 
 upon a proclamation of King Edward's enthrone- 
 ment, avouched in proper English and hung in the 
 dak-bungalow. In such strange and outcast places 
 do the antennae that radiate from London and Pekin 
 now learn to touch each other, to irritate, withdraw, 
 return, first at Leh, then at Lhasa, then farther 
 afield. 
 
 Thrusting aside all contemplation of the eventual, 
 the probable, and the vexed ethical, we rode merrily 
 on through this valley of sumptuous scenery, 
 
Trees, Tibetans, and me 1 elegraph 125 
 
 ordered industry, inordinate piety, and average 
 morality. On the third day we were at the base 
 of huge Kardung. Its glacis of solid ice proved 
 steeper, its eighteen thousand feet elevation nar- 
 rower, than the front and crest of Sasar. The 
 ponies on which we had cantered through the low 
 lands (twelve thousand to thirteen thousand feet 
 elevation) were quite out of the climbing if burdened 
 with aught save their own weight. They could have 
 done it on stones, but the deceitful ice laid hold 
 upon their feet and tripped them to a bone-breaking 
 fall. Substitution of yaks, happily found at the base 
 of the ice-slope, permitted us to top the slippery 
 height, whence we looked far down into the Indus 
 valley. Now, indeed, the way was won, for ere the 
 night had gone two hours, we were in the dak- 
 bungalow at Leh, and there were English maga- 
 zines, a few months old, but for us, contemporaries. 
 Lassoo had told us of the Padre Sahib we were to 
 see white faces again. Of these we found five all 
 told : an Englishman and his wife, a German and 
 his wife, and a young unmarried Englishwoman, a 
 few months out, all of the Moravian Mission. Yea, 
 and there were others, baby faces in both house- 
 holds. It was the usual story pathetic to all save 
 the actors. 
 
 For forty years this mission has been at Leh, and 
 there are forty poor Ladakis who profess some 
 sort of allegiance to the gods of the good sahibs. 
 Plainly, conversion is not supposed to be an intel- 
 lectual process. Its usual course may thus be de- 
 scribed : There is a dispensary whose bottles and 
 powders affect the body. There are brilliant chromos 
 
i26 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 shown before dispensation of medicine. They repre- 
 sent, crudely enough, certain stirring scenes related 
 in the Bible. The sahib, who knows the secrets of 
 the bottles, tells the wondering yokel that here, 
 wearing a purple or green robe, is God on earth, 
 here are His chosen friends, here, in sickly yellow, a 
 man new-raised from the dead. He tells them that 
 God on earth gave rules for living, the same in gen- 
 eral terms which they have heard from Buddha; 
 some particulars, and many European interpreta- 
 tions, constitute the bill of differences. Chiefly this 
 is told: If you believe that the God on earth, of 
 whom the sahibs now speak, is the true and only 
 such manifestation ; then, living as padre sahibs 
 live, you may inherit with them a glorious life eter- 
 nal. If you do not, the alternative is not pleasant. 
 I do not know how much it is emphasised. 
 
 As result of all this, the medicine, the chromo, 
 the good sahib, son of a powerful people, some 
 humble soul does now and then declare that he be- 
 lieves the God of the sahib and of the bottles to be 
 a good spirit for worship, and he is declared a Christ- 
 ian. No quibbling here about higher criticism, no 
 paltry inquiries into the authenticity of the Gospels, 
 no question of homoosian and homoiosian ; no tear- 
 ing to pieces of the miracles, no fright as to the 
 concordance between Jew-made prophecies and 
 Jew-rejected fulfilments. The sahib's medicine is 
 good, the sahib's chromo is brilliant, the sahib's 
 words are kind then the sahib's God may safely 
 be acknowledged. Poor, dull brain, poor tired 
 heart ! Rome and the Bishop of Westminster are 
 as far away from him as is the seventh pleiad, but 
 

 
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Trees, Tibetans, and the Telegraph 127 
 
 the medicine brought back the little one's fleeting 
 life. Such a brain and such a heart find God in the 
 quinine and give Him such name as may please the 
 sahib. 
 
 I think it would be a destructively pathetic expe- 
 rience for the missionaries were it not that the 
 gentle hand of daily custom leads us around the 
 sharp flints of disappointed emotion. The mission- 
 ary becomes attached in human ways to the human 
 lives around him, and the fierce letter of denun- 
 ciation against the unbeliever is unbelieved. The 
 simple, helpful days at the mission slip quietly into 
 years. Jesus will convert the heathen in His own 
 good time; meanwhile faith, and, above all, interest 
 in the new wing of the dispensary, in the new baby 
 of last year's sole convert, in the water-on-the-knee 
 case reported yesterday, in the folklore that is being 
 slowly transformed into literature, in the last white 
 man who flitted through the station, in the papers 
 from home with their strange talk of wild excite- 
 ment on the Bourse, in the letters from home with 
 their talk of mother and sister and cousin even 
 this growing now a little strange to the tranquil 
 hearts in the mission. Such lives have I seen in 
 Abyssinia, in Alaska, in Egypt, in Turkey, in Tur- 
 kestan, in Kashmir, in India. 'T is true my passing 
 glance could not read all that time had writ on 
 the exiled faces. Sometimes disease had drawn 
 its furrow across the once placid brow; sometimes 
 the eyes still mourned a dead love or a dead ambi- 
 tion. But generally, carried on the smooth tide 
 of occupation in medical and school work, the 
 mission life passes the measured hours with such 
 
128 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 contentment as you may find in household, in club, 
 or in office. 
 
 The predecessors of those whom we met in Leh 
 had grown old and had grown away from our world 
 in this sequestered western capital of Lamaism. 
 Age had come on to stale their powers, but not their 
 interest in this Himalayan home. Much persua- 
 sion, we were told, was needed to start them on 
 the twenty days' march to Rawal Pindi, where the 
 shrieking locomotive should remind them of that 
 noisy civilisation which was their birthright. 
 
 It was a stiff climb which took us up to the mon- 
 astery, temple, and palace, all looking protectingly 
 down upon white houses, half hid by trees, hay- 
 covered roofs, and broad bazaars. In the temple is 
 a great statue of Buddha thrusting its broad shoul- 
 ders through the roof, the head sheltered by an 
 added structure. One mounts a stair in order to 
 look into the quiet, benignant face. Here is no 
 agony of the Crucified. Repose of self-submersion, 
 of self-immersion, of the "dew-drop in the ocean" 
 that is the motive of a Buddhist artist. This was 
 Gautama's dream long time ago, and the dream has 
 been in the minds of millions since, and men have 
 tried to carve and paint this dream into the attitude, 
 into the face, into the very hands of Buddha statues, 
 hoping that other men, gazing in rapt vision, might 
 also have this dream, and that these many should 
 try to live it, and thus be led away from self, the 
 sooner to fall, formless, calm, as the dew-drop in 
 the ocean. For further guide to him who gropes, 
 candles are set at the feet of the statue, as saying, 
 " Here is eternal light ! " 
 
Trees, Tibetans, and the Telegraph 129 
 
 The Christian looks through such symbolic lights 
 and sees the suffering martyr, save where Rome, in 
 substitution, answering the heart's cry for beauty 
 and for love, has set Mary's beatific face; then, 
 above, he sees the radiance of the risen Saviour who 
 beckons to Him, to the self, and smiles a welcome 
 to that self in its eternal individuality. How should 
 the souls of men be gloriously tried if each might 
 meditate quiet hours ; first in a noble cathedral, with 
 its via crucis, its saints, its woman-god, its Christ 
 crucified and triumphant ; passing thence to a near- 
 by temple, where the silent, brooding peace of the 
 Buddha might be contemplated while time and self 
 slip unnoticed by; then, moving the body but a 
 stone's throw, entering a lofty mosque, untenanted 
 by statue or by picture, unfurnished save by the 
 Koran on a reading-desk, empty save of the felt 
 presence of the only God. This was an insistent 
 thought as we wandered through the sanctuaries on 
 the high hill at Leh. At my side one, a priest of 
 Christ; another, reverential before the Buddha's 
 altar which he daily tended ; and, waiting at the 
 door, faithful Lassoo, looking toward Mecca as the 
 sun sank behind the Himalayas. 
 
 The king's palace, a rambling, uneven, dark but 
 imposing structure, is now unpeopled. Across the 
 Indus, yonder a dozen miles away, lives the illus- 
 trious, once royal, family, poor but honest. Power 
 has gone to the Dogra, and his power in turn has 
 become but a mirage, floating at the pleasure of the 
 British sun. One of the passions of kings all the 
 world over (this does not include Napoleon) seems 
 to be that for private chapels. Our Ladaki monarch 
 
i3.o Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 worshipped in several elaborately furnished sanctu- 
 aries, one of which had not been opened for years, 
 it was said, when an obsequious attendant showed 
 us its unprovided altars. 
 
 On a high balcony or rampart, outside the palace, 
 queer little flags were flying, efficient to protect the 
 royal residence from devils, we were told. But that 
 may be symbolic. To European minds it would 
 seem much more important to know how to get 
 water into the palace than how to defy devils out of 
 it. Our own forefathers of the Middle Ages like- 
 wise put their monasteries (can a monastery supply 
 forefathers?) and their castles in just such impossible 
 places as these Tibetan buildings occupy. It is 
 humiliating to think that our monks were probably 
 equally dirty with the Lamas, and more obviously so 
 since the .dust of which we are all made has, in these 
 people, been left in its native hue and brown upon 
 brown is still only brown. 
 
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CHAPTER X 
 
 LADAK LEH TO RAWAL PINDI FROM YAK TO RAIL- 
 WAY VIA PONY TRAIL, OVER THE HIMA- 
 LAYAS, INTO THE VALE OF KASHMIR 
 
 WHEN we had seen the sights of Leh and had 
 watched its four thousand people pour along 
 the bazaar, when we had broken bread with the 
 hospitable missionaries, when we had sent the tele- 
 grams that quieted fears at home, then came the 
 breaking up of our little force. Mir Mullah had not 
 been willing to brave the Karakoram route ; he had 
 left us at the Kirghiz camp, and his prayers by this 
 time were rising again from a Kashgar roof. Las- 
 soo (who was here in the bosom of one of his several 
 families) and Achbar, must go with us to Srinagar, 
 for there were no English along the great caravan 
 road from Leh to Kashmir, and we must make shift 
 to speak with the attendants at dak-bungalows. 
 
 Because you have probably read Kipling, that 
 word has gone into my text unexplained, but by 
 some scurvy trick of fate you may be outside the 
 Kipling pale ; then, for you, dak-bungalow is post- 
 road house. They are open to all white travellers 
 and to big natives. You are supposed to have your 
 own bedding, and it is best to have with you any 
 European food which you chance to crave. The 
 dak-bungalow is a shelter, has several rooms and 
 
 131 
 
132 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 sometimes chairs. Your servants care for you as 
 best they can, and you put down in a book found 
 in the bungalow an entry of the rupee which you 
 have paid the native attendant, and which goes to 
 the up-keep fund. The whole caravan route is well 
 kept. There is a British Commissioner, assisted by 
 a native, to look after it. 
 
 Mohammed Joo and Osman, faithful, humble, 
 uncomplaining, these two would go back to Yarkand, 
 and they must hasten over Kardung, Sasar, and the 
 Karakoram, that the snows of coming winter might 
 not fatally entrap them, or imprison them idly in 
 Ladak. Grateful for the backsheesh which their 
 courage had so generously earned, they left us, and 
 out of our sight faded two who shall live in our 
 hearts, eminent citizens of that republic of the affec- 
 tions into which the memory of the traveller intro- 
 duces men of every colour, every tongue, every 
 creed. 
 
 Now we are off again, clattering through the 
 Himalayas, two stages in each day, changing ponies 
 at every post. For two or three days we are still in 
 the country of the Tibet people : long, black, and 
 dirty cues, three-cornered hats, rusty lama-gowns, 
 fluttering prayers, graven stones, rude shrines in 
 high places, eyrie monasteries, the scant, laborious 
 fields rock-anchored on the steep hillside, huddled 
 villages, the sinuous and sparkling Indus, the un- 
 attainable heights of snow crowning the barren slopes 
 such was the ever-changing, ever-recurring vision 
 which fleeting day disclosed, while night was for 
 deep sleep. Then at a turn of the trail we were 
 again, and for the last time, suddenly ushered into 
 
Ladak Leh to Rawal Pindi 133 
 
 the serene presence of the Buddha, where he stood, 
 carved in the living rock, as if the impersonated 
 Earth should to her toiling children say: "Peace 
 let the dewdrop to the ocean fall." 
 
 Just a moment's meditation, then we cantered on, 
 out of Lamaism, and slept in another world, a pukka 
 Mohammedan village. Pilgrims are met in the fine 
 feathers of new preparation ; they have but yester- 
 day bade good-bye to homes which shall not see 
 them until they return, glad and crowned with the 
 green turban of the Hadji. A dozen of them were 
 sheltered one night by the same roof under which 
 we had found place for our bedding. When the 
 waking hour had come, I lay awhile amazed, sor- 
 rowful, hearing from the neighbouring sleeping- 
 rooms such groans and cries as we give to our 
 dearest dead. Alas! has misfortune already joined 
 their caravan? Has Death so soon struck at those 
 who go gladly to meet him, but who would first win 
 the Prophet's smile? Perhaps I may serve them in 
 their sudden distress, perhaps the loved one is not 
 yet dead, and even that minimum of European 
 medical science which is mine may happily win in 
 the struggle with disease. Achbar, lethargic with 
 cold and sleep, is called sympathetic messages are 
 carefully set forth. Unmoved by the wailing, he 
 slowly answers, "That is prayer." Yes, but we 
 must try to help. "They cry for Ali." 
 
 Ah ! now my heart is relieved. He whom they 
 mourn died thirteen centuries ago. His name was 
 Ali, and he was Mohammed's nephew. Many 
 people thought him a sort of prophet on his own 
 account and that he should reign as Caliph. Others 
 
134 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 thought differently and enforced their opinion by 
 thrusts of a poisoned weapon, which ended Ali's 
 life in the year 66 1 A.D. His saintly reputation 
 lived and grew, and these, our chance companions 
 of the caravan trail, were lamenting his demise, as 
 all good Shiites do and have done, for lo! these 
 centuries gone. But their grief is controllable. Its 
 expression lasts just so many minutes, and, as I re- 
 membered when the spell of sympathy was broken, 
 is rhythmic, more cadenced even than the rudely 
 musical lu-lu which the black women in Africa chant 
 in misfortune's hour. 
 
 The recovery of spirits takes place automatically 
 as soon as the wailing is ended. Our combined 
 cavalcade set off as merrily as if Ali had never lived 
 or had never died. 
 
 Our speedy march soon left the cheerful mourners 
 far to the rear. We hastened on, dodging past the 
 slow caravans of commerce, meeting here the tins of 
 Caspian kerosene which once we saw in far Baku, 
 giving the courtesy of the road to a native governor 
 or what-not, whose escort swarmed the trail and 
 whose invisible wife rode for hours on end, silent 
 and stiff in her litter. We chatted (you may imagine 
 chatting through Achbar) with coolies who pack 
 dried fruits two hundred miles or more across the 
 Himalayas, fifty pounds, pig-a-back; we talked with 
 a golf-stockinged, English-speaking, joke-loving na- 
 tive Commissioner, fresh from Kipling's pages, who 
 proposed a drink and mystified Anginieur by calling 
 it a "peg," and then we crossed the Zoji Pass, thus 
 ending all hardship and dropping into fair Kashmir. 
 This pass is not quite twelve thousand feet high, 
 
Ladak Leh to Rawal Pindi 135 
 
 but it gave us a hard struggle through a new-fallen 
 snow. It is an ugly spot, claiming native victims 
 almost every winter and stopping for several months 
 of each year the thin stream of official or sporting 
 travel which sets toward Leh. There were twenty- 
 five Europeans up and down during the summer 
 which had just ended as we, the last birds of the 
 season, made our escape from the Himalayan 
 mountain-cage, to spread an easy wing over India's 
 open plains. 
 
 We haltingly trudged the steepest slopes; the 
 ponies rolled and lunged heavily in the belly-deep 
 snow, losing the trail on dangerous side-hills, and 
 finally we had once more the joy-killing experience 
 of discharging the animals and man-handling the 
 loads. But night found us under smoky shelter 
 we rejoiced in our success and the morrow ! Are 
 there not a few days in your memory which are 
 garlanded for their beauty and are perfumed by 
 their happiness? the day you learned to swim, the 
 day you went to college, the day you left it, the 
 day you were engaged, your wedding-day, the day 
 you won your first case, the day your underwriting 
 was complete, the day you were elected to the office 
 that sought you, the day your story was accepted? 
 Such a day comes to him who, breasting still the 
 Himalayan snows, out from the Himalayan naked- 
 ness, rides down from Zoji Pass, viewing the glorious 
 vestments of the Sind, where it rushes to sink on 
 the fair bosom of the vale of Kashmir. Hindoo, 
 Afghan, Persian, and Arab have seen and sung this 
 Eden, whose riches of spreading branch, clinging 
 vine, brilliant flower, and sparkling stream have for 
 
i3 6 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 ages fed the famished souls of travellers, incoming 
 from all the bleak mountains that guard it. Love- 
 liness, that would charm the senses in any land, here 
 ravishes criticism of its censure and receives from 
 flattered imagination the crown of perfect praise. 
 By nature's unwonted opulence sober judgment is 
 bribed, and declares that here is every tree and 
 shrub and flower that would delight the eye in gaz- 
 ing wide "from China to Peru." Set against this 
 sudden magnificence the splendid verdure of Cha- 
 pultepec, of the flaming Catskills, or the Abyssinian 
 Nile all seemed to me but grudging penury ; 
 so false is memory, so powerful is the force of 
 Now. 
 
 If the soul be but ripe for it, a gentle hill in Surrey 
 may outrear the mightiest Alps. But as we exult- 
 ingly galloped forward there was no introspective 
 scalpel that might pare the beauty which filled our 
 hearts. Absolute, relative no matter. Life be- 
 came precious because it contained this waving of 
 green, golden, and red banners, and each of us could 
 ride through the rich carnival as a king to his pre- 
 pared heritage. We had come into the vale of 
 Kashmir through its most beautiful gateway, and 
 we were among the few Europeans to thus have the 
 great canvas flung before them, for the first time, 
 from this point of view. The general travel into 
 Kashmir has been from west and south to Srinagar. 
 If then Ladak be sought, the traveller goes up the 
 Sind, as we came down. But the great lower plain 
 will already have shown him glorious views (though 
 a sparser beauty), and perhaps the piled-up riches 
 of the narrow valley will not be deemed by him so 
 
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Ladak Leh to Rawal Pindi 137 
 
 splendid as to us they seemed, coming out from 
 months of travel in naked lands. 
 
 One starry night we spent in this enchanting spot. 
 Near by, the Sind curbs his impetuous speed and 
 purls a gentle way, while his valley opens a gracious 
 door to those who come up from the flat, teeming 
 field below. The morning gave us sunshine, fresh 
 eggs, good ponies, and light hearts. To ask more 
 than this is avarice. And now if the eye were for a 
 moment sated with the leafy luxury spread before 
 it, there were men and women to gaze upon clear 
 eyes, graceful garments, upright mien, and some- 
 what of that Caucasian cleanliness which avouched 
 them as our kin. 
 
 Neatly uniformed natives were directing road- 
 gangs to smooth the path of commerce, and then 
 I knew that I smelled the blood of an English- 
 man, and, dead or alive, I should soon find him. 
 Ere an hour's ride had ended, ponies were seen 
 bearing such truly squared kit-boxes as are unknown 
 to native caravans, and coolies were met, shoulder- 
 ing gun-cases which fairly cry out in leathery tongue, 
 "We were made in England ! " Lassoo and Achbar 
 mingle in the train: "This is a Sahib's caravan?" 
 "Of course." "And the Sahib?" "He is there." 
 Aye, there he was, and the very back of him all 
 British, from the comfortable outing-gear which he 
 wore, to his imperturbable tread which puts sur- 
 veyors' marks on the vale of Kashmir and makes it 
 an extension of Regent's Park. His welcome was 
 not the less courteous, but his measured surprise 
 was the greater when the two white men who bore 
 down upon him proved to be not British, but a 
 
 
138 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Frenchman and an American rare birds in that 
 part of the world. Colonel Sullivan had started, a 
 few days too late, to make Zoji Pass and do a win- 
 ter's shooting in those fastnesses which, if they 
 would but yield the head of an Ovis Ammon, would 
 be for him Paradise enow. Note the distinction 
 between Colonel Sullivan's ideal retirement and 
 that of Omar Khayyam. The inhospitable wilds 
 of bleakest mountains, a gun, an arduous chase of 
 hermit brutes that is one. The other 
 
 " A book of verses underneath the bough, 
 
 A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou 
 Beside me in the wilderness; 
 
 Oh! wilderness were paradise enow." 
 
 Mark particularly the absence of "Thou" in the 
 first ideal. 
 
 There you have the conquest of the Asia that is 
 luxurious or literary by the British man, who has 
 two natures, one that loves and builds St. James 
 Street and the National Museum, and one that loves 
 and conquers the Himalayas. 
 
 Hindoo ruins, mysteriously suggestive ; a good 
 hotel; plenty of white people, sahibs and mem- 
 sahibs; golf grounds; gay marriage-boats on the 
 river boulevard ; shops overflowing with fascinating 
 goods and oily smiles of the merchants ; a meretri- 
 cious palace rising, effective withal, from the water's 
 edge and hiding the Maharajah's many wives ; din- 
 ners, all mutton because the pious ruler will not 
 have beef slain in his realm ; a busy, comely people 
 filling all the bazaars; two-storied wooden houses, 
 
Ladak Leh to Rawal Pindi 139 
 
 somewhat rickety but sufficient unto man's needs; 
 mosques and temples in neighbouring rivalry ; splen- 
 did tree-lined avenues leading toward the mountains ; 
 caravans coming and going; dogs and babies under 
 one's feet in the narrow streets such is Srinagar 
 with its hundred and thirty thousand souls domi- 
 nated by the great hill Fakht-i-Suleiman Solomon's 
 throne whose crown is half-temple, half-fortifica- 
 tion. Around it waving green fields, which are cut 
 by roads straight, smooth, and beautifully shaded. 
 And beyond the fields ever the white guardian 
 mountains. The whole valley is such a spot as 
 would be chosen by the high gods (if they had not 
 invented man) for exclusive garden-parties, with the 
 rabble of lesser gods peeking enviously over the 
 walls. Gods failing, the English will doubtless take 
 and "preserve" it. 
 
 Had not the home-fever now laid fast hold upon 
 us, we should have lingered in this fair lotus-land. 
 Our horseback days were past. We were now to 
 roll on the king's highway, four good wheels beneath 
 us. Three days, and sixty miles 'twixt rising and 
 setting of the sun, would let us gain Rawal Pindi, 
 lying over the western range. These are not tower- 
 ing mountains like the Himalayas, but high enough 
 to have cut off Kashmir from the greasy touch of 
 the locomotive, high enough to have given for ages 
 almost a separate history from that of the surround- 
 ing countries. Englishmen in Srinagar still speak 
 of "going down into India." Most of those who 
 hot-weathered in the English hotel had already 
 "gone down," as we were now well into November. 
 It cost us a pang to turn our backs upon Lassoo and 
 
140 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Achbar, who must hasten over the Gilgit route to 
 Kashgar. Lassoo had compounded in some way 
 with his Ladaki wife and no longer talked of spend- 
 ing the winter in Leh. In parting with these faithful 
 servants we were definitely closing a short, eventful 
 act in our life's drama, an act in which both of them 
 had nobly played their allotted parts. So, it was 
 with a yearning back to the Chang, the great, deso- 
 late, high plains, and to the humble companions 
 who had shared our toils, that we jumped into the 
 impatient tonga and were swept down the royal road 
 to the Outside. And the Outside is, first, Rawal 
 Pindi, which is on the railway, then all India lying 
 before us. It is in the guide-books and in Kipling. 
 You may drink it as beer from the guide-books or 
 sip it as nectar from Kipling. 
 
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 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A LITTLE STUDY OF THE MAP 
 
 f)OLITICAL history is as the flesh applied to the 
 1 dry bones of the skeleton, geography. Study 
 of the one implies knowledge of the other. Were 
 we not, from youth up, generally familiar with the 
 geography of those countries whose history most 
 concerns us, we should the more clearly and often 
 be brought to consider a relation which is obscured, 
 even by its familiarity. The osteology of Central 
 Asia and Tibet is peculiarly important to a study of 
 Asian politics because of its unusual characteristics. 
 While the field for exploration there is still con- 
 siderable, yet the important outlines have been well 
 determined by recent travel. To the practised eye 
 the map (opposite page ) will be, perhaps, more 
 instructive than textual description, but a re'sumt in 
 words will aid the general reader. 
 
 [Let us begin our survey at the point where we crossed 
 the Russo-Chinese frontier on the way from Osh to 
 Kashgar in the Alai Mountains, approximately 75 east, 
 40 north. Using round figures for all distances and lo- 
 cations, let us now go north-east twelve hundred and fifty 
 miles. We shall then be at the top of Mongolia, 95 
 east, 53 north. Everything west of this line is Russian, 
 everything east of it Chinese at present, and our top 
 
 141 
 
142 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 point is within two hundred miles of the Siberian Rail- 
 way. Now go east one thousand miles Russia to the 
 north, China to the south, the railway generally parallel 
 to our line of march, and two hundred miles away. We 
 have reached the western tip of Manchuria but the dis- 
 tinction between Manchuria and Mongolia, both being 
 Chinese territory, is not politically important. We may 
 go eastward another two hundred miles, into Manchuria, 
 making this second line twelve hundred miles in length 
 east and west. Now strike south-westward twelve hun- 
 dred miles, on a line nearly parallel to the first one, 
 and we shall have left Southern Manchuria and Northern 
 China proper (the China of the eighteen provinces) to 
 the east, enclosing Mongolia, lying to the west; now 
 westward, on a line which refuses to be even approxi- 
 mately straight, for it must follow a curve of the great 
 Altyn-Tagh Kuen-Lun range, but which is roughly an 
 east and west. line. We have now nearly closed our 1200- 
 mile trapezoid. We have reached the Pamirs; and by 
 running north about three hundred miles we are back at 
 the starting-point, having enclosed the area known as 
 Mongolia, and in the south-west corner of the pentagon, 
 which is nearly a trapezoid, we have skirted the region 
 known as Chinese Turkestan roughly, one million and 
 a half square miles, one half the area of the United 
 States. Now for Tibet. 
 
 Go back to the south end of the third line, near the 
 lake known as Kuku-Nor; thence go southward, cross- 
 ing mountains and streams if you can a hard journey 
 of, say, six hundred miles. You have the southern part 
 of China on the east, Tibet on the west. Now another 
 twelve-hundred-mile line, trending a little north of east, 
 Assam, Bhotam, Sikkim, and Nepal are on the south; 
 Tibet on the north, and you have been cresting the 
 Himalayas all the while. The valley of the Brahmaputra 
 
A Little Study of the Map 143 
 
 has been crossed at its unexplored elbow, where it turns 
 south, and you have seen it in the great valley north of 
 you, where for hundreds of miles it flows from west to 
 east and is known to the Tibetans as the Tsang-po. 
 Lhasa is in the valley not far from the great river. 
 Now to complete the investiture of Tibet, run a line 
 northward from the west end of the last line, a little 
 west of Nepal's north-west corner; make it about four 
 hundred miles long to join the Kuen-Lun range, and you 
 will thus enclose Tibet, lying to the east of this last line, 
 with Kashmir and part of the north provinces of India 
 to the west of it. Thus your straight lines are, respec- 
 tively, 1 200, 600, 1 200, and 400 miles in length about 
 six hundred thousand square miles in area. Every foot 
 of the boundary is in great mountains on their tops or 
 crossing impossible gorges of rivers that flow out of 
 Tibet; none of those you have crossed flow inward, be- 
 cause Tibet is high very high and the rivers are seek- 
 ing the seas. We have crossed, in drawing the first line, 
 north and south, six hundred miles the headwaters of 
 the Hoang-ho, the Yang-tse-Kiang, the Mekong, the 
 Salwin, and the Irrawaddy these are all the great rivers 
 of China, Siam, and Burmah. Going eastward we have 
 crossed the Brahmaputra and the headwaters of the 
 Ganges, or its northern tributaries. Going north we 
 have crossed the waters of the Indus. These are all the 
 great rivers of India. On the northern boundaries of 
 Tibet we have crossed the headwaters of the Keria, the 
 Khotan, the Karakash, and other smaller streams all 
 going to swell the Tarim or to be lost in the sands. And 
 the Tarim flows inconclusively into an inland lake, Lob 
 Nor, which has no visible connection with the sea. 
 
 And so it was also for running the boundary of Turkes- 
 tan and Mongolia, except for the desert streams from 
 Tibet, just mentioned, and the Kizil Zu near Kashgar, 
 
144 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 also a Tarim affluent. We found nothing coming in 
 all going out. We crossed, or passed near, the head- 
 waters of the Amou Daria (Oxus), the Syr Daria (Jax- 
 artes), whose waters go to the great Russian lake, the 
 Aral Sea, so-called. Then proceeding on the long lines, 
 drawn north-east, then east around Mongolia, we could 
 cross or see the sources of the Irtysh, the Yenisee, the 
 Lena all the tribe of Siberian streams that seek the 
 Arctic Ocean.] 
 
 We may now give meaning to the long circumfer- 
 ential inspection an airy journey of seven thousand 
 four hundred miles. It is evident that we are deal- 
 ing with great plateaus, one much lower than the 
 other. The Mongolia-Turkestan region has an 
 average elevation of about three thousand five 
 hundred feet. The Turkestan region, separately 
 considered, and with which we are most concerned, 
 is at once a plateau and a depression, since it lies 
 much lower than the mountains surrounding it. 
 This characteristic is not so marked in the Mongol- 
 ian region, as the Gobi desert area is in a sort of 
 great terrace-form, stepping up to the surrounding 
 mountains eastward. The Tibetan plateau, in all its 
 northern (much the larger) area, is approximately at 
 sixteen thousand feet elevation. The great valley, 
 toward which the slope is more gradual from the 
 north than from the south, varies from thirteen 
 thousand to eleven thousand feet elevation ; Lhasa 
 is between eleven and twelve thousand ; Gyangtse, 
 Leh, and indeed all the other considerable towns 
 in similar region are at about the same elevation. 
 
 The whole of the three great regions we have 
 
A Little Study of the Map 145 
 
 considered, Turkestan, Mongolia proper, and Tibet, 
 may be broadly put down as desert, save for a few 
 oases (chiefly artificial) and the narrow valleys, in 
 which there is some natural grazing, but which yield 
 valuable crops only to irrigation. There are some 
 regions of good natural grazing, considerable in ex- 
 tent in north-eastern Mongolia. But no important 
 concentrations of population are found except in 
 Turkestan and in the Tsang-po valley of Tibet. 
 
 Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan, which you have 
 patiently traversed with me, are the three big 
 towns. Lhasa, largest of Tibetan cities, is now 
 well understood to contain not more than twenty 
 thousand souls. The present inhabitants of all this 
 almost empty empire are much better fitted to the 
 physical conditions than any European race. And 
 for commerce, the Chinese and Hindus will un- 
 doubtedly hold all the trumps as against possible 
 white competitors. Yet, despite all these frowning 
 facts, Tibet is to-day the scene of a great and bloody 
 political drama, in which the white man plays the 
 r61e of hero or villain which shall it be? And 
 to-morrow, the Turkestan theatre will probably open 
 a rival show, changing the dramatis persona and 
 the stage setting, but closely copying the plot that 
 unwinds itself in Lhasa. 1 
 
 1 Some geological and minor geographical notes are given in an 
 Appendix, "A." They are taken largely from a paper read by the 
 author before the Royal Geographical Society, London. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE TIBETAN PEOPLE POLYANDRY AND MONAS- 
 TICISM 
 
 AT the foundation of Tibetan character there is 
 probably the Mongol nature ; an East Indian 
 strain has come in from the rough v/atershed and 
 flat valleys of the trans-Himalayan world. To meas- 
 ure the relative value of these ethnic elements is 
 impossible. Nor is this greatly important in view 
 of a diminishing confidence in our ability to sharply 
 define the traits distinguishing those various stems 
 which constitute the early Eurasian family. The 
 lessons taught us by embryology indicate that the 
 differences must be less as we approach the begin- 
 ning of things, and we look more and more to 
 long-continued geographical and climatic effects for 
 explanation of existing divergences. 
 
 Even in adopting the highly probable theory of 
 multiple origins for our race, we are yet bound to 
 a recognition of the wide range and enormous force 
 of earth-environment lying between the pole and 
 the equator, between sea-level plain and mountain- 
 top, between rain-sodden swamps and arid desert. 
 So restless has man been, that history records not 
 a single example of a social body known to have 
 been subjected to but one type of physical environ- 
 ment during the period of its development from the 
 
 146 
 
' 
 
 I; 
 
 c 
 rt 
 
 U 
 
 c3 
 
 II 
 
 ^ 
 
.. 
 . . 
 
The Tibetan People 14? 
 
 beast-stage, or lowest man-stage up to its present 
 condition. Assuming a tropical, sea-level condi- 
 tion as that best suited for first development, it 
 may fairly be concluded that the inhabitants of 
 relatively high altitudes and high latitudes have 
 passed through a relatively wide range of ancestral 
 experiences, and hence carry with them to their 
 modern and difficult seats an average temperament 
 resulting from widely varied influences. Thus, in 
 the most central marrow of his bones, in the most 
 hidden promptings of his soul, the Tibetan may be 
 urged by secret influence from the sun-heated slime 
 of the Euphrates delta, from the salty breath of 
 Aral plains, from the freezing winds of Siberian 
 forest, from the heavy exhalation of Indian jungle. 
 However composite he may have been when first 
 he wrestled with niggard nature in the Tsang-po 
 valley and its even less hospitable neighbour-lands, 
 he has, since that time, been singularly free from 
 miscegenation, and has had time to develop a type 
 strongly marked by the very special conditions 
 which surround him. A similar isolation may be 
 noted of peoples in the far north, of the Arab in 
 his inaccessible deserts, of the Abyssinian in the 
 northern part of his high plateau, of the Chinaman 
 in the core of his valley empire, of the African pig- 
 my in his undesired forests. 
 
 Unique physical features have, in each case, de- 
 veloped unique human traits, which shall be found 
 ineradicable within periods of ordinary historical 
 view. The process of "benevolent assimilation" 
 may then wisely be restricted to the control of 
 external relations and the introduction, slowly, of 
 
148 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 a few of the material ameliorations which art has 
 given to human life. Add, perhaps, a regularly 
 and sufficiently paid body of public officials (always 
 a late invention of society), and we have reached 
 the limit of healthful assimilation possible in a body 
 of such special organisation as the Tibetan state. 
 The constraint under which that state has developed 
 is chiefly to be found in the scant area of arable 
 land, the lack of a distributed rain-supply, and the 
 extreme elevation of the whole country. As to the 
 effect of this last very special condition we are un- 
 able to give definition. Certain physiological results 
 may, indeed, be determined, but just how these are 
 translated into physical traits we do not know. We 
 may assume, safely enough, that no such consider- 
 able difference of physical environment can be with- 
 out its due mental effect in man. It is not easy to 
 argue even from the known influence upon those 
 who suddenly enter these conditions back to the in- 
 fluence working itself out in the lives of those who 
 have never known sea-level conditions neither they 
 nor their fathers for many generations before them. 
 The most frequent mental manifestation in the new- 
 comer is an abnormal nervousness, often enough 
 culminating in insomnia. 
 
 At Leh (eleven thousand eight hundred feet) we 
 were told that a certain British officer had found it 
 exceedingly difficult to sleep in the town proper, 
 and frequently descended to the Indus bank, find- 
 ing in this change of about one thousand feet enough 
 relief to insure normal repose. Akin to this un- 
 pleasant demonstration of nervous excitement, is a 
 certain elation, not infrequently felt, if great physical 
 
The Tibetan People 149 
 
 effort be avoided ; and, in the long run of travel, this 
 may become a cheerfulness under difficulties which, 
 at lower levels, frequently induce heaviness of spirits, 
 if not actual discouragement. Certain it is that 
 every Tibetan traveller has met with conditions 
 which are always on the edge of being fatal to him, 
 yet in no recital familiar to me can I recall any ex- 
 pressions of that gloom which the honest traveller 
 in Africa or other lowlands has often recounted. 
 Certain also it is that in his struggle for life the 
 Tibetan is cheerful, almost gay. He is dirty it is 
 not easy to be clean when you are poor and live in 
 a perennially cold country, where fuel always, and 
 water often enough, are in scant supply. 
 
