GIFT OF 
 W. A. Setchell 
 
 I 
 
.//vf , ^^3zs:^Ezjou^__ 
 
THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
v^ 
 
 
> t 
 
 ( ■ * • * 
 
 THE OPENING 
 OF TIBET 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF LHASA AND THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE 
 
 OF CENTRAL TIBET AND OF THE PROGRESS OF THE' 
 
 MISSION SENT THERE BY THE ENGLISH 
 
 GOVERNMENT IN THE YEAR 1903-4 
 
 WRITTEN, WITH THE HELP OF ALL THE PRINCIPAL 
 PERSONS OF THE MISSION, BY 
 
 PERCEVAL LANDON 
 
 SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE ««TIMES" 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 COLONEL YOUNGHUSBAND 
 
 irap <r laav uaeavov re poag koI XevKctSa irirpjjv 
 i]6h Tzap^ 'ijeTuoio TrdAcf mi Sijfiov bveipuv 
 Tiusav. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. 
 
 1905 
 

 / 
 
 ,"9 
 
 > 
 
 V 
 
 ^Vi^.a.^DQyu. 
 
 i 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by 
 Perceval Landon 
 
 Published February ^ ^9^S 
 
THE AMERICAN EDITION OF THIS BOOK 
 
 IS DEDICATED TO 
 
 W. W. ROCKHILL, ESQ^, 
 
 HIS country's foremost REPRESENTATIVE IN 
 
 THE FIELD OF TIBETAN EXPLORATION 
 
 46446G 
 
1 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Former Explorations of Tibet 3 . 
 
 •in The Reasons for the Expedition 18 
 
 III Crossing the Himalayas 40 
 
 IV The Tibetans of the Chumbi Valley 62 
 
 ^ V The Fight at the Wall 75 
 
 VI Forcing the Way to Gyantse 86 
 
 VII Life in a Tibetan Town 99 
 
 VIII Attacked by the Tibetans ' 123 
 
 i IX The Dalai Lama shows his Hand 143 
 
 X Life in the Besieged Post 169 
 
 XI Religion: Manners and Customs: Art 184 
 
 '4x11 Internal History of Lhasa 1902-4 210 
 
 xiii Lamaism 232 
 
 ixiv The Relief of the Mission 253 
 
 XV The Advance to Lhasa 272 
 
 XVI The Last Stage 297 
 
 XVII Lhasa, I 319 
 
 XVIII The Environs of Lhasa 348 
 
 XIX The Potala and the Cathedral 372 
 
 XX The Ride from Lhasa to India 397 
 
 Appendices 417 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Turquoise Bridge in Lhasa Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 A Tibetan Monk with his Prayer-wheel 24 
 
 A Road in the Himalayas 42 
 
 Encamped under the Shadow of the Himalayas 44 
 
 V 
 
 Member of the Expedition 68 
 
 Outfitted to cross the high passes of the Himalayas in July 
 
 The Two Abbots of a Tibetan Monastery 72 
 
 Awaiting an Attack by the Tibetans 80 
 
 Just Before the Fight at the Wall 82 
 
 The Gurkha scouts deployed on the hillside; the Sikhs beginning to disarm the 
 Tibetans at the further end of the wall 
 
 A Few Minutes Later 84 
 
 The British force still firing at the retreating Tibetans 
 
 The Expedition Halting for the Night •. * , . 90 
 
 The High Priest at Gyantse 92 
 
 "^ " Who looks like a saddened Falstaff " 
 
 A Valley near Samonda 94 
 
 East End of the Jong, or Fortress, at Gyantse 94 
 
 The Town of Gyantse 100 
 
 Mural Paintings in the Lamasery of Palkhor Choide 102 
 
 Images of Some of the Great Buddhist Teachers Worshiped by the 
 Tibetans 104 
 
 In the Palkhor Choide 
 
 SJaily Bedecked Yaks Drawing a Plow , 106 
 
 A Long-haired Monk at his Monastery 108 
 
 The Window of a Hermit Cell at Nyen-de-kyi-buk . iio 
 
 Prisoners Captured by the Mission in the Karola Fight 140 
 
 Examples of Tibetan-Chinese Workmanship 204 
 
 Specimens of Chinese-Tibetan Work in Silver 206 
 
 \Cibetan Children Characteristically Employed in a Gyantse Street 208 
 
 A Tibetan Political Agent 216 
 
 The Ta Lama at Taski-tse 218 
 
 ix 
 
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Monks Walking on a Terrace beneath Lines of Prayer-flags . , . 234 
 The Chinese Wall across the Ammo chu at Chorten Karpo . . . 268 
 