 Would you not, O dainty reader, compromise 
 with your morning bath if it were frozen, if you had 
 no fuel but yak dung, if you must strip in a tempera- 
 ture anywhere below zero? Since, in spite of his 
 dirt, which is a depressing influence, the Tibetan is 
 still a cheerful being, he may fairly thank the thin, 
 keen air, the clear sunshine, the blue sky, for the 
 simple joyousness of his narrow life. But these, for 
 their good results, suppose a living, nourished body, 
 warm with the internal combustion of food. And 
 there 's the rub ! Nearly all the Tibetan fields have 
 been wrenched from the valley's arid flank, have 
 been terraced and revetted against occasional rain- 
 flood, and then have been fed through a tortuous 
 ditch with water from the nearest mountain-stream. 
 The difficulty of thus obtaining workable areas is 
 great, or, in other words, the land supply in this 
 shut-away world being so closely limited, it is obvi- 
 ous that population must be correspondingly limited. 
 
150 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 The further difficulty of dividing small fields, which 
 must retain fixed relations to an irrigation system, 
 will largely affect the means which shall uncon- 
 sciously be adopted by society for its perpetuation 
 without increase. Here, indeed, we have the simple 
 relation considered by Malthus the pressure of 
 population upon sustenance, a relation obscured in 
 our world, where continued expansion into new lands 
 (either by direct immigration or by commerce with 
 new peoples) and continued invention, have com- 
 bined to fill easily an increasing number of stomachs. 
 But the Tibetans are so situated that their world 
 is apart ; it is for them almost as if it were all the 
 world a narrow, snow-bound, treeless, upheaved 
 world, in whose rough creases and folds they must 
 scantily live or incontinently die. That some sys- 
 tematic check upon population should appear, to- 
 gether with the variable checks, war and pestilence, 
 is to be supposed. The relative indivisibility of the 
 land has, I believe, determined the particular social 
 forms, polyandry and monasticism, as such system- 
 atic checks. A marriage relation so unique as this, 
 standing quite on the opposite side of normal mono- 
 gamy from the more familiar variant, polygamy, 
 challenges attention and at once declares the exist- 
 ence of special predisposing causes. This is not the 
 occasion for insisting at length upon the generally 
 intimate relation of property to marriage relation. 
 It will be sufficient to summarise thus : In highly 
 developed societies, polygamy (including concubin- 
 age) suggests concentrated wealth and privilege. 
 Monogamy is democratic; it suggests divided prop- 
 erty and privilege. Polyandry suggests poverty and 
 
rt 
 
 u 
 
The Tibetan People 151 
 
 indivisibility of property. If the last generalisation 
 seems hastily put in line with the two preceding and 
 more obvious principles, I think its truth may be 
 established by inversion of reasoning in considering 
 Tibetan conditions. 
 
 Suppose a family of three sons, without just now 
 inquiring into the marriage relations of their parents ; 
 suppose a patrimony of miserly fields, which are 
 barely sufficient to sustain the family in question, 
 and suppose this patrimony to be physically difficult 
 to subdivide; the house and court being obviously 
 indivisible, the fields practically so by reason of 
 their small individual areas and their relation to 
 water supply. Suppose it to be exceedingly diffi- 
 cult, nay, practically impossible, to have other fields 
 anywhere within a distance of hundreds of miles. 
 Suppose, in spite of these untoward conditions, each 
 of the three brothers to marry him a wife. We may 
 then postulate as follows: There will be a fight 
 about the division of floor space ; there will be con- 
 tinued wrangling between the families ; there will be 
 frequent and murder-making adulteries ; and there 
 will be too many children to be fed from the meagre 
 field, hence child-killing, or fell disease, must cull 
 the o'er-rich crop. How then shall two objects 
 be accomplished, that of securing a certain sense of 
 unity in the conglomerate family and that of dimin- 
 ishing the number of births? However we might 
 have ingeniously devised other systems, it remains 
 that, impelled by the forces just described, the 
 Tibetans have evolved a custom by which, first, 
 the property goes into the control of the eldest 
 brother; second, the wife chosen by this eldest 
 
152 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 brother becomes also the legal spouse of the younger 
 twain. The children of this woman are the objects 
 of a common affection, and when one of her sons 
 shall have grown to full manhood, and shall have 
 married a wife chosen by his parents, he in turn 
 shall come into a primacy of power over the patri- 
 mony, his elders reserving just enough to prolong 
 their habitual comfort not enough to prevent the 
 establishment of a new generation. And thus, in- 
 definitely, the cycle repeats itself ; not less regularly, 
 not less blindly, obeying nature's demand for new 
 individuals, than elsewhere in more favoured lands, 
 by other forms. 
 
 Should some rare good fortune befall, then the 
 eldest brother may choose another wife, even a 
 third. And so it may be, if the first wife have no 
 children, though the property be not increased. 
 And even when the number of wives is equal to the 
 number of husbands, in polyandrous marriage, it is 
 thought that the fertility of the women is less than 
 if living in the monogamic relation, thus securing in 
 part, that restraint upon population which is most 
 fully developed when, as is often the case, the three 
 brothers have but one wife. 
 
 Chinese officials reported to M. Grenard that 
 female births are to male as seven to eight. If this 
 be true, we have here a second, unconscious effort 
 to diminish the surplus of unmarried women, which 
 would result from the one-wife and three-husband 
 marriage, taken as the type of polyandric unions. 
 But it is by no means the universal type. Equal 
 numbers of husbands and wives in one family are 
 frequently seen. The women not disposed of in 
 
The Tibetan People 153 
 
 some form of polyandry are found in polygamous 
 and monogamous unions (not infrequent), in con- 
 vents, and in the loose life. As the various forms 
 of marriage operate to establish almost a balance of 
 sex-numbers, it results that nuns and prostitutes are 
 probably not more numerous than the correspond- 
 ing classes in monastic Europe. 
 
 The withdrawal of men into monastic life does not 
 affect the problem as directly as it would in a mono- 
 gamous country, since in the typical polyandric 
 family it merely results in a diminution, by one, of 
 the number of husbands married to the wife or 
 wives. It diminishes the number of women actu- 
 ally married under some form, only in so far as the 
 monk may be considered as belonging to a family 
 which might have enjoyed the luxury of mono- 
 gamic or polygamic marriage. Such monks are not 
 numerous. M. Grenard thinks that the various 
 forms of marriage are seen, as to frequency, in the 
 following order: Several husbands with several 
 wives ; several husbands and one wife ; one husband 
 and several wives; one husband and one wife. 
 Whether or not this be exact, it is obvious that by 
 giving legal recognition to this variety of unions, 
 the Tibetans have created an elastic system easily 
 adjustable to the economic condition of individuals 
 or communities. Relatively stable as are these aver- 
 age conditions in Tibet, it may well be supposed 
 that, in so far as they may be disturbed by war or 
 pestilence, there will be change in the position of 
 any particular type of union, appearing in the above 
 series, while the forces work toward the end of main- 
 taining a fixed population in times of normal peace. 
 
154 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 That even this ingeniously flexible system has not 
 been able to prevent the considerable development 
 of prostitution goes without saying. That is a bye- 
 product of all systems, or rather it is the fixed and 
 necessary product of forces planted in us when we 
 were indiscriminate as are the unpropertied beasts, 
 and even more indiscriminate than we shall be when 
 socialism shall have swept away private property and 
 marriage with it. The nested wild bird, the laired 
 lion, and the housed man those who have individ- 
 ually built or pre-empted houses for themselves and 
 their young, these are mated. But the man-pro- 
 tected barnyard fowl, the unsheltered grazing herds, 
 and the state-protected man, these are or will be 
 carelessly indiscriminate. And as we never find a 
 human society that is not in transition, bearing 
 marks of dead processes, so we never find a perfectly 
 symmetrical, definite marriage-system, or property- 
 system (these two are wedded), but we must ever find 
 irregularities, exceptions, vermiform appendices. 
 
 Our European-American world is one of private 
 property, tempered by state ownership and adven- 
 ture to wild land. Its marriage-system is one of 
 monogamy, tempered by adultery, with adventure 
 into the indiscriminate relation. 
 
 It is not improbable that other influences than 
 those just described have conspired to the establish- 
 ment of polyandry; as, for example, the need of 
 protecting women and children when separated for 
 long periods from that portion of the male popula- 
 tion which must be occupied in caring for distant 
 flocks. If one of three could remain, having at 
 teart the supreme interest of the Family, which en- 
 
The Tibetan People 155 
 
 globes all his own personal rights and properties, he 
 would be held to a duty which works in favour of all. 
 It may further be supposed that the impossibility of 
 maintaining strict observance of the marriage tie, 
 under these conditions of absence, which must have 
 been more frequent in the past than now, has led to 
 the practical course of legalising, and thus control- 
 ling to good ends, an irregularity which would other- 
 wise breed destructive jealousies and cloud titles of 
 descent. The whole thing may be viewed as an 
 example of family co-operation carried beyond the 
 limits familiar to us, because the conditions pro- 
 ducing family co-operation in any degree are like- 
 wise carried beyond all limits familiar to us. 
 
 The very rigour of nature's restraints in Tibet has 
 required a more flexible marriage scheme. As there 
 is no such thing as specific morality in the abstract, 
 so there is, in the discussion of this system, no other 
 reasonable inquiry than this Would the substitu- 
 tion of some other system, as ours for example, be 
 followed by greater or less product of human happi- 
 ness happiness in this world? That deep-searching 
 question will not be discussed in these pages. It 
 is sufficient to say that the best observers have re- 
 ported no special, considerable evil as traceable to 
 polyandry, and that, in general, social conditions 
 are, in the long run, adjusted, for the best good, to 
 the controlling physical conditions that "best 
 good" never resulting in an extermination, but 
 only an alleviation of inherent evil in our lives. 
 We, the strong, should be therefore slow to impose 
 our methods upon those whose relations to material 
 nature are widely different from our own. 
 
156 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 The feature of Tibetan life which would next at- 
 tract attention by its relative unfamiliarity is the 
 great development of monasticism. M. Grenard 
 estimates the number of monks at five hundred 
 thousand in all Tibet. This obviously is inaccur- 
 ate, if, as further supposed by several observers, 
 the total population be about three million. Adult 
 males would then be about seven hundred thou- 
 sand. Of adult males, M. Grenard estimates the 
 monks to be about one-fourth; but he neglects to 
 work out the result of this assumption, which, for a 
 total population of three million gives approximately 
 one hundred and seventy-five thousand monks 
 widely at variance with the first-given figure. The 
 lower total thus reached is far more probable. The 
 higher figure would, inversely, lead to a total popu- 
 lation of about ten million obviously too great. 
 Dismissing any attempt at accuracy in totals (and 
 apologising to M. Grenard for seeing a single bad 
 grain in a heaped-up measure of soundest wheat) 
 we remain astonished at the high ratio which un- 
 doubtedly holds in this matter. In explanation of 
 it, we do not feel satisfied by a mere reference to the 
 well-known ascetic doctrines of Buddha. Monas- 
 ticism finds in those teachings, as in the gospel 
 of Christ, abundant authority, nay, more, a very 
 special favour, for its practices. Yet we have seen 
 monasticism pass almost entirely from the Christian 
 world the doctrine meanwhile unchanged by any 
 subsequent revelation. And Buddhism has not 
 elsewhere produced such a full crop of adherents 
 (more or less formal) to its creed of abnegation. 
 The causes which filled Europe with monks in the 
 
I 
 
 rt 
 CJ 
 
 D 
 
 H 
 
The Tibetan People 157 
 
 Dark Ages may fairly be taken as related to those 
 that now crown so many Tibetan peaks with high- 
 walled monasteries. The contrast between the 
 European situation during the centuries when mon- 
 achism flourished, and the situation now, in Europe 
 and America, when it does not flourish, may give 
 suggestion as to what are the special conditions 
 tending to develop an institution which is no longer 
 prospering in our world. 
 
 The most general and striking contrast between 
 the old and the new, in our Western civilisation, is 
 perhaps this, a far wider present extension of set- 
 tled peace, a far greater development of physical 
 comfort, a far wider field for the fruitful application 
 of a man's labour to the piling up of treasure in this 
 world where moth and rust do corrupt. It seems 
 universally true that no inhibition in accepted creed 
 can effectively work to keep large numbers of men 
 from the pursuit of wealth, if that pursuit be rea- 
 sonably safe and reasonably productive. Vows of 
 poverty are taken by multitudes only when it is 
 difficult to escape poverty willy nilly. Moreover, 
 poverty is a relative term, and certainly the self- 
 denial to which monks are pledged often enough 
 became a comfort greater than that enjoyed by the 
 average poor peasant in the brave and hungry days 
 of old. Communal labour added its store to the 
 gifts of a superstitious people, eager to buy celestial 
 favour through a purchased intercession measured 
 to the price. Relative also is obedience. Not more 
 exacting is the abbot, bound by the rule, than the 
 temporal lord who in feudal day owned the homage 
 of his followers as well as the land on which they 
 
158 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 lived. And as for the third vow one cannot 
 strictly say that chastity also is relative, yet men 
 know the dark ways of compromise that have been 
 trod by those who failed to follow either the steep 
 heavenward path of observance or the flagrant way 
 of open breach. 
 
 In all the long record from St. Augustine's pro- 
 test against the upstart ways of the low-born monks 
 unused to respect, down to the recommendation of 
 a Christian Pope in 1650 that certain monasteries be 
 closed, their revenues to go to the Venetian State 
 for the making of bloody war; in a hundred ways 
 we learn that the cloister was at once a chamber of 
 travail and of triumph for a few pure religious souls, 
 and, for grosser minds, a comfortable refuge from 
 the rough battle of life, or an alcove for crime. Its 
 occupant made a better bargain with this world 
 than many a poor devil outside, caught in the 
 meshes of a society marked by poverty for the 
 mass, privilege for the class, and turbulence for all. 
 Such was European society when it bred many 
 monks. Such is Tibet to-day, save that the tur- 
 bulence perhaps is less than that which existed 
 generally in Europe during monkish days. This 
 probably is due to the steady pressure from with- 
 out from China a directing force which has 
 permitted the churchman to control the state, thus 
 making his career more than usually attractive, 
 while rendering the suzerain's task less trying. If 
 the country were a fertile, temperate land, even 
 this ecclesiastic rule might not be bad enough 
 economically bad to prevent an accumulation of 
 wealth among the people and a subsequent revival 
 
The Tibetan People 159 
 
 of lay power. But here nature seems to have 
 made permanent those conditions which favour 
 monastic development. Nor can it be doubted that 
 in spite of some moral decay (less, it would seem, 
 than in the shameful eras of European orders) there 
 is a certain civilising, conserving influence exerted 
 by bodies of men whose theoretical rule of life is one 
 of simplicity and chanty, and who keep alive the 
 flame of learning among rude peoples. True, theirs 
 is the puerile learning which was so dear to the 
 Christian mind for centuries so satisfying until this 
 world began to be made agreeably interesting. 
 And some may charge the monks with delaying 
 progress toward that betterment of physical condi- 
 tion which will alleviate the misery and eventually 
 lessen the ignorance of the people. 
 
 In an existence like ours, made up of inextricably 
 crossed cause and effect, we can see but a few se- 
 quences at a time. We do not know that an irrup- 
 tion of the Gauls, an establishment of the feudal 
 system, or an enraged Reformation, have been fol- 
 lowed by more, or less, of evil than would have re- 
 sulted from some supposed alternative course. We 
 only know that they existed ; that we may discover, 
 in close connection with them, certain elements of 
 pain, certain elements of pleasure; and that we are 
 blindly driven on to do and to undo. We may be 
 fairly secure in this, that the violent destruction of 
 any long-established institution by a force exterior 
 to the society which has produced such institution, 
 must generally be immediately followed by evil in 
 much greater proportion than good. The distant 
 future, perhaps, will balance the account ; yet 
 
160 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 uncertainty as to the result may well temper an ar- 
 dour for reform which often gratifies the sensibilities 
 of the reformer at the expense of his victim. 
 
 We (Christendom) have abolished Suttee while 
 we have extended the opium trade. The occasional 
 immolation of a widow on the pyre was a dramatic 
 tragedy which offended us, while the commonplace 
 stage-setting of the hovelled opium-infamy spares 
 our nerves and thus protects itself. So it may be 
 when Tibetan institutions are held in the glaring 
 light of European examination ; our sympathies, 
 which are but the furthest scouts of selfishness, 
 may cry an alarm, affrighted by evil in an unfamil- 
 iar form, and may strike at it hastily, not measur- 
 ing its true magnitude nor making survey of its 
 relations. 
 
 Imagine, in the European provinces of the year 
 1 200 A.D., organisations whose powers should be 
 those of feudal lord and prelate combined ; imagine 
 buildings which should be castle and cathedral in 
 one. Then you have, in part, the Tibetan monks 
 and their monasteries. Add to this imagination 
 something borrowed from the great overland traders, 
 lords of commerce, and you may then understand 
 the importance, in Tibetan society, of these bodies 
 of men who combine more functions than any 
 associations with which we are familiar. 
 
 With the complexity of function has come, of 
 course, a corresponding complexity of organisation. 
 First, there are the two great Orders the Yellows 
 and the Reds and several lesser ones. Each has 
 its General, supervising all the establishments of his 
 order. Each establishment has its head ; its officials 
 
The Tibetan People 161 
 
 for spiritual and temporal duties; its candidates, its 
 novices, its full-fledged monks of two degrees. Sub- 
 ject to the temporal rule of the monastery much 
 as in our feudal times are the farmers of a certain 
 territory who pay their rents into the treasury of the 
 establishment. Nor have the monks been able to 
 stop their development within the lines of peaceful 
 activity. Rude arms hang on their walls, bows, 
 arrows, spears, and the mediaeval matchlock. Not 
 more ready to be hastened toward the Nirvana of 
 their creed than is the lusty Christian to grasp his 
 promised crown of personal immortality, these 
 monks, who are men, have given blow for blow in 
 that primitive competition which still holds Europe's 
 self under the thrall of its fierce charm. Territorial 
 rights within the land have been delineated thus by 
 force; attack from without has been met by bat- 
 talions of monks; and attempted rebellion of the 
 lay chiefs has been by them subdued. Indeed, by 
 virtue of their superior intelligence and organisa- 
 tion, a long era of quiet, a true pax ecclesiastica, 
 seemed to be stretching mild years before the 
 country when the storm of British anger fell upon 
 the land. 
 
 Special privilege in Tibet runs not only in favour 
 of the powerful religious bodies just surveyed, but it 
 also upholds a lay aristocracy of inherited wealth 
 the term, of course, is comparative, for Tibet is poor. 
 The important lay functionaries of government are 
 drawn from this class. And indeed, the powerful 
 monks are frequently scions of the noble houses 
 younger sons who find, in their sacred role, a 
 larger power than can now be otherwise secured. 
 
1 62 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 The lower classes, therefore, have but little oppor- 
 tunity for individual advancement ; more, however, 
 through the monastery than in any other way. 
 Pride of family is strong, marriages beneath one's 
 inherited rank are rare. As in all lands, the posses- 
 sion of exceptional wealth may put a young man or 
 woman into a class above that of one's birth but 
 the opportunities for fortune-making are very few, 
 for reasons already outlined. In this respect, there- 
 fore, Tibet offers less hope (or fear?) of social revo- 
 lution than might have been held in Europe even 
 in her darkest hours. There, Nature invited, or did 
 not severely punish, the timid efforts of art and 
 commerce. Here, it almost prohibits. 
 
 Besides the ownership of their inherited lands, a 
 noble family may enjoy the control of certain State 
 lands, given instead of salary, for the exercise of 
 administrative function. Whenever this system of 
 irregular compensation is found, we may confidently 
 look for an equally irregular administration of just- 
 ice. Western civilisation is now outgrowing this 
 evil. The wide corruption in American legislative 
 bodies arises from a neglect of the sound rule of 
 fair and stated compensation for all public service. 
 
 A somewhat intimate knowledge of this evil has 
 been forced upon me in various affairs, and I do not 
 hesitate to affirm that many American municipalities 
 are conducted, in their legislative and police depart- 
 ments, with as much systematic corruption as has 
 been reported by European travellers and residents 
 in any Asiatic community. Our State legislatures 
 are bad also not quite as bad as the municipal 
 councils. Our city judiciary is bad occasionally, 
 
Friends of Ras Worke, Abyssinia. 
 
 Photo by Mr. J. H. Baird. 
 
The Tibetan People 163 
 
 but not at all bad in comparison with the legislative 
 bodies. Our higher judiciary is practically pure. 
 Our national legislature contains generally about 
 five per cent, of members in both houses who will 
 sell their votes for money, but probably would hesi- 
 tate to thus be brought to the support of any meas- 
 ure believed by them to be really vicious. Most 
 frequently and this is measurably true of all the 
 bodies here mentioned the bribe-takers approve, in 
 their unbiased judgments (if they can be said to 
 have such) of those measures to which they refuse 
 a vote unless purchased. 
 
 The five-per-cent. ratio of corruption for the Con- 
 gress of the United States is given as a hearsay 
 approximation by Mr. Bryce in his admirable book 
 The American Commonwealth. I had it in mind when 
 circumstances required that I should know the num- 
 ber, names, and prices of " approachable" members. 
 It is substantially correct. Now note the relation to 
 our comments on Tibetan organisation. Aldermen 
 .are practically without regular pay of any kind. 
 The government of a city is turned over to them 
 and they take their pay as best they can. The State 
 legislators are paid a little. In regions where living 
 is still relatively simple and inexpensive, the pay is 
 sometimes adequate ; the corruption is less. In our 
 national legislature the pay is sufficient to the sup- 
 port in comfort, and without modern luxury, of an 
 ordinary family. The corruption is still less. In 
 our higher judiciary, the pay, while not large, is suf- 
 ficient for comfort, and is, in many cases, assured for 
 longer periods than those fixing the legislative terms. 
 There is substantially no corruption. In city police 
 
1 64 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 organisations the pay is generally fair and con- 
 stant. The corruption here is due to two causes: 
 example of the aldermen, and extraordinary power 
 over public women, saloon-keepers, and gamblers, 
 due to our crude methods of dealing with the three 
 irrepressible evils. The same explanation may be 
 given as to the occasional lapses of our police ju- 
 diciary, though a reasonably high pay has largely 
 reduced the evils in this direction. It may thus 
 broadly be seen that when we fail to give a stated, 
 regular, and reasonable compensation for public 
 service, we find bribery taking the place of honour- 
 able reward. 
 
 We must recognise that we cannot be governed 
 without paying, on the average, nearly as much for 
 the talents employed as would be gained by the 
 same talents engaged in private effort. The rule is 
 somewhat obscured by the value put upon celebrity, 
 more easily attained in public than in private service, 
 and the varying degree of security in employment, 
 sometimes greater, sometimes less, for the office- 
 holder than for the private citizen. These ex- 
 ceptions are more readily understood than those 
 supposed to be offered by such great non-salaried 
 legislative bodies as the English Parliament. The 
 exception, however, is much more in appearance 
 than in reality. First, the hard work of Parliament 
 is done by comparatively few among the more 
 than six hundred members, and most of these few 
 are holders of salaried offices ; and, second, as nearly 
 all members of the House, and all members of the 
 Lords, are drawn from the wealthy class; and again, 
 chiefly from the class of inherited wealth, the nation 
 
The Tibetan People 165 
 
 is paying handsomely enough for their service by 
 permitting large patrimonies to descend from gen- 
 eration to generation, thus giving to the inheritors 
 a very substantial support, against which it draws 
 a moderate return of public service. Because all 
 inheritors of estates do not make such return, the 
 implied compact is somewhat obscured to the in- 
 telligence of some observers. The true principles 
 stand out more clearly in the actual relations of 
 the royal family, and the theoretical relations of 
 the nobility, toward the State. In so far as the in- 
 heritance of great fortune, without public service, is 
 continued, there begin now to appear adjustments 
 which express the public conscience on the subject. 
 These are obvious in England. They were loud as 
 the thunder, vivid and fatal as the lightning, about 
 a century ago, in France. 
 
 This excursive reflection upon the lordly states of 
 our Western world may seem to be an unwarranted 
 going-away from our text, which is just now the 
 poor mountain state of the snow-world. But the 
 comparison is meant to suggest something which I 
 consider more important at my hands than the 
 piling up of detailed description of Tibetan custom. 
 Other travellers have had much larger opportunity 
 than I to obtain such facts, and, in all their mani- 
 fold suggestiveness to various special students, they 
 have been admirably set forth in works from which, 
 if such full presentation were my task, I should 
 be forced to bountifully copy. But it has seemed 
 to me a better use of my small experience and my 
 reading to set forth only the larger features of 
 Tibetan life; to seek that which is common to us all, 
 
1 66 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 under various manifestation, and, lastly, chiefly, to 
 urge that inward charity of thought, and that out- 
 ward charity of act (soon perhaps to follow), which 
 is born only of intelligent sympathy. 
 
 This tendency to seek the good that is cloaked in 
 evil is one that may not at once meet the approval 
 of Exeter Hall or Faneuil Hall, though ultimately 
 their reach toward honest things would bring us 
 together. Uncompromising war upon an obvious 
 evil, with incidental wholesale condemnation of men 
 who have inherited an offensive institution, such 
 is the rough-and-ready method, which has a merit 
 that I shall not contest and cannot attain. 
 
 Polyandry, polygamy, monastic power, feudal law, 
 all these appear as abuses to the hasty eye ; and 
 indeed they fall within the universal rule of good- 
 and-bad, the bad being prominent to our examina- 
 tion. But they will "yield to treatment," to the 
 treatment of physical science relieving physical 
 want. Let us then give, nor urge even this, a 
 knowledge of those things which have helped us in 
 this world (as we think), and let this force work 
 its fated changes. As to our religion, let it be 
 offered only by humble, patient men who shall not 
 damn a thousand dear traditions as deadly sins. 
 Perhaps then some of their hearers will prefer 
 to utter the name Christ, rather than some other 
 sound, in addressing the Power behind the Law 
 and the Hope. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RELIGION 
 
 IN Tibet there are two religious bodies ; the Bud- 
 dhists, whom we now generally call Lamaists, 
 and the Pon-bo. These two have a common basis 
 in the ancient worship of a medley of gods, repre- 
 senting more or less obviously the forces of nature. 
 Connected with this mythology was a burdensome 
 belief in magic. Much of all these tyrannical fears 
 has survived even in Lamaism, while the Pon-bo 
 creed of to-day, which does not profess Buddha at 
 all, is substantially the ancient cult, still held by 
 those whose ancestors, for various reasons, failed to 
 "go over " in the days when the newly imported re- 
 ligion was covering the land. The lower, grosser 
 elements of Lamaism are substantially repeated 
 among the Pon-bo ; or rather we may say that the 
 vulgar Lamaist has the Pon-bo creed plus some 
 vague notion of Gautama's high abstractions. 
 
 The relation between the two bodies is similar to 
 that which might have been seen in Europe as late 
 as the sixth century A.D., when there still existed 
 communities professing the ancient paganism, while 
 enthroned Christianity had not been able to free 
 itself from a heritage of magic, witch and devil cult, 
 and had shifted the worship of the Finite from demi- 
 gods to saints. But then in Europe, as now in Tibet 
 
 167 
 
1 68 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 there were some (a few) who drank such pure water 
 as the higher creed may offer to the most enlight- 
 ened, thirsting soul. A personal, anthropomorphic 
 God, an individual, personal, corporeal immortality, 
 a half-militant faith in certain personal relations of 
 the Teacher these are keystones in the arch of 
 Christian belief not to be displaced by the most 
 generalising mind that would still call itself faithful. 
 And most helpful are they to the spirit of lower 
 flight, just rising from the earth, building its resting- 
 place with familiar concrete material. 
 
 Even the frightful vision of hell which, wonder- 
 fully enough, was not expelled from the compas- 
 sionate dreams of Christ, would stimulate rather 
 than destroy the faith of those who, in gusty bar- 
 barism, had sought the extremes of punishment 
 for their enemies, and had imagined their dead as 
 still on horseback, still fighting some undying foe. 
 Gratified with the hope of a happy resurrection of 
 the body for himself, the zealous saint felt urged by 
 childish reason, as well as by inspiration, to con- 
 struct for the unfaithful sinner an eternal bodily 
 punishment, equal in its kind with the felicity 
 promised to himself. Surely these are easier steeps 
 to climb, for untutored minds, than the ascent to 
 Buddha's heights. Here, there is no God, only an 
 unnamed, infinite, hence undefined, principle of 
 creation. The universe is bound in absolute law. 
 Separate existence is bound up, under the invaria- 
 ble law, with desire, and desire with evil ; death is a 
 portal, opening, first, to another life, whose evil will 
 be proportioned to the desire that has raged in this ; 
 through successive deaths life is led to Nirvana, 
 
e 
 
 TD 
 
 2 
 
 bJD 
 i 
 
 CU 
 
 p 
 
Religion 169 
 
 extinction of personal identity, the sole reward to 
 those who have wholly conquered desire in the 
 struggle of human existence. Our sins shall punish 
 another entity than that which is the present ego ; 
 our virtues shall ultimately help the separated drop 
 to sink again into the untroubled ocean, not to 
 sparkle for ever in some iridescent beam of personal 
 happiness. Nor can this return of the troubled part 
 to everlasting peace in the undivided whole be ac- 
 complished here in our life, save by an ascetic course 
 which lies far beyond the power of the usual man. 
 He, however, by strict virtue in the common life, as 
 father, brother, husband, neighbour, may happily 
 reflect that the Kharma of his life, the resultant 
 moral force of it, shall permit some other man, later 
 born, to start his course nearer to the goal, which 
 ever is extinction of desire and of separated self. 
 Truly this is too hard for rough mountain barbarians. 
 
 Even the corrupted doctrines which came to the 
 Tibetans a thousand years after Gautama died have 
 by them been yet further corrupted. A vast sys- 
 tem of Aberglaube (extra belief of Matthew Arnold) 
 has overgrown the Buddha's original impersonal 
 generalisations. Moral qualities have grown into 
 gods. ' ' Emanations' ' have become persons. 
 
 Myths of virgin birth, giving sanctity to Gautama's 
 mother; of infantile wisdom and heavenly prodigies 
 leading to worship of the babe by wise men; of 
 superhuman strength in human contest with spear 
 and bow, all these had been added to the Buddhist 
 arsenal of argument before the Great Vehicle was 
 taken up to Tibet from Northern India. Doubtless 
 they were of great avail in making converts. Weaker 
 
1 70 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 minds found support in all these grosser imagin- 
 ings, the work of all the early minds of like weakness 
 who had vainly tried to grasp the abstract, and had 
 unconsciously built rude scaffolding in the trees 
 when their wings refused to bear them toward the 
 sun. 
 
 Yet in spite of these deformations, the doctrine 
 retained something of beauty. It seems particularly 
 to have put a higher value upon human life, and 
 what we consider a grotesque value upon life in 
 general. It stopped human sacrifice and softened 
 men's hearts and manners by its insistence upon 
 universal charity. Much very much remains to 
 be done in this, the master work of Christian and 
 of Buddhist doctrine, but surely a beginning was 
 made among the wild people of the snows. The 
 troublesome element in the establishment of the 
 new faith seems to have been the monkish organisa- 
 tion. It at once became a rival in power-lust with 
 the lay chiefs. Nothing shows more clearly than 
 this the great departure which had been made from 
 the original teaching. Buddha, even less than 
 Christ, had imagined his followers as a sort of mili- 
 tant body animated by the demon of ambition. 
 
 There is nothing in Buddha's speech of the deep 
 partisan spirit ringing in the words, "If ye are not 
 for me ye are against me," and again, "I come to 
 bring a sword." But he had told his followers to 
 preach his doctrine. To this end, they had organ- 
 ised. Organisation carries with it the seed of con- 
 test, and we are at once led to Darwinian phrase, 
 while making the double struggle, to know what is 
 "fittest," and how to use it, for survival against 
 
Religion 17 l 
 
 our competitor. It seems not improbable that the 
 persecutions which drove Buddhism from India, its 
 birth-place, where it had greatly flourished for cent- 
 uries, were due to excesses of the monastic orders. 
 The people were unable to see the Enlightened One 
 through the dark cloud of his nominal followers ; no 
 reformer arose to correct the abuses from within, 
 and away they were swept, abuses and monasteries 
 and all, and have never yet reappeared in India. 
 Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, Tibet, China, and Japan 
 (after a fashion), these are the lands where Gautama 
 is now worshipped. 
 
 The early persecution of the monks by a Tibetan 
 king suggests that their organisations were full of 
 the spirit which caused their destruction in India, 
 but has eventually caused their triumph in Tibet. 
 Here they proved the stronger, partly because the 
 people were more ignorant, more superstitious in 
 their bleak mountain homes, and partly because of 
 the external pressure already mentioned. When the 
 purification due to persecution had again changed 
 to decay, another effort, this by reformation, took 
 place in the fourteenth century. There arose one 
 who, himself a lama, cried out against the abuses of 
 the lamas in their private lives and in their relations 
 with the people. Tsongkapa's work has been com- 
 pared by Catholics to Hildebrand's, by Protestants 
 to Luther's. There is indeed a similarity but also 
 a marked distinction between the Tibetan and the 
 German reformer. 
 
 Lamaism had not developed a power as concen- 
 trated as that of Rome. It was not necessary to 
 break from an all-including organisation, nor did 
 
172 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Tsongkapa present new theories of control. If 
 Luther, while insisting upon better morals among 
 churchmen, had, for furthering that end, set up a 
 northern Papacy, he would have more nearly dupli- 
 cated the work of his predecessor, dead a century 
 before the beginning of the great struggle between 
 mighty pope and simple priest. Tsongkapa lived to 
 see great monasteries under his rule, to hear his 
 yellow-hooded monks acclaimed by the people, who 
 turned their backs upon the older unreformed Red- 
 hoods. The order which he thus founded or, more 
 strictly, rejuvenated, became so powerful that ere 
 long its head was called the Dalai Lama, the great 
 Lama. 1 This great Abbot was soon recognised, 
 together with another Incarnation, the Pantchen 
 Lama, as forming a sort of sovereign partnership 
 over the whole country. And now the horn of the 
 Dalai Lama has been exalted, it is higher than 
 that of his brother or rival. He is called Glorious 
 King, while the other is Glorious Teacher, and he 
 has great temporal power added to his religious 
 function. 
 
 When one of these two has died, the other seeks 
 his successor; three children are chosen, signs of 
 special virtue in these three being discernible by the 
 
 1 Father Hendricks declares the true etymology would establish 
 Dalai as meaning Ocean as well as great, and that this name was 
 given to the abbot who was supposed to descend, in office, from the 
 Christian priests sent in by Genghiz Khan, a priest from afar, from 
 the ocean. Failing foreign successors, he who administered the 
 ritual of the Ocean Lama was called by that name. The similarity 
 of rites and organisation between Rome and Lhasa is believed by 
 Father Hendricks to be due to such early mission work. But 
 Buddhist ceremonial was developed before that of Rome. 
 
Religion 173 
 
 initiated ; their names are put in a golden urn, and, 
 in the presence of many abbots and of the Chinese 
 legate, a heaven-directed lottery takes place: the 
 first-drawn name is believed to be that of the child 
 who has received the Kharma of the dead. These 
 incarnations are called Bodisats, a series of individ- 
 uals ancestrally related to each other in so far as 
 Kharma (general moral influence left by a life) can 
 be said to constitute ancestry. They are in a series 
 which will inevitably end in the production of a true 
 Buddha, an Enlightened One, receiving that fulness 
 of wisdom which came to Gautama meditating under 
 the Bo tree. And this wisdom shall again declare the 
 ways of salvation to a world which shall have for- 
 gotten the messages already heard. The dreamers 
 of the faith have imagined Bodisats celestial and ter- 
 restrial ; they are here and there in various stages of 
 development; and the theory of them provides an 
 inexhaustible source of saint-making, yields an an- 
 gelic hierarchy and multiplies the objects of adora- 
 tion. The similarity between this evolution and 
 that of angel-and-saint cult in Christian history 
 must strike the most careless observer. The com- 
 mon effects suggest a common source, which cannot 
 well be an exclusive revelation. 
 
 The selection of a babe as spiritual head con- 
 stitutes a most important point of departure from 
 the Roman system, and marks the Tibetan method 
 as distinctly the inferior in respect to obtaining 
 meritorious chiefs. The way is left wide open for 
 cabal and chicanery, such as existed for a time in 
 the Roman Church, permitting children (a Benedict 
 IV., and even a maid, 't is said), to be named as 
 
174 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 the Vicar of Christ. There is no contrariety in 
 this choice of children, to the requirements of in- 
 spired pronouncements on doctrine alone; or to the 
 conditions involved in the mere existence of a 
 passive, meditating soul, forgetful of the world, as 
 in the abstract of the Tibetan creed. But masses of 
 men never get far away from the interests of this 
 world, save by the wide door of death ; hence upon 
 both systems has been grafted the branch of tem- 
 poral power and church administration, which 
 requires a stout trunk of personal intelligence, 
 sobriety, honour, and mature judgment in the chief. 
 The choice in Rome is now largely determined by 
 the known record of abilities displayed on a large 
 stage of action. As the Tibetan system makes 
 this impossible, the appearance of intelligence and 
 strength in the pontifical chairs is merely chanceful. 
 Power, therefore, is generally left to the ring of 
 monks who correspond roughly to the College of 
 Cardinals at Rome. The present Dalai Lama marks 
 an exception to the rule of incompetence in the 
 Sacred Head. 
 
 Between the two great incarnations and their re- 
 spective orders there seems to have been a creditable 
 peace for longer periods than would thus have been 
 measured, I think, had not the Chinese power been 
 strong to check, encourage, balance, as the interest 
 of the State and that of the suzerain required. 
 
 Ffee as was the earliest Buddhist teaching from 
 the almost universal beliefs in magic, witches, and 
 devils, these had already gained control of the minds 
 of all who professed the Great Vehicle when it came 
 to Tibet, of all save the occasional few who, in 
 
o 
 O 
 a 
 "o 
 
 OH 
 
 O 
 
Religion 175 
 
 every age, in every religion, have had clearer, higher 
 vision. There was, therefore, no generally recog- 
 nised principle in the new faith which could ever 
 make war upon the gross fetichism of the ignorant 
 tribes who were so far from all the world's centres of 
 thought. Yet even a closer touch at that time would 
 not have done much to expurgate from their minds 
 those childish and dreadful fancies which civilisation 
 has not yet entirely driven from Paris or New York. 
 While palmists, clairvoyants, and sellers of images 
 may flourish in our capitals ; while Friday bears a 
 shady reputation, and dinners of thirteen are much 
 less frequent than those of eleven and of fifteen, just 
 so long may we feel sure that on the far Tibetan 
 plateau we have found a long-lost brother with 
 whom, hand in hand, we wend a painful way across 
 the glooms of time. 
 
 "And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp. 
 Is 't night's predominance or the day's shame, 
 That darkness does the face of earth entomb, 
 When living light should kiss it? " 
 
 We, however, seem to be in the thinning edge of 
 the black, witch-haunted forest, while our Tibetan 
 brother is still in its darkest centre. Let us learn, 
 by translation from M. Grenard's vivid pages, what 
 we were, what the Tibetans are, by virtue of de- 
 veloping such ideas as those that damn the day 
 Friday and the number thirteen. 
 
 "Of Buddha, who established as principle the abnega- 
 tion of worldly vanities, who set forth as aim the annihila- 
 
176 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 tion of self, they ask riches, health, and the satisfaction 
 of covetousness and pride, they constrain him by the 
 most solemn of all ceremonies to produce the elixir of 
 longevity. Prayers are said for the dead, as if the de- 
 parted could escape the fatal consequences of their acts. 
 If Buddha is not to be moved, they address prayers to 
 one of the innumerable gods who surround him, each of 
 whom has his particular role, his special power, a shape 
 peculiar to him, horrible or agreeable, his personal char- 
 acter, peevish or kind, courteous chamberlains, gracious 
 ladies-in-waiting, generals, savage defenders of the faith, 
 fearful duennas, not to speak of the devilish beasts which 
 prowl in the neighbourhood, seeking something to de- 
 vour. The supernatural world is a court where good 
 and bad places are distributed for the life to come, as 
 well as spiritual graces and temporal goods, calamities 
 and misfortunes. To obtain the one, and to escape the 
 others, the Tibetans exhaust themselves in attempts, in 
 petitions, in intrigues, and in gifts. They build thou- 
 sands of temples, make thousands of statues, burn 
 myriads of sticks of incense, prostrate themselves, chant 
 hymns, murmur endless prayers, grind still greater num- 
 bers of them in water- or hand-mills, recite the rosary, 
 celebrate solemn services, make offerings and give ban- 
 quets to all the gods and devils, wear amulets and relics, 
 write talismans, and fly streamers covered with prayers 
 or emblems of good-luck, which the breeze scatters to 
 the four winds, accumulate countless heaps of stones 
 covered with pious inscriptions, turn around all the 
 objects which they consider sacred, mountains, lakes, 
 temples, stone piles, make processions and pilgrimages, 
 swallow indulgences in the shape of pills, which the 
 lamas have compounded with relics, imbibe with contri- 
 tion the heavenly nectar composed of the ten impurities, 
 such as human flesh, the excrements, and urine, practice 
 
"Religion 17? 
 
 exorcism, necromancy, and magic, even to obtain spiritual 
 blessings, enact pious mysteries, perform strange and 
 furious dances to drive away or destroy the demon; and 
 thus is Tibet wildly caught up and carried off by the 
 whirlwind of religious insanity." 
 
 It is not intended here to treat at length of the 
 language and literature of Tibet. Several specialists 
 such as Csoma de Koros, Ed. Foucaux, A. A. 
 Georgi, H. A. Jaeschke, and W. W. Rockhill may 
 be consulted by those who desire to study these 
 subjects. 
 
 Very briefly it may be stated that the Tibetan 
 dialects are said to be of the Tibeto-Burman family, 
 which, in turn, is referred to the Turano-Scythian 
 stock. 
 
 Changes of pronunciation that have taken place 
 in the last twelve hundred years have not been 
 followed by corresponding changes in the original 
 written forms of words. Tibetan orthography, there- 
 fore, as tested by present usage of spoken words, is 
 perhaps farther removed from a true phonetic sys- 
 tem than is the orthography of any other language 
 pretending to represent sounds by letters. 
 
 Tibetan literature consists almost exclusively of 
 sacred writings and historical records. Their char- 
 acter may be given approximately by the one word 
 ' ' monkish. " It is the literature of our own dark ages. 
 
 In Appendix C are to be found some examples of 
 Tibetan songs, as gathered from the lips of the 
 people by Moravian missionaries. Many readers, 
 I think, will be surprised at the gracefulness of 
 thought appearing in these compositions. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 INDUSTRY AND ART TIBETAN ARCHITECTS 
 CARAVAN VS. RAILWAY 
 
 AMONG the notable achievements of our mount- 
 ain fplk must be accounted their progress as 
 builders. /Such structures as the great monasteries 
 and the kingly residences would be remarked in any 
 country, at least for their magnitude. In China 
 are pagodas high enough, in India are magnificent 
 mosques, of one clear spring from floor to dome- 
 top ; but neither in China nor in India are to be seen 
 such many-storied, myriad-roomed buildings as in 
 Tibet. Yet from China and from India have come 
 the seeds of all development beyond the tent and 
 the hut. Special influences have caused the extra- 
 ordinary growth of the building art among a people 
 whose souls are not mechanical./ Analysis of such 
 a result, in the absence of full historical data, is 
 hazardous, hence somewhat tempting. 
 /Three conditions have seemed 4o me chiefly re- 
 sponsible for a superiority, which, in comparing all 
 other characteristics with those of their neighbours, 
 may be considered as almost an eccentricity of the 
 Tibetans: An abundance of stone, steep roughness 
 of building sites, and the communal life of the 
 monks, these three conditions conspire to produce 
 the sky-scraping masses, in which are hived the 
 
 178 
 
Industry and Art 
 
 179 
 
 pious bees who sip every flower that blooms in 
 Tibet. In a land so sterile and so cold, architecture 
 is saved from rioting into an over-florid style and is 
 even stunted in its outreachings toward grace, but 
 it attains unto dignity. As in every similar case of 
 a single inspiration operating within almost unvary- 
 ing environment, there results great uniformity, 
 such, indeed, that the monasteries of Ladak and 
 those around Sining in the Far East might change 
 places over night without discovery./ It is highly 
 suggestive as to the future possible development of 
 the Tibetan people that, given a powerful impulse 
 in a given direction, they have shown engineering 
 capacity of so high an order as that involved in the 
 erection of these great structures. That they have 
 often chosen the most inaccessible among many 
 difficult sites may be due chiefly to the same mili- 
 tary consideration which determined the uncomfort- 
 able and picturesque locations of so many European 
 piles built in the brave days of old. It is pleasing 
 to think, also, that the artistic fitness of the thing 
 isolation of dwelling, and withdrawal from the 
 world's illusions may have partly ruled the build- 
 ers' minds. 
 
 Shall we also charitably assume that the theoreti- 
 cal unworldliness of the ruling class may account for 
 the neglect of ways of communication? One who 
 has been tried by these roads is quick to wrath, yet 
 I have seen as bad in Abyssinia as in Ladak. And 
 every traveller in China bewails the strange lack of 
 public spirit which bequeaths to each generation the 
 ruts and bumps of its predecessor. Even America, 
 inspired with mechanical cult, sins greatly in this 
 
i8o Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 respect. Wheeled vehicles would demand a vast 
 expenditure probably an impossible sum for so 
 poor a country as Tibet, having such long lines, 
 such rough conditions. Until the wagon road is 
 justified, pack-trails remain everywhere just good 
 enough to permit passage, and are an abiding marvel 
 to European travellers. 
 
 Several continuous tracks may be followed from 
 Lhasa to China ; the route followed by the English 
 expedition from Darjeeling is the shortest line con- 
 necting Lhasa with the civilised world; a long, 
 difficult line leads to the far west of Tibet and to 
 Ladak, now belonging to Kashmir; branching to 
 the south from this east-and-west trail are several 
 possible routes leading into Nepal. To the north 
 there are no recognised lines save well to the east, 
 going up to the Kokonor region, and, farther west, 
 a pilgrim route for Mongolians coming to their Holy 
 City. The main streams of commerce flow to and 
 fro 'twixt China and Tibet. 
 
 The burly yak demands as little in the way of 
 footing and of food as any self-respecting beast 
 could ask, yet even he must pant and strain and die 
 in the hard scramble over glacier and stone that 
 mark the long leagues to China. Slower than the 
 horse, the yak is also surer-footed and less easily 
 frozen to death. He makes up into an irregular 
 jumbled caravan, never learning the strict discipline 
 of single-file march, which ponies are taught to pre- 
 fer, and which camels seem to have learned in an 
 earlier incarnation. It is this impassive, dignified 
 brute, the camel, who has so powerfully affected 
 the imaginations and thus falsified the calculations 
 
Industry and Art 181 
 
 of European travellers in their estimates of Oriental 
 wealth. 
 
 When Europe was poor, Asia was relatively rich, 
 but never as rich as the camel would have one be- 
 lieve. When you see even a hundred of him mark- 
 ing the distant plain with immutable pace you would 
 swear him to be some gnome in Pluto's service, 
 bearing half a world's wealth. But the simplest 
 arithmetic shows that the whole caravan load is less 
 in weight than that of one big American freight car. 
 So it is that only the most precious commodities 
 can be interchanged even at the astonishingly low 
 per-diem rates of hire for man, and the equally 
 low rate of food-consumption exacted by the self-re- 
 straining brute. Thus let us pursue the calculation 
 on the basis of forty cents per day per camel, paid 
 by us to the Kirghiz in Western Tibet. Each burden 
 was about four hundred pounds, and the day's 
 march averaged about fifteen miles; that makes the 
 cost per ton-mile about thirteen cents. On the 
 great railways of America the corresponding figure 
 is 0.65 cents, or one twentieth as great. Such com- 
 parisons have led to the dreaming of fabulous profits 
 by the over-zealous promoters of steam railways 
 in caravan lands, the infirmity of their calculations 
 arising from an over-estimate of the total amount 
 of merchandise to be handled. 
 
 The dominating feature of Tibetan traffic is tea, 
 imported from China, chiefly through the mart of 
 Ta-chien-lu, where caravans sent from Lhasa and 
 even from Shegatze are loaded annually with thir- 
 teen millions of pounds of the heaven-sent leaf. 
 Coming out of Tibet, their loads have been lighter 
 
1 82 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 wool, hides, musk, amber, saffron, and some gold- 
 dust from the various small placer-works of the 
 Himalayan slopes. 
 
 Compared with this tea-trade, all other commer- 
 cial movements in Tibet are insignificant. 
 
 A few European trinkets and some cotton goods, 
 a small quantity of amber, and, lately, a fair volume 
 of rupees are brought in exchange for the wool and 
 gold-dust and Chinese tea which go into Nepal or 
 Sikkim, and a little to Ladak. If we consider the 
 tea-trade alone at Ta-chien-lu, its value there, in- 
 creased by, say, twenty per cent., will cover the total 
 foreign trade of the country. Considered as weight 
 of merchandise to be transported, it will exceed that 
 of all outgoing and all other incoming goods. In 
 the Ta-chien-lu market, M. Grenard, whose figures 
 are the latest reliably reported, found common 
 varieties worth about seven cents per pound (8.5 
 pence per kilo), while high grades sold at about 
 twenty cents per pound. It is probable that there 
 is much more of the former than of the latter. We 
 may take ten cents per pound as an approximate 
 average. Hence it would appear that the Tibetans 
 pay $1,300,000 for that staple, which means more 
 to them than does any other food, except bread, to 
 any civilised people. Increasing this by twenty per 
 cent, we find $1,560,000 as the approximate total of 
 their present purchasing power. 
 
 The average price of tea in Lhasa (Grenard) 
 seems to be about twenty-five cents per pound, cost 
 of transport and profit having added one hundred 
 and fifty per cent, of the value at Ta-chien-lu. If 
 we assume ten cents per pound for transport and 
 
Industry and Art 183 
 
 five cents for profit we shall fall measurably near 
 the figure above given for caravan charges (thirteen 
 pence per ton-mile) and measurably near the figure 
 for profit which would be enforceable as against 
 frauds on the custom house and the recognised 
 monopolies. The figure thus given for annual trans- 
 port charges, say $1,500,000 (or, say, 300,000), is 
 one that appeals somewhat to our cupidity. But 
 let us study it further, first remarking that the city 
 of Washington, with three hundred thousand in- 
 habitants (about one-tenth the population of Tibet), 
 pays twice as much annually for its tramway fares, 
 i. e., twice as much as Tibet pays for substantially 
 all of its "long-haul" freight service. The thirteen 
 million pounds of tea may, with other imports, sup- 
 posing all to be concentrated at one point, be in- 
 creased to a total of say sixteen million pounds of 
 incoming merchandise. Taking a sixty-car train of 
 modern American freight cars, we see that six trains 
 per year would haul the entire imported load of the 
 country, and these trains, outgoing, would not be 
 more than half-filled. 
 
 The length of line over which this sixteen million 
 pounds must be carried is something like twelve 
 hundred miles. The idea of building a railway of 
 such length in such country is, indeed, fantastic; 
 but, merely to pursue the matter to its limits from 
 our usual point of view, let us calculate such con- 
 struction at the low figure of sixty thousand dollars 
 per mile, then the interest charge at five per cent, 
 on seventy-two million dollars is more than double 
 the amount now paid for freight transportation, even 
 though the rate be twenty times that familiar in 
 
184 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Western countries. The substitution of the shorter 
 line of caravan travel via the Chumbi valley to Dar- 
 jeeling would diminish the national expenditure for 
 transportation by a considerable amount probably 
 would cut it in half. But, short as that line is, its 
 profile is such as to make railway construction and 
 permanent railway operation fall beyond the bounds 
 of practicability. Invention must make some other 
 great conquest of nature's secrets ere the Himalayas 
 be scaled by other transport than the crawling 
 caravan. 
 
 Let us not fancy, then, that we shall be able to 
 bless the Tibetans with our civilisation, which is dis- 
 tinctly that of steam, marked in a hundred ways by 
 steam ; set off by steam in a hundred ways from 
 the European civilisation which preceded it; and 
 which, indeed, being without steam, resembled the 
 Tibetan civilisation more than it resembles us. We 
 are its children, indeed, but children who have seen 
 another light. 
 
 In Tibet, where the country is particularly stub- 
 born against the engineer's attacks, we may find in 
 the years to come our only refuge in all the civilised 
 world from the clangour of our Frankenstein's bells. 
 Let us here and now offer up thanks to a foreseeing 
 Providence for that the Himalayas have been made 
 high and steep. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SKETCH OF TIBETAN HISTORY FROM MISTY BEGIN- 
 NINGS, 350 A.D. (?), TO JOHN BULL'S 
 
 APPEARANCE 
 
 HERE all is darkness until the fourth or fifth 
 century of our era. In Chinese records, long 
 anterior to the establishment of an ordered state, 
 reference is made to the Kiang tribes of the Koko- 
 nor and adjoining regions; but they seem to have 
 been then merely savage bands, not constituting an 
 organised government advanced beyond the tribal 
 status. The impulsion toward centralisation came 
 from without, and may have been accompanied by 
 some measure of compulsion, though the record 
 runs that a disaffected prince from the province of 
 Kan-su (North China) moved his people westward 
 and established himself among the Kiang tribes, 
 who were won to his sway by his justice and firm- 
 ness as a ruler. This exodus is presumed to have 
 taken place about 433 A.D. The name of Fanni is 
 given the leader, and his nationality is presump- 
 tively Chinese. It must be remembered, however, 
 that the region from which he came lies not far from 
 the home of the northern barbarians, and that the 
 time was, and for a century had been, one of great 
 disorder, marked by incursions of the Mongols across 
 the line of the Great Wall. 
 
 185 
 
1 86 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 It is not improbable that these semi-civilised im- 
 migrants into what is now Tibetan territory were of 
 mixed blood, in which the nomadic Mongol instinct 
 predominated over the stay-at-home feeling of the 
 true Chinaman from the central provinces, who had 
 civilised and absorbed several conquering hordes of 
 the north. However that may be, the subsequent 
 fusion with indigenous tribes has produced a type 
 easily distinguishable from that of Pekin. Tib- 
 etan chronicles, written by Buddhist lamas, boldly 
 ascend beyond the fairly well-established date of 
 the coming of Fanni, and recite legends concern- 
 ing kings from the south. To derive their nation's 
 origin from this quarter would flatter their religious 
 prejudices. The unsatisfying character of these 
 legends, until the stream of them reaches the time 
 and event set forth by the Chinese records, tends 
 to give to the latter a yet greater credence. Never- 
 theless, the traditions looking toward India, or at 
 least toward Bhutan and Nepal, are not to be wholly 
 neglected. Travel between Tibetan territory and 
 any other is, indeed, hard, but between Central 
 Tibet and Nepal it is easier than with Western China. 
 
 It is not improbable that there is something of 
 truth in these stories of southern kings establishing 
 dynasties antedating by several centuries that which 
 was founded by Fanni. There is space enough, 
 and the central (Lhasa) region is separated from 
 the eastern districts by enough physical difficulty to 
 justify the supposition that independent, though 
 inconsiderable, states may have existed in the Tsang 
 valley before Fanni came to the north-east region. 
 His success there may have soon resulted in coali- 
 
Sketch of Tibetan History 187 
 
 tion of government and blood with the central and 
 western peoples, thus putting into the veins of the 
 modern Tibetan strains which run from widely sep- 
 arated sources, and producing a type marked by 
 special characteristics. It cannot be supposed, 
 however, that the immigration from the south was 
 numerous or that it came from the splendid Hindu 
 civilisation which lay south and west of Nepal, and 
 which was highly developed long before even the 
 legendary beginning of the southern dynasties (circa 
 300 B.C.). For even these prejudiced compilers of 
 the pro-Indian stories declare that knowledge of 
 arithmetic was imported from China about the year 
 600 A.D., and, though the art of writing is said to 
 have come from India, it is evident that it came but 
 as a part of the Buddhistic mission work and was 
 not known until the year 632 A.D. The Hindu 
 civilisation would have furnished both these accom- 
 plishments from the beginning of any colonisation 
 traceable to such a source. 
 
 Nothing could better illustrate the seclusion of 
 this people than this extraordinarily late date for the 
 introduction of the three R's. It suggests that the 
 Fanni movement was, indeed, that of a people on 
 the rim of Chinese civilisation and that the mythical 
 Indian kings of the lamas' chronicles were but rude 
 mountain chiefs from Bhutan or Nepal. Turkestan, 
 desert- and mountain-bound as it is, had its letters 
 eight hundred years earlier than this secluded land 
 a Bastile built by demons, where a nation might 
 be forgotten. 1 
 
 1 In accepting the early part of the seventh century as the date of 
 writing's birth in Tibet, we must compromise with a Chinese record, 
 
1 88 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 /The acceptance of a religious creed by a people 
 /already endowed with civil arts can never be as pro- 
 foundly efficient to inspire a national development 
 as when there monies to barbarians, with religion, a 
 first knowledge also of all the things which make 
 for material enlightenment. Adopted Christianity 
 could not save the gilded-, educated Rome, which 
 enthroned it, from a direful fall. But given to the 
 invading barbarians, with all the retinue of Roman 
 
 quoted by Rockhill, which would seem to establish the existence as 
 early as the year 600 A.D. of a woman-governed country, lying in 
 Eastern Tibet, and near to the territory occupied by the Tu-Ku-Hun 
 (Fanni) immigrants. The difficulty presented by this record lies in 
 the fact that the queen is reported as living in a nine-storied house, 
 and her subjects as occupying smaller, yet considerable buildings. 
 It seems incredible that a people capable of such engineering as is 
 involved in the construction of great buildings should be without a 
 written language. If this woman's kingdom existed as reported, if 
 it had a written language, then the larger Tibetan state, whose or- 
 ganisation must have included the domains of the legendary queens 
 would not have stood in need of an imported alphabet ; and, 
 further, a nine-storied civilisation could fairly be expected to leave 
 some record of its existence, written or traditional, among the people 
 who are its direct descendants. Yet, apparently only the Chinese 
 learned of the extraordinary society which they report as having its 
 seats adjacent to those of the other sixth-century peoples, the Tu- 
 Ku-Hun and the T'ang Hsiang. Both of these are described by 
 the same records as living in tents, signifying a rude, nomadic life 
 strongly contrasted with the civil development suggested by the 
 royal "sky-scraper." If this record bore a later date; if its inser- 
 tion in the Sui annals were due to an error of a century, then we 
 might believe that Chinese travellers found an accidental case of 
 woman's rule, following the introduction of Indian and Chinese 
 learning and art ; and that an obsequious chronicler exaggerated the 
 role of some transient female royalty, out of compliment to the 
 great Empress Woo How, or her domineering daughter-in-law, who, 
 between them, governed China for almost the whole of the century 
 650-750 A.D. 
 
Sketch of Tibetan History 189 
 
 arts, it seems the mother of virtues. Buddhism, 
 powerful for a time in the land of its birth, was 
 powerless to uplift the old Ganges valley, full of 
 fixed tradition, sacred literature and established arts. 
 So, in the great middle plains of China, it became but 
 a quiet partner with Confucianism to steady, not to 
 revolutionise the spirits of a race which had already 
 lived and died and written and built and sowed and 
 reaped through the centuries. But in the newly 
 colonise^ Ceylon, in Burmah, in rough Weste 
 China, in lost Tibethere it became a passion, 
 propelling force, formative of societies in their pliant 
 youth. Assuming merely a substance of human 
 nature, in the way of rough mountain-men, grazing 
 their flocks and tilling their difficult, terraced fields, 
 we view this force with its powerful adjunct force, 
 knowledge of the arts, acting to produce what may 
 be taken almost as the birth of a people. In these 
 cases the creed, which immediately has its votaries 
 organised as such, thus obtaining interested spokes- 
 men, is proclaimed as the sole flame of inspiration; 
 yet, truly, it may often be seen that the spirit of 
 wild men cannot accept peace doctrines ; they burn 
 with zeal for the personality involved in the creed, 
 their intellects are tremendously stimulated by the 
 excitement of "conversion," and, above all, by the 
 mental food contained in the newly acquired arts ; 
 but the inconsiderate selfishness of youth is still in 
 their hearts. Hence they may be seen Goths in 
 Europe, Tibetans in Asia, crying out the names of 
 the two great Compassionate Ones, Christ and 
 Buddha, while they rush to battle, while they split 
 the heads of children, while in blood they cement 
 
190 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 the foundations of new states, and vigorously work 
 out their savage young strength to a maturity which 
 still declares the sacred name, and still lives the 
 racial, violent law, whatever it may be; never, in 
 the strong, young races, more than parroting the 
 words of abnegation which the Teachers spoke. 
 
 Parallel to the violences which made Europe as it 
 is, we see, almost immediately after the advent of 
 Buddhism, arithmetic and letters, an expansion of 
 the national Tibetan spirit. Here as elsewhere it 
 began translating itself when possible into conquest. 
 The outward movement is less marked here than 
 in other lands under like conditions of excitement, 
 because the physical restrictions are more unyield- 
 ing. Yet something was done. First Lhasa was 
 established, then the far ^vest the Ladak country 
 was subdued ; then some of the still independent 
 Kiang tribes were assimilated ; then followed de- 
 scents upon Turkestan to the north and overrun- 
 ning of Nepal to the south. Temerity went even 
 so far as to beat in the back door of China. But 
 this brought retribution upon the over - active 
 youngster an army marched to Lhasa and burnt 
 his palace about the year 700 A.D. 
 
 In a sudden volte-face from external (unsuccessful) 
 activity, a pious monarch dreamed the dream of 
 equality for all but himself. Riches were equalised 
 fields all remeasured, animals all recounted, that 
 Smith and Jones might stand before heaven and 
 the king in equality of worldly privilege. Ere he 
 died, the third effort at maintaining dull or lazy 
 Smith in possession of his wealth against intelligent 
 or laborious Jones had failed. That it should have 
 
I 
 
 a, 
 
 03 
 
 U 
 
Sketch of Tibetan History 191 
 
 been attempted bespeaks a powerful central force. 
 Such tyranny rarely exists save as the outgrowth of 
 a theocratic tendency. This may take the form of 
 a concession of earthly power to a religious teacher, 
 as in the case of the Pope or the Dalai Lama ; or, by 
 reversal, the ascription of religious character to the 
 earthly ruler, as in the case of the Roman tyrants, 
 the Russian Czar, and the Turkish Sultan; or, 
 lastly, the yielding to an organised priesthood of 
 that general power which superior intelligence can 
 gain, and can easily gain, when playing upon the 
 superstitions of the ignorant. It may well be sur- 
 mised that the lamas, corresponding to the priests 
 and monks of our Dark Ages, were then, as now, 
 almost the only writers in the land ; and when a peo- 
 ple, not given to industry as in the modern world, 
 cease for a time to fight, then the " clerks," the cleri- 
 cals, the "learned," will soon control the king and 
 the people, who yield much to the combination of 
 crown and book. The impractical levelling effort 
 of Munibtsan-po may be taken as an indication of 
 clerical influence at its best, when it is still aiming 
 at high moral ideals, and has not yet grasped the 
 sceptre, or even begun systematically to struggle 
 for it. That follows. 
 
 Meanwhile, another encounter with China took 
 place, noticeable because the peace-treaty ending 
 the bloodshed (821 A.D.) is still in existence, on bi- 
 lingual tablets preserved at Lhasa. They are, per- 
 haps, the earliest indubitable historic monuments of 
 the country, significant of its greatness, important 
 also to the philologist. It is recorded that shortly 
 after this event the reigning king instituted a 
 
1 92 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 persecution of Buddhism ; a remarkable statement 
 when measured by the fact that for a long time all his 
 predecessors are said to have shown more or less zeal 
 for the Faith. One may well question whether this 
 may not be the monkish way of stating that the king 
 was not friendly to them. Our European records 
 are full of such solecisms : "Religion" and "the 
 Church" are, among Catholics, systematically con- 
 nected, and even a Catholic king, engaged in curb- 
 ing merely the excesses of the "Church," may 
 appear, in clerical records, as an oppressor of re- 
 ligion. However it may be, the objectionable king 
 was soon assassinated, and disorder followed for a 
 weary period covering generations of his successors. 
 Two rival thrones first divided the country east and 
 west ; then thrones were multiplied as sons were 
 begot. While the temporal power waned, the 
 spiritual waxed. About the year 1040 A.D. (the pre- 
 ceding two centuries presenting only a confusion 
 of kingdoms, now divided, now reunited) a great 
 Buddhist teacher, Atesha, was invited into the coun- 
 try by one of the Western kings. He attained much 
 esteem throughout the country, reformed the calen- 
 dar, and by his wisdom undoubtedly increased popu- 
 lar respect for the priesthood. 
 
 Another two-century period rolls over the country, 
 which is still broken into fragments ; Kublai Khan, 
 one of the greatest of the Mongol emperors, is on 
 China's throne. His forces make their victorious 
 way across the eastern frontier of Tibet, subjecting 
 portions of the national territory. The rest may 
 not have been thought worthy of sacking. Some 
 sort of overlordship seems to have been recognised 
 
Sketch of Tibetan History 193 
 
 in him ; for a lama, from the Sakya monastery, was 
 invited to the Court of the great Khan, where Mon- 
 gol religious indifference made a place and a cere- 
 monial for every respectable creed. Phagspa Lodoi 
 Gyaltshan, the favoured lama, would scarcely have 
 gone to him who had just ravaged part of Tibet, had 
 not the Eastern Tibetan king already bent to the 
 majesty of the ruler, who in that part of the world 
 seemed universal. That the temporal power was 
 at ebb tide is evident from the fact that the mere 
 fiat of the distant Khan seems to have been suffi- 
 cient to place Phagspa as ruler over all the Eastern 
 country. 
 
 This seems to have been the formal beginning 
 (1270 A.D.) of the system of lama rule under Chinese 
 suzerainty, which, with some interruption, has con- 
 tinued until the present day. Rivalries have existed 
 between monasteries, as in other countries between 
 contending royal families ; and when these rivalries 
 became acute, and too much energy was expended 
 in monkish intrigue, occasion offered for the uprising 
 of some lay nobleman, or the special exertion of the 
 recognised authority of the Son of heaven, or of 
 some temporarily powerful chief of the Mongol 
 peoples west of China proper and north of Tibet. 
 Not until the eighteenth century was there disturb- 
 ance from the south, nor from Turkestan on the 
 north ; save that Ladak, so distant from the central 
 provinces, was overrun in 1531 A.D. by a Moham- 
 medan ruler coming up from Kashgar, and again, 
 about 1610 A.D., by the Balti tribes to the west of 
 Tibet, and who have continued their annoying raids 
 against caravans up to our own day. A temporal 
 
iQ4 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 ruler, Phagmodu, about 1350 A.D., succeeded in tak- 
 ing away the strictly lay power from the monks, 
 and his dynasty was recognised by the Imperial 
 Court at Pekin, but by the middle of the fifteenth 
 century his course seems to have been run. In- 
 deed, while his family were yet on the throne, there 
 were several great monasteries exercising independ- 
 ent lordship over the properties belonging to them, 
 independent except as they were subject to the over- 
 lord in Pekin. As against the royal authority in 
 Tibet, they constituted a true imperium in imperio. 
 Monastic orders were constantly recruiting from 
 the body of the people, hence their organisation was 
 not subject to the deterioration of luxury which saps 
 every royal family, determines dynastic changes, 
 and would overthrow monarchy itself were its prin- 
 ciples not so important to certain societies that in- 
 stinctively there develops a ruling aristocracy or 
 family or class which yet declares itself as acting 
 only in the name of royal decoy awaiting a resur- 
 rection of kingly merit, or a revolution. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that Phagmodu, the founder 
 of the kingly power just mentioned, was in the maxi- 
 mum of his activity when the great Mongol dynasty, 
 founded by Jenghiz Khan, was in the agonies of 
 dissolution, its last representative (1333-1368 A.D.), 
 Shun-te, presenting the perfect type of the royal 
 scion debauched by inherited power and luxury. 
 
 The Ming dynasty, of true Chinese blood, flour- 
 ished and weakened, falling before the present 
 Manchu rulers in 1644 A.D. The affairs of Tibet, 
 as to governmental authority, were much compli- 
 cated during all of this period. Religious considera- 
 
Sketch of Tibetan History 195 
 
 tion for the great lamas was, however, spreading, 
 and as early as 1475 the head of the Galdan Monas- 
 tery (near Lhasa) seems to have been able to rule 
 nearly the whole country, but his authority in civil 
 matters was exercised through a regent, called 
 variously Depa or Jaypa; and this method of com- 
 promising, with the theory that an incarnation 
 should have no concern with things earthly, has 
 been followed ever since. So wide was the reputa- 
 tion for sanctity of the Tibetan Incarnations that 
 rude tribes of the Far North bent to their authority, 
 in spiritual matters, while brooking on earth no for- 
 eign sway which could not write its title in blood. 
 
 One of the great Tartar chiefs, Altan, desirous of 
 knowing more intimately the sacred teachings, and 
 perhaps thinking to add lustre to his savage Court, 
 secured a lama of special power and veneration to 
 visit him. This was in 1576, and this lama, Sodman 
 Gynatso, seems to have been the first to bear spe- 
 cifically the title of Dalai (Great), which now distin- 
 guishes the ruler of Tibet. This establishment of 
 a body of spiritual followers of Lamaism in distant 
 territory was soon followed by important conse- 
 quences, and is to-day the source of a current of 
 events which promises to radically change the politi- 
 cal orientation of the country. Feeling that their 
 conversion gave them a proper interest in the con- 
 duct of pontifical affairs, the Mongols came down 
 about the year 1644 A.D. to intervene in the troubled 
 affairs of the land, which was that of their newly 
 adopted shrines. A powerful lama of the time, un- 
 appreciative of their burning zeal, bought their 
 departure with a price. This the Mongol leader 
 
196 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 accepted as tribute money, with the dream that he 
 might be recognised as suzerain instead of the 
 Chinese throne, which was just then being emptied 
 of one dynasty (Ming) to be filled by another (now 
 reigning). 
 
 As soon as the wily lama saw the backs of the 
 Mongols, and knew that a firm command of China 
 was now practically in the hands of the Manchus, 
 he sent to the new sovereign of that mighty empire, 
 asking intervention on his part. This seems to have 
 angered Yuchi Khan, son of the Mongol prince who 
 had so recently been the patron of the land ; or it 
 gave occasion to some rival monastery unfriendly to 
 the Chinese party. From whatever cause, Yuchi 
 Khan swept down upon Tibet, upset a number of 
 princelets and recalcitrant monks, and established 
 the Dalai Lama of that date (1645) as supreme ruler. 
 Neither these Mongols nor their Manchu succes- 
 sors, attempted to take in hand the direct and de- 
 tailed control of Tibetan administration; but the 
 Ambans, delegates-resident of China, must be con- 
 sulted in the selection of all important officials. 
 And even the divinely guided choice, by the head 
 monks, of the Dalai Lama is not effective until ap- 
 proved in Pekin. Something of this worldly aid 
 to inspired action has been seen in the election of 
 more than one Roman pontiff of modern date, while 
 in the past he who wore the crown of the Holy 
 Roman Empire boldly claimed and exercised a right 
 of approval, entirely analogous to that possessed by 
 the Chinese Emperor in respect to the Dalai Lama. 
 
 The patronage of art by corrupt churchmen, the 
 building by them of great monuments which became 
 
Sketch of Tibetan History 197 
 
 the pride of their most pious successors, this also 
 is familiar reading in Catholic history, and had its 
 counterpart at Lhasa about the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, when the Potala (Vatican and 
 St. Peter's combined) and other notable buildings 
 were beautified and enlarged. The occasional pro- 
 minence of the pontifical "nephew" was also then 
 illustrated in the person of Sangji Gyamtso, putative 
 natural son of that celibate, the Dalai Lama, who 
 had founded the Potala. 
 
 How familiar is this figure in royal and pontifical 
 European records! Talented, ambitious, unscrupu- 
 lous, accomplished, the scandal and the pride of a 
 Court and nation, this Sangji Gyamtso ruled as 
 regent for many years. The death of his patron 
 was for a long time cleverly concealed, and, even 
 when announced, Gyamtso was able to give a satis- 
 factory explanation of his duplicity. The troublous 
 Mongol interventions gave reasons of state ; he re- 
 tained his influence and, when a new Incarnation 
 was to be discovered, was able to direct the direct- 
 ing spirits toward a dissolute youth, upon whom he 
 had evidently lavished his destructive care since the 
 date of the concealed death, nearly sixteen years 
 before. 
 