 The Mountains that Surround Lhasa 300 
 
 Chak-sam Monastery 300 
 
 The March to Lhasa 304 
 
 The omnipresent prayer-flags and cairns beside the road to exorcise evil spirits 
 
 The Western Gate of Lhasa 322 
 
 Lhasa, Dominated by the Towering Bulk of the Potala 324 
 
 ■» 
 
 The Amban, the Chinese Representative in Lhasa, Coming to Con- 
 fer with Colonel Younghusband , 326 
 
 The Chinese Representatives in Lhasa Meeting Colonel Young- 
 husband FOR the First Time 328 
 
 The Amban Coming out from Lhasa on his Way to Meet the Mission 330 
 
 A Street Scene in Lhasa : Near the Chinese Quarter 332 
 
 The Entrance to the Chinese Amban's Residence at Lhasa . . • . . 334 
 
 Ornaments of a Tibetan Altar 336 
 
 A Horn Hut 336 
 
 The Lukang Garden 338 
 
 The Sacred Elephant in the Lukang Gardens in Lhasa 340 
 
 Tibetan Woods and Meadows near Lhasa 348 
 
 The Elaborate Detail of Tibetan Architecture 350 
 
 In the Grounds of the Lha-lu House, the Headquarters of the Mis- 
 sion IN Lhasa 352 
 
 ^ Street Scene in the Wizard Community of the Na-chung Chos- 
 :yong at Lhasa 356 
 
 A Close View of the Potala 372 
 
 The Mission Entering Lhasa 374 
 
 The Potala, the Home of the Grand Lama 376 
 
 The Potala at Lhasa, an Architectural Marvel 378 
 
 The Exterior of the Jo-kang Temple, the Holy of Holies of all 
 ^A.SIA 384 
 
 The Jo-kang, with the Most Gorgeous Interior of all the Tibetan 
 Temples, has Practically no Exterior 386 
 
 The Great Buddha in the Holy of Holies at Lhasa 392 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 We of the Tibet Mission and its escort were honored with the 
 conduct of a task which for fascination of interest could hardly 
 be surpassed. Few, if any, of us doubted the wisdom of the great 
 and far-seeing statesman who initiated the enterprise and in- 
 spired it throughout. But, whether the policy was wise or un- 
 wise, we determined that it should not suffer in the execution. 
 On us, we felt, were fixed the eyes of many millions, not in India 
 alone, nor in England alone, but all over Europe and America 
 also, and in many an Asiatic country besides. 
 
 We who work in India know what prestige means. Through- 
 out the expedition we felt that our national honor was at stake, 
 and down to the latest- joined sepoy we bent ourselves to uphold 
 and raise higher the dignity of our Sovereign and the good name 
 of our country: to show that not even the rigors of a Tibetan 
 winter nor the 'obstinacy and procrastination of the two most 
 stolid nations in the world could deter us from our purpose; 
 above all, to try to effect that purpose without resorting to force. 
 If, as unfortunately proved to be the case, fighting were inevi- 
 table, we were determined still to show moderation in the hour 
 of victory, and to let the ignorant Tibetan leaders see that we 
 would respect them as we demanded they should respect us, and, 
 in place of distrust, to establish a confidence between us which 
 would prove the surest foundation for future relations. 
 
 A loss of life was indeed necessitated which every one of us 
 regretted; yet I for one believe that at any rate some good will 
 
 xi 
 
xii INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 come to the Tibetans as the result of our work. War does not 
 always mean oppression. Nor does the breaking of the power 
 of a despotic Government mean the down-treading of the people. 
 
 From the first the Tibetan peasantry showed good-will toward 
 us. They were especially anxious to trade— no keener traders 
 could be found. We have, as one result, partially freed the 
 people from the terrible incubus of priestly control, and there are 
 unmistakable signs that we left them better disposed toward 
 us after our advance to Lhasa than they were before. Owing to 
 the magnificent behavior of the troops, the confidence of the peo- 
 ple was entirely gained. Villagers and traders thronged to our 
 camps. Soldiers went about unmolested in every part of the 
 Lhasa bazaar. Officers were admitted to the most sacred shrines. 
 Captain O'Connor, my right-hand man in dealing with the Tibe- 
 tans, was received not only with real ceremony, but with real 
 warmth, by the Tashi Lama at Shigatse. And, last but by no 
 means least, Tibetan wool-merchants are already making ar- 
 rangements for trading with India. 
 