 The Jesuit, Father Desideri, who was in Lhasa 
 from 1716 to 1721, witnessed the last efforts of the 
 Mongols from the north (this time from Dzungaria) 
 to control Tibetan polity. The definite triumph of 
 Chinese arms occurred in 1720, when Lhasa was 
 taken from the foreign troops and the native faction 
 which supported them. This European observer, 
 who doubtless thought of the invariable pillage and 
 
198 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 rapine which were implied in the taking of Christian 
 cities by Christian armies at that time, records his 
 admiration for the order and restraint of the Chinese 
 soldiery. 1 
 
 After two generations of quiet in Tibet, the prow- 
 ess of the Celestial soldier was again illustrated in 
 the campaign against the Goorkhas. These fight- 
 ing men, now so highly prized by the British, had 
 come up from the Rajput country, driven by the 
 Moslems, and had overrun the Nepal country about 
 1768, there subduing the native Buddhist state, 
 composed of tribes not unlike the Tibetans, and in 
 religion holding much in common with them. Suc- 
 cess makes boldness. From newly conquered seats 
 the restless warriors climbed the passes through 
 which the jealous Himalayas permit a difficult entry 
 to their uplifted court. From this quarter the by- 
 gone years had brought no dangers to the lama peo- 
 ple, whose unguarded peace was now wounded by 
 the sudden rush of furious Goorkhas, trained to war. 
 A cry for help was sent to the "Elder Brother"; 
 weary days of waiting passed, rilled with bloody 
 deeds of the advancing foe. But, what with the 
 resistance offered by men fighting for their homes, 
 
 1 In view of the contempt in which Europeans generally hold the 
 warriors of China, their exploits in overcoming Mongol braves of 
 the kind who marched across Europe in our early centuries, are 
 worthy of study. It is probable that investigation would discover 
 the recruiting grounds to be of rather limited area and of compara- 
 tively rude culture ; but the Empire has shown itself to be so fruit- 
 ful in soldiery for Central Asian conquest, that, discounting as we 
 may the military value of the swarming millions of the valleys, we 
 must not assume that a mechanically wise China shall not be a 
 redoubtable war power. Happily its people are lovers of peace. 
 
Sketch of Tibetan History 199 
 
 what with the rigours with which Nature makes a 
 bulwark for these, her little-favoured children, the 
 Goorkhas were not able to widely conquer an unwar- 
 like land ere an army and its leaders came from the 
 east. Then the doughty invaders met their match ; 
 they were forced to an inglorious peace ; and until 
 a very late date, perhaps even now, the Raja sends 
 an embassy with tribute to far Pekin, remembering 
 1792. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 A CENTURY OF IRRITATIONS THE FUMES OF THE 
 
 OPIUM WAR CLOUD THE POLITICAL SKY 
 
 FATHERS HUC AND GABET 
 
 SO vigorous was this Chinese campaign that a 
 treaty of peace had been signed ere the appeal 
 of the Goorkhas to British power at Calcutta could 
 be answered. The East India Company was ready 
 to respond, but Colonel Kirkpatrick, sent by Lord 
 Cornwallis, arrived too late to enter into a bloody 
 contention, which, if thus complicated, might have 
 altered Tibetan history. His visit accomplished 
 little, except to sow in the minds of the Chinese 
 that distrust of the British which they have had so 
 many occasions to justify, and which properly ex- 
 tends to all European military nations. 
 
 It is pleasant to turn from the contemplation of 
 a possible unprovoked British attack (which was 
 postponed for more than a century) and read of 
 the friendly relations which existed between Tibet 
 and the Company, under Hastings, the great prede- 
 cessor of Cornwallis, as Governor-General. Bhutan, 
 east of Nepal, its people and institutions much re- 
 sembling those of Tibet, had given offence by way 
 of some violence against territory claimed to be 
 under British protection. The Bhutanese were duly 
 punished, and when measures of special rigour were 
 
 200 
 
A Century of Irritations 201 
 
 about to be enforced, there came a letter from the 
 Teshoo lama, co-partner with the Dalai Lama in 
 saintliness, and, like him, an Incarnation. At that 
 time he seemed also to have had a certain jurisdic- 
 tion or suzerainty over the Bhutan country. The 
 letter is addressed to Hastings, grants that the mis- 
 chief was probably chargeable against the Bhutan- 
 ese, recites the punishment already inflicted, then, 
 setting forth his mission as one of intercession for 
 all mankind, and his special concern for the poor 
 mountain people, he, as an intermediary whose 
 office, religious and temporal, warrants interference, 
 presents his plea for mercy. The tone of the letter 
 and the representations made by the legate who de- 
 livered it were so marked by fairness and dignity 
 that a just cause was quickly won. 
 
 Mr. Bogle was first sent into Tibet representing 
 Hastings. He became very fond of the Teshoo 
 lama and has left a pleasing report of his relations 
 with the people, who had not then learned to fear 
 his kind. The presents sent to Hastings, following 
 universal custom in the East, made as much impres- 
 sion on the Englishman as did the pleadings for the 
 weak. "Perhaps there are trade opportunities in a 
 country whose chief is so enlightened and so (appar- 
 ently) rich," thought he who ruled for a trading 
 company. 
 
 Other correspondence followed, and finally a 
 second mission to Tibet, consisting of Captain Tur- 
 ner and a medical officer with a small escort, bearing 
 gifts and assurances of friendship. Turner has left 
 one of the most interesting records that have come 
 down to us from the early travellers, who were so 
 
202 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 freely admitted to Tibet at that time. Nothing could 
 have been pleasanter than the reception given to 
 Turner by the regent who acted for the Teshoo lama, 
 a babe of eighteen months, successor to him who had 
 begun the correspondence with Hastings, and who 
 had warmly received Bogle. One who writes of 
 Tibet now is tempted to make large borrowings from 
 the cheerful text which Turner gives us. His busi- 
 ness did not call him to Lhasa, and it is stated, more- 
 over, that the Chinese, even then, interposed some 
 objection to his progress thither. Whatever may 
 have been the causes, neither he nor Bogle reached 
 the sacred city. The Teshoo lama has his seat to 
 the westward of the capital, and here Turner saw 
 much and intimately of Tibetan life, which he de- 
 scribed with critical but sympathetic observation. 
 It will be but the beginning of justice to quote from 
 this Englishman, for comparison with present-day 
 representations, the following words: "The Tibet- 
 ans are a very humane, kind people," and again: 
 "Humanity and an unartificial gentleness of disposi- 
 tion are the constant inheritance of a Tibetan." 
 
 The Nepal war ended, there followed years of 
 peace for Central and Eastern Tibet. But another 
 attack from India had to be repelled in 1846, and 
 again the enemy was an ally of the British. There 
 is no evidence that the attack of the Goorkhas in 
 1791 was incited by the English, for the Goorkhas 
 were then bound to Calcutta only through a com- 
 mercial treaty. Nor can it be said that the attack 
 of the Jammu-Kashmir army upon Ladak and sub- 
 
 1 Even the semi-official Times correspondent with the recent expe- 
 dition finds a good word for the peasants. See Appendix P. 
 
C/2 
 
A Century of Irritations 203 
 
 sequently upon Rudok (1846) was known to English 
 officials until after it was made. But the Chinese 
 may well have learned that the Jammu Maharajah, 
 once a great Sikh leader and enemy of the British, 
 was now their ally, and it might fairly be supposed 
 that he would not attack Tibetan territory unless 
 he had the tacit approval of his suzerain. The rape 
 of Ladak was scarcely resisted ; possibly the extra- 
 ordinary difficulties of the march from Lhasa, to- 
 gether with the delay involved in getting leaders and 
 some troops from China proper, had rendered im- 
 possible any effective opposition. But now a fur- 
 ther thrust of the Dogra troops, who ventured from 
 newly acquired Ladak just as the Goorkhas had 
 come out from Nepal, roused the distant giant. An 
 army, partly Chinese, partly Tibetan, crossed the 
 vast and desolate country which separates Western 
 Tibet from Lhasa. 
 
 The intruders were forced back, "keeping Ladak, 
 it is true; but again we admiringly find the majesty 
 of the Elder Brother recognised by the periodic pre- 
 sents sent from the Maharajah of Kashmir to the 
 Emperor who reigns so far away, across so many 
 leagues of upheaved and pathless wilderness, in 
 memory of 1846. 
 
 This date is of special importance in the history 
 of European relations with Tibet. In this same 
 year of the Ladak war, Father Hue entered Lhasa, 
 was kindly received by the Tibetan authorities, and 
 after a stay of a few months was required by the 
 Chinese authority in Lhasa to leave, reasonable 
 provision being made for his transportation to, and 
 through, China. No other Europeans entered Lhasa 
 
204 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 or its immediate neighbourhood until the year of 
 our Lord 1904, when a British-led force of Indian 
 troops shot their way over defenceless villages to a 
 distracted capital. 
 
 The expulsion of Father Hue was not an isolated 
 episode in the history of an isolated country. It 
 grew out of one of the blackest crimes with which 
 our civilisation is chargeable. Will it not be suffi- 
 cient to say that the Chinese official who chanced 
 to be then at Lhasa was Ke-Shen, a man who had, 
 as signer, under duress, of a treaty at Canton in 
 1841, terminated the opium war and had thus par- 
 ticipated in his country's humiliation, as well as in 
 the disgrace of his country's enemy England 
 more shameful in success than China in defeat? For 
 fifty years the Pekin Government had endeavoured 
 to arrest the fatal traffic. Insignificant when the 
 Mogul emperors ruled India, it had grown with the 
 growth of British power. Declared illicit, it had 
 flourished in British hands; from British ships as 
 depots it defied Chinese authority in Chinese ports. 
 When, for a season, righteousness had prevailed; 
 when a Christian English officer had yielded up 
 twenty thousand smuggled poison-cases to be de- 
 stroyed; when they had been burned by " heathen" 
 Chinese officers, zealous to protect their country 
 from a curse, then a Christian Government declared 
 war and forced by cannon's might a helpless people 
 to admit the baneful drug. And, even if not bane- 
 ful, even if it were ambrosia, what shame to override 
 but why argue this cause ntfaste ? Let it not be 
 rehearsed, for all have heard it, and let it not be 
 forgotten in judging all Chinese- European history 
 
A Century of Irritations 205 
 
 which followed. For in the sequestered valleys of 
 Tibet the echo of British cannon was heard, a tocsin 
 arousing every dormant suspicion against the white 
 man. 
 
 Nor ask these startled people to narrowly dis- 
 tinguish between French and English and German. 
 Do not we, pride-blind in our wisdom, fill books 
 with level criticism of "Asiatics," mingling civilisa- 
 tions and barbarisms, plainsman and mountaineer, 
 Mohammedan and Buddhist, Mongol and Aryan, 
 in one foolish mummery of insulting classification? 
 So it was that Ke-Shen wiser than the kindly 
 Tibetans, knowing better than they the fearful 
 power of the white man, remembering Nepal, re- 
 membering Rudok, burning with shame for Canton 
 inflexibly demanded that the French missionary 
 should go. 
 
 "Fear the Greeks, bearing gifts." Like so many 
 of his predecessors, Father Hue seemed indeed 
 he was an humble, devoted evangel, seeking not 
 the glory of France, or of Europe, but of Christ. 
 Yet he was Europe; he will, in spite of himself, 
 spy out the land; he will spread knowledge of it 
 through the peoples to whom his body and his mind 
 belonged, and, even if he be only a lama (who 
 knows in Lhasa what he really is?), his story will 
 excite the gold-lust, the power-lust of the restless, 
 the irresistible; of the people who ride on the 
 waters with fire, and who seize the uttermost parts 
 of the earth with hands that run with blood. 
 
 The obvious co-operation in later years between 
 Chinese and Tibetans in enforcing a determined 
 policy of exclusion against all foreigners, Asiatic as 
 
206 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 well as European, has caused some thoughtless 
 writers to question the good faith or acumen of 
 Father Hue and earlier travellers who attest the 
 friendliness of the Tibetans as contrasted with the 
 rigidity of their Chinese advisers. The explanation 
 is not far to seek. China, being more exposed, first 
 felt the shock of European aggression. Since the 
 time of Father Hue, the Tibetans have learned from 
 happenings on their western and southern frontier 
 something of the danger to native states which arises 
 from the smallest opening left to the coming-in 
 either of the European or of his subject native 
 races. Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal, rough mountain 
 states on Tibet's northern border, have been forced 
 to admit British residents at their capitals. How 
 far-extended might be the influence thus gained no 
 one, except the principals, could at any time know. 
 That their neighbours would have preferred com- 
 plete independence was, of course, a fair presump- 
 tion for the Tibetans. But whether the ruler of 
 either, at any particular time, was or was not, 
 through bribery or fear, ready to lend his power to 
 the ever-growing British-Indian Empire, could only 
 be surmised. 
 
 The Goorkhas, masters in Nepal, were not related 
 to the Tibetans by blood or religion, and were thus 
 the more readily suspected. When, in 1854, Tibet 
 was again attacked by the Goorkha-Nepalese, who 
 hoped for better luck than had been met in 1792, 
 the Chinese and the Tibetans might well suppose 
 that their neighbours were receiving aid and comfort 
 from the "protecting" power, which particularly 
 watches over the foreign relations of its charges. 
 
A Century of Irritations 207 
 
 This war resulted more happily for the attacking 
 party than the earlier effort probably because the 
 Taiping rebellion interfered with the normal action 
 of the Chinese Government. When the Tibetans 
 were forced to make concessions of territory, they 
 may well have deplored the increasing strength near 
 their borders of that great power which had humili- 
 ated their Elder Brother a few years before, and 
 which seemed to be supporting their younger, im- 
 pulsive brother in his assault against their kingdom 
 of snow. Following fast upon this came the Anglo- 
 French war against China, terminated by a humiliat- 
 ing treaty, something of which would be known in 
 Tibet. While China is still suffering from the effect 
 of this blow, and by a chance which to the Tibetans 
 might almost seem calculation, the British force a 
 closer protectorate over Sikkim, following upon a 
 quarrel between the Sikkimites and the Nepalese, 
 already protected. The ruling family in the little 
 mountain state had for centuries been of the Tibetan 
 nobility and had recognised a sort of Tibetan suzer- 
 ainty. 
 
 Then, again, in 1863, an occurrence at their very 
 door must have further frightened these secluded 
 people. Bhutan had admitted, years before, a Brit- 
 ish Resident ; otherwise its ruler tried to keep white 
 men out. When some contentions arose between 
 the Bhutan authority and neighbouring states more 
 directly controlled by Calcutta, an envoy was sent 
 to arrange the quarrel. To the discomfiture of those 
 who sent him, this officer made a treaty by which 
 most of the claims of Bhutan were recognised and 
 certain territory was handed back to it. This is not 
 
208 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 customary when the lion is negotiating with the 
 lamb. The agent claimed duress and the treaty 
 was disallowed by the Governor-General, who then 
 resorted to the more familiar and convincing argu- 
 ments applicable to such cases. 
 
 An army was sent in, and of course modern rifles 
 always enforce justice against matchlocks. Bhutan 
 was taught that an envoy could be overridden in 
 Calcutta and that the " prestige" of Great Britain 
 demands that the arguments of its representatives 
 shall always prevail. I think the doctrine true. It 
 often applied to dealings between the United States 
 and various Indian tribes, but the prestige in ques- 
 tion is one for power not always for justice, as 
 understood between individuals. It cannot be sup- 
 posed that the lesson of such an incident would be 
 lost upon the Tibetans, whose relations with the 
 Nepalese, Sikkimites, and Bhutanese have imme- 
 morially been closer than with any other peoples 
 save the Chinese. 
 
 Followed next ( 1 865 et seq.} many internal troubles, 
 rising to the dignity of revolution. This serious dis- 
 turbance throve while China was herself rent by the 
 Taiping rebellion, which, in turn, was itself caused 
 (in large part) by popular wrath against a dynasty 
 that had failed to repel the aggressive European. 
 It was about this time that the Abb Desgodins, 
 French missionary, was forced to abandon an at- 
 tempt to maintain mission work in Tibet. He has 
 left a most uncharitable series of letters to immor- 
 talise his disappointment. He denies the pleasant 
 description of the Tibetans given by Hue, who calls 
 them "frank and loyal," and is hard pressed to find 
 
A Century of Irritations 209 
 
 enough ugly words for the making of his own de- 
 scription. Being much piqued by his failure, and 
 being quite without the historic sense, our good 
 Desgodins falls to exaggeration. The true Tibetan 
 will perhaps be found somewhere between the pane- 
 gyrics of Turner and Hue on the one hand and the 
 maledictions of Desgodins on the other. The grum- 
 bling missionary scarce tasted the crumbs of a hos- 
 pitality which had once provided full loaves. 
 
 Perhaps if the Tibetans could read Le Tibet 
 d ' apres la correspondance des Missionaires y they 
 might confess to present incivility, while pointing 
 back through the years to show how they had 
 treated the European before their hearts were filled 
 with dread of him. They had received occasional 
 Europeans since Odoric de Pordenone traversed 
 Tibet on a westward journey from China in the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 In the seveiateenth century two adventurers have 
 left trace of wanderings in this far land. In the 
 eighteenth century various Capuchin and Jesuit 
 missions in one case numbering twelve persons 
 were lodged almost continuously in Lhasa from 
 1708 to 1754; and a Dutch lay traveller lived there 
 during part of the same period. In 181 1, Manning, 
 sole Englishman to make peaceful entry, dwelt in 
 Lhasa, enjoying the kindness of the lamas, great 
 and small. Next came Fathers Hue and Gabet, 
 last of Europeans in Lhasa until the gates were 
 yesterday opened to the sound of the insistec 4 " ^ifle 
 a sound which has scarce ceased to startle ft* 
 Hindustani plains or the Himalayan valleys since the 
 field of Plassy (1757) became an empire's birth-place. 
 
210 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 This it is that affrights them, this ever-advancing 
 boom of cannon, rattle of musketry. They have 
 cherished a tradition that the snow-gods inhabiting 
 the colossal seats of their southern border would 
 protect them, against all enemies coming up from 
 that region : but the Goorkha and Kashmir invasions 
 brought a doubt, and now they know that there is a 
 people mightier than their ancestral gods, mighty to 
 conquer, and mighty, we shall hope, to rule wisely 
 and justly. It has been increasingly clear to the 
 Tibetans and to their suzerains, that only complete 
 exclusion of Europeans would effectively preserve 
 the status quo. It was also clear that their watch- 
 fulness and rigour might be specially directed toward 
 the southern frontier (British Darjeeling being only 
 twelve marches from Lhasa) rather than toward the 
 north where interminable deserts stretched their 
 rampart of desolation. 
 
 They had seen Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and 
 Ladak, constituting the whole of their southern 
 and western frontier, pass under British "protec- 
 tion," and recently, in 1888, they had seen Sikkim, 
 a little territory (2600 square miles) wedged in be- 
 tween Bhutan and Nepal, fall into a much more 
 direct control of the invaders. Vainly had they 
 protested against this last approach for Sikkim was 
 in a sense Tibetan territory, interposing only a two- 
 days sharp march between Darjeeling and their now 
 recognised boundaries. Protest took the form 
 indeed of an army, a monkish rabble armed with 
 spears, matchlocks or bows, and which wisely fled 
 before the organised destruction of British cannon. 
 
 Then must the Tibetans have felt that they were 
 
A Century of Irritations 211 
 
 justified three years before (1885) in resisting the 
 approach of the "Commercial Mission," the organi- 
 sation and disruption of which, at Darjeeling, caused 
 so much newspaper disturbance and balked so many 
 ambitions that have been bequeathed to the more 
 fortunate personnel of the Younghusband expedi- 
 tion. As early as 1876, in the Chefoo convention 
 with China, a treaty basis was laid for a "commer- 
 cial mission" to Tibet, the date of the intended 
 expedition being indicated as "next year." But 
 this convention was not fully ratified until 1885, 
 the clause referring to the establishment of Tibetan 
 relations sleeping more soundly, perhaps, than any 
 other. 
 
 When diplomatic delays had ended, and the signa- 
 ture of Chinese officials had been subscribed to an 
 engagement in respect to passports and a general 
 smoothing of the way for British intercourse with 
 Tibet, there was a gathering of men and things at 
 Darjeeling. The men were three hundred in num- 
 ber, but among all the three hundred, not a commer- 
 cial agent. Was it British humour which Parliament, 
 the Chinese Minister, and the Tsung-li-Yamen at 
 Pekin heard, when the Under-Secretary of State 
 for India, referring to the leashed warriors at Dar- 
 jeeling, said: "The object was to confer with the 
 Chinese Commissioner (the Amban at Lhasa) and 
 the Lhasa government as to the resumption of com- 
 mercial relations between India and Tibet," and he 
 adds, does this saturnine Under-Secretary, "look- 
 ing to the delicate nature of the mission it had not 
 been thought wise to appoint a special commercial 
 representative. ' ' 
 
212 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 The grape-vine telegraph had long ago reported 
 to Lhasa the strange composition of the innocent 
 commercial mission, which was intended, by the 
 Chinese suzerains who had permitted it, only to 
 discuss details of trade relations of those relations 
 which had been suspended since the Goorkhas, 
 friends of the British, had shown that conquest, not 
 trade, was uppermost in their minds. Already the 
 Lhasa authorities had felt a reasonable fright the 
 Under-Secretary's frankness was scarce needed to 
 put them on guard. So great was the resistence in 
 Tibet to the incoming of such a monstrous miscel- 
 lany of people, without a special commercial repre- 
 sentative, that it was thought best to abandon the 
 project. The mission was disbanded. Its oganisa- 
 tion was a blunder. To disband it without making 
 a manly statement of the original error was another 
 blunder. In 1886 a new convention with China 
 reflected the check by insertion of a clause which 
 released China from any positive engagement to 
 give Tibetan passports and relegated the whole 
 matter to the limbo of "China shall use her best 
 endeavour," or such like empty generality. The 
 armed attack upon Tibet's frontiers, in 1888, did 
 not fail, we may well believe, to further convince 
 the Tibetans that missions of all sorts must be kept 
 out at all hazards. 
 
 This seizure of Sikkim not only completed the 
 white man's hold upon the southern crest line of 
 the Himalayas, but it gave control of the easiest 
 roadway over the mountains, down into the Chumbi 
 valley. That the trap should be sprung in due 
 course of time was obvious enough. Something 
 
A Century of Irritations 213 
 
 must arise which should again force that expansion 
 of empire which English historians (and latterly 
 American apologists also) virtuously deplore. The 
 way was now prepared for the self-sacrificing ad- 
 vance. It was, then, in a moment of fatal digres- 
 sion from a traditional policy of non-intercourse, 
 that the Dalai Lama, a few years ago, sent presents 
 to the Czar, thus "offending" the British Govern- 
 ment and giving Lord Curzon argument with which 
 to partially satisfy the Exeter Hall conscience of 
 his nation. We are now brought to a consideration 
 of recent events. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CHASTENING OF HERBERT SPENCER BRITISH 
 POLICY CONTEST FOR A BARE BONE- 
 PRESENT POLITICAL SITUATION 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER (Principles of Sociology, 
 p. 584; D. A. & Co., 1897) delivers himself, 
 rather intemperately, I think, as follows : 
 
 " If, in our days, the name ' birds of prey and of pass- 
 age,' which Burke gave to the English in India at the 
 time of Warren Hasting's trial, when auditors wept at 
 the account of the cruelties committed, is not applicable 
 as it was then; yet the policy of unscrupulous aggran- 
 disement continues. As remarked by an Indian officer, 
 Deputy Surgeon-General Paske, all our conquests and 
 annexations are made from base and selfish motives 
 alone. Major Raverty, of the Bombay army, condemns 
 ' the rage shown of late years for seizing what does not 
 and never did belong to us, because the people happen 
 to be weak and very poorly armed, while we are strong 
 and provided with the most excellent weapons. ' Resist- 
 ance to an intruding sportsman or a bullying explorer, 
 or disobedience to a resident, or even refusal to furnish 
 transport-coolies, serves as sufficient excuse for attack, 
 conquest, and annexation. Everywhere the usual suc- 
 cession runs thus: Missionaries, envoys to native rulers, 
 concessions made by them, quarrels with them, invasions 
 of them, appropriations of their territory. First men are 
 
 214 
 
Chastening of Herbert Spencer 215 
 
 sent to teach the heathens Christianity, and then Christ- 
 ians are sent to mow them down with machine-guns! 
 So-called savages who, according to numerous travellers, 
 behave well until they are ill-treated, are taught good 
 conduct by the so-called civilised, who presently sub- 
 jugate them who inculcate rectitude and then illustrate 
 it by seizing their lands. 
 
 "The policy is simple and uniform Bibles first, 
 bomb- shells after. Such being the doings abroad, what 
 are the feelings at home? Honours, titles, emoluments 
 are showered on the aggressors. A traveller who makes 
 light of men's lives is regarded as a hero and feted by 
 the upper classes; while the lower classes give an ovation 
 to a leader of fillibusters. ' British power, ' ' British 
 pluck,' 'British interests,' are words on every tongue; 
 but of justice there is no speech, no thought." 
 
 Viewing the eminence of the authority just 
 quoted, it may seem bold to endeavour a recast of 
 the philosophical setting in which historical critic- 
 ism should be placed. But Spencer's tone, in the 
 paragraph above, seems rather that of an angry 
 Isaiah than of a scholarly determinist. Let me 
 therefore endeavour to clothe the nakedness of his 
 condemnations while averring that the program 
 outlined in the excerpt seems to have been closely 
 followed in British Tibetan events. 
 
 There is in the universe but one Will (or self- 
 existent law). It has expressed itself to us in the 
 hateful tempests of Nero's soul, not less than in 
 the ineffable happiness of accomplished sacrifice on 
 the cross ; in the fury of Attila, not less than in the 
 wrapt ecstasy of Gautama under the Bo tree; in 
 the turning of this leaf by you, O law-governed 
 
2i6 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 reader, not less than in the sweep of a solar system 
 through unmeasured space; in every evil, not less 
 than in every good. Such is my belief. If then 
 the British power, ruthless, shall complete its 
 destruction and construction in Tibet, then this 
 ruthless act shall have demonstrated its necessity 
 in the general scheme of things. Why preach about 
 it, then? I do not know why, the ultimate why. 
 But this preaching is also compelled ; it is an effort 
 toward something desired. 
 
 As to the application of adjectives such as 
 "unjust," "unwarranted," "cruel," "unnatural," 
 and the like, to any act of individual or government, 
 with the seeming intent to condemn, as one con- 
 demns who believes in individual free-will; concern- 
 ing this, it must be explained that the determinist 
 finds his tongue taught certain tricks in childhood. 
 He cannot easily lay them aside. Language has 
 been formed chiefly by those who have been made 
 to believe, among many other errors, that concern- 
 ing the freedom of the will. The words "sunrise" 
 and "unnatural" spring equally from erroneous 
 belief, which it pleased the Power to create. The 
 sun does not "rise" and nothing is "unnatural." 
 When the determinist condemns and executes for 
 murder, his position toward the murderer is this: 
 "You have been brought to kill a man under such 
 and such conditions. I have been brought to 
 believe such an act as directly or indirectly harmful 
 to me ; I have been brought to believe it now to my 
 interest to kill you. We are both acting under law, 
 no man or beast can act otherwise." Now if the 
 determinist stands quite alone in his condemnation 
 
Chastening of Herbert Spencer 217 
 
 and execution of the other man, we call his act priv- 
 ate revenge or justifiable homicide, etc. If he is 
 acting with many others, through organised instru- 
 ments, we call this united action, "public justice." 
 
 The difference between condemnation made by 
 him who thus recognises the universal force of one 
 Power, from that made by him who thinks he 
 believes in many wills, lies chiefly within the 
 respective breasts of the critics. In the first case, 
 there cannot exist anything of bitterness; in the 
 second it may exist. Having thus by a little dis- 
 cursive philosophising taken away the sting from 
 my quarrel with British-Tibetan policy, lest the 
 Government die of it, we may set ourselves to an 
 inquiry into this most interesting and important 
 question. 
 
 As the brute power to execute its will against 
 Tibet undoubtedly exists in the British Govern- 
 ment, it is important to determine what are the 
 motives actuating British policy. The question is 
 not stated because of a conviction that national 
 policies are always clearly conceived and systemati- 
 cally followed by any government. Generally this 
 is not the case; haphazard and awkwardness proba- 
 bly play a larger part in the affairs of state than 
 they do in the affairs of John Smith. Yet in the 
 case we now consider, the territory in question lies 
 so far beyond the world's general movement that 
 the existence of any policy whatever, in its regard, 
 would suggest that such a policy must have definite 
 beginnings and direction. 
 
 If we turn to the past to the spectacular days of 
 Warren Hastings, we need not hesitate to interpret 
 
218 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 his outreachings toward Tibet as being merely part 
 of the luxurious growth of a marvellously rich 
 mind, fertilised by ambition, heated by the sun of 
 success. That something great might be found 
 among the Himalayan summits, was enough to set 
 his imagination aflame, and in his strong nature, 
 action followed close the heels of fancy. We may 
 safely vault from his day almost a hundred years of 
 Indian history, before finding events which could 
 seriously fix responsible minds upon the Tibetan 
 problem. Within those years, and since France 
 withdrew from the fields where her genius had 
 blazed the way for England's power, that power 
 had been extended over three classes of territories. 
 First are the lowlands wide-spreading, populous, 
 easily subdued, rich (relatively) in commercial op- 
 portunity and in state-revenue payment. Here 
 the motive for conquests is not far to seek; they 
 were made by a commercial company. Next come 
 the first tier of mountain states, difficult to conquer, 
 more expensive to administer (relatively) and not in 
 themselves rich in returns of any kind, save military 
 glory in the first days of blood. They were dis- 
 turbers of the border peace, and it seemed cheaper 
 to subdue and rule them, than to forefend at the 
 frontier. Last come the outpost countries of the 
 Himalayan region, valueless as commercial fields, 
 not dangerous to their equally valiant and better 
 organised neighbours of the first tier of mountain 
 states. The sole motive for their conquest lies in 
 the fear of Russia, the power which, in Hastings's 
 day, lay so far to the north that it was not within 
 the range of "practical politics." 
 
2 
 
 
 I 
 
Chastening of Herbert Spencer 219 
 
 Whether or not the Russians, by attacking India, 
 would ever bring upon the world the most appalling 
 calamity which could befall it as an outgrowth of 
 present international jealousies, we may not know. 
 That reasonable precaution should be taken even 
 against this improbable atrocity, no responsible 
 officer would doubt. But there has been wide 
 difference of view among enlightened English states- 
 men not all of them stay-at-homes either as to 
 the wisdom of constantly advancing and lengthen- 
 ing a frontier whose character is now frankly mili- 
 tary. It has been strongly argued that strategical 
 advantage lay in the way of leaving, upon an enemy 
 the burden of approaching over long lines "which 
 are among the most difficult known in the world. 
 Even if the natives be more or less friendly to an 
 advancing European army, yet the natural obstacles 
 remain to wear away the force of the intended 
 blow. "Let us meet such an onset," say the ad- 
 vocates of this policy, "on a shorter front, drawn 
 within countries which are self-supporting, and near 
 to the great rich plains which are the only regions 
 worthy, in themselves, of permanent occupation. 
 Let us at least await the attempted seizure of the 
 unprofitable border-lands by our northern rival ; let 
 us await some clearer evidence of Russia's intent 
 to dethrone us, before spending the treasure of 
 our subject-races, their bodies, and some precious 
 lives of our own people in the conquest of barren 
 mountains. 
 
 "If the attack is being prepared, it cannot be done 
 in a day or a week or a month ; the sudden foray of 
 the mountain wolves against the defenceless lamb 
 
220 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 of the plain is no longer possible, for to the lamb 
 also we have given fangs and his bloody claws. If 
 we hold only the first tier of hill-lands, we shall be 
 able to destroy any incoming foe, or even to ad- 
 vance, meeting him. For are we not as intelligent, 
 as quick as he? Are we not able, with a tithe of 
 the money spent in conquest and occupation, to buy 
 for ourselves information and interested loyalty 
 loyalty of the only sort upon which we can 
 count in playing our role of Foreign Tyranny?" 
 
 But these arguments have not prevailed. Re- 
 joinder has been made that in general it is best to 
 hold the highest passes rather than to await the 
 enemy somewhat lower down ; that his presence in 
 the border lands, uncontrolled, might result in stir- 
 ring up of revolt among the plainsmen, this being a 
 possible program as full of danger as one of open 
 war; that the valleys have, since time was, been 
 conquered from the northern hills, until British 
 ships and gunpowder opened a new way from the 
 coast. Yet, now the northern danger may recur. 
 There has been added to these arguments the prod 
 of restless military spirit in the army of occupation. 
 Very important is this ambition in making the 
 character of a soldiery ; very dangerous also to the 
 world's peace. For quarrel-making there has been 
 the time-honoured question of boundary lines in 
 rough country. Even with most pacific intent on 
 both sides, there must be frequent misunderstand- 
 ings as to frontiers in the wild, almost unknown 
 regions of towering peak and winding ravine where 
 is played the game of Himalayan politics. When 
 on one side is the delicate pride of a conquering 
 
Chastening of Herbert Spencer 221 
 
 race, on the other the outraged sensibilities of war- 
 like, ignorant tribes, it is obvious that a big crop 
 of V.C. 's and D.S.O.'s must be the result. 
 
 It is just a little pathetic, this thought that in the 
 world of printed history, each such quarrel, with its 
 attending tragedies, is reported as "an unwarranted 
 attack upon British territory," or again "a maraud- 
 ing expedition boldly projecting itself over our 
 frontier." We shall never know how cruelly exas- 
 perating it must be to the disinherited this seizure, 
 on paper, of unmarked lands to-day, the outcry of 
 injured sovereignty to-morrow, the hastening of the 
 "punitive column" the third day, fresh seizure of 
 unmarked lands the fourth day, and so on ad 
 infinitum. 
 
 The algebraic sum of all the soliciting forces has 
 been in the direction of advance west, north, east 
 ever advance. Baluchistan has been conquered 
 and held ; Afghanistan has been marauded piteously 
 in two campaigns emblazoned with death, heroism, 
 and decorations, but the bold and crafty Afghans 
 could not be subjected ; the Chitral and the empty 
 Pamirs have been sentinelled; the uncouth Baltis 
 have been punished and controlled ; pacific Ladak 
 remains an outpost of empire, though in a Mahar- 
 ajah's name; Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan have been 
 forced to obey orders from Calcutta, and now, 
 because a Bhuriat from far-away Lake Baikal has 
 taken photographs in Lhasa and seduced the Dalai 
 Lama into the courtesy of gift-making to the Czar, 
 lo ! Tibet is visited with the hot breath of war 
 and a thousand skeletons testify to the prowess of 
 the white man ; to the glory of Christ and to the 
 
222 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 satisfaction of the ghoulish dogs whose bellies are 
 the tombs of Tibetan dead. 
 
 It is harrowing. Yet after all, death is for all ; 
 the cutting off of even ten thousand shepherds at 
 an average of say fifteen years before disease and 
 age would claim them, is not a large sacrifice for 
 humanity to make in keeping an empire's peace. 
 But the sacrifice would not end with the death- 
 rattle in ten thousand throats. There would be, 
 yea, to-day there is, and for many morrows there 
 will be, bitterness in a million hearts. That is evil ; 
 not measurable, but great. And there is, beyond 
 all else, a wounding of ideals all the world over 
 unless it be very clear to the world that some 
 greater evil has been foref ended, or some great 
 good established by the myriad rotting corpses, 
 and that reasonable inquiry found no other protec- 
 tion from the evil, no other instrument for the good 
 than in the killing of many innocent men. That, 
 indeed, is the crux of the matter. Given the possi- 
 bility of Russian desire to attack the British-Indian 
 establishment, we must question then the amount 
 of harm that might reach English interests if Tibet 
 had been left in her isolation. 
 
 Two lines of effort would be considered by the 
 Russians, if in any way Tibetan territory were to 
 be used in the game. The first would be by military 
 occupation, with the view of descending upon India 
 from Tibet; and the second would be by stirring 
 up, through intrigue, the Tibetans, in coalition 
 with the Nepalese or Bhutanese, to strive unaided 
 against the British power. To accomplish the first, 
 Russia must have forced or cajoled the Chinese 
 
Chastening of Herbert Spencer 223 
 
 Government to give up two provinces, Turkestan 
 and Tibet, since an advance (assuming it physic- 
 ally possible to reach Lhasa with an army from the 
 north) must be over Chinese territory. It is obvious 
 that such an effort by Russia, in the face of known 
 opposition in England and America against the 
 disintegration of China, would be attempted only 
 as part, and the last part, of some great program 
 of an international war of the first magnitude. In 
 such case no conduct of Russian affairs, short of 
 one headquartered in an insane asylum, would 
 squander upon the Tibetan plateau forces urgently 
 needed elsewhere. 
 
 So terrible are the obstacles placed there by 
 nature, that the Chinese strength, small as it is, 
 would be more than sufficient to stop an army 
 moving toward Lhasa, from the difficult north, 
 and would be, if friendly to Russia, wholly power- 
 less as against British force, moving from the easy 
 south. Those who were impressed, in a vague way, 
 by the long delays of the Younghusband expedi- 
 tion, with the view that the military operations were 
 difficult, must yield that opinion to the facts. It 
 was diplomacy, not strategy, which ate up the long 
 months, which gave the Tibetans ample time to 
 prepare a resistance doomed to be of the opera 
 bouffe kind, and which aggravated greatly the 
 problem of supplies for the British force. 
 
 Imagine a single company of Cossacks, known or 
 reasonably supposed to be actually on the plateau, 
 and you may at once imagine Lhasa reached, 
 conquered, and destroyed by the British within 
 two weeks from the time a column should leave 
 
224 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Darjeeling. On the other hand, imagine Russian 
 columns starting from Osh or Irkutsk, even with a 
 suppliant court in Pekin, and you may imagine time 
 for British agents to spread the news across desert 
 and ocean, time for British concentration at Darjeel- 
 ing, time for the sack of Lhasa, all before a rem- 
 nant of the devoted Cossacks should have time to 
 struggle into the valley of Tsang-po, asking but one 
 boon of the British to be captured and fed. 
 
 This enormous difference in the physical relations 
 of Tibet toward the north and toward the south, is 
 a vital fact in the consideration of the probable 
 complications. That the view here expressed is not 
 a peculiar one, appears from the familiar recitals of 
 distress experienced by all the explorers, with their 
 small and specially equipped caravans. As shown 
 in one of the appendices, 1 it is moreover a view held 
 by some distinguished and expert British authorities. 
 But let us suppose the incredible to have been ac- 
 complished ; that the supine Lion has permitted the 
 outrageous Bear to hibernate in Lhasa's monas- 
 teries, and that the whole world has definitely 
 yielded the "Chinese integrity" policy, a supposi- 
 tion which involves satisfaction of enormous appe- 
 tites by a wholesale cutting up of the Chinese body, 
 wrongly supposed to be a dead carcass. 
 
 Russia can get no substantial benefit out of 
 Tibetan occupation per se. She would find it ex- 
 ceedingly difficult impossible, I think, to hold 
 Lhasa against any Tibetan liberating effort. Rus- 
 sian soldiers must be fed, and only constant physical 
 pressure at the centre would bring in food from 
 
 1 See discussion of paper read before R. G. S., February 8, 1904. 
 
Chastening of Herbert Spencer 225 
 
 Tibetan fields. Substantially the whole force 
 would be rendered impotent for offence by the 
 requirements of the commissary department. So 
 narrow is the present margin of food-supply, so 
 impossible the import of food from the north, that 
 every augmentation of numbers attempted by an 
 occupying power would only increase the difficulty 
 of maintenance. But let us further suppose the 
 incredible. Imagine, then, a small band of surviving 
 Russians, who shall have committed such frightful 
 slaughter as to paralyse the faculties of the lamas, 
 preventing them from offering even the Quaker 
 resistance of the English nonconformist to irritating 
 school-rates. Imagine some of them enrolled be- 
 hind Russian leaders and newly learned in the art 
 of firing Russian rifles. Now they must be pro- 
 jected against, nay, through, Bhutan, Sikkim, or 
 Nepal. In the nature of the case, the Europeans 
 are but a handful, and the natives are but a rabble, 
 and the ammunition-supply is small and the food- 
 supply precarious. It would be wearisome to try, 
 in these pages, the chances of every pass by which 
 they might graze the crest of the Himalayas. 
 
 I appeal for justification to every British officer 
 in whose breast burns even a spark of the old flame, 
 when I say that not a single man of such an invad- 
 ing force would ever reach the soil of India proper. 
 The Himalayas would swallow them ; the place of 
 their graves need never be known save to the Brit- 
 ish-led Sikhs and the Goorkhas who would have 
 killed them. And if this be not true, then the 
 emasculated Briton should render to Caesar the 
 
 things that are Caesar's, for Caesar is ever enthroned 
 15 
 
226 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Strength. And it must be borne in mind that such 
 a series of incredible events cannot be supposed to 
 be isolated. Russia cannot issue from the Hima- 
 layan passes except when war shall wrap the world 
 around. And I say, if she should, the diversion of 
 strength necessary to produce even the wretched 
 tragedy in which her effort must end, would be a 
 play for England's benefit ; worse than futile, as all 
 madhouse work, in the end, must be, when in con- 
 test with sane purpose. 
 
 But let us now suppose that possession of Tibet 
 (for nothing less than possession consists with the 
 efficacy of Clause IX. of the Younghusband treaty) 
 is deemed necessary as against mere intrigue by 
 Russian agents. That it may be anything more 
 than child's play, this intrigue must bear fruit of 
 action, eventually of war or threat of war, against 
 British power. To do this, its effects must leap the 
 Himalayas, those great barriers which now are made 
 higher than nature would have them, by the fears 
 of the Tibetans. The, intrigue, then, must be ef- 
 fective to reverse their policy of isolation against 
 which the British complain ; it must cause the 
 Goorkhas, now shut out from Tibet, to take up 
 arms against the Indian Empire, in alliance with 
 how ludicrous it all is! in alliance with the 
 poor creatures whom the British word of command 
 has just shot down as one would kill sheep in a 
 crowded fold. 
 
 And these who are to set the Goorkhas on fire are 
 not of their creed or of their blood, nor of the creed 
 or blood of any of the great races of India. By the 
 adoption of a religion which India rejected, Tibet 
 
I 
 
Chastening of Herbert Spencer 227 
 
 has added a barrier of sentiment to one of stone 
 and ice, rising between her wastes and the wide 
 fields which England governs. The case is alto- 
 gether different from that presented along the 
 Afghan frontier, which has seen at least two great 
 waves of conquest, moral and physical, rolling 
 southward, and leaving, as permanent deposit, the 
 richest strata of Indian life. Tibet, on the other 
 hand, is like a distant shore that occasionally felt 
 the last movement of a wave of thought or action, 
 already spent as it reaches the Himalayan crest. 
 To think of such a country as the lair of some great 
 coiled danger ready to spring, is indeed to "see 
 snakes." And to set in motion this second incredi- 
 ble series of events we have now to substitute for 
 the supposed directive force of Russian intelligence 
 and arms, the mere promises, cajoleries, and decep- 
 tions of Buriat spies, talking of their temporal to 
 their spiritual master, and promising what? 
 
 The only thing which can be conceived as appeal- 
 ing to the Tibetan mind, would be protection against 
 the aggression of the English. Yes, already enough 
 had been done to fill the lamas with just fears, be- 
 fore the presents were unhappily sent to the Czar, 
 before the convincing blow came upon them in the 
 summer of 1904. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE WOLF AND THE LAMB COMMERCIAL 
 
 CONVENTIONS AND CHRIST'S CODE 
 
 WHAT IS THE RIGHT ? 
 
 THE argument of the play is, then, something 
 like this : By a century of conquest stretching 
 gradually up to the high door-sills of Tibet, by a 
 century of aggression against the Tibetan suzerain, 
 the British have closed the once open door of 
 Lhasa, and have implanted a general fear of their 
 presence in every Tibetan mind which is capable of 
 understanding something of the outer world ; then 
 comes a co-religionist who succeeds in having the 
 Tibetan religious chief send presents to the ruler 
 who is in temporal power over the visiting pilgrim. 
 They are sent, obviously, because asked for by an 
 interested intermediary. A similar mission might 
 easily have been arranged by British influence acting 
 upon some clever lamaist of Ladak, who could 
 have tested the Dalai Lama's attitude by request- 
 ing through the Chinese exchange of presents with 
 his distant liege, King Edward, even as had been 
 granted to the Buriat. But this was not done. 
 And if these were not thought dependable, there 
 are the Kashmiri merchants long established in 
 Lhasa, giving Great Britain a far more permanent 
 contact, through her intelligent subjects, than 
 
 228 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 229 
 
 Russia has through the Buriats and Kalmucks ; yet 
 nothing of the sort was attempted after the Buriat 
 incident. 1 Hence it is not known that the Dalai 
 Lama would have in any way distinguished by an 
 unequal courtesy the two European monarchs who 
 hold sway over some of his spiritual following. 
 
 No evidence, then, of favouritism toward Russia 
 is adduced, nor has any evidence been found of 
 material support from that power in the way of men 
 or arms, even now that English officers have shot their 
 unwelcome way into the sanctuary of a poor people. 
 Nothing is reported but vague, one-sided statements 
 that some Tibetans rely upon "another power" to 
 protect them always, there is nothing but that 
 and on shadowy evidence that the Tibetans have 
 only listened to some one who might have given 
 promise of aid in case of British attack lo ! that is 
 made a reason, gravely alleged among adults, in 
 State dispatches, for making the attack / a Truly we 
 are all, au fond, only barbarians children ; for when 
 this supreme example of wolfish displeasure with 
 the down-stream lamb is held before us, let us not 
 forget that it is given to the world by a people who, 
 in a thousand ways, represent the highest work of 
 Christian civilisation, whose individual officers, the 
 very men engaged in the butchery of helpless beings 
 fighting for their elementary rights, are cultivated, 
 
 1 The attempts at direct correspondence with the Dalai Lama, 
 made through badly chosen agents, and not through the Chinese 
 officials, are referred to in the Appendix J. The Dalai Lama 
 had reason to fear the results of any intercourse not authorised by 
 the Chinese, who retained control of all foreign relations. For a 
 parallel case as between the British and one of their vassals, see 
 Appendix E. 2 See Appendix L. 
 
230 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 attractive, honourable in ail private intercourse; 
 yet prostituting, as you and I may do to-morrow, 
 the magic power of the telegraph and the printing- 
 press for spreading abroad and perpetuating such 
 crude nonsense as may be read by any one who 
 takes even the blue-book side of the Tibetan story, 
 beginning with the "Commercial Mission" of 1885 
 and ending with the "Negotiating Mission" of 1904. 
 The first was a harmless fiasco, the second a tragedy, 
 with possibilities of becoming a fiasco. It was 
 organised to prevent Russian interference. Lord 
 Curzon has not yet disclosed any reasonable ground 
 for supposing Russia had endeavoured in Tibet any 
 acts unfriendly to British-Indian interests. But he 
 feared they might. This reason for the bold step 
 is openly enough alleged in the correspondence. It 
 was even more frankly admitted by every intelligent 
 discussion of the subject, particularly in the admin- 
 istrative columns of the London Times. For accur- 
 acy's sake, however, it is well to record the other 
 alleged motives, though if the historian, like the 
 judge, may adopt as a maxim, de minimis non curat 
 lex, then all the other incidents might be passed in 
 silence. After the Tibetans had been forced back 
 from the Sikkim frontier in 1888, it became prudent 
 to have some precise demarcation of boundary lines, 
 as nobody in London or Calcutta seems to have been 
 prepared just then for forward movement, nor had 
 any occasion been given which could be thrown to 
 Little Englanders (i. e., those who declare for ethics 
 of the individual in national affairs) as an excuse for 
 following the extremist policy of empire-stretching. 
 Therefore in 1890 a convention was drawn be- 
 

The Wolf and the Lamb 231 
 
 tween British officials on the one hand and a mixed 
 commission of Chinese and Tibetans on the other. 
 The meetings were held near the frontier line, as 
 tentatively agreed upon. Provision was not spe- 
 cifically made for erecting monuments along a line 
 which, in the nature of the case, defied accurate 
 description. 1 Recognition was had also of the fact 
 that shepherds had from time immemorial wandered 
 back and forth over all these imaginary frontiers, 
 nor does it appear that trouble had arisen until arose 
 the British insistence upon strict definition where 
 definition is substantially impossible. Provision 
 was also made, though this was opposed by the 
 Tibetans, for the establishment of a mart, north of 
 the frontier, to which Indian traders might have 
 access, and in which the traffic was to be subjected 
 only to limited burdens of tax. 
 
 The Chinese officials finally consented to co- 
 operate with British agents in erecting monuments. 
 Several years of delay in this respect dragged on, 
 and finally the monuments were set up by British 
 officials acting alone. It was susbequently charged 
 that some of these had been knocked down by 
 Tibetans. As their location was determined only 
 by their enemies, and as they were of no value save 
 to give further occasion for offence in the heretofore 
 careless movement of a few shepherds over a deso- 
 late country, one may understand such a proceeding. 
 We of course have no way of accurately learning 
 the Tibetan view of any of these events. There 
 was also charge of delay in making the necessary ar- 
 rangements for the market-place at Yatung, though 
 1 See Appendix E. 
 
232 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 little was needed, if the Indian traders chose to 
 present themselves at a known spot in a desert 
 and take chances of selling their goods. That 
 those who do not want to buy your goods shall 
 be forced to build your storehouses and your 
 temporary dwelling-places and establish means of 
 supplying you with food that is hard. Among 
 people of nearly equal strength it would be called 
 outrageous. 
 
 The Tibetans were opposed to contact of any sort, 
 as it is probable that through Chinese channels they 
 already knew of the success of various disguised 
 surveyors, in the service of Calcutta, who had pene- 
 trated their country in many directions, even to 
 Lhasa's self, and had carefully mapped its roads, 
 mountains, and towns and rivers. Such maps are 
 precious to the scientific geographer and to the 
 thoughtful warrior. The difficulty of protecting 
 themselves even by theoretical non- intercourse is 
 great: they might well consider the task hopeless 
 if various traders were to be admitted. Some of 
 them would certainly be spies. The Chinese had as 
 much reason to hesitate, in this special case, as the 
 Tibetans. Loss of their suzerainty was to be con- 
 templated as probable, and also loss of their tea- 
 trade. A period of five years was fixed for the 
 non-importation of tea from India, and other word- 
 ing showed plainly enough that the day would come 
 when the Tibetan market would be forced open. 1 
 This you may say is righteous; monopolies are 
 generally bad. Free trade is good. That, too, is 
 my belief. But there is something better than free 
 
 1 See Appendix, G. 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 233 
 
 trade, and that is the right of a people to govern 
 itself. 
 
 Another tea episode more than a hundred years 
 old stands out in English history, in its details dis- 
 creditable to both parties, yet illustrating the fact 
 that liberty is dearer than tea. It is not in the least 
 probable that the effort by England to force Assam 
 tea on Tibet will be followed by such consequences 
 as those belonging to the more famous incident in 
 Boston Harbour; for the Tibetans are weak. The 
 parallel is of value only on the sentimental side, 
 removed by many degrees from the field of practical 
 empire-building. The Chinese doubtless make a 
 profit out of the tea trade with Tibet, and doubtless 
 the English or native tea growers in India would 
 like to have this profit. As the matter stands, 
 however, the Tibetans prefer Chinese tea to any 
 other, and even pay more for it, in .Ladak, where 
 Indian tea is easily obtainable, than the price of this 
 latter. And even if they did not like it better, the 
 vast danger of receiving any other is so great that 
 they must be willing to sacrifice a nuance of taste 
 for the very substance of political liberty. The 
 Yankees, be it remembered, did not have even brick 
 tea as a substitute. It is of no consequence all 
 this commiseration of the poor Tibetans who are 
 forced to take Chinese tea nay, it is of conse- 
 quence, for it is hypocritical and mean. They do 
 not want to trade with India. They are afraid to 
 trade with India. They will be forced to trade with 
 India. 
 
 Of this treaty of 1890, as of a later convention in 
 1894, we may say, in charging the British policy as 
 
234 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 the cause of all subsequent troubles, what Pym said 
 of the Earl of Strafford, under impeachment: "If 
 there were any necessity, it was of his own making; 
 he, by his evil counsel, had brought the king into a 
 necessity; and by no rules of justice can be allowed 
 to gain this advantage by his own fault, as to make 
 that a ground of justification which is a great part 
 of his offence." 
 
 The chain of events is an unbroken one treaties 
 made under duress, slow fulfilment or misunder- 
 standing of terms, further demands on the part of 
 the aggressive power, allegations of petty wrongs 
 that have obviously proceeded from the initial great 
 wrong. Such allegations constitute the fringe 
 hanging on the naked body of Tibetan offence; 
 that naked body was the gift-sending to the Czar. 
 As to why that was considered a wrong, we have 
 already inquired. As to the propriety of dwelling 
 but shortly on the contentions about a non-existent 
 trade, JEsop wrote fables to serve in just such 
 cases. We are hearing the wolf and the lamb 
 engaging in a world-old conversation. The action 
 follows, and we may now follow the action. 
 
 When the South African war had been ended, when 
 the chase of the Mad Mullah had ceased to demand 
 great attention, when Japan had begun a brisk 
 correspondence with Russia about Manchuria, the 
 time seemed ripe for urging again an unwelcome 
 trade upon the Tibetans who ask but one thing in 
 all the world that they be let alone. A high com- 
 missioner was appointed, his escort was gathered; 
 just enough, he declared to the frightened Tibet- 
 ans, for illustrating the dignity of his office; it 
 
03 ffi 
 J3 -w 
 
 <U . 
 
 ~ S 
 <U o 
 
 2 ' 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 235 
 
 rapidly grew, when the Tibetans begged him to 
 desist from entering their country. Soon it became 
 an army of about ten thousand men all told. 
 
 The commissioner indicates at once his mild at- 
 titude by declaring that he will not negotiate at the 
 point within Tibetan territory which his hosts have 
 nominated. Imagine that message coming from a 
 man leading an army into your country; imagine 
 the nauseating hypocrisy of it ; imagine the terror, 
 the despair, the final frenzy of it among the victims 
 of this Christian-led force of Mohammedans and 
 Hindoos going into a land of monkish farmers and 
 shepherds! There was honest hope, stupidly in- 
 dulged, that the poor creatures would yield their 
 country without a fight. They were known to be 
 helpless, but they were not known to be heartless, 
 and why Colonel Younghusband continued to nego- 
 tiate for the control of the country before shooting 
 a goodly number and thus satisfying their natural 
 desire for effort and for sacrifice one hardly knows. 
 Could he be Machiavellian enough to have con- 
 sidered that every day's delay meant a larger in- 
 demnity ; could he have tarried until that indemnity 
 reached a figure which meant indefinite occupation 
 of the country? No, it is not probable, yet pos- 
 sible. 1 The probability is that his course was 
 merely halting from two causes: an honourable 
 desire to avoid bloodshed, and a stupid belief that 
 he could accomplish his object without it. 
 
 There were the usual delays of waiting for Chinese 
 Ambans, tentative discussion, frantic appeals by 
 
 1 See below for confirmation appearing after this chapter was 
 written. 
 
236 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 various Tibetan officials that he should withdraw to 
 the point named by them, remorseless advance of 
 the armed executioners, and finally ' a day came 
 when oh, but it was all their fault. 
 
 We only wanted to disarm them, and they "began 
 it." We were disarming them and they began it! 
 We are sorry, but such stupidity, such disobedience, 
 clearly puts us in the right. The hundreds whom we 
 shot down were really suicides, and our men were so 
 moderate! They killed only some hundreds (we 
 never knew how many) and yet they were filled 
 with righteous vengeance, for several of our people 
 were killed by the rebels and several more were 
 injured. How wickedly stupid of them to resist 
 this disarmament ! Have we not come for their 
 good? And did they not send presents to the Czar? 
 And now is anything left to us, followers of Christ, 
 except to march on to Lhasa and teach these 
 people a lesson ? 
 
 Yes, O lordly Briton, you have taught them a 
 lesson and all the world is the worse for it. Per- 
 haps good shall come out of the evil you have 
 done, but you have been made to do what men call 
 evil, even as the tempest that wrecks our ships, 
 even as the fever which ravages our health, even 
 as the serpent which poisons all the body. 
 
 So the march was made to Lhasa, after the glorious 
 victory of Guru and many other butcheries. 
 
 Decorations were being devised while the treaty 
 was under consideration. But the Dalai Lama had 
 gone from his seat ere the British entered. While 
 they were gazing with ambitious eyes upon the build- 
 
 1 See Appendix O. 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 237 
 
 ings which represent a people's faith, and were violat- 
 ing by their presence a people's rights, he was errant 
 on the plains ; where, we do not know. Then came 
 his deposition from temporal power by Chinese edict ; 
 the arm that reaches from London to Lhasa swings 
 heavily round to Pekin. 1 The Pantchen Lama is 
 set up by British force, because somebody must 
 sign the treaty they have drafted, something must 
 be done to give basis for further action next year. 
 
 The season draws on apace, and it would be a 
 fearsome thing to be shut up in Lhasa all the long 
 winter. Even these unarmed people might find a 
 way of deliverance during the months when no more 
 cartridges could come from the land of Bibles. And 
 food is scarce, of course; while the fear is upon 
 them, the Tibetans let the grain come in, but even 
 their fear or their good-will cannot grow another 
 crop to feed the unusual mouths. If all these be fed, 
 Tibetans must starve. Starving men are desperate. 
 Nay, we must go down the hill, having gaily 
 marched up its steeps. But somebody must sign 
 something; so the poor recluse from Teshalumbo 
 is brought to Lhasa; clothed, by the British, with 
 authority which amounts to a revolution in Tibetan 
 administration ; signs a paper drawn by the British, 
 and they go away. The work is done, or well begun. 
 Next year, when the impossible indemnity shall still 
 hang over the land, we shall be in Chumbi Valley, 
 and does not Clause IX. make us suzerains in fact 
 though (now) we hypocritically declare that we have 
 not disturbed the peace of China, and though we 
 
 1 But the Pekin authorities were canny enough to call this only a 
 " temporary " deposition. The play is not yet ended. 
 
238 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 actually must await Pekin's action before claiming 
 the whole thing as a fait accompli ? 
 
 But surely we have done enough to justify us in 
 further interference. We can ever claim that this 
 treaty, signed by our Pantchen Lama, gave us vested 
 rights. There ! Is not that worth a whole deluge of 
 decorations ? Think of it ! We have vested rights 
 in Tibet ! Why these people are under our protection! 
 In our paternal care of them we may exclude every- 
 body else. We may even exclude the Buriat wor- 
 shippers (Russian subjects) from the shrine of their 
 religion ; for did not great danger come to our wards 
 through one of them ? Were we not vexed by his 
 taking of presents to the Czar ? And suppose we 
 had not been the considerate, too-tender, too-for- 
 giving Christians that we are, how terrible might 
 have been the fate of these people! 
 
 Twice have they grievously sinned against us, 
 yea, thrice. Once never let it be forgot ! they sent 
 presents to the Czar; once they refused to receive a 
 peaceful mission of soldiers, when and where Colonel 
 Younghusband desired to be received ; and once they 
 declined to be disarmed by us. And yet many of 
 them are alive ! Has ever a people been so full of 
 Christian grace as the English people? And, lastly, 
 we can now arrange that these people shall buy tea 
 from us. It may be cheaper than the tea they now 
 prefer, and yet at a lower price there will be profit 
 in it for us. Truly our Good-Samaritanism is with- 
 out bounds! 
 
 And now we must go, because we see we cannot 
 be comfortable here, all of us, during their dread- 
 ful winter; and though we have won their love, 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 239 
 
 yet we think it wiser not to leave a small number 
 of us here. That wicked Dalai Lama might return, 
 and then ! But we also shall return, for must 
 we not bear the white man's burden? Must we 
 not protect them? Remember, then, that we are 
 now married; has not the bond been signed? And 
 if there ever was a question as to the propriety of 
 our attentions, there can be none now. Yes, we 
 shall come again. Meanwhile they must be faithful 
 to the marriage vow in Clause IX. ; otherwise but 
 how could they be so wicked? after such a gentle 
 wooing, after such a happy wedding ! 
 
 These tender adieux having been cried out to a 
 listening world, the high commissioner and his es- 
 cort went away, bearing the marriage certificate and 
 reaping much glory. Of course the Russian Govern- 
 ment interposed its objection to so flagrant a breach 
 of faith as appears from a comparison of promise 
 at the outset with performance at the end. Even 
 far-away Washington, long before the treaty was 
 drafted, but when a few observers pointed the drift 
 of things, uttered a word, merely a sort of "We 
 view with concern," yet of some significance. 
 The Chinese Government up to this writing has not 
 formally accepted the terms forced upon its local 
 representative. Lansdowne has indicated that he 
 would listen to Russia's proposals of modification; 
 the Dalai Lama is still in the offing. The Tibetan 
 people are again wrapped in obscurity, and it remains 
 to see whether they will be quiet under a new gov- 
 ernment; the change involves so many complicated 
 threads of religious and political habit that we can 
 see little of the future. 
 
240 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Doubtless one thing, full of opportunity to the 
 English, has been securely accomplished; that is 
 the establishment of discord in Tibet. There are 
 few countries, however civilised, in which the fire 
 of faction would not burn high after the giving of 
 power by exterior force to one group of men, tak- 
 ing it from another. We do not sufficiently under- 
 stand the real sentiments of the influential lamas 
 toward the two great Incarnations; we do not know 
 well enough the real attitude of the Chinese au- 
 thorities as distinguished from their enforced ac- 
 tion under British pressure; we do not know well 
 enough the degree of stupefied despair which may 
 have taken hold of the Tibetans at large on seeing 
 the recent exhibition of barbarous will working 
 through the power of science. It may be that this 
 alone will bring submission, all internal adjustments 
 between factions being made secondary to the desire 
 to escape from the vengeance of the Christians. Yet 
 even their submission may be checked by the 
 resistance of others. 
 
 The proposed treaty clearly threatens the rights 
 of Russia's subjects Kalmuks and Buriats who 
 have from time immemorial journeyed to Lhasa's 
 temples. The fierce, and, I believe, unwarranted 
 suspicion, which has led to the war just ended, 
 might at any time, if wielding suzerain power, cut 
 off this pilgrimage or unduly harass the pilgrims. 
 The rights of China are flouted ; the proposed treaty 
 is, in fact, an attack upon the integrity of the Chinese 
 Empire, as a corresponding aggression upon North- 
 ern India by Russia would be considered as an 
 attack upon the British Empire. Yet England is 
 
Where watered sands burst into life. 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 241 
 
 particularly loud, in chorus with the Americans, 
 in demands for the maintenance of Chinese integ- 
 rity. Her ruthless act in Tibet must undoubtedly 
 shake the prestige of Pekin authority all over Mon- 
 golia and Turkestan, and may have indirect results 
 of most serious character. 
 
 As to what will be the . duration and vigour of 
 resistance offered by Russia and China to the con- 
 firmation and enforcement of Younghusband's con- 
 vention, that is plainly a question whose answer 
 must be heard in some echo from the mountains of 
 Manchuria. China's diplomatic movements are ha- 
 bitually slow, even when her interests would seem 
 to demand haste. In this case, unless she is pre- 
 pared to brave the insistent English, her interest 
 lies with delay. But Russia and China are not 
 alone, though vastly preponderant, in their interest 
 in the Tibetan question. The indirect effects may 
 be of wide international import. This phase of the 
 question was broached by me in a paper appearing 
 in the North American Review of May, 1904, shortly 
 after my return from Asia, and before the rigorous 
 Clause IX., or any part of the drastic Younghus- 
 band convention had been published. That its 
 near-by previsions were just, the event has proved. 
 
 A quotation from that paper may well explain 
 the ultimate danger to the Asiatic hence to the 
 European situation that may spring from the 
 apparently isolated events in an almost unknown 
 mountain-region. 
 
 " The practical destruction of Thibetan independence, 
 which may be assumed as the object of the present 
 
 16 
 
242 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 Younghusband expedition, will serve Russia admirably, 
 as authorizing the easy conquest of Chinese Turkestan. 
 For such is the accepted code of balances generally 
 adopted by the nations who believe themselves com- 
 missioned to benevolently assimilate certain other na- 
 tions. Indeed, except for her present preoccupation in 
 another part of the Chinese Empire, the consular guard 
 might at any moment be put to the easy task of seizing 
 the reins of government now in the hands of the quiet, 
 dignified, philosophical Chinese officials, who, alas ! have 
 somewhat outgrown that simple faith in Force which 
 controls the policies of Christian nations. The easy- 
 going Turki people, natives of the soil, accustomed to be 
 mastered, will doubtless be indifferent to the change, 
 perhaps even hopeful. Already they feel that the Russian 
 Consul-General largely influences the acts of the Chinese 
 Taotai. 
 
 "Recognizing then that the status quo is now being rude- 
 ly shaken in Thibet, and may at any time be destroyed in 
 Turkestan, let us note that in both cases there will result 
 a partial disintegration of the Chinese Empire, for whose 
 integrity the world may well be concerned. In neither 
 case is the territory now considered a part of any of the 
 eighteen provinces constituting China proper, but in one 
 case the administration of all public affairs is directly in 
 the hands of men named in Peking, and in the other the 
 suzerainty of China is distinctly recognized in the pres- 
 ence of three Ambans residing in Lhassa and exer- 
 cising preponderating influence in all important matters. 
 If, however, the encroachments from this direction could 
 be guaranteed to be arrested at the frontier, separating 
 China proper from Turkestan on the one hand, and 
 Thibet on the other, the world-at-large wisely shirking 
 the moral questions, because all have sinned alike 
 might be content to exhibit only the interest of curiosity 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 243 
 
 in the changes now working in the heart of Asia. But 
 can such an arrest be possible as against the compelling 
 rivalry of two great, forceful, belligerent empires ? They 
 will each have long frontier lines at the back door of 
 China. In each case the controlled territory has intimate 
 relations with China proper. A hundred petty questions, 
 some large ones, will arise, each capable of being de- 
 veloped into a cause of complaint. Complaints against 
 China when made by the peoples of iron and fire are 
 usually satisfied by taking something from China, unless 
 objection be made by some yet stronger nation of iron 
 and fire. Quite independent of any plan looking thereto, 
 even against their vague plans of moderation, the jealous 
 rivals may find themselves driven on to continued ag- 
 gressions. And these jealousies will thus operate in a 
 theatre so remote from the world's success that gravest 
 injuries might be inflicted upon the peace-loving celes- 
 tials long before such injuries could be known to friendly 
 critics, ourselves for instance, who insist that no harm 
 shall be done to China which may do harm to us. 
 
 " This, then, is but a word of caution. There is no 
 room for cant or self-righteousness on the part of any 
 nation. We have all been made sordid. What we call 
 progress has self-interest as its mainspring. To prevent 
 surprises and recriminations it is best that there should 
 be no misunderstanding. European and American dip- 
 lomats in China should now endeavor to watch the back 
 door as well as the front door of the great mansion which 
 all desire to enter. My prayer is that our quarrels may 
 not urge us to do unmeasured violence to a great, civil- 
 ized, non-military people." 
 
 In discussing with Mr. Rockhill the probable 
 eastward extension of the contest for advantage 
 between Great Britain and Russia, he justly pointed 
 
244 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 out, as tending to minimise the danger, the fact that 
 the Lhasa authority ends long before the frontier 
 of China proper is met, going eastward ; that, in- 
 termediate between the great Central Tibetan state 
 and the Empire, are several large districts, some 
 substantially independent, some under a Chinese 
 rule far more direct than that at Lhasa, and in any 
 case free from political connection with that city. 
 Some of these smaller states, indeed, as Mr. Rock- 
 hill and other travellers in Eastern Tibet have 
 testified, are more or less jealous of the Lhasa 
 Government. These conditions, it seemed to Mr. 
 Rockhill, would put a stop to English movement 
 eastward; these states, he thought, would be a 
 buffer between the Lion at Lhasa and the Dragon 
 of China. But, though yielding to none in my 
 respect for Mr. Rockhill's authority, I yet feel sure, 
 that if Nepal and Tibet have not served as buffers 
 in the past, we may not count anything as a sure 
 buffer in the future. The very dissensions which 
 now indicate a certain independence of the small 
 states, will become inducements for endless exten- 
 sion of British Power if once it be established at 
 Lhasa. 
 
 Assuming Russia in Kashgar and England in 
 Lhasa, we must observe, moreover, the new phase 
 of parallelism of march as distinguished from frontal 
 approach. The faces of both will be turned east- 
 ward and prestige will drive them forward over 
 perils, as neck-and-neck horses are driven over 
 hurdles to the finish. True, if China meanwhile 
 is solidified by external or internal force, so that 
 her frontier is one that can resist pressure by force, 
 
H 
 ^ 
 
 c 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 a- 
 >> 
 
 H 
 

The Wolf and the Lamb 245 
 
 then our coursers may be stopped, but not other- 
 wise. 
 
 Whether or not complications in Western China 
 will be viewed as seriously by others as by me, it yet 
 may be taken for granted that the rape of Tibet will 
 not be forgotten by the statesmen of interested 
 nations when they gravely begin that general read- 
 justment which must follow the close of the Russo- 
 Japanese war. No incident as large as that just 
 precipitated by Lord Curzon's fears and Colonel 
 Younghusband's ambition can stand alone in the 
 world's politics of to-day. It is probable that even 
 if the main mise upon Tibet be permitted to be per- 
 manent, Great Britain will somewhere else be re- 
 quired to yield a quid pro quo out of proportion to 
 the value gained in Tibet. I say out of proportion 
 because I consider that value as nil or negative, and 
 I mean the value to the average inhabkant of Great 
 Britain and also to the average inhabitant of India. 
 
 If Great Britian were a cooped-in nation, if her 
 energetic sons found no open spaces in the world for 
 stretching their legs and sharpening their wits, then 
 perhaps the opportunity for even the few whom 
 Tibet could support would be of general benefit. 
 But the administration of present holdings by Gov- 
 ernment, and the maintenance of a sharp commercial 
 contest throughout the world, these two national 
 activities create demands for men, for brains, which 
 are not more than met. There is no surplus. Such 
 work as England has so largely in hand requires 
 high-grade men. The ordinary white man is not 
 the typical sahib, yet in many corners of her sub- 
 ject-world, it is only the sahib quality in her 
 
246 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 representatives which makes possible the holding- 
 down of many by one. Without it, there might be 
 required almost as many Tommy Atkinses as there 
 are natives to be held. That this sahib quality has 
 been widely furnished, that it does wonderful work, 
 I can stoutly testify. I can also testify that it is 
 not wise to have one solitary sahib in Zeila, as was 
 the case when I went thence into Africa. Only 
 two were at Adis Abeba, one of these leaving with 
 me. Only one at a frontier post near the eastern 
 border of the Soudan. Only forty white men at 
 Khartoum in June, 1900. (The smallness of this 
 number was a surprise, even to those who counted 
 noses at my suggestion.) One only, as related in 
 these pages, at Kashgar ; and so in many a lost spot. 
 Then suddenly, because the one man is overworked 
 (as I saw at Zeila), there comes a war which might 
 have been avoided had there been time to get into 
 the hinter-land. There would be time to feel the 
 country ahead of one, as I know had not been, could 
 not be, done on the Abyssinia-Soudan frontier. 
 Need one say anything further as to the fatal lack 
 of good men before and during the great Boer war? 
 Not every white man has the sahib quality. That 
 is the important thing. So it is that the ever- 
 growing demands of administration, and the ever- 
 growing demands of a new competition in commerce, 
 run almost beyond the output even of the mighty 
 womb which has sent its sons to girdle the world. 
 
 A conservation of the British Empire seems to me 
 a matter of maximum importance to all the world. 
 That it should be conserved, it must, I think, be 
 conservative. The raid into Tibet I believe to have 
 
The Wolf and the Lamb 247 
 
 been wild, not capable of bearing good fruit. Its 
 occupation is not necessary to the preservation of 
 the Empire's peace; nor would it conduce to the 
 Empire's prosperity. Any harm that could possibly 
 come out of Tibet could be met, at the moment of 
 its appearance, at less moral and material cost than 
 by years of repression and injustice based on mere 
 suspicion. The whole world must come under the 
 British flag if the "maybes" which cost Tibet its 
 independence were to be applied to the rest of us. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 COUNSELS OF PERFECTION 
 
 IF, then, the Younghusband raid seems to be what 
 men call a crime, and what men call a blunder, 
 what next? Let us suppose two possibilities: first, 
 that in a reasonable time the treaty shall be rati- 
 fied substantially as written. Then, in order that 
 any effect be had, in order that things be not as 
 they were before, there must be occupation by force 
 sufficient to awe the Tibetans. The corresponding 
 occupation of Turkestan by Russia, sooner or later, 
 must be contemplated, and the probable series of 
 complications already described in the excerpts from 
 the North American Review. Second, suppose the 
 treaty to be not ratified, but emasculated. The 
 most difficult point may be the excision of the in- 
 demnity clause, for it must be supposed that even 
 in India, non-voting, non-represented India, her 
 British rulers would hesitate to charge up an ac- 
 count of ^"500,000 against Indian revenue, acknow- 
 ledging its expenditure to have been unwise. Yet 
 that would be the cheapest way out, I think, and, if 
 necessary, London might help to bear this burden ; 
 but that is a counsel of perfection. The perfectly 
 honourable, perfectly Quixotic, and hence perfectly 
 improbable course would be the following: Let it 
 be frankly stated, "We believed you might be in con- 
 spiracy to put yourselves in Russian leading-strings; 
 
 248 
 
King's Palace and remarkable group of Chortens in Ladak Leh. 
 