 How all this was effected none can tell better than Mr. Lan- 
 don. He reveled in the mysteries of Tibet, and appreciated to 
 the full the wonderful scenery which to my mind was infinitely 
 the most fascinating of all our experiences. I have not had the 
 advantage of reading the proofs of his book, and I cannot be 
 responsible for any political views which he may have expressed. 
 But I feel confident that no more competent chronicler of what 
 the Tibet Mission saw and did could be found, and we were 
 indeed fortunate in having with us one of his enthusiasm and 
 powers of description. 
 
 F. E. YOUNGHUSBAND. 
 London, 
 
 December, 1904. 
 
TO FRANK YOUNGHUSBAND 
 
 My dear Colonel : 
 
 It was into the mouth of a British chieftain in the first century 
 that Tacitus put a criticism which has become famous. " Men," 
 protested Calgacus, " are apt to be impressed chiefly by the un- 
 known," In a sense, somewhat different from that in which it was 
 originally intended, this estimate has remained just to the present 
 day. Spread out the map of the world and there before you is 
 proof enough of one of the most marked, most persistent — perhaps 
 also one of the best — characteristics of an Englishman. You are 
 but the latest of a succession of explorers which has no rival in 
 the history of another race. The sturdy trampings of Sir John 
 Mandeville, perhaps also his even more robust imaginings— be 
 it remembered, that without the latter we should not have had the 
 former — have had their successors in unbroken line to the pres- 
 ent day. Other nations have had their home-keeping centuries— 
 years in which the needs of commerce or high politics have de- 
 manded that they should for a time develop and not explore. But, 
 decade after decade, the English have always had their represen- 
 tatives creeping on a little beyond the margin of the traveled world 
 —men to whom beaten tracks were a burden, men for whom the 
 " free air astir to windward " was inevitably more than the new- 
 found territory, however rich, upon which they were just turning 
 their backs. 
 
 Century after century it is the same old story. The instinctive 
 tracks of voyagers in Elizabethan years; the restlessness ashore of 
 merchant 'venturers the moment Blake had won for them and for 
 us the peaceful occupation of the seas; the lonely dotted lines that 
 drive a thin furrow of knowledge across the blank salt wastes of 
 Australia ; the quick evaporation of the mists of African ignorance ; 
 above all, the prosaic English place-names of arctic peak and tropical 
 island and anchorage, unrevisited and unknown, except by a shore- 
 line on an Admiralty chart no longer dotted as conjectural— all 
 
 xiii 
 
XIV 
 
 these have carried on an unconscious tradition; and there is no 
 apology needed for the present story of another English expedition 
 which won its way where all other living men have failed to go. 
 
 For us the door was opened, and though it has now again been 
 locked as grimly as before, at least for many months we have lived 
 in the very heart of the real Tibet. The course of our expedition 
 lay through no deserted wastes of sand, through which a stealthy 
 or disguised European creeps painfully from water-hole to water- 
 hole, avoiding the least sign of man or human habitation, learning 
 little and caring to learn less of the people from whose notice he 
 is shrinking. We have moved through the only populous and 
 politically important districts of the country, we have made our stay 
 in the centers of Tibetan life, and of necessity we were brought into 
 immediate contact with that mysterious government and religion 
 upon which no other European transgressor into the forbidden land 
 has been able to throw the light of personal knowledge. It has 
 been but a passing chance, but perhaps for that very reason the 
 more interest attaches to the simplest account of men and places 
 upon which the curtain has again impenetrably fallen. 
 
 Yes, the chance has been a great one, but there is a touch of 
 regret in our ability to use it. One canpot forget that the net- 
 work of baffled explorers' routes which circumnavigate and sheer 
 painfully off from Lhasa, represents the last of the greater ex- 
 plorations possible on this earth. The barriers that guard the 
 pole are of nature's making only. It is not endurance only, or even 
 chiefly, that has attracted us in the past, but for the future there 
 will be little else for our explorer to fight. The hostility of man, 
 which has added a spice of interest to all exploration hitherto, will 
 never again whet the ambition of a voyager to an undiscovered land. 
 