Counsels of Perfection 249 
 
 we are willing that you should be independent. We 
 find we were mistaken in regard to the Russians, 
 hence we revert to the position always held (on 
 paper) that we have no designs against you. As we 
 were wrong in our suspicions we of course have 
 no right to a war indemnity. Our claim in that 
 respect is remitted. You desire to be isolated, and 
 your desire should be a recognised right. We want 
 peace of mind in the future concerning the possible 
 intrigues of our great rival. 
 
 "As a fair compromise, representing less than our 
 force might demand, we, acknowledging our initial 
 error, now propose that a British agent be stationed 
 in Lhasa, without any authority, since there are to 
 be no relations except those you may desire, but 
 merely as an observer, a visitor, whom, knowing, 
 you shall learn to like and to trust. The trade- 
 privileges extorted from you, and considered dan- 
 gerous by you, will be abandoned. If gradually, 
 by reason of our agent's representations, you come 
 to a different opinion as to us, we shall be glad to 
 strengthen our relations in all friendly ways. We 
 want your friendship. Our God and your great 
 Incarnation, the ineffable Buddha, are both reported 
 to have urged men to love each other. We may 
 not be able to live, as our Master advised, a life of 
 non-resistance ; we may not be able to do good to 
 those that despitefully use us; but we think our- 
 selves capable henceforth of being good to you if 
 you are good to us, i. e., if you have no conspiracy 
 by which Russian influence shall become dominant 
 in Lhasa, whatever that may mean." 
 
 Now, gentle reader, you may imagine how 
 
250 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 impertinent this suggestion would seem to Lord 
 Curzon, or to any of the gentlemen around him who 
 take themselves and the world so seriously and make 
 it so tragic. The outsider venturing to criticise is 
 most likely to be ignored ; as a matter of fact he is 
 often not supplied with sufficient data for wise criti- 
 cism. Did I not believe the affair in Tibet to be 
 one in which only the admitted facts need be con- 
 sidered, I should feel that the able men in Calcutta 
 were probably right, despite my first impressions to 
 the contrary. But it is true that administrative 
 minds are often clouded by knowledge of the very 
 detail which gives them a sense of superiority. And 
 again, the important moral relations between com- 
 munities, as between men, are best guided by a few 
 general principles, and even one who is not viceroy 
 of India may grasp these. 
 
 So clear is it to me, however, that outside amateur 
 criticism is liable to error, when the case becomes 
 complicated, that I now proceed with much more 
 hesitation than before to state one of my first and 
 strongest impressions as to the unwisdom of the 
 present Tibetan policy. It has seemed to me that 
 when the facts shall be understood in Afghanistan, 
 as in the end they will be, grave risk will arise of 
 losing the nascent favour of the Ameer, and of 
 compromising British interests, in a quarter where 
 none will question their present importance, how- 
 ever one may criticise the course which led to their 
 creation. How different the situation there from 
 that existing in the north-east ! Afghanistan is co- 
 terminous with British-administered territory. Tibet 
 is not. Afghanistan is inhabited by a warlike peo- 
 
Counsels of Perfection 251 
 
 pie. Tibet is not. Afghanistan is a bridge spanning 
 directly from British to Russian territory. Tibet is 
 not. Afghanistan is of like religion with millions 
 of the least pliable among the Indian populations. 
 Tibet is not. Afghanistan is blown with fanaticism 
 and the pride of past conquests in Hindoo lands. 
 Tibet is not. Such are their dissimilarities. But 
 both are small nations, clinging devotedly to their 
 present political and social conditions; both felt 
 themselves as sitting insecurely just beyond the last 
 reach of the lion's claws. Afghanistan had twice 
 been torn to the entrails by his outstretched wrath, 
 but had flung death aside; and now, through the 
 skill of an English surgeon who healed the Ameer's 
 hand (wounded in a shooting accident) ; through the 
 elation caused by news of disaster in Manchuria to 
 one of the threatening neighbours; through several 
 transient favouring causes, the royal mind has un- 
 bent and leaned, or now seems to lean, toward 
 British friendship. 
 
 The observer who knows only these facts might 
 well inquire as to the wisdom of a course which, 
 by a needless attack upon a hermit people, may 
 frighten the young confidence of the Ameer and 
 confirm him in the faith, held by so many of his 
 people, that the lion never sleeps and is always 
 hungry. The possibility of losing ground in Af- 
 ghanistan by virtue of a raid into Tibet, with doubt- 
 ful gain as maximum reward, must certainly have 
 been contemplated by a watchful Government in 
 Calcutta. In respect to such an indirect and some- 
 what complicated relation, the amateur and foreign 
 critic is silent, or merely wonders. He bows to the 
 
252 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 great god " Government" like a loyal Briton, not dar- 
 ing to say of it, " Tant&ne dnimis coelestibus irce ? ' 
 
 Except that confession and restitution are not yet 
 among the phenomena of national ethics, no one, I 
 fancy, would find fault with the speech of peace- 
 making which I had ventured to put into the mouth 
 of the British Government. Exceptional as it is, I 
 feel sure that, if uttered in sincerity, it would be 
 followed by the happy results which most of us have 
 experienced, now and then, in our private lives. 
 Surely the best relation, selfishly considered at Cal- 
 cutta, and assuming Tibet to be a point of possible Rus- 
 sian intrigue, would be that of friendship. But the 
 course of past events has made it impossible that the 
 Tibetan should not entertain fear rather than love of 
 the British. Little has been done to dissipate, much 
 to encourage that fear. Even in the acts which were 
 extraneous to Tibetan relations, as in China, and 
 which had no conscious reference to them, this had 
 unfortunately been true. All the more reason for 
 special effort here. How shall friendship be shown, 
 you ask, to a people who refuse our modest "com- 
 mercial missions"? Let them alone, or slowly gain 
 their good-will through the Ladakis and Kashmiris 
 who have access to them and who afford you a far 
 more useful intermediation than Russia possesses. 
 
 1 This view of the case seems to be abundantly justified by the re- 
 cent refusal of the Ameer to meet any of the substantial demands 
 made by the British Commissioner who sought modifications in the 
 existing treaty between the two Powers. Resulting from his unex- 
 pected obstinacy are several threats of punishment appearing in seri- 
 ous British publications. True, they are not official but they are 
 straws in the current of public opinion. 
 
Counsels of Perfection 253 
 
 It will take time to win them. It has taken a 
 century of encroachment to fill their hearts with fear 
 of you. But you know that there is nothing, save 
 fear of you, to cause them to give a second thought 
 to Russia, far away across the dreadful deserts. 
 Then remove the fear of you in Tibetan hearts, and 
 you thus remove the fear of Russia in yours. It is 
 possible that this should be done. The whole his- 
 tory and delineation of the people suggest it. Con- 
 sider their weakness and your strength. If ever 
 they have listened to the Buriat's words of sugges- 
 tion, if ever he suggested anything more than the 
 welfare of his own community as hanging upon the 
 favour of the Czar, then it could be only because 
 you have bred fear instead of love. These people 
 received you kindly in the past ; they have opened 
 their doors to those who preach your faith; and 
 they have seen a wall of fire approach them. Try 
 to assure them that the flame will not again tongue 
 the peaks of their mountains. Try to take into 
 your dealings with this poor people the warmth, the 
 hospitality, the friendship, the quick charity which 
 your splendid officers have shown to me, a helpless 
 stranger, in many forsaken spots of the traveller's 
 world. And as to that unselfish interest in the de- 
 velopment of a people which, after all, does exist in 
 your hearts, let it be satisfied by reflecting that the 
 vast changes now making in China must reach Tibet, 
 even if you let it alone. Slow indeed would be the 
 process; with less of heartburn and despair; less 
 loss of faith in something great and good ; less vio- 
 lence done to honesty in your own breasts; less 
 strain upon the peace of nations; less worship of 
 
254 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 the brute throughout the world, such would be 
 the awakening of Tibet by China. 
 
 Summarising, we may say that Russian military 
 occupation of Tibet is almost incredible ; that if ac- 
 complished, it must be done across the corpse of the 
 world's Chinese policy; that, if extended against 
 India, it could result in nothing but a massacre of 
 such Russo-Tibetan forces as might be entrapped in 
 the Himalayas; that mere intrigue could produce, 
 if, incredibly, it produced anything at all, only some 
 abortive effort even less serious than the imagined 
 movement under Russian leadership; that there is 
 as yet no known evidence of Russian anti-British 
 "intrigue " ; that in either case the imagined attack 
 upon India from Tibet could be foreknown through 
 a moderately efficient secret service; that it could 
 be met when precipitated with far less expenditure 
 of energy and of treasure (practically no lives are 
 involved in either case) than the Younghusband ex- 
 pedition has involved ; that the maintenance of en- 
 forced trade-privilege will result in absurdly small 
 commercial advantage and ominously large political 
 irritation. The course actually pursued has con- 
 firmed the Tibetans in their fears of British conquest ; 
 the Afghans in their blackest suspicions ; the Rus- 
 sians in their charges of British duplicity 1 ; and the 
 world at large in its suspicion that brute force, not 
 justice, must be the protection of any cause what- 
 ever. Against such evil effects there is not now 
 any righteous remedy except that known aforetime 
 confession and restitution. 
 
 'See Appendices showing relation between diplomatic relations 
 and actual results. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF YOUNGHUSBAND WHAT NEXT ? 
 
 SINCE writing the preceding chapter, there has 
 appeared a second Blue Book in re Tibet. It 
 reveals a contest between Policy and Logic. Lon- 
 don had heard the notes of discontent emanating 
 from several capitals, and vigorous protest from St. 
 Petersburg, the capital most seriously and directly 
 interested. The Younghusband treaty had not been 
 received as a source of sweetness and light in inter- 
 national politics. 
 
 Wisely mindful of the vast burdens which the 
 Empire is accumulating, and fearing that the sure 
 gain of Tibetan occupation might be far less than 
 the loss due to European (and American) opposi- 
 tion, it was decided to sacrifice Colonel Younghus- 
 band, and, with him, those terms of the treaty 
 which, alone, can give it substance. 
 
 Clause IX. declares in effect a protectorate over 
 Tibet. This clause was dictated in London. To 
 obtain for it the signature of even a trumped-up 
 Government, London had permitted yea, com- 
 manded the slaughter of many innocent men. It 
 stands for a violation of Tibetan autonomy and of 
 Chinese suzerainty. To make it effective some- 
 thing more must logically be had and this was 
 
 255 
 
256 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 secured by Colonel Younghusband. His corre- 
 spondence discloses the fact that as was surmised 
 above the indemnity had been fixed at an "ex- 
 orbitant " figure. The adjective is Colonel Young- 
 husband's. But he wanted to use it "in trade." 
 He finally "accepts their own proposition" (so 
 gracious is the wolf to the lamb), and provides for 
 seventy-five annual payments, pending the comple- 
 tion of which that is, for seventy-five years there 
 is to be British occupation of the Chumbi Valley. 
 That is Tibetan territory and the military key to 
 the situation. 
 
 Here is something out of which enforcement of 
 Clause IX. could be had. But, as logically belong- 
 ing to the haughty pretensions of that clause, there 
 must be closer touch with Lhasa than would result 
 merely from the establishment of troops in Chumbi 
 Valley still half a dozen good marches distant from 
 the capital. So it was in the earlier negotiations 
 wisely provided that the British commercial agent, 
 ordinarily charged with the conduct of affairs at the 
 two trading-marts provided in the treaty, should be 
 allowed, when he deemed it necessary, to proceed 
 to Lhasa. Thus supervision and force were reason- 
 ably created to perpetuate a control which, without 
 them, must be the veriest sham. Both these pro- 
 visions have been disallowed, in whole or in part, by 
 the Indian Office in London, and Younghusband 
 has been publicly reprimanded for wilfully exceeding 
 specific instructions. 1 But if no British are to appear 
 again in Tibet, how shall the ghost of Russian in- 
 
 1 The provision for visiting Lhasa was struck out before signatures 
 were had. 
 
The Sacrifice of Younghusband 257 
 
 terference be laid? What check exists now against 
 the dreadful Dordjieff which did not exist before 
 the raid? "The treaty exists," replies the Indian 
 Office, "and now, if we hear further rumours 
 of intrigue, we shall have, out of our treaty, a casus 
 belli:' 
 
 But you have just made a war without a treaty 
 you made it at your will, alleging only absurd ru- 
 mours as your excuse and such rumours will again 
 be created for you or by you in the future as in the 
 past. Indeed, they are much more to be expected now 
 than ever before. Now, as never before, the Tibe- 
 tans may be led to give ear to him who might be- 
 guile them with promise of protection from your 
 blood-stained hands. And, without supervision at 
 Lhasa, without nearby force ever threatening pun- 
 ishment, the nervousness, the distrust, the furtive 
 hope of the Tibetans, co-operating with your own 
 suspicions and enforced ignorance, must create 
 troublesome situations which were impossible be- 
 fore the raid. 
 
 Occasions for misunderstanding will further arise 
 from the presence of unwelcome traders at the marts 
 which the Tibetans are required to establish, and 
 especially from the attempted disorganisation of the 
 tea-trade, now the source of a considerable part of 
 the revenue of the governing class. The indemnity 
 has been reduced from seventy-five annual pay- 
 ments, aggregating Rs. 7,500,000, to twenty-five 
 annual payments aggregating Rs. 2,500,000. The 
 occupation of Chumbi Valley has been reduced from 
 a definite period of seventy-five years, to a minimum 
 of three years. But the door is cunningly left open 
 
258 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 for returning substantially to the Younghusband 
 provision. It is declared that 
 
 "the British occupation of the Chumbi Valley shall 
 cease after the payment of three annual installments of 
 said indemnity, as fixed by the said article. Provided, 
 however, that the trade-marts, as stipulated in Article 2 
 of the said Convention, shall have been effectively open 
 for three years, as provided in Article 6 of the Conven- 
 tion, and that in the meantime the Tibetans shall have 
 faithfully complied with the terms of the said convention in 
 all other respects" (Italics are mine. O. T. C.) 
 
 In dealing with Tibet (if standing alone) the 
 British Government will be the sole judge of its own 
 complaints. On the very face of the Viceroy's 
 edict, just quoted, it is apparent that the gracious 
 reduction in the period of occupation may at any 
 time be withdrawn. Real or alleged grievances of 
 Hindoo traders; real or alleged exploits of Dord- 
 jieff* s spectre ; real or alleged resistance to the proper 
 setting of boundary stones almost any of a thou- 
 sand pitifully small acts of a disturbed people, 
 treading a new path, may serve to end the farce of 
 grace. 
 
 The Blue Book discloses, too, all the wrangling 
 between authorities which led to the making of the 
 magnanimous edict. It shows him who officially 
 uttered the gracious words strongly contending for 
 the retention of the terms exacted by Younghus- 
 band. It shows the Secretary for India, who de- 
 mands the changes, urging British international 
 interest, not justice or clemency for the Tibetans, 
 as the effective reason for modification. And it 
 
The Sacrifice of Younghusband 259 
 
 shows both finally compromising their divergent 
 views in the "act of grace." Had the Blue Book 
 not been published, the Tibetans might have been 
 deceived. But as the English language is under- 
 stood in Chinese embassies, the fraud must be known 
 even in Lhasa. There, men wear hideous devil- 
 masks that hide good-humoured faces. Now they 
 know that the English "act of grace" means simply 
 this: "Unless prevented therefrom by rival powers, 
 we shall do with the Tibetans whate'er we will." 
 'T is a fair mask hiding an ugly face. 
 
 The rejection of Younghusband by the Govern- 
 ment adds nothing of morality to its role. The 
 publication of the Blue Book does, however, suggest 
 an engaging simplicity. 
 
 Confession and Restitution these still remain to- 
 day approved by Religion, neglected by States- 
 manship. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF TURKESTAN ' 
 
 THE curtain rises on Turkestan about 200 B.C. 
 Khotan is known in the Chinese records at 
 about that date. In 177 B.C. these records set forth 
 the expulsion of Khotanese and Kashgaris from 
 their homes due to the incoming, from North-east 
 Mongolia, of swarms of Yue-che, of Mongol or 
 Tartan race, who sought new homes vi et armis. 
 Those whose vines and fig-trees they coveted were 
 a people far advanced beyond the Yue-che in all the 
 civil arts. Enough has been said in connection with 
 the ancient MSS. recently discovered (p. 60) to in- 
 dicate that the Khotan country (doubtless includ- 
 ing the region farther westward) was the seat of 
 some learning as early as the date ascribed to this 
 movement; and even without the specific evidence 
 which has been found to indicate that fact, it might 
 be fairly deduced from the mere existence of several 
 considerable cities in the Tarim basin. Their exist- 
 ence in such a land supposes extensive systems of 
 irrigation, and these, in turn, always bespeak a highly 
 
 1 The author has delivered several lectures on the journey recounted 
 in this book. Subsequent conversation with his hearers has sug- 
 gested the need of a short presentation such as here is attempted 
 of the history of Turkestan. It is not essential to an understanding 
 of urgent problems, but will, perhaps, interest some lovers of the 
 past, 
 
 260 
 
. -5 
 
 rt *- 
 3 o 
 
 si 
 
 .S 8 
 
 u -a 
 
 y 
 
Sketch of History of Turkestan 261 
 
 developed social organisation. That their ultimate 
 effect would be to weaken the organisation as a 
 military force has already been pointed out. It is 
 not probable, therefore, that the hardy shepherds 
 from Mongolia paid much of their blood for the 
 conquest of the rich oases. 
 
 In speaking of the expulsion of these earliest 
 dwellers I have used a term frequently found in 
 that connection, but in strictness it should be called 
 merely a conquest. The attack of the Yue-che 
 was not that of a ravaging army led by a Jenghiz 
 Khan or a Tamerlane, having his seat of power 
 already fixed, and now merely hungry for dominion. 
 It seems to have been the effort of a displaced peo- 
 ple to find new homes. They were unaccustomed 
 to fixed agriculture with all the niceties of a tangled 
 irrigation works: wholesale slaughter or expulsion 
 would then have left them without toilers for the 
 ditches and the fields, whose fruits they might take 
 as landlords. That a considerable number of the 
 conquered should leave is not unlikely in particu- 
 lar the pride-hurt chiefs and their closer following. 
 The traditions of West Turkestan, indeed, bear wit- 
 ness to such a movement ; the earlier settlers there 
 were disturbed by this secondary wave the dispos- 
 sessed becoming thus the dispossessors. But the 
 body of the people probably remained. To what 
 race they belonged is not known, and because of the 
 darkness, many students have boldly stumbled for- 
 ward with theories equally lacking in proof or dis- 
 proof. Such speculation was rife even before the 
 recent extended discoveries and studies of Sven 
 Hedin and Dr. Stein. While the latter has not, so 
 
262 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 far as I know, expressed himself on that point, it 
 has seemed to me that the facial types shown in 
 certain statues found by him, and the mental type 
 disclosed by some of the recovered writings, point to 
 a race not Mongol as having constituted the superior 
 and clerical element of the Khotanese inhabitants 
 as early as the beginning of our era. Yet, on the 
 other hand, little has been found to cause the temple 
 ornamentation or religious literature to be accepted 
 as proper expressions of the general genius of the 
 people. 
 
 Religious antiquities, coming from an era just 
 following the acceptance of a new faith by a con- 
 verted people, must not be lightly adopted as evi- 
 dence in the establishment of racial affinities. The 
 mere susceptibility to Aryan influences, as shown by 
 the various "finds" in the buried cities, hints of a 
 certain docility and suppleness which may mark any 
 people dwelling in the dense and enervating condi- 
 tions of oasis life ; while the absence of original work 
 in any developed art suggests affinity with the Mon- 
 gol who has ever been extremely indifferent to all 
 that may be known to us as classic influence. The 
 few facts available to us for reconstructing this pe- 
 riod in Turkestan seem entirely consistent with the 
 theory that the invaders of Tartar-Mongol blood 
 were gradually absorbed by their more numerous and 
 more civilised victims, while the resulting composite 
 race became, for a time, at least, of tougher fibre, 
 but not insensible to the artistic and religious im- 
 pulses reaching it from the south-west or west, and 
 which, even before the coming of the Yue-che, had 
 already influenced the Tarim civilisation. 
 
Sketch of History of Turkestan 263 
 
 Many students indeed would suppose, not merely 
 Aryan (Graeco-Bactrian or Graeco-Indian) influence, 
 such as might be exerted by the incoming of a few 
 enlightened teachers or great merchants ; but would 
 trace the very origin of the Tarim race itself to some 
 western or south-western source. A reference to 
 Darius's dreams of conquest and colonisation in the 
 farthest East is thought to point the way toward a 
 theory of Iranian ancestry. The frequent occur- 
 rence of monkey images in clay among the an- 
 tiquities taken from Boresan, about three miles from 
 Khotan, suggests a popular familiarity with Macca- 
 cus Semnopithicus, an animal commonly found to the 
 south of the Himalayas. This toy, together with 
 the similarity of head-dress .shown in small terra- 
 cotta images to that known in Northern India sev- 
 eral centuries before Christ are seized upon to give 
 Hindu- Aryan grandfathers to the Tarim people. 
 The idealised lion-faces (see p. 140) are also numer- 
 ous at Boresan ; those from which the illustrations 
 are made were picked up by the natives from some 
 new-cut face of the loess, formed by the wandering 
 current of the river. These lion-faces do duty as 
 proofs of Mesopotamian influence, or, to the ad- 
 herents of Hebraic ideas, of Mesopotamian origin. 
 The lion is not known in Turkestan. Its image is 
 everywhere even in snowy Tibet it is a common 
 architectural ornament. 
 
 An inspection of toy-shops or bric-a-brac counters 
 in London or New York might, by reasoning similar 
 to that just recorded, result in bringing us all from 
 Africa home of the menageries which, in paste- 
 board and in flesh, have furnished our childish or 
 
264 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 our grown-up curiosity with its choicest satisfac- 
 tion. Western influence, beginning probably not 
 later than the Alexandrian conquests, seems to me 
 well established ; western origin of the body of the 
 people of that age seems to me not established, and 
 even improbable. 
 
 The body of the people were perhaps always, as 
 now, related in blood to the Mongol-Tartar family 
 well represented by their near neighbours of the 
 mountains, the shepherd Kirghiz. Some of these 
 would gradually form permanent settlements in the 
 foot-hills of the great ranges, where grazing and 
 irrigation-agriculture could be combined. Then as 
 the knowledge of the latter method grew, its ex- 
 tensions would form the great oases, having perma- 
 nent cities, which would become permanent marts. 
 To the modification of type due to this change in 
 occupation and physical surroundings would be 
 added the blood change due to the incoming of 
 traders from other lands. A nomadic people is of 
 stable type mixture of blood being almost impos- 
 sible. But no city-dwelling people, having markets 
 even measurably open to the world, can long remain 
 of pure stock. 
 
 Returning to the Yue-che invasion, and assuming 
 it to have been followed by a period of assimilation 
 of victor by vanquished, the two having an under- 
 lying kinship, antedating the fixed settlements of 
 the Tarim people, and postdating their uplift by 
 Aryan influence, we come, in the Chinese chronicles, 
 to a conquest by the Chinese themselves. That 
 was the beginning of a hold upon Kashgaria which 
 has continued, sometimes shadow, sometimes sub- 
 

 <U 
 
Sketch of History of Turkestan 265 
 
 stance, until to-day. This conquest is definitely 
 placed in the first century of our era. It may have 
 been preceded by an intermediate wave of Mongols 
 the Hueng-nu (Huns) who were the cousins and 
 enemies of the Yue-che. Indeed the earlier move- 
 ment of the Yue-che was due to the pressure upon 
 them by the Hueng-nu, who were constant dis- 
 turbers of the peace on China's north-eastern fron- 
 tier until, shortly before the date last mentioned, 
 they had been worsted by the Emperor's armies and 
 were streaming westward, eventually to work their 
 fatal course across Europe. They moved chiefly 
 along the easier line through Dzungaria, north of 
 Turkestan; but it is not improbable that they sent 
 minor streams southward to infiltrate among the 
 populations which had been vanquished by those 
 whom they themselves had vanquished one or two 
 centuries earlier. Such additions (probably not nu- 
 merous), to the Tarim people might have disturbed 
 some of its centres, but would not have seriously 
 altered the general racial status. Nor indeed does 
 this status seem to have been largely affected by the 
 advent of the civilised Chinese for whom this distant 
 region was but a military frontier and a tribute-field, 
 not a region of colonisation. Even now, when pop- 
 ulation density in China proper is much greater 
 than it was two thousand years ago, the number of 
 resident Chinese in Turkestan is small. The prin- 
 cipal officials, Manchu-Chinese, bring their families 
 with them and return to their proper homes as do 
 the English from India. 
 
 But this laying hold upon a distant province on 
 the other side of the interior desert caused the 
 
266 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 hastening of a momentous change in the great Em- 
 pire. It was here that the Chinese came into close 
 contact with Buddhism, which had come over the 
 snowy mountains to call men's minds away from 
 this sorrowful world of desire. 
 
 The devoted missionaries from India would 
 doubtless have found their way across nature's 
 hazards to the multitudes who swarmed on the 
 eastern ocean, even if the Tarim basin had not 
 already heard the gospel and had now become a 
 Chinese province. But the facilitation of missionary 
 effort, due to such conditions, is obvious, and may 
 have meant centuries, rather than decades, in the 
 progress of one of the world's most important re- 
 ligious movements. 
 
 Burmah, Siam, and Tibet offered possible paths 
 to the missionary who would go from India to 
 China ; but they were themselves converted only in 
 the fifth, sixth, and seventh century, respectively. 
 Nor did the way through Turkestan long remain 
 open. Shortly after China had received the words 
 of peace, all intercourse with Turkestan was much 
 disturbed by the violence of the times the Mon- 
 gols intruding themselves between China and her 
 distant province. Had the Buddhist propaganda 
 not been made just when it was, Christianity might 
 have disputed, centuries ago, the great field in 
 which now its labours yield so little fruit. 
 
 Behold the complexity of things : Mongolian no- 
 mads, the Hueng-nu, attack the settled Chinese 
 and are repulsed. Then they attack neighbouring 
 tribes, and are successful, driving their victims to 
 seek new homes afar off. Later they again attack 
 
Sketch of History of Turkestan 267 
 
 the Chinese, who disperse them and follow the newly 
 opened way westward to conquer a country, East 
 Turkestan, which had first been conquered by those 
 whom the Hueng-nu had dispossessed. This coun- 
 try had received Buddhist missionaries, who con- 
 vert the victorious Chinese, adding many millions 
 to those who believe that Gautama found the 
 great Deliverance through the great Renunciation. 
 In a little while the intimate coming and going 
 through Kashgaria is interrupted; China loses its 
 hold, but the seed is sown; and in 399, 318, and 
 629 A.D. Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, Fa-hien, Song- 
 Yang, and Weng T'sang, respectively, pass through 
 Turkestan to visit Indian shrines made sacred to 
 them through knowledge of the Teacher, and leave 
 to curious generations such scant knowledge of the 
 country as the troubled times permitted. Mean- 
 while, ere the first of these pilgrims had set his face 
 westward, Christianity had mounted the throne 
 of the Eastern Roman Empire; and while Weng 
 T'sang was drinking his soul's fill at fountain-spots 
 of Buddhist worship, his own Emperor was cour- 
 teously receiving a Christian missionary at the 
 national capital. Nor had Mohammedanism yet 
 uttered its world-wide cry, the Prophet being still 
 but a struggling Arab preacher. But the centuries 
 which had passed since the words of the Meditative 
 One had been carried over the Himalayas, from 
 oasis to oasis, and across the wide desert to 
 China's heart, had now given to Gautama's memory 
 a veneration which their successors have not yet 
 destroyed. 
 
 The Christian missionaries have in later days 
 
268 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 renewed the work of O-lo-peen, the Nestorian of 
 the seventh century ; Islam has with the sword con- 
 quered the Turkestan region, which was the eastern 
 gate of Buddhism, and it raises its mosques in many 
 a village of China's sacred soil, yet the millions of 
 the great Empire are Buddhists, not good ones for 
 it is hard, so hard, to be a good Buddhist but 
 Buddhists as Smith and Jones are Christians. 
 
 Shortly after the journey of Weng T'sang, that 
 is, about the year 640 A.D., the administration of 
 Turkestan was again firmly in the hands of the 
 Chinese officials, only to be disturbed by marauding 
 bands of Tibetans ; whether from the western Ladak 
 country, relatively near, or from the Lhasa country, 
 relatively far, seems not to be known. The centre 
 of Tibetan power was in the East, but the newly 
 conquered Ladak country may have served as the 
 base of operations and recruiting depot for this dash 
 against Kashgaria. This probably meant nothing 
 more than the killing of some thousands and the 
 maiming of some other thousands of field-workers 
 and shopkeepers a too frequent occurrence in the 
 world's history to cause any shudders when sepa- 
 rated from us by thirteen centuries and seven thou- 
 sand miles. The Chinese soon drove out the Tibetans 
 (whose leaders, it seems, were but a few generations 
 down from Western China) and next had to contend 
 with the Mohammedan power which had established 
 itself, at the beginning of the eighth century, in all 
 the Samarcand region, west of Kashgaria. The 
 Chinese bond seems to have been strong enough in 
 716 A.D. to permit a troubled Emperor to call upon 
 Kashgaria and even far Bokhara for troops to 
 
Sketch of History of Turkestan 269 
 
 aid in the overthrow of a mighty rebel against the 
 throne. There followed other rude attacks from 
 Tibetans, who for a time threw themselves across 
 Western China, cutting communication with Tur- 
 kestan. Again a vigorous ruler was born into the 
 Imperial throne or a vigorous usurper chanced to 
 seize it ; whereupon the annoying Tibetans were 
 hurled back to their lonely seats. A little later, 
 another Mongol people, invading from the north, 
 grasped the sheep-prey which was the desire of 
 many wolves. These were the Hoi-he or Hu-he, 
 doubtless only another branch of that puzzling, 
 widespread family, whose kaleidoscopic marches 
 and countermarches across Asia have given to his- 
 torians a fine juggling exercise with shifting names 
 Mongols, Tartars, Hueng-nu, Yue-che, Uigurs, 
 Tanguts, Ephthalites, Tu-Kiu, Hoi-He, Kirghiz, 
 Kalmuk. 
 
 From the Chinese Wall to the Dnieper, from the 
 Tibetan frontier to the Arctic Zone, they are seen 
 righting each other; overrunning the borders of 
 civilisation ; upsetting the beginnings of order which 
 some of their own blood may have established ; 
 powerful while yet fresh from the steppe or the 
 mountain-side; easily corrupted by contact with 
 civil luxury; forming widespread and ephemeral 
 organisations which passed leaving no traces within 
 their bounds and only blood to mark their excur- 
 sions ; ' generally careless about religious matters ; 
 building little and moving much ; they are the will- 
 o'-the-wisp of Asian history. And the story of 
 Turkestan is the story of one inroad after another, 
 ever with reversion to China, 
 
270 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 These Hu-he were followed by the Kara-Kitai, 
 in the eleventh century; then came the desolation 
 of Jenghiz Khan. He massacred freely, but he and 
 his free-thinking family were a protection against 
 the fanatic proselyting-by-violence of the Moham- 
 medan states on the west of the Alai' Mountains; 
 Islam, however, steadily gained ground throughout 
 Central Asia, and ere many centuries had passed 
 persecution ceased because of a happy uniformity 
 of sentiment. 
 
 In the sway of empire hither and thither, Kashgar 
 once, in the fourteenth century, enjoyed the perilous 
 distinction of being the capital of Tughlak Timour. 
 Some regal attention, in the way of bloodshed, it 
 also received from the great Tamerlane. Then, as 
 the centuries rolled by without producing other 
 universal tyrants, the priesthood, the letter-worship- 
 ping Khojas from Bokhara's schools, seem to have 
 usurped the State, until, in the seventeenth century, 
 a Kalmuk power northward from Kashgaria entered 
 to control the struggle of priest-ridden factions, and 
 at last, about the time America was preparing to 
 fight for independence, Turkestan sank back into 
 the arms of China, whose battalions had decimated 
 Dzungaria and spared not the resisting zealots of 
 Kashgaria. It seems not improbable that some- 
 thing of protection for the cities remaining in the 
 Kashgar-Khotan district resulted from that desic- 
 cation which, by destroying the towns lying nearer 
 to Lob-nor, rendered more difficult the inroads 
 of Mongolian hordes from the north-east. These 
 would be forced to a more northern route for west- 
 ward migrations, leaving the southern region to a 
 
Sketch of History of Turkestan 271 
 
 slower, kinder, but surer desolation than their 
 bloody swords could make. 
 
 That the desiccation in itself was the cause of 
 great movements which reached and radically af- 
 fected Europe has been a favourite suggestion of 
 several writers. To me it seems improbable. The 
 destructions that were cataclysmic (a few such are 
 in Khotan tradition) would not furnish emigrants, 
 only corpses. Those that were slow would not 
 extrude large numbers at the same time but would 
 cause some gradual displacement of population to 
 neighbouring oases and some decimation by dimin- 
 ishment of food-supply. The fixed inhabitants of 
 such regions, moreover, were not of the stuff of 
 which great migrations are made. 
 
 On the other hand it may be urged that, in so far 
 as this desiccation limited the regions within which 
 war-driven shepherds of the north-east might find 
 plunder and ultimately fixed seats, it may have 
 contributed to the force which urged them farther 
 westward. And further, in so far as the Tarim 
 basin held nomad populations, these might, in the 
 space of a few years, find themselves dispossessed 
 of grazing lands by the encroaching sands, and 
 these nomads might thus join the westward-ho! 
 movement ; but there is no evidence that such 
 people were at any time numerous enough in the 
 doomed area to become in themselves conquering 
 armies. 
 
 The wars which followed during the nineteenth 
 century, quite up to our own time, were generally 
 religious rebellions, often fomented across the 
 mountains in Bokhara. At the end of one such 
 
272 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 failing effort nearly a hundred thousand people fled 
 over the mountains (or died while trying), in order 
 to join their kindred people in West Turkestan. 
 The last of these dramatic struggles began in 1864; 
 the Chinese were forced out of Dzungaria, and a few 
 years later Kashgaria was in the power of Yakoob 
 Beg, a name which has a familiar sound to ears of our 
 generation. His bloody exploits were known even 
 to the European world, and his sudden elevation to 
 regal power was the theme of much admiring com- 
 ment. But his glory was short. Back came the 
 Chinese and down went Yakoob Beg, his sun setting 
 in a sea of blood. 
 
 It was scarce thirty years ago that the Chinese 
 Peace was re-established, yet the province is now 
 ruled almost without a semblance of military power. 
 It seems to have been immemorially thus. When 
 the fire of rebellion flames, the great Empire throws 
 upon it quenching floods from its bottomless well 
 of humanity, and then awaits the next conflagration. 
 Something there is in this of justice the genera- 
 tions which yield are not burdened with the support 
 of the armies of "benevolent assimilation," while 
 those who would strike at the great leviathan are 
 slaughtered as soon as armies may be brought from 
 the over-teeming fields within the wall. 
 
 And now the long drama, with an all-Asia caste, 
 is ended. When the curtain next rises we see 
 Europe on the stage modestly attired as a consul 
 and having about her a handful of soldiers, merely 
 guards, to preserve her dignity from breach. Be- 
 hold her in constant pour parler with the former 
 heroine of the play the fair maid from far Cathay, 
 
Sketch of History of Turkestan 273 
 
 while round about them the rabble of subjects awk- 
 wardly, supinely, are massed, awaiting the pleasure 
 of the gods to determine the rivalry which cannot 
 be hid by ceremony. These people have ever been 
 puppets. They have submitted to their own history 
 rather than enacted it, nor have they had the wit 
 worthily to record their woes or their weal. We 
 know their past chiefly through the writings of the 
 great civilising power, China. 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 GEOLOGICAL AND MINOR GEOGRAPHICAL CONSID- 
 ERATIONS IN TIBET AND TURKESTAN 
 
 Partly from a Paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, 
 February 8, 1904. 
 
 WHILE ascending the mountains from Polu, one 
 sees rapidly at work the forces of disintegration 
 attacking the vast masses of exposed friable material. 
 Slates, shales, conglomerates, loose sandstones such 
 are the abounding substances which the torrents wear 
 away. One also sees some large pebbles of the harder 
 materials scarcely to be found now represented by the 
 strata above them in situ. Great as are these changes 
 now, they must be pigmy efforts compared to the titanic 
 movements of the past. On the plateau one sees and 
 travels in veritable rivers of sand; its large limits mark 
 the boundaries of some great slow stream whose waters 
 came down from vanished heights. Again, where the 
 slope is greater, the course of a mighty torrent is marked 
 by close-packed, rounded boulders. In one case, we 
 followed the bank of such a silent river of stones to an 
 elevation of eighteen thousand feet, where a flat area 
 about three miles long showed boulders laid so accurately 
 to the level, so cemented by sand, sometimes so regu- 
 larly formed in circles, that one would have thought it a 
 pavement of giants leading to the foundations of huge 
 temples. Save, perhaps, in some stretches of the upper 
 Blue Nile, I have never seen a stream having at the same 
 
 274 
 
Appendix A 275 
 
 time the width, volume, and velocity suggested by these 
 boulders, now for ever dry. Many of them seemed to 
 be granitic, though granite strata were not seen in the 
 neighbouring heights, which here as generally across 
 the Aksai Chin rose to an elevation of from one thou- 
 sand to three thousand feet above the flat areas. The 
 existence of such tremendous hydraulic force acting on 
 materials no longer seen in the position of upheaval, hints 
 of the degradation of complete strata of the towering 
 masses that have been crumbled from a uniform eleva- 
 tion perhaps not less than that of Mount Everest. When 
 one considers the wide-stretching sands of all Central 
 Asia and the empire valleys of India as being probable 
 deposits from these heights, the supposition just made 
 seems not over-bold. There is thus imaged to the eye 
 of the imagination a vast mound one thousand miles in 
 length, five hundred miles in breadth, and five miles or 
 six miles in height above the sea. Its southern front 
 and portions of its flanks are exposed, with varying 
 directness, to moisture-laden winds from the great seas. 
 Here then the secular attack upon the mound will be most 
 fierce. If the first snows that fall on the plateau's top 
 are frozen by perennial cold into a shield protecting 
 against hydraulic action yet the lower vertical or in- 
 clined surfaces will be rapidly eaten away, and in their 
 fall the higher snow-covered portions are soon involved. 
 The debris is partly swept into the engulfing sea, never 
 to be seen again partly deposited as new shore-line, 
 varied in direction by secret ocean currents; and partly 
 left as high, secondary formations, constituting a rough 
 ramp, cut by a hundred streams, yet gradually rising 
 from plain to plateau. On the northern slope, looking 
 toward the vast interior, which received only the poor 
 precipitation coming southward from Arctic waters and 
 the scant meltings of the plateau's snows, the process of 
 
276 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 destruction must be much slower; the northern body of 
 the plateau will hold a greater elevation than the south- 
 ern, and the northern face of the great uplift will be 
 more nearly vertical. (Hence it is that history must 
 record the giving over of Tibet to a southern, not a 
 northern power.) 
 
 As time goes on this giant mound must grow smaller 
 in every dimension for Neptune will have it that all the 
 mountains of the earth shall be dragged down to the sea 
 and he sends up hourly millions of little rain-drop 
 coolies who dig the very rocks away. If the structure 
 of such a great mass be relatively homogeneous, the 
 wear will be less ragged, particularly on the wide top, at 
 considerable distance from the muchrdisturbed edges. 
 But if there be somewhere a line of soft material, or if 
 the tilt of the surface, however small, shall chance to 
 throw considerable volumes of water along a given line, 
 even of average hardness, then we shall find a great de- 
 pression as that of the Blue Nile, whose steep gorge 
 descends five thousand feet below the neighbouring 
 plateau elevation yet the river-bed is still four thousand 
 feet above sea. And so here in Tibet the long line of 
 the Tsang-Po, or upper Brahmaputra, flowing in a de- 
 pression which begins many miles away on either side of 
 it, lies also about five thousand feet below the northern 
 (relatively undisturbed) plateau, and about eleven thou- 
 sand feet above sea-level. It leaves to the south, border- 
 ing its east and west course, high lands and great peaks 
 ere the true descending ramp be met. 
 
 Such a gash having been formed, the process of denud- 
 ation is hastened, because the width of level table-land 
 is diminished, and the small surface streams become less 
 sluggish. Wherever the elevation has been so lessened 
 that snow-coverings are removed by summer warmth, 
 there enters another element tending to quick removal 
 
Appendix A 277 
 
 the direct action of water being substituted for the 
 under-cutting, which must, for extreme elevations, be 
 almost the only possible method of attack. One sees 
 even now throughout the mountains we traversed this 
 process constantly at work, producing thousands of land- 
 slides a favourite sport of the spirits that inhabit 
 mountains geologically young and particularly those 
 that are high enough to have their upper portions covered 
 all the year round, or for a long season. They change 
 watercourses and caravan routes, give birth to short- 
 lived lakes which burst their sudden bounds and mad- 
 deningly confuse the exposed strata. 
 
 Snow appears on the Kuen Lun range at an altitude 
 of about 14,500 feet, and at about 16,500 on the moun- 
 tains rising from the plateau, the level spaces of which, 
 in September and October, are substantially clear. The 
 light snowfalls, such as we experienced, were quickly 
 evaporated during the warmer hours of the day by the 
 fierce winds blowing quite regularly from the south-west, 
 and constituting one of the serious hardships of travel. 
 
 A great part of the whole plateau is therefore exposed 
 to direct erosion. The effect near the edges of the plain 
 is marked. In the interior, the water being of small 
 volume, the streams meander hither and thither, cur- 
 rent scarcely observable, and form shallow lakes which 
 hold for a time that small part of the flow which has not 
 been drunken by the thirsty sands. Such tremendous 
 action of the past, of which we found the witness above 
 described, has not, to my knowledge, been discussed by 
 other travellers. I am therefore the less confident in 
 theorising about it yet suggest that, in spite of a prob- 
 ably constant precipitation of snow and rain, the summe'r- 
 volumes of these plateau streams may have been vastly 
 larger when the area above eighteen thousand feet was 
 much greater, thus permitting an accumulation of winter 
 
278 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 snow far exceeding the present deposit, and this ac- 
 cumulation then yielded, under the influence of the 
 summer's midday heats, those mighty torrents which 
 must have existed to do the work which has been done. 
 
 Volcanic action has not been of wide extent. Indeed, 
 one sees so little of it along the whole line traversed by 
 us over the Alaf, Kuen Lun, Karakoram, and Himalaya 
 ranges, that I was the more forcibly struck by the two 
 areas in which this action is unmistakable. One is near 
 Lake Sarakul, and is about five miles square. Within 
 that area one may see several true craters and number- 
 less black, tortured masses rising about seventy-five feet 
 above the surrounding coarse sand. On the edge of this 
 area was another smaller one showing petrifaction of all 
 the stems and roots of a hardy grass. There was nothing 
 to indicate the continuation of any process of infiltration 
 to account for the petrifaction, though possibly the area, 
 which lay four miles from a sulphurous lake, may at times 
 be flooded. 
 
 The second volcanic region was about forty miles 
 south of the first. Here the surface of the narrow valley 
 was covered, for a distance of several miles, with char- 
 acteristic volcanic boulders, and outcroppings of lava 
 in mass showed in the sides of the confining heights. 
 In the great east-and-west valley, however, nothing is 
 seen save what may be attributed to the ordinary effects 
 of erosion. That which is particularly noted here, how- 
 ever, is the marked difference in material and appear- 
 ance between the two chains limiting the valley. That 
 on the north is a sort of double chain, presenting toward 
 the valley a front of foot-hills, black or dark greyish in 
 colour, and showing the rounded forms that have been 
 subjected to erosive action for a period relatively long. 
 Behind them, and sometimes concealed by them if the 
 intervening distance were considerable, rose the main 
 
Appendix A 279 
 
 
 
 chain, always snow-capped, and also showing rounded 
 characteristic smooth forms. This chain sometimes re- 
 ceded from the line parallel to our route, but seemed 
 never to lose its continuity until merged in the Kara- 
 koram range. 
 
 On the south side the colour was bright brick-red, the 
 forms sharp, turret-like, fantastic, suggesting relatively 
 short and violent hydraulic action. So great was the 
 difference that I was led to suppose the southern chain 
 may have resulted from some later earth-movement than 
 that which gave birth to the northern range. These two 
 characteristic forms and colours are found mingled in 
 inextricable confusion at both ends of the valley ; and, 
 again, the chapels, towers, and minarets of red appeared 
 along the short valley which we ascended near Camp 
 Purgatory. This appearance has probably given rise to 
 the misplaced name Kizil Jilga, shown farther south on 
 existing maps. The Kirghiz had never heard of this 
 name as belonging to this locality, nor, indeed, of any 
 of the names shown on the R.G.S. or the latest Russian 
 map, as along and near the Karakash. They applied 
 the name Kizil Jilga to a big red mountain on the Kara- 
 koram route. As in all this region there are no inhabi- 
 tants other than the Kirghiz met by us, it would perhaps 
 be well to omit these noms de fantaisie from future maps. 
 The two lakes shown on our route deserve, on the other 
 hand, that some name be given them. One, of fresh 
 water, is possibly that called Lake Lighten by Wellby. 
 The other lake is salt, and has been visited by natives, 
 we thought, because a trail was seen near it, which we 
 tried to follow, but vainly, it gradually disappeared in 
 the sands. Perhaps it had been made only by wild yak 
 and wild horses. A remarkable lowering in the level of 
 the lake seems to have taken place in recent years. 
 Well-defined banks stand up about fifteen feet from the 
 
280 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 general level of the sand now separating them from the 
 water's edge sometimes by a distance of two miles or 
 more. These banks are still sharply defined, suggesting 
 that only a few years have passed since they were filled. 
 No such affluents were seen as are shown on the latest 
 Russian map in connection with a lake occupying nearly 
 the position given by my notes to this sheet of salt water. 
 Information concerning the lake, and concerning the 
 mountain system of Aksai Chin, has doubtless hereto- 
 fore been taken only from the reports of natives. The 
 error in respect to the mountains is considerable. The 
 dominating chain is not north and south, as heretofore 
 shown, but there are two east-and-west chains, generally 
 parallel to the Kuen Lun. The first lake and the salt 
 lake both lie closely ensconced in bounding hills of the 
 valley, which narrows at these points. Heretofore they 
 are shown as in open plains. 
 
 Another correction of some importance has to do with 
 the course of the Karakash, which has been shown here- 
 tofore as extending sixty miles or more farther south 
 than is the fact. We chanced to come into the valley of 
 this stream above its permanent sources, which come up 
 out of the sand. There was seen, indeed, a small break 
 in the valley wall, corresponding to the point where the 
 assumed southern extension appears on older maps. But 
 this opening was seen to have a steep incline upward, 
 and no water came from it. Nor can a considerable 
 volume come at any time, as just below this point the 
 valley was crossed completely, from hill to hill, by a 
 very curious line of small stone monuments, about two 
 feet apart, and consisting of small boulders piled about 
 a foot high. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 FROM DISCUSSION OF THE PAPER BEFORE THE 
 ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 
 
 8, 1904 
 
 AFTER the reading of the paper 
 Sir THOMAS HOLDICH ': Mr. Crosby has given us 
 a very vivid description of the desolate nature of one of 
 the remote corners of Tibet up in the extreme north-west, 
 and he has expressed an opinion, which I think we most of 
 us share, that it is absolutely impossible for any large 
 party, any force of any size, to journey from north to 
 south across the wild and bleak and desolate region of 
 the northern half of Tibet down into the southern, which 
 is of a very different character the valley of the upper 
 Brahmaputra. But perhaps it will be interesting to 
 you to know that this question as to the feasibility of 
 crossing the Alai Mountains was discussed four hundred 
 years ago just as keenly as it is discussed now. Just 
 about the same time that the Emperor Baber was es- 
 tablishing the Mongol dynasty in India, a general of 
 his, who was much connected with Central Asian affairs, 
 discussed the question as to whether it was possible to 
 reach Kashmir by the same route which Mr. Crosby 
 attempted and found impracticable. He came to the 
 conclusion that it was not possible, so he resorted to 
 the route which Mr. Crosby finally took, and crossed 
 the Karakoram; and he crossed, with not half a dozen 
 1 Former Surveyor-General of India. 
 281 
 
282 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 followers, but with a large force. They came down into 
 Rudok, and conquered that country, making it a base 
 for a fresh start into Lhasa. This is interesting to us 
 from the point of view as to whether it is possible for an 
 armed force to reach Lhasa from the west. The Mongols 
 made a good try, and then the inevitable thing happened 
 their horses died; but with only ninety men they suc- 
 ceeded in getting as near as Shigatse, which they reck- 
 oned was eight days' march from Lhasa. Then they 
 turned round and went back to Rudok. Another in- 
 teresting point is that the Tibetans, after true Tibetan 
 fashion, received the Mongol general with great hospi- 
 tality; they even assisted him to get together another force 
 to harry another part of their own country. Well, it was 
 centuries after, that the next attempt was made from 
 Rudok to reach Lhasa. This time it was made by Sikhs. 
 General Zorowar Sing, acting for Ghulab Sing, who was 
 Raja of Kashmir, attempted to reach Lhasa by Leh. He 
 came to grief exactly as Mirza Haidar had come to grief 
 before him his horses gave out before he got to Lhasa, 
 and he beat a somewhat hasty retreat. It is curious to 
 observe that the fighting that was done was not done by 
 Tibetans, but by Ghurkas, who were sent across the 
 border to fight them. Thus we learn from history that the 
 attempt to make any military movement, at any rate from 
 the west, is an exceedingly difficult and perilous one. 
 Once again, not long after, a small and turbulent tribe 
 of the Himalayas, the Ghurkas (who had conquered 
 Nepaul), thought it was time to have a look into Tibet 
 itself. They made their attack directly over the passes, 
 and they were successful; moving very rapidly, they 
 succeeded in reaching Tashilumpo. They absolutely 
 destroyed the place, and they were inclined to settle 
 down there. When the authorities fled to Lhasa they sent 
 information to China, and asked for assistance; and then 
 
Appendix B 283 
 
 followed what I really believe to be one of the most re- 
 markable military movements that ever was made in 
 the world seventy thousand Chinese are said to have 
 crossed the passes from the east to get to Lhasa. From 
 the borders of their own country to Lhasa is a good 
 twelve hundred miles, and although a part of the country 
 is very different from that which Mr. Crosby has de- 
 scribed, i.e., the upper valley of the Brahmaputra and 
 the immediate neighbourhood of Lhasa, which is com- 
 paratively low, and where there is a considerable amount 
 of cultivation, still the greater part of the journey must 
 have been across most horribly difficult mountain passes, 
 where they must have lost multitudes of men. Never- 
 theless, they not only reached Lhasa, but, having got 
 there, they started for another four hundred miles en 
 route to Nepaul. They beat the Ghurkas handsomely, 
 first of all to the north of their owii mountains, and then 
 followed them over their passes. The Ghurkas made 
 their last stand some twenty miles in front of Khatmandu, 
 and there the Chinese finally defeated them, and left 
 such a reputation behind them that to this day the 
 Nepaulese send deputations to China once every five 
 years to pay tribute. It only shows us the danger of 
 depreciating a possible adversary. The best fighting 
 men that we know in the East are Ghurkas and Sikhs, 
 and yet they have been beaten all to nothing by Chinese 
 in times gone past. And to this day Chinese authority 
 over the whole of Tibet is practically as sound, I im- 
 agine, as ever it was. I would ask you, in conclusion, 
 to differentiate carefully between Northern Tibet the 
 Tibet which Mr. Crosby has described to-night and 
 the true "Bodyul, " which is the scene of Colonel 
 Younghusband's mission at the present moment. It is 
 only in South-eastern Tibet, in the upper valley of the 
 Brahmaputra, that there really is a country which you 
 
284 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 may say, climatically, is tolerably suitable for European 
 life; and it is a point to remember that Lhasa, the capi- 
 tal of Tibet, is situated if not on the banks of the 
 Brahmaputra River itself on the banks of a small tribu- 
 tary of the Brahmaputra; and that it is not only the 
 capital of Tibet, but the religious centre of such a vast 
 number of people that I believe, taking them all together, 
 they number almost one-third of the population of the 
 world. Now, I have been told that during the war in 
 China, about one-third of China did not know that any 
 war was going on at all ; they did not take any interest 
 in it. But I will venture to say that if two European 
 officers were to reach Lhasa, within a few months it 
 would be known over the whole of China whether these 
 officers were British or Russians. 
 
 The PRESIDENT l : We have listened to a most interest- 
 ing paper, and to an equally interesting discussion. The 
 great plateau of Tibet to which Mr. Crosby has alluded, 
 and portions of which he has visited, is, geographically 
 speaking, I consider, one of the most interesting portions 
 of the globe. He has suggested various causes for the 
 existence of that vast plateau, and he has described to 
 us the changes that have been taking place in it. I do 
 not believe that any army, for the invasion either of 
 Tibet or India, has ever crossed it. The invasions Sir 
 Thomas Holdich has alluded to have all gone along the 
 valley of the Tsanpu or from the eastward ; none have 
 ever passed over the lofty desert. Therefore I think in 
 that respect it does form a great barrier. 
 
 1 Sir Clements Markham, a distinguished traveller and student of 
 Central Asian questions. 
 
APPENDIX C 
 
 LADAKHI (WESTERN TIBET) SONGS, EDITED IN CO- 
 OPERATION WITH REV. S. RIBBACH AND DR. 
 E. SHAWE, BY H. FRANCKE, LEH, 1899 
 
 The King' s Garden, Leh. 
 
 1. Through perfect good fortune 
 
 2. The happiness containing garden karbzo 
 
 3. Not being built, was completed by itself. 
 
 4. It is the house of the gods and the sun. 
 
 5. Having in the zenith of the clear sky 
 
 6. Sun and moon like umbrellas, so it arose. 
 
 7. It is a wonderfully pleasing sight. 
 
 8. It is like a fine room with pairs of pillars. 
 
 9. Within on the lion's throne 
 
 10. Sits a famous and strong family. 
 
 11. That is Chosrgyal Thsedpal with mother and son. 
 
 12. May their lotus-like feet stand 100 kalpas! 
 
 13. On this magnificent high nut tree 
 
 14. Boys and girls sing melodious songs like birds. 
 
 15. Underneath the youths gather 
 
 1 6. And sing a song of happiness and welfare. 
 
 2 Karbzo means, " risen by itself." 
 
 9 The lion's throne points to the King's castle, which was built 
 in the middle of the garden. 
 
 11 The King's name means "religious king, glory of the time." 
 
 12 Kalpa, a fabulous period of time, at least 100,000 years. Skr. 
 
 13 The royal family is compared with this high walnut tree, under 
 whose shelter happiness dwells; walnut trees do not grow in Leh. 
 
 285 
 
286 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 This song of praise was written by the Leh minister 
 dNgosgrub bstanadzin in the fine castle within the karbzo 
 garden. 
 
 The Game of Polo. 
 
 1. With an earthquake we shall shake the sky! 
 
 2. Where goes our Master ? 
 
 3. To the Polo ground in the middle of the village. 
 
 4. There goes our Master for playing Polo. 
 
 5. To the Polo ground of the village Cigtan 
 
 6. There goes our Khan for playing Polo. 
 
 7. In the uppermost part (of the Polo ground) 
 
 8. Our Master hits the ball in the air. 
 
 9. In the downmost part (of the Polo ground) 
 
 10. Our Master hits it straight through the goal. 
 
 11. There our Master brings [the ball] to please his 
 
 friends. 
 
 12. There the Master brings [the ball] to grieve the 
 
 enemies. 
 
 13. There on your high horse 
 
 14. You are like a flower in bloom. 
 
 15. There on your high black horse with white hind 
 
 feet. 
 
 15 Horses are of different value according to their colour, those 
 described in 15 are about the most valuable. 
 
 Pleasure of Youth. 
 
 1. The high ones (live) in high places. 
 
 2. Into all the heights of the sky 
 
 3. Besides the king of birds none flies. 
 
 4. During the three summer months, whatever can 
 
 bloom, blooms. 
 
Appendix C 
 
 287 
 
 5. Besides the three summer months, oh, there are no 
 
 flowers. 
 
 6. Besides this one life-time I shall not belong to my 
 
 mother. 
 
 7. In this one life-time, whatever can be happy, is 
 
 happy. 
 
 8. Enjoy this one life-time as ever you can enjoy it. 
 
 First girl. 
 Second girl. 
 
 First girl. 
 Second girl. 
 
 First girl. 
 Second girl. 
 
 The Beautiful Thseringskyid. 
 
 1. Have" you not seen my companion ? 
 Have you not seen my companion 
 
 Thseringskyid ? 
 
 Your companion I do not know, 
 Your companion Thseringskyid I do 
 
 not know. 
 
 A girl, whose body was built as of gold 
 Was passing by here just now. 
 
 2. Have you not seen my companion ? 
 Have you not seen my companion 
 
 Thseringskyid? 
 
 Your companion I do not know, 
 Thseringskyid I do not know. 
 A girl with a mass of matted hair (full 
 
 of) turquoises 
 Was passing by here just now. 
 
 3. Have you not seen my companion ? 
 Have you not seen my companion 
 
 Thseringskyid ? 
 
 Your companion I do not know, 
 Thseringskyid I do not know. 
 A girl, glorious like the moon on the 
 
 Was passing by here just now. 
 
288 
 
 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 The whole is not to be taken seriously, the girls are 
 teasing each other. 
 
 First girl. 4. Have you not seen my companion ? 
 
 Have you not seen my companion 
 
 Thseringskyid? 
 
 Second girl. Your companion I do not know, 
 Thseringskyid I do not know. 
 A girl with eyebrows like the O of the 
 
 (Tibetan) alphabet 
 Was passing by here just now. 
 First girl. 5. Have you not seen my companion, 
 
 Have you not seen my companion 
 
 Thseringskyid? 
 
 Second girl. Your companion I do not know, 
 Thseringskyid I do not know. 
 A girl with teeth like curdled milk 
 
 and pearls 
 
 Was passing by here just now. 
 First girl. 6. Have you not seen my companion ? 
 
 Have you not seen my companion 
 
 Thseringskyid? 
 
 Second girl. Your companion I do not know, 
 Thseringskyid I do not krfow. 
 A girl with a waist like a monastery 
 
 bell 
 
 Was passing by here just now. 
 First girl. 7. Have you not seen my companion ? 
 
 Have you not seen my companion 
 
 Thseringskyid? 
 
 Second girl. Your companion I do not know, 
 
 Thseringskyid I do not know. 
 A girl, who is spinning a silk thread, 
 Was passing by here just now. 
 
Appendix C 289 
 
 Another 
 
 person. 8. You all belong to the shoe-maker caste, 
 Why did you come to my house ? 
 
 3 On the fifteenth of the Tibetan month there ought to be a full 
 moon. 
 
 8 This verse is either part of a different song, or it might be taken 
 to express : Now we have had enough of this nonsense, go away ! 
 
 Secret Love. 
 
 The girl says : i. On the meadow, on the upper meadow, 
 
 2. On the upper meadow there is a flower 
 
 in bloom. 
 
 3. Hollah, my boy ! 
 
 4. A flower of very fine shape is in bloom 
 
 there, my fellow ! 
 
 5. Gather the flower, my boy. 
 
 6. Gather the well-shaped flower ! 
 
 7. If you gather it with your hand, it will 
 
 fade. 
 
 8. Gather it with your soul and keep it 
 
 (fasten it) in your mind ! 
 
 9. Gather it with your soul and keep it 
 
 in your mind ! 
 19 
 
APPENDIX D 
 
 From the London Times, May 24, 1903. Mr. James Bryce 
 at Aberdeen, May 23, 1903. 
 
 The Tibetans asked nothing better than to be let alone. 
 They were not fierce raiders like the Afghans. They valued 
 their splendid isolation. They wished, like Mr. Chamberlain, 
 to exclude foreign goods, and, like the Government, to ex- 
 clude alien immigrants except the Chinese. We had some 
 petty frontier disputes with them. They had been tiresome 
 and discourteous, refusing to send or receive envoys. Their 
 conduct had given material out of which those who wished 
 to have a quarrel could make a quarrel. But their very 
 weakness and ignorance rendered it possible for a great Power 
 to be indifferent. 
 
 The Tibetans were said to have had some communication 
 with the Russian Government, but the Government had de- 
 clared that they accepted Russia's denial. They called it a 
 peaceful mission and professed to believe it could have a 
 peaceful reception. The mission had become a war, etc. 
 
 290 
 
APPENDIX E 
 
 Pages 6 and 7 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904" 
 
 (Note Clause II. as to control, by the Suzerain, of foreign 
 correspondence in a protected country. Note Clause VI. as to 
 reservation concerning future determination of method of com- 
 munication between India and Tibet. Lord Curzon did not 
 wait for this determination before making direct address to the 
 Dalai Lama. O. T. C.) 
 
 Convention of 1890 between Great Britain and China 
 relating to Sikkim and Tibet. 
 
 Whereas Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, and His Ma- 
 jesty the Emperor of China, are sincerely desirous to main- 
 tain and perpetuate the relations of friendship and good 
 understanding which now exist between their respective 
 Empires; and whereas recent occurrences have tended 
 towards a disturbance of the said relations, and it is desirable 
 to clearly define and permanently settle certain matters con- 
 nected with the boundary between Sikkim and Tibet, Her 
 Britannic Majesty and His Majesty the Emperor of China 
 have resolved to conclude a Convention on this subject and 
 have, for this purpose, named Plenipotentiaries, that is to 
 say; 
 
 Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, His 
 Excellency the Most Honourable Henry Charles Keith Petty 
 Fitzmaurice, G.M.S.I., G.C.M.G., G.M.I.E., Marqeuss of 
 Lansdowne, Viceroy and Governor-General of India, 
 
 And His Majesty the Emperor of China, His Excellency 
 Sheng Tai, Imperial Associate Resident in Tibet, Military 
 Deputy Lieutenant-Governor. 
 
 Who having met and communicated to each other their 
 291 
 
292 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 full powers, and finding these to be in proper form, have 
 agreed upon the following Convention in eight Articles: 
 
 ARTICLE I. The boundary of Sikkim and Tibet shall be 
 the crest of the mountain range separating the waters flowing 
 into the Sikkim Teesta and its affluents from the waters 
 flowing into the Tibetan Mochu and northwards into other 
 rivers of Tibet. The line commences at Mount Gipmochi on 
 the Bhutan frontier and follows the above-mentioned water- 
 parting to the point where it meets Nipal territory. 
 
 II. It is admitted that the British Government, whose 
 protectorate over the Sikkim State is hereby recognised, has 
 direct and exclusive control over the internal administration 
 and foreign relations of that State, and except through and 
 with the permission of the British Government, neither the 
 Ruler of the State nor any of its officers shall have official 
 relations of any kind, formal or informal, with any other 
 country. 
 
 III. The Government of Great Britain and Ireland and 
 the Government of China engage reciprocally to respect the 
 boundary as defined in Article I., and to prevent acts of 
 aggression from their respective sides of the frontier. 
 
 IV. The question of providing increased facilities for 
 trade across the Sikkim-Tibet frontier will hereafter be dis- 
 cussed with a view to a mutually satisfactory arrangement 
 by the High Contracting Powers. 
 
 V. The question of pasturage on the Sikkim side of 
 the frontier is reserved for further examination and future 
 adjustment. 
 
 VI. The High Contracting Powers reserve for discussion 
 and arrangement the method in which official communica- 
 tions between the British authorities in India and the au- 
 thorities in Tibet shall be conducted. 
 
 VII. Two Joint-Commissioners shall, within six months 
 from the ratification of this Convention, be appointed, one 
 by the British Government in India, the other by the Chinese 
 Resident in Tibet. The said Commissioners shall meet and 
 discuss the questions which by the last three preceding 
 Articles have been reserved. 
 
 VIII. The present Convention shall be ratified, and the 
 ratifications shall be exchanged in London as soon as pos- 
 sible after the date of the signature thereof. 
 
Appendix E 293 
 
 In witness whereof the respective negotiators have signed 
 the same and affixed thereunto the seals of their arms. 
 
 Done in quadruplicate at Calcutta this seventeenth day of 
 March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 
 and ninety, corresponding with the Chinese date the twenty- 
 seventh day of the second moon of the sixteenth year of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 [Chinese 
 
 [SEAL] (Sd) LANSDOWNE. seal and 
 
 signature.] 
 
APPENDIX F 
 
 Pages 8 and 9 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 (Note the declaration of the British Agent that nothing short 
 of the complete destruction, as to British interests, of the isola- 
 tion desired by Tibet, would be considered as satisfactory. 
 O. T. C.) 
 
 Letter from the Government of India, in the Foreign De- 
 partment, to the Right Honourable the Earl of Kim- 
 berley, K.G., Her Majesty's Secretary of State for 
 India, dated Simla, the 4th July, 1893. (Received 
 the 25th July, 1893.) 
 
 (Extract) 
 
 With our despatch, dated the 25th March, 1890, we had 
 the honour to forward copies of the Sikkim-Tibet Convention 
 which was signed on the i;th of that month, and His Excel- 
 lency the Viceroy's telegram of the 3ist December, 1890, in- 
 formed Lord Cross that Mr. A. W. Paul, C.I.E., C.S., had 
 been selected for the appointment of British Commissioner 
 under Article VII. of the Convention. In our despatch, 
 dated the 2nd November, 1892, we reported that, although 
 we had made numerous and important concessions to China 
 in the course of the ensuing negotiations, matters had come 
 to a dead-lock owing to the persistence of the Chinese in the 
 determination to entirely exclude Indian tea from Tibet. A 
 compromise has, however, at length been effected, and as the 
 reserved articles of the Convention appear now to be within 
 measurable distance of settlement, it will be convenient to 
 place before Your Lordship a sketch of what has passed since 
 the negotiations were opened nearly two and a half years ago. 
 As a first step representatives on behalf of China were ap- 
 pointed under the terms of the Convention by the orders of 
 
 294 
 
Appendix F 295 
 
 His Excellency the Amban Sheng Tai, Chief Resident in 
 Tibet, who had signed the Convention in Calcutta; but the 
 leading parts in the negotiations were taken on the Chinese 
 side by Sheng Tai himself and by Mr. J. H. Hart, Secretary to 
 the Amban. On the i6th January, 1891, Mr. Hart com- 
 municated to Mr. Paul an outline settlement of the reserved 
 articles which he suggested should be filled in in accordance 
 with the views of the Government of India. This outline 
 was worded as follows: 
 
 First: Pasturage. Such privileges as Tibet enjoys on the 
 Sikkim side of the frontier will be enjoyed by Sikkim on the 
 Tibet side. 
 
 Second: Communication. Communication shall be be- 
 tween the Chinese Resident in Tibet and India, and shall be 
 transmitted through the medium of the officer in charge of 
 trade in the Chumbi valley. 
 
 Third: Trade. Place of trade or trade-mart yet to be 
 designated shall be opened under regulations and with tariff 
 yet to be arranged. 
 
 Under instruction from the Government of India, Mr. 
 Paul, on the 23rd February, 1891, informed Mr. Hart that 
 the Government of India accepted this outline, and that, 
 although nothing short of free trade and free travel for all 
 British subjects throughout Tibet would be considered a 
 satisfactory solution of these questions, the Governor-General 
 in Council, who was desirous not to unduly press or em- 
 barrass the Chinese Government, was prepared to agree to 
 an arrangement on the lines of the following articles, namely: 
 
APPENDIX G 
 
 Pages 22 and 23 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 (Note that while provision is made for correspondence with 
 the Chinese Imperial Resident, nothing is said as to corre- 
 spondence directly addressed to the Dalai Lama. Such corre- 
 spondence, it is plainly assumed, will not exist. The Tibetan 
 authorities are not parties either to these Regulations or to the 
 original Convention of 1890. O. T. C.) 
 
 Regulations regarding Trade, Communication, and Pas- 
 turage to be appended to the Sikkim- Tibet Convention 
 of 1890. 
 
 I. A trade-mart shall be established at Yatung on the 
 
 Tibetan side of the frontier, and shall be open to all British 
 
 subjects for purposes of trade from the first day 
 
 Trade. o f May, 1894. The Government of India shall 
 
 be free to send officers to reside at Yatung to 
 
 watch the conditions of British trade at that mart. 
 
 II. British subjects trading at Yatung shall be at liberty 
 to travel freely to and fro between the frontier and Yatung, 
 to reside at Yatung, and to rent houses and godowns for 
 their own accommodation, and the storage of their goods. 
 The Chinese Government undertake that suitable buildings 
 for the above purposes shall be provided for British subjects, 
 and also that a special and fitting residence shall be provided 
 for the officer or officers appointed by the Government of 
 India under Regulation I. to reside at Yatung. British sub- 
 jects shall be at liberty to sell their goods to whomsoever they 
 please, to purchase native commodities in kind or in money, 
 to hire transport of any kind, and in general to conduct their 
 business transactions in conformity with local usage, and 
 without any vexatious restrictions. Such British subjects 
 
 296 
 
Appendix G 297 
 
 shall receive efficient protection for their persons and pro- 
 perty. At Lang-jo and Ta-chun, between the frontier and 
 Yatung, where rest-houses have been built by the Tibetan 
 authorities, British subjects can break their journey in con- 
 sideration of a daily rent. 
 
 III. Import and export trade in the following Articles 
 arms, ammunition, military stores, salt, liquors, and in- 
 toxicating or narcotic drugs, 
 
 may at the option of either Government be entirely pro- 
 hibited, or permitted only on such conditions as either Gov- 
 ernment on their own side may think fit to impose. 
 
 IV. Goods, other than goods of the descriptions enu- 
 merated in Regulation III., entering Tibet from British 
 India, across the Sikkim-Tibet frontier, or vice versd, what- 
 ever their origin, shall be exempt from duty for a period of 
 five years commencing from the date of the opening of 
 Yatung to trade, but after the expiration of this term, if 
 found desirable, a tariff may be mutually agreed upon and 
 enforced. 
 
 Indian tea may be imported into Tibet at a rate of duty 
 not exceeding that at which Chinese tea is imported into 
 England, but trade in Indian tea shall not be engaged in 
 during the five years for which other commodities are 
 exempt. 
 
 V. All goods on arrival at Yatung, whether from British 
 India or from Tibet, must be reported at the Customs Station 
 there for examination, and the report must give full par- 
 ticulars of the description, quantity, and value of the goods. 
 
 VI. In the event of trade disputes arising between British 
 and Chinese or Tibetan subjects in Tibet, they shall be en- 
 quired into and settled in personal conference by the Political 
 Officer for Sikkim and the Chinese frontier officer. The 
 object of personal conference being to ascertain facts and do 
 justice, where there is a divergence of views the law of the 
 country to which the defendant belongs shall guide. 
 
 VII. Despatches from the Government of India to the 
 Chinese Imperial Resident in Tibet shall be 
 handed over by the Political Officer for Sikkim Communica- 
 te the Chinese frontier officer, who will forward 
 them by special courier. 
 
 Despatches from the Chinese Imperial Resident in Tibet 
 
 ;sETiB^ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
298 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 to the Government of India will be handed over by the Chi- 
 nese frontier officer to the Political Officer for Sikkim, who 
 will forward them as quickly as possible. 
 
 VIII. Despatches between the Chinese and Indian of- 
 ficials must be treated with due respect, and couriers will 
 be assisted in passing to and fro by the officers of each Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 IX. After the expiration of one year from the date of the 
 
 opening of Yatung, such Tibetans as continue to graze their 
 
 cattle in Sikkim will be subject to such Regula- 
 
 Pasturage. tions as the British Government may from time 
 
 to time enact for the general conduct of grazing 
 
 in Sikkim. Due notice will be given of such Regulations. 
 
APPENDIX H 
 
 Pages 25, 42-3, and 52-3 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 (Note the admissions that (a) no practical inconvenience re- 
 sulted from delay in demarcation, (b) that the territory in 
 question is valueless to Sikkim, (c) that there are good grounds 
 for supposing the contention of the Tibetans to be just. Then 
 note the expression "surrender of territory." O. T. C.) 
 