 That the last country to be discovered by the civilized world 
 should be one which has few rivals in its religious interests and 
 importance, fewer still in the isolated development of its national 
 characteristics, and none in its unique government and policy is a 
 fitting close to the pioneer work of civilization ; and that the English, 
 who have long been faithful servants of that restlessness on which 
 all progress is based, should have done the work, is not unjust; 
 and that you, my dear Younghusband, should have been chosen 
 to lead this rear-guard of exploration was for all concerned a good 
 deal more than fortunate. In these pages I do not intend to praise, 
 or indeed lay greater stress upon your work, or that of others, than 
 such as the bare narrative may of itself suggest from time to time. 
 
XV 
 
 but I am none the less aware of the debt which this country owes 
 
 to your quiet constancy and determination. 
 
 I am, 
 
 My dear Younghusband, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Perceval Landon. 
 5 Pall Mall Place, London, 
 
 January ist, 1905. 
 
 AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 Writers on Tibet have acquired an unenviable reputation for con- 
 cealing their indebtedness to other workers in the same field; I 
 take this opportunity of saying that it would be difficult for me to 
 set down the full number of those to whom I am indebted for help 
 in the writing of this work. Besides the authors of all books 
 on the subject, I am glad to think that there is hardly a man on 
 the expedition who, consciously or not, has not added his tale of 
 help to the book, and will not recognize lurking in some phrase 
 or footnote a fact which could only have been given me by himself. 
 Some, however, I must single out for my especial thanks, and in 
 mentioning these I trust that I may not be regarded as ungrateful 
 by those whose names I am compelled to omit. The actual writer 
 of such a book as this is among the last to whom a reader should 
 feel gratitude. 
 
 To Sir Francis Younghusband, to Lord Curzon, and to Captain 
 W. F. T. O'Connor, to Captain H. J. Walton, Lord Ampthill, and 
 the late Major Bretherton, to Mr. Claude White, Lieutenant-Colonel 
 L. A. Waddell, Colonel Sir James R. L. Macdonald, Captain C. H. 
 D. Ryder, and Captain H. M. Cowie, to Mr. E. C. Wilton, Lieuten- 
 ant-Colonels Iggulden and Beynon, Mr. H. H. Hayden, and to 
 Majors Sheppard and Ottley, my obligations throughout the fol- 
 lowing pages are continual and, I hope, obvious. Less patent but 
 almost equally indispensable for any success has been the help I 
 have received from Mr. L. Dane, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, 
 Mr. Filson Young, Mr. Herbert Blackett, Mr. A. W. Paul, and Mr. 
 Valentine Chirol. I should be glad to receive any additional in- 
 formation, notes, or criticisms, as I hope to make of " The Opening 
 of Tibet " a work of Tibetan reference, and, in any future edition,, 
 shall carefully revise the book up to date. 
 
> > )„ > J J ^ J 
 
 > 1 J ') > , , 
 
 
 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 

 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET 
 
 THE earliest historical relic of the Tibetans— like that of 
 many, perhaps of most, other races — is a weather-beaten 
 stone, the Do-ring. It stands in the center of Lhasa, across the 
 courtyard in front of the western doors of the Cathedral or Jo- 
 kang, beneath the famous willow-tree. Like Asoka's pillars on 
 the one hand or the Black Stone of Mukden on the other, it both 
 records a treaty and is the outward symbol of the prosperity of 
 Tibet. One might also add that, like the Omphalos at Delphi or 
 London Stone, it is to the Tibetans not only the center of their 
 strange shoulder-blade-shaped earth, but, more practical, the goal 
 from which their journeys and stages are reckoned. But the Do- 
 ring is even more than this. The terms of the treaty of 783 a.d., 
 now barely decipherable upon its cup-marked surface, corroborate, 
 in some degree, the legendary history of Tibet so far as it can be 
 found in Chinese chronicles. 
 
 This history is not one of great interest, and may be chiefly 
 dismissed as one of continued hostility with China, but of hos- 
 tility on equal terms. That the result of these border skirmish- 
 ings was by no means as uniformly satisfactory to China as one 
 might imagine from her version of the events, is clear, for about 
 the year 640 a.d. the King of Tibet, Srong-tsan-gambo, succeeded 
 in obtaining the hand of a princess of the imperial house of Tang 
 against the will of the emperor and after some years' fighting. 
 
 3 
 
1 
 
 -f * e » « c 
 
 * < * * '<< K 
 •I t € * , 
 
 r r r f 
 
 
 4 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 The story of this Srong-tsan-gambo is incrusted with incon- 
 sistent legend. He appears to have been a devout Buddhist, to 
 have married also a Nepalese princess, to have led an army into 
 India, where, about the year 648, he inflicted a defeat upon the 
 King of Magadha, from which place he carried off the famous 
 image which is to this day the chief and central treasure of the Jo- 
 kang. Another story says that it was presented as a free gift 
 from the Buddhists of Magadha by the hand of the returning 
 Tonmi-Sambhota, a minister whom Srong-tsan-gambo had de- 
 spatched to India to inquire more perfectly about the Buddhist 
 religion. The legend that this man introduced writing, and his 
 Chinese wife several of the best-known arts of her own country, 
 merely reflects the impetus given to foreign influences in Lhasa 
 by the origin and travels of the two. 
 
 Srong-tsan-gambo's grandson, Ti-srong-de-tsan, resumed hos- 
 tilities with China, and in 763 actually sacked the capital, Chan- 
 gan, or Hsia-Fu. Before that he also had given proof of his 
 Buddhist zeal by inviting the famous Buddhist saint Padma 
 Sambhava to visit his country. This was a more important mat- 
 ter than it then appeared, and was destined to mold indefinitely 
 the future of Tibet ; for, apart from his personal influence at the 
 time, this man, known also as Padma Pani or the Guru Rinpoche, 
 founded the Samye monasteries and the Red Cap school in 749, 
 and eventually reappears as the central figure of Lamaism — actu- 
 ally more important than the Buddha himself in its tradition and 
 ritual. And it is his soul, itself a re-incarnation of that of Ami- 
 tabha, the Bodisat, which is born again both in the person of the 
 Grand Lama of Tashi-lhunpo, and, vicariously, as Avalokites- 
 wara, in the body of the Dalai Lama or Grand Lama of Lhasa 
 also. To this king Ti-srong-de-tsan must be credited more than 
 military skill or religious fervor. It is clear that the position of 
 Tibet as a sacrosanct center of religion is due to his recognition 
 of the vast importance of Tibet as offering a permanent home to 
 
FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET 5 
 
 the faith which was being slowly but completely expelled from 
 India at this time. War after war followed his death, and in 
 or about 783 his successor, King Ralpachan, made with the Em- 
 peror Tai-tsang the Second the treaty which is engraved upon the 
 Do-ring at Lhasa. It is to be noted that the high-sounding 
 epithets which the contracting parties apply to themselves already 
 reflect the semi-sacred and mystic importance of Tibet. 
 
 These dry particulars are necessary in order to understand 
 much of later Lamaism, but the era of important legend closes 
 with the assassination of Lang-darma, the younger brother of 
 \^ Ralpachan, who had ascended the throne in 899. Lang-darma, 
 who had murdered his brother to clear the way for his own suc- 
 cession, is the Buddhist Julian, and the assassination of this perse- 
 cutor of the faith is still annually observed in Lhasa on the 
 threshold of the Jo-kang, where a fanatic monk achieved his 
 purpose at the cost of his own life. From this date onward Tibet 
 was divided into a large number of petty principalities, and its 
 history is for many centuries obscure. Lamaism, however, flour- 
 ished at the expense of the body politic, and in 1038 Atisha or 
 Jo Ji-pal-den again reformed the religion of the country. In 
 1206 the country was conquered by the Tartars, and in 1270 
 Kublai khan recognized the supremacy of the head Lama of the 
 Sakya monastery as titular ruler of Tibet, an arrangement which 
 lasted until the foundation of the Yellow or Gelukpa sect by 
 Tsong-kapa in the fifteenth century and the final establishment 
 of the re-incarnate hierarchy of Lhasa two hundred years later. 
 But before that momentous coup d'etat, the first European traveler 
 had entered Tibet, and it is the aim of this chapter rather to give 
 a brief account of the attempts of foreign nations to enter into 
 communication with this hermit country, than to dwell at any 
 length upon its internal history. 
 