 Extracts from a Letter from the Government of India, in 
 the Foreign Department, to the Right Honourable H. 
 H. Fowler, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for 
 India, dated Simla, the 2$th June, 1895. (Received 
 the ijth July, 1895-) 
 
 5. The Lieutenant-Govern or of Bengal recommended 
 that, if the Chinese and Tibetan delegates were unable to at 
 once join Mr. White, he should be authorised to proceed 
 alone to lay down the boundary where no dispute is known 
 to exist. Demarcation was not, however, provided for in 
 the Treaty of 1890; no serious practical inconvenience had 
 apparently arisen through the frontier being undemarcated, 
 and under all the circumstances we considered it preferable 
 that Mr. White should not proceed alone beyond the Doka 
 La. We accordingly directed that, if the Chinese delegates 
 failed to meet him there on or about the ist June, he should 
 explain matters by letter to the Chinese Resident and return 
 to Gantok. 
 
 6. Mr. White subsequently reported that the pillar 
 erected at the Jeylap La had been demolished by Tibetans, 
 and that the pillar on the Donchuk La had been wilfully 
 damaged. The Lieutenant-Governor wished us to bring 
 
 299 
 
300 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 pressure to bear on the Chinese Resident in order to secure 
 reparation. There is, however, at present no evidence that 
 the mischief is to be directly attributed to Tibetan officials, 
 and it is in our opinion necessary to make allowances for the 
 difficulties of the Chinese Resident's position in respect to 
 the Tibetans. 
 
 (B) 
 
 Letter from the Government of India, in the. Foreign De- 
 partment, to the Right Honourable Lord George F. 
 Hamilton, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India, 
 dated Simla, the jrd September, 1895. (Received the 
 2jrd September, 1895.) 
 
 Our Despatch, dated the 25th June, 1895, informed Her 
 Majesty's Government of the position of affairs on the 
 Sikkim-Tibet border. We have since been in further corre- 
 spondence with Sir Nicholas O' Conor, and on the roth August 
 instructions were issued that our demarcation party should 
 break up and that Mr. White should return to Gantok. 
 
 2. The Chinese Resident in Tibet suggested postpone- 
 ment of demarcation until after five years from the date on 
 which the Trade Regulations attached to the Convention of 
 1890 came into force. His Excellency the Viceroy has de- 
 clared his inability to seriously discuss such a suggestion and 
 has communicated to the Chinese Resident a hope that 
 nothing will prevent the work being carried out amicably 
 next year. 
 
 (C) 
 
 From the Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India, dated 
 i$th February, 1896. 
 
 (Telegraphic) 
 
 Please see our letter of 3rd September, 1895, and your 
 despatch of 6th December, 1895. There are grounds for be- 
 lieving that the Tibetans possess reasonable claims in the 
 extreme north of Sikkim to a tract of land which is excluded 
 from Tibet by the boundary line laid down in the Convention. 
 The tract in question is of no value to Sikkim. Would you 
 
Appendix H 301 
 
 approve of my intimating our willingness to meet the Tibet- 
 ans' claims and of my addressing the Chinese Resident with 
 a proposal for a joint enquiry into them? If there are exist- 
 ing grievances that are capable of being removed I hope an 
 impetus will be given to trade. 
 
 From the Secretary of State for India to the Viceroy, dated 
 2nd March, 1896. 
 
 (Telegraphic) 
 
 Your telegram of i$th February. Your proposal is ap- 
 proved by Her Majesty's Government, but the completion of 
 the demarcation (vide your letter of 3rd September) must be 
 made a condition of the surrender of any territory to Tibet. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 Page 116 ''Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 Despatch from Sir C. Scott to the Marquess of Lansdowne, 
 
 dated St. Petersburgh, July 4, 1901. (Received 
 
 July 8.) 
 
 (Extract} 
 
 With reference to my despatch of the ist instant, I have 
 the honour to transmit herewith, in translation, further ex- 
 tracts from the Russian press referring to the arrival in 
 Russia of a so-called Tibetan Mission. Count Lamsdorff, in 
 the course of conversation with me yesterday, characterised 
 as ridiculous and utterly unfounded the conclusion drawn in 
 certain organs of the Russian press that these Tibetan 
 visitors were charged with any diplomatic or political mis- 
 sion. Count Lamsdorff said, that the Lama Akban was a 
 Mongolian Buriat of Russian origin, who came occasionally 
 to Russia with the object, he believed, of making money col- 
 lections for his Order from the numerous Buddhists in the 
 Empire. He said that on the occasion of Akban 's last visit 
 in autumn to Yalta, the Emperor had received him, and he 
 himself had had an opportunity of learning some interesting 
 details from him of life in Tibet. The Russian Geographical 
 Society took an interest in his visit, which had no official 
 character whatever, although he was accompanied on this 
 visit by other Tibetans. Count Lamsdorff said that Dr. 
 Badmeyeff, who takes a special interest in Tibet and Lama 
 Akban's visit, was an eccentric character, but it was difficult 
 to understand how the Russian press, in view of the inter- 
 national position of Tibet as a dependency of China, could 
 have attributed an official or diplomatic character to the 
 Lama's visit to Russia. 
 
 302 
 
APPENDIX J 
 
 Pages 118 and 119 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 Letter from the Government of India, in the Foreign De- 
 partment, to the Right Honourable Lord George F. 
 Hamilton, His Majesty's Secretary of State for India, 
 dated Simla, the 2$th July, 1901. (Received the I2th 
 August, 1901.) 
 
 (Eoctracf) 
 
 In despatch dated the 8th December, 1899, Your Lordship 
 approved of the measures which we had adopted with the 
 object of establishing direct communication with the Tibet- 
 ans. We have now the honour to forward correspondence 
 which shows the further action taken in the matter. When 
 our despatch dated the 26th October, 1899, was written, we 
 were awaiting the return of Ugyen Kazi, the Bhutan Vakil, 
 from Tibet and the outcome of a letter which he had under- 
 taken to deliver to the Dalai Lama. That letter having met 
 with an unfavourable response, we decided to defer making 
 any further attempt to obtain access to the Dalai Lama by 
 the Sikkim route, and to seek some new channel of com- 
 munication. Enquiries were accordingly instituted as to the 
 possibility of despatching a suitable emissary to the Tibetan 
 capital either through Yunnan, or through Nepal, or by way 
 of Ladakh. Our resident in Nepal, who was verbally con- 
 sulted, advised against any attempt being made to reach 
 Lhasa via Nepal, except with the knowledge and consent of 
 the Nepalese Darbar, to whom we were not prepared to 
 refer. The agent whom we suggested to the Government of 
 Burma as a possible emissary for the mission through Yunnan 
 was reported to be unsuitable. The proposal to communi- 
 cate through Ladakh, however, seemed to offer some prospect 
 
 303 
 
304 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 of success. The plan suggested by our Resident in Kashmir 
 was that the Assistant Resident who annually visits Leh 
 should enter into negotiations with the Joint Governors of 
 Western Tibet, known as the Urkhus of Gartok, by whose 
 agency it was hoped that communication with the chief au- 
 thorities at Lhasa might be secured. Upon this suggestion 
 we authorised Captain Kennion to visit Gartok in the autumn 
 of 1900. He was entrusted with a letter addressed by the 
 Viceroy to the Dalai Lama, and was instructed to hand it 
 over to the Urkhus, should there appear to be a reasonable 
 prospect that it would be forwarded to its destination. The 
 letter was delivered to the Chaktar Urkhu, who undertook to 
 transmit it to the Dalai Lama. After a delay of six months, 
 the letter was returned to Captain Kennion with the intima- 
 tion that the Urkhus had not dared, in the face of the regula- 
 tions against the intrusion of foreigners into Tibet, to send it 
 to Lhasa. This enterprise having failed, we determined to 
 make one more effort to procure the delivery of a letter to the 
 Dalai Lama through Ugyen Kazi. A favourable oppor- 
 tunity was presented by the fact that he had recently pur- 
 chased two elephants on commission for the Dalai Lama, 
 and could, therefore, proceed to Lhasa without exciting sus- 
 picion. We have accordingly entrusted Ugyen Kazi with a 
 second letter addressed by the Viceroy to the Dalai Lama, in 
 which stress is laid upon the forbearance shown by the 
 British Government in their relations with Tibet, and a 
 warning is conveyed that, if the overtures which we have 
 made with a view to establishing friendly intercourse are 
 still treated with indifference, we reserve the right to take 
 such steps as may seem necessary and proper to enforce the 
 terms of the Treaty of 1890, and to ensure that the trade 
 regulations are observed. Should this letter meet with the 
 fate of its predecessor, we contemplate, subject to the ap- 
 proval of His Majesty's Government, the adoption of more 
 practical measures with a view to securing the commercial 
 and political facilities, which our friendly representations 
 will have failed to procure. As to the exact form which our 
 altered policy should assume, we shall, if necessary, address 
 Your Lordship at a later date. But we may add, that before 
 long, steps may require to be taken for the adequate safe- 
 guarding of British interests upon a part of the frontier where 
 
Appendix J 35 
 
 they have never hitherto been impugned. We trust that our 
 proceedings, as indicated in the correspondence forwarded 
 with this despatch, will meet with the approval of His 
 Majesty's Government. 
 
 From the Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India, dated 
 2$th October, IQOI. 
 
 (Telegraphic) 
 
 Your despatch of i6th August. Ugyen Kazi, who has re- 
 turned from Lhasa, reports that my letter was delivered by 
 him to the Dalai Lama, but that the latter declined to reply 
 to it, stating, as his reason, that the matter was not one for 
 him to settle, but must be discussed fully in Council with the 
 Amban, the Ministers and the Lamas; and further that he 
 was afraid that Ugyen Kazi might be killed were it to become 
 known that an answer had been given to him. 
 
 From the Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India, dated 
 3rd November, 1901. 
 
 (Telegraphic) 
 
 My telegram of 2pth October. My letter has been brought 
 back by Ugyen Kazi with the seal intact. Ugyen Kazi re- 
 ports that the Dalai Lama refused to accept it, stating, as his 
 reason for so refusing, that he was bound by agreement not 
 to enter into any correspondence with Foreign Governments 
 without consulting the Chinese Ambans and the Council. 
 
APPENDIX K 
 
 Page 145 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 Despatch from Sir C. Scott to the Marquess of Lansdowne, 
 
 dated St. Petersburgh, October 2, 1902. (Received 
 
 October 6.) 
 
 (Extract) 
 
 The Chinese Minister, who called on me to-day, told me, 
 in the course of conversation, that several of my colleagues 
 had been making enquiries of him respecting a pretended 
 text of Agreement between Russia and China in regard to 
 Tibet, which had appeared in several continental as well as 
 Russian newspapers. He said that he had first seen this 
 apocryphal text in the Chinese newspapers, and that its very 
 form and wording showed that it could not be of Chinese 
 origin. He asked me if it could possibly have been credited 
 as genuine by Sir Ernest Satow. I said that I did not think 
 that Sir E. Satow attached much credit to it, and probably 
 regarded it as a "ballon d'essai," started in non-official 
 Russian quarters, but that the text had undoubtedly been 
 circulated and had reached the Indian Government, and that 
 the Chinese Government would no doubt easily be able to 
 satisfy themselves that the Indian Government would cer- 
 tainly not be indifferent to any alteration in the present 
 status and relations of a country so near to their frontiers as 
 Tibet. 
 
 306 
 
APPENDIX L 
 
 Pages 151-156 and () 193 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 (The long and energetic letter of Lord Curzon, from which 
 extracts are here given, may fairly be considered as the official 
 basis for the attack upon Tibet. It is verbose, but it cries 
 "Forward!" so insistently that the weary Indian Office in 
 London -finally echoes "Forward !" a little weakly, yet loudly 
 enough to satisfy the strenuous Viceroy. His enthusiasm 
 makes him swallow secret treaties and Russian arms in Lhasa. 
 O. T. C.) 
 
 (A) 
 
 Extracts from a Letter from the Government of India, in 
 the Foreign Department, to the Right Honourable 
 Lord George F. Hamilton, His Majesty's Secretary 
 of State for India, dated Camp Delhi, the 8th Janu- 
 ary, 1903. (Received the 24th January, 
 
 In a despatch, dated nth April, 1902, Your Lordship 
 agreed to our proposal for the employment of Mr. White, and 
 you forwarded to us copy of a letter from the Foreign Office 
 dated March 26th, in which the Marquess of Lansdowne ex- 
 pressed his concurrence with us in believing that further 
 negotiations on the subject of our relations with Tibet with 
 the Chinese Government would not be likely to lead to any 
 satisfactory result, and that it would be necessary to resort 
 to local action in order to vindicate British rights under the 
 Convention of 1890. Mr. White conducted his Mission dur- 
 ing the past summer with expedition and success. In a 
 despatch, dated loth July, 1902, we explained to Your 
 Lordship the revised instructions which we issued to him 
 before starting and which he duly observed; and we now 
 
 307 
 
308 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 have the honour to forward the correspondence contained in 
 the attached list, showing the results of his tour. The 
 Tibetans who were in occupation of the Giaogong plateau 
 were directed by Mr. White to withdraw beyond the frontier, 
 and our right to insist upon the observance of the boundary 
 laid down by the Convention of 1890 was clearly asserted. 
 We have since learned from Mr. White that the grazing 
 rights on the Sikkim side of the border which had been 
 usurped by the Tibetans are, in fact, balanced by similar 
 rights which are conceded to the Sikkimese across the 
 Tibetan border, and that the status quo is probably the 
 most convenient arrangement in the interest of both parties 
 
 and it is probable that the chief advantage derived from Mr. 
 White's mission up to the present time consists in the fear 
 inspired among the Tibetans that it is the prelude to some 
 further movement an advantage which would be wholly 
 sacrificed when the discovery was made that no such conse- 
 quence was likely to ensue. If, therefore, we now enter upon 
 negotiations with no other vantage ground than the success- 
 ful reassertion of our authority on a very inconspicuous sec- 
 tion of the border, it does not appear that there is much reason 
 for anticipating a more favourable solution of the Tibetan 
 problem than has attended our previous efforts, unless in- 
 deed, we are prepared to assume a minatory tone and to 
 threaten Tibet with further advance if the political and 
 commercial relations between us are allowed any longer to 
 be reduced to a nullity by her policy of obstinate inaction. 
 The second combination of circumstances that has materially 
 affected the situation is the rumoured conclusion of a Secret 
 Agreement by which the Russian Government has acquired 
 certain powers of interference in Tibet. We have ourselves 
 reported to Your Lordship circumstantial evidence derived 
 from a variety of quarters all pointing in the same direction 
 and tending to show the existence of an arrangement of some 
 sort between Russia and Tibet. . . . It is unnecessary 
 for us to remind Your Lordship that the Russian border no- 
 where even touches that of Tibet, and that the nearest point 
 of Russian territory is considerably more than a thousand 
 miles short of the Tibetan capital, which is situated in the 
 
Appendix L 39 
 
 extreme south, and in close proximity to the northern 
 frontier of the Indian Empire. Neither need we point to the 
 historical fact that no other States or Powers have, during 
 the time that the British dominion has been established in 
 India, had any connection with Tibet, but, firstly, China who 
 possesses a nominal suzerainty over the country, secondly, 
 Nepal, a State in close political connection with India, and, 
 thirdly, the British Government itself. The policy of ex- 
 clusiveness to which the Tibetan Government has during the 
 last century become increasingly addicted has only been 
 tolerated by us, because anomalous and unfriendly as it has 
 been, it carried with it no element of political or military 
 danger. At no time during that century do we imagine that 
 Great Britain would have permitted the creation of a rival 
 or hostile influence in a position so close to the Indian border 
 and so pregnant with possibilities of mischief. We are of 
 opinion that the only way in which to counteract the danger 
 by which we regard British interests as directly threatened in 
 Tibet, is to assume the initiative ourselves, and we regard the 
 Chinese proposals for a conference as affording an excellent 
 opportunity for pressing forward and carrying out this 
 policy. We are in favour, subject to a qualification that we 
 shall presently mention, of accepting the Chinese proposals, 
 but of attaching to them the condition that the conference 
 shall take place not upon our frontier, but at Lhasa, and that 
 it shall be attended by a representative of the Tibetan Gov- 
 ernment, who shall participate in the proceedings. In this way 
 alone does it appear to us that we shall escape the ignominious 
 position of having an Agreement which has been formally 
 concluded with the Chinese subsequently repudiated by the 
 Tibetans; and in no other way do we regard it as in the 
 least likely that the wall of Tibetan impassivity and ob- 
 struction will be broken down. We might find many prece- 
 dents in the history of India for missions with a not 
 altogether dissimilar object. ... In view of the contin- 
 gency of opposition, we think that the mission, if decided 
 upon, should be accompanied by an armed escort, sufficient 
 to overawe any opposition that might be encountered on the 
 way, and to ensure its safety while in Lhasa. The military 
 strength of the Tibetans is beneath contempt, and serious 
 resistance is not to be contemplated. It would, however, be 
 
3io Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 unwise to run any risk, for reports have reached us that an 
 attempt is now made to drill the Tibetan troops at Lhasa, 
 and that breech-loaders and other munitions of war have 
 actually already been secretly imported into the capital. At 
 the same time the most emphatic assurances might be given 
 to the Chinese and Tibetan Governments that the mission 
 was of an exclusively commercial character, that we re- 
 pudiated all designs of a political nature upon Tibet, that we 
 had no desire either to declare a Protectorate or permanently 
 to occupy any portion of the country, but that our intentions 
 were confined to removing the embargo that at present rests 
 upon all trade between Tibet and India, and to establishing 
 those amicable relations and means of communication which 
 ought to subsist between adjacent and friendly Powers. 
 
 (B) 
 
 From the Secretary of State for India to the Viceroy \ dated 
 May 28, 1903. 
 
 (Telegraphic) 
 
 Your proposals of the yth and 2ist May regarding Tibet 
 have been considered with great care by His Majesty's Gov- 
 ernment. They agree with you in desiring the promotion of 
 trade facilities in Tibet, and a guarantee that the Tibetans 
 shall be prevented from evading or rejecting engagements 
 made on their behalf in any new treaty or convention. A 
 procedure, therefore, whereby both the Chinese and Tibetan 
 Governments will be bound by the acts of their representa- 
 tives has their approval. They wish, however, that the 
 negotiations should be restricted to questions concerning 
 trade relations, the frontier, and grazing rights; and they 
 desire that no proposal should be made for the establishment 
 of a Political Agent either at Gyangtse or at Lhasa. Such a 
 political outpost might entail difficulties and responsibilities 
 incommensurate, in the judgment of His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, with any benefits which, in the circumstances now 
 known to exist, could be gained by it. The Foreign Office 
 have recently received assurances that Russia has no in- 
 tention of developing political interests in Tibet. Moreover, 
 
Appendix L 3 11 
 
 His Majesty's Government are unwilling to be committed, 
 by threats accompanying the proposals which may be made 
 to any definite course of compulsion to be undertaken in the 
 future. They authorise you, then, subject to the conditions 
 above stated, to communicate with the Chinese Resident 
 and Tibetan representative, fixing Khamba Jong as the 
 place of meeting. They also request that the purport and 
 progress of the negotiations, as they proceed, may be com- 
 municated to them from 
 
APPENDIX M 
 
 Page 187 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904." 
 
 Despatch from the Marquess of Lansdowne to Sir C. Scott y 
 dated April 8, ipoj. 
 
 (Extract} 
 
 The Russian Ambassador informed me to-day that he had 
 received from Count Lamsdorff a reply to the communica- 
 tion which he had made to him after his conversation with 
 me on the 24th ultimo. Count Lamsdorff's letter had been 
 despatched from St. Petersburgh before he could receive the 
 further despatch which Count Benckendorff had addressed 
 to him after our conversation on*the ist instant. Count 
 Benckendorff was now able to assure me officially that there 
 was no Convention about Tibet, either with Tibet itself or 
 with China, or with anyone else, nor had the Russian Govern- 
 ment any Agents in that country, or any intention of sending 
 Agents or Missions there. Count Lamsdorff had even ex- 
 pressed some surprise that Count Benckendorff had not taken 
 upon himself to give an immediate contradiction to these 
 reports. He was, indeed, astonished that they should re- 
 ceive so much credence by His Majesty's Government. 
 Count Benckendorff went on to say that although the Rus- 
 sian Government had no designs whatever upon Tibet, they 
 could not remain indifferent to any serious disturbance of 
 the status quo in that country. Such a disturbance might 
 render it necessary for them to safeguard their interests in 
 Asia, not that, even in this case, they would desire to inter- 
 fere in the affairs of Tibet, as their policy "ne viserait le 
 Thibet en aucun cas," but they might be obliged to take 
 measures elsewhere. They regarded Tibet as forming a 
 part of the Chinese Empire, in the integrity of which they 
 
 312 
 
Appendix M 313 
 
 took an interest. His Excellency went on to say that he 
 hoped that there was no question of any action on our part 
 in regard to Tibet which might have the effect of raising 
 questions of this kind. I told His Excellency that we had no 
 idea of annexing the country, but he was well aware that it 
 immediately adjoined our frontier, that we had Treaties 
 with the Tibetans, and a right to trade facilities. If these 
 were denied to us, and if the Tibetans did not fulfil their 
 Treaty obligations, it would be absolutely necessary that we 
 should insist upon our rights. His Excellency signified as- 
 sent. I added that it seemed to me that in cases of this 
 kind, where an uncivilised country adjoined the possessions 
 of a civilised Power, it was inevitable that the latter should 
 exercise a certain amount of local predominance. Such a 
 predominance, as I had before explained to him, belonged to 
 us in Tibet. But it did not follow from this that we had any 
 designs upon the independence of the country. 
 
APPENDIX O 
 
 Pages 5 and 6 of "Further Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904. " 
 
 (While both these despatches cover the same incident, it seemed 
 best to preserve, not only the concise detail of facts given by 
 General Macdonald, but also the philosophic generalisation of 
 Lord Curzon. His unconscious effrontery even in talking 
 about a weak people not to them would be humourous were 
 it not painful. The italics are not in the original print. 
 O. T. C.) 
 
 From the Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India, dated 
 the ist April, 1904. 
 
 (Telegraphic) 
 
 Younghusband telegraphs, on the 3ist March, to following 
 effect: "Some resistance was offered at Guru, but we have 
 occupied the village, and will establish there an advance 
 supply dep6t, the force returning here in the evening. Our 
 casualties consisted of only a few wounded, of whom only 
 Candler, the correspondent of the Daily Mail, is severely 
 hurt; we have none killed. The losses of the Tibetans 
 amount to 300 or more killed and many wounded and pris- 
 oners. Amongst the killed are the Lhasa General and an- 
 other General. The scene of the fighting was a post, which 
 had been recently constructed by them actually on the road ; 
 they were surrounded to such a degree that our men were 
 pointing their rifles into the camp over the walls. No vio- 
 lence was used by our men who showed very great self- 
 restraint; O' Conor told the Lhasa General that, if his men 
 would surrender their arms, they would be permitted to 
 retire. This, however, had no effect, and General Mac- 
 donald then ordered our men to begin disarming the Tibetans, 
 who resisted and attacked our troops with swords and with 
 
Appendix O 3 J 5 
 
 firing. We then returned the fire. This result was wholly 
 caused by the complete inability of the Tibetans, even when our 
 troops absolutely surrounded them, to take in the seriousness of 
 the situation" 
 
 From the Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India, dated 
 the ist April, 1904. 
 
 (Telegraphic) 
 
 Following telegram received from Macdonald : 
 "Thuna, 3ist March. I moved to Guru this morning to 
 establish a supply depot at that place, taking the following 
 force with me: Two guns, No. 7 Mounted Battery, two 7- 
 pounders 8th Gurkhas, one-and-a-half companies Mounted 
 Infantry, three companies 23rd Pioneers, four companies 
 32nd Pioneers, two companies 8th Gurkhas, machine gun 
 Norfolks, and section Field Hospital. We moved out of 
 Thuna at 8 A.M., the ground being covered with snow, about 
 two inches of which fell last night. Colonel Younghusband 
 accompanied me. When we had moved about four miles 
 across the plain we were met by a deputation of Tibetan 
 leaders, who demanded our retiring to Yatung, and threat- 
 ened trouble if we advanced. Colonel Younghusband re- 
 plied that we would proceed to Guru, and asked if they were 
 prepared to oppose us, to which no definite answer was given; 
 Colonel Younghusband accordingly asked me to refrain from 
 firing till fired at. A large number of armed Tibetans, esti- 
 mated at about 2,000, were observed on a hill jutting out 
 into the plain some four miles short of Guru, where they 
 occupied sangars and a high wall commanding the road. I 
 advanced in attack formation, shouldering the Tibetans off 
 the hill, and outflanking them on the plains, without firing, 
 the troops exercising the greatest restraint. The result was 
 that 1,500 Tibetan troops collected behind the high wall, 
 blocking the road, and refusing to budge. They were in- 
 formed that they would have to lay down their arms, and an 
 attempt was accordingly made to disarm them, a portion of 
 the reserve being moved up for the purpose. The Lhasa 
 leaders then incited an attack upon us, the Lhasa Depon 
 firing the first shot and the Tibetans firing point-blank and 
 
3i 6 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 charging with swords; they were, however, so hemmed in 
 that they could not make use of their numbers, and after a 
 few minutes were in full retreat under a heavy fire of guns, 
 Maxims and rifles, which caused them heavy loss. The 2nd 
 Mounted Infantry were despatched in pursuit, and the 
 balance of the troops reforming pushed on to Guru. The 
 two eastern Guru villages were evacuated, but the western 
 one was held, and, after being shelled, was taken by the 2nd 
 Mounted Infantry and Gurkhas, the garrison surrendering. 
 This ended the engagement, except that the ist Mounted 
 Infantry continued the pursuit for some miles further. Our 
 casualties are Major Wallace Dunlop slightly wounded; 
 Mr. Candler, 'Daily Mail' correspondent, severely wounded, 
 and seven sepoys wounded. The enemy's loss is nearly 500 
 killed and wounded, and 200 prisoners, all their camp and 
 baggage, about 60 yaks and 30 mules, with 2 gingalls and a 
 large number of matchlocks and swords, together with a few 
 breechloaders, two of which were of Russian make. Amongst 
 the Tibetans killed was the chief Lhasa Depon and the Lama 
 representative of the Gaden Monastery; also one Shigatse 
 Depon, whilst the Phari Depon was captured, severely 
 wounded. Two companies 32nd Pioneers and the 2nd 
 Mounted Infantry are established at Guru, as an advanced 
 post, the remaining troops returning to Tuna by 7 P.M., after 
 a long and trying day, having marched 21 miles and fought 
 two- engagements. Fuller details follow. Writing report. 
 All Tibetan wounded have been brought in, and are being 
 attended to." 
 
APPENDIX P 
 Despatch of a correspondent in the field. 
 
 From the London Times, May 31, 1903. Under date 
 April 22nd. The Tibetans' peasants' manners are perfect. 
 The small boy jumps off the harrow upon which he has been 
 having a ride, and, stopping his song, bows with his joined 
 hands in front of his face, elbows up and right knee bent. A 
 householder smiles, gives two inches of tongue, and gives a 
 Napoleonic salute as we pass. 
 
 317 
 
APPENDIX Q 
 
 Page po (et seq.), "Further Papers Relating to Tibet, 1905." 
 Convention between Great Britain and Tibet. 
 
 Whereas doubts and difficulties have arisen as to the 
 meaning and validity of the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 
 1890 and the Trade Regulations of 1895, and as to the lia- 
 bilities of the Tibetan Government under these agreements; 
 and whereas recent occurrences have tended towards a dis- 
 turbance of the relations of friendship and good understand- 
 ing which have existed between the British Government and 
 the Government of Tibet; and whereas it is desirable to 
 restore peace and amicable relations, and to resolve and deter- 
 mine the doubts and difficulties aforesaid, the said Govern- 
 ments have resolved to conclude a Convention with these 
 objects, and the following articles have been agreed upon by 
 Colonel F. E. Younghusband, C. I. E., in virtue of full powers 
 vested in him by His Britannic Majesty's Government and on 
 behalf of that Government, and Lo-Sang, Gyal-Tsen, the 
 Ga-den Ti-Rimpoche, and the representatives of the Council, 
 of the three monasteries Se-ra, Dre-pung, and Ga-den, and of 
 the ecclesiastical and lay officials of the National Assembly on 
 behalf of the Government of Tibet. 
 
 I 
 
 The Government of Tibet engages to respect the Anglo- 
 Chinese Convention of 1890 and to recognise the frontier 
 between Sikkim and Tibet, as denned in Article I. of the said 
 Convention, and to erect boundary pillars accordingly. 
 
 II 
 
 The Tibetan Government undertakes to open forthwith 
 trade marts to which all British and Tibetan subjects shall 
 
Appendix Q 3 T 9 
 
 have free right of access at Gyangtse and Gartok, as well as 
 at Yatung. 
 
 The Regulations applicable to the trade mart at Yatung, 
 under the Anglo-Chinese Agreement of 1893, shall, subject to 
 such amendments as may hereafter be agreed upon by com- 
 mon consent between the British and Tibetan Governments, 
 apply to the marts above mentioned. 
 
 In addition to establishing trade marts at the places men- 
 tioned, the Tibetan Government undertakes to place no re- 
 strictions on the trade by existing routes, and to consider the 
 question of establishing fresh trade marts under similar con- 
 ditions if development of trade requires it. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The question of the amendment of the Regulations of 
 1893 is reserved for separate consideration, and the Tibetan 
 Government undertakes to appoint fully authorised dele- 
 gates to negotiate with representatives of the British Gov- 
 ernment as to the details of the amendments required. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Tibetan Government undertakes to levy no dues of 
 any kind other than those provided for in the tariff to be 
 agreed upon. 
 
 V 
 
 The Tibetan Government undertakes to keep the roads to 
 Gyangtse and Gartok from the frontier clear of all obstruc- 
 tion and in a state of repair suited to the needs of the trade, 
 and to establish at Yatung, Gyangtse, and Gartok, and at 
 each of the other trade marts that may hereafter be estab- 
 lished, a Tibetan Agent who shall receive from the British 
 Agent appointed to watch over British trade at the marts in 
 question any letter which the latter may desire to send to the 
 Tibetan or to the Chinese authorities. The Tibetan Agent 
 shall also be responsible for the due delivery of such com- 
 munications and for the transmission of replies. 
 
 VI 
 
 As an indemnity to the British Government for the ex- 
 pense incurred in the despatch of armed troops to Lhasa, to 
 
320 Tibet and Turkestan 
 
 exact reparation for breaches of treaty obligations, and for 
 the insults offered to and attacks upon the British Commis- 
 sioner and his following and escort, the Tibetan Government 
 engages to pay a sum of pounds, five hundred thousand 
 equivalent to rupees seventy-five lakhs to the British 
 Government. 
 
 The indemnity shall be payable at such place as the Brit- 
 ish Government may, from time to time, after due notice, 
 indicate, whether in Tibet or in the British districts of Dar- 
 jeeling or Jalpaiguri, in seventy-five annual instalments of 
 rupees, one lakh each on the ist January in each year, begin- 
 ning from the ist January, 1906. 
 
 VII 
 
 As security for the payment of the above-mentioned in- 
 demnity, and for the fulfilment of the provisions relative to 
 trade marts specified in Articles II, III, IV, and V, the 
 British Government shall continue to occupy the Chumbi 
 Valley until the indemnity has been paid and until the trade 
 marts have been effectively opened for three years, which- 
 ever date may be the later. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The Tibetan Government agrees to raze all forts and 
 fortifications and remove all armaments which might impede 
 the free communication between the British frontier and the 
 towns of Gyangtse and Lhasa. 
 
 IX 
 
 The Government of Tibet engages that, without the pre- 
 vious consent of the British Government, 
 
 (a) No portion of Tibetan territory shall be ceded, sold, 
 
 leased, mortgaged, or otherwise given for occupation, 
 to any Foreign Power; 
 
 (b) No such Power shall be permitted to intervene in 
 
 Tibetan affairs; 
 
 (c) No Representative or Agents of any Foreign Power 
 
 shall be admitted to Tibet; 
 
 (d) No concessions for railways, roads, telegraphs, mining 
 
 or other rights, shall be granted to any Foreign 
 
Appendix. Q 321 
 
 Power, or the subject of any Foreign Power. In the 
 event of consent to such concessions being granted, 
 similar or equivalent concessions shall be granted to 
 the British Government; 
 
 (e) No Tibetan revenues, whether in kind or in cash, shall 
 be pledged or assigned to any Foreign Power, or the 
 subject of any Foreign Power. 
 
 In witness whereof the negotiators have signed the same, 
 and affixed thereunto the seal of their arms. 
 
 Done in duplicate at Lhasa, this 7th day of September in 
 the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and four, 
 corresponding with the Tibetan date, the 27th day of the 
 seventh month of the Wood Dragon year. 
 
 [The seals of the Tibetan Commission (British), of the Coun- 
 cil (Tibetan), of the Dalai Lama (applied by the Ga-den Ti- 
 Rimpoche}, of the Dre-pung, Se-ra, and Ga-den monasteries, and 
 of the National Assembly are then affixed, and the signature of 
 F. E. Younghusband, Colonel, British Commisioner, also 
 appears. O. T. C.] 
 
 In proceeding to the signature of the Convention, dated 
 this day, the representatives of Great Britain and Tibet de- 
 clare that the English text shall be binding. 
 
 (Seals as above repeated. O. T. C.) 
 
 This Convention was ratified by the Viceroy and Governor- 
 General of India in Council at Simla on the nth day of No- 
 vember, A.D., one thousand nine hundred and four. 
 (Signed) S. M. FRASER, 
 
 Secretary to the Government of India, 
 Foreign Department. 
 
 ax 
 
APPENDIX R 
 
 Declarations signed by His Excellency the Viceroy and the 
 Governor- General of India, and appended to the 
 Ratified Convention of jth of September, 1904. 
 
 His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, 
 having ratified the convention which was concluded at Lhasa 
 on the 7th of September, 1904, by Colonel Younghusband, 
 C. I. E., British Commissioner for Tibet frontier matters, on 
 behalf of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and by Lo- 
 Sang, Gyal-Tsen, the Ga-den, Ti-Rimpoche, and the repre- 
 sentatives of the Council of the monasteries, Se-ra, Dre-pung, 
 and Ga-den, and of the Government of Tibet, is pleased to 
 direct as an act of grace that the sum of money which the 
 Tibetan Government have bound themselves, under the 
 terms of Article 6 of the said convention, to pay to his 
 Majesty's Government as an indemnity for the expenses in- 
 curred by the latter in connection with the dispatch of armed 
 forces to Lhasa, be reduced from Rs. 7,500,000 to Rs. 2,500,- 
 ooo, and to declare that the British occupation of Chumbi 
 Valley shall cease, after the payment of three annual install- 
 ments of said indemnity, as fixed by the said Article. Pro- 
 vided, however, that the trade marts, as stipulated in Article 
 2 of the convention, shall have been effectively opened for 
 three years, as provided in Article 6 of the convention, and 
 that in the meantime the Tibetans shall have faithfully com- 
 plied with the term of the said Convention in all other 
 respects. 
 
 322 
 
APPENDIX S 
 
 No. 193 
 
 Despatch from the Secretary of State for India to the 
 Government of India, December 2nd, 1904. 
 
 (Note the inconsistency between the declaration concerning 
 isolation, and the insistence upon trade relations, an insistence 
 for which London is equally responsible with Calcutta. 
 O. T. C.) 
 
 Section 6. The object of that policy, as stated in Lord 
 George Hamilton's despatch of the 2;th of February, 1903, 
 was that British influence should be recognised at Lhasa in 
 such manner as to exclude that of any other power ; and that 
 Tibet should remain in that state of isolation from which, 
 until recently, she had shown no intention to depart, and 
 which has hitherto caused her presence on our frontier to be 
 a matter of indifference to us. We have intended effecting 
 this result not by establishing a Resident at Lhasa but by 
 obtaining the consent of the Tibetan Government to a con- 
 vention by which they undertook not to receive the agent of 
 any foreign power, nor to grant concessions or assignments of 
 revenue to the subject of any foreign power without the pre- 
 vious consent of the British Government. 
 
 Page 35 " Further Papers Relating to Tibet, 1905." 
 
 Extract from a Letter from the Government of India to 
 
 the Secretary of State for India, dated Simla, 
 
 the ^oth June, 1904. 
 
 If on this occasion also, after protracted discussions and 
 costly military operations in Tibetan territory, we retire, 
 leaving no visible sign of our authority within their borders, 
 and are content to secure a Convention which like its prede- 
 cessors may be rendered nugatory by the non-existence of 
 practical guarantees, then we shall only find ourselves, after 
 heavy outlay, in a worse position than before, and the Tibet- 
 ans will believe more firmly than ever that our failure to 
 gain our ends is due to inability to force submission. 
 
 323