 Friar Odoric or Ordericus of Pordenone, a Minorite friar, ap- 
 pears to have visited Tibet about the year 1328. He was return- 
 
6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 ing from the east coast of China, by Shensi, hoping eventually to 
 strike the main European caravan routes through Asia. It seems 
 clear that he never reached Lhasa. Astley dismisses him as " the 
 prince of liars," but some of his notes are good and interesting. 
 He reports of the capital of Tibet that its walls are black and 
 white ; that its streets are well paved ; that the Buddhist prohibi- 
 tion against the taking of life was strictly observed there ; and that 
 the Tibetans of the country districts lived, as now, in black yak- 
 hair tents. The title of the Grand Lama of Sakya he gives as 
 Abassi, in which a reflection of the Latin title of the chief of a 
 monastery may probably be seen. 
 
 But from that time there is a blank of many years, at the end 
 of which the present regime was established by Tsong-kapa,* a 
 monk from the then populous region of Koko-nor, far to the 
 northeast of Lhasa. His reformations were sweeping in their 
 scope, and though at this day the various sects of Lamaism are 
 divided rather by tradition, ritual, and costume than by any vital 
 dogmatic schism, the stricter moral code of the Cjclukpas or Yel- 
 low Caps, Tsong-kapa's sect, is still to be recognized. Before the 
 next European visited Lhasa, the Gelukpas had consolidated their 
 rule, and in 1624 Antonio Andrada, of the Society of Jesus, 
 found the chief power in their hands at Tashi-lhunpo. This mis- 
 sionary was the author of the most widely known description of 
 Tibet until the travels of Turner were issued at the close of the 
 eighteenth century. But it is certain that his acquaintance with 
 the country was limited to the western and northern parts — 
 Lhasa still remained unvisited. 
 
 The doctrine of political re-incarnation had now been fully ac- 
 cepted. The first re-incarnation of Amitabha or Manjusri ^— the 
 Indian synonyms are conveniently used for the chief personages 
 of the Greater Vehicle of Buddhism— was Gedun-tubpa, Grand 
 Lama of Tashi-lhunpo, in whom Tsong-kapa recognized the per- 
 
 * "He of the Orion Land." ' The Tibetan name is Chenrezig. 
 
FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET 7 
 
 sonality of Padma Sambhava. Gedun-tubpa thus founded a series 
 of re-incarnations near Shigatse, of which the successive holders 
 made such good use that toward the middle of the seventeenth 
 century Na-wang Lob-sang made himself master of Tibet. But 
 he then transferred his capital to Lhasa, accepted the title of Dalai 
 Lama from the Emperor of China/ built the Potala palace, and, 
 most important of all, discovered that, besides being, as Grand 
 Lama of Tashi-lhunpo, a re-incarnation of Amitabha, he was also 
 a reappearance of Avalokiteswara. This produced a curious re- 
 sult, for Avalokiteswara was an emanation of Amitabha and, 
 therefore, inferior to his " father " as touching his potential man- 
 hood. Thus, though the entire political power has been absorbed 
 by the Dalai or Grand Lama of Lhasa, the Tashi Lama— as the 
 Grand Lama of Tashi-lhunpo is commonly called— remains in 
 theory his senior and superior in spiritual matters. A govern- 
 ment, similar in most respects to that which is now established, 
 was afterward inaugurated, the forcible introduction by the Chi- 
 nese Emperor of two Ambans or Viceroys with a strong guard 
 being the result of the Dzungarian raid and the occupation of 
 Lhasa in 171 7. Chinese suzerainty may be said to date from 
 1720. 
 
 In 1662, in the middle of Na-wang Lob-sang's revolution, the 
 first European, Father Johann Grueber, also a Jesuit, reached 
 Lhasa in company with Father Dorville. He left few records of 
 his travels, but Astley's " Collection of Voyages " contains an 
 abstract of his account of this journey. Lhasa— or, as he calls it, 
 Barantola— is described as the capital of the country and the resi- 
 dence of the Buddhist Pope, whose castle " Butala " reminded 
 Grueber of the Rhenish fortresses of his own fatherland. He re- 
 marks that the religion was essentially identical with Christianity, 
 
 ^ The title means Ocean (of learning). It has originated the perpetual "sur- 
 name" of Gya-tso (expanse of water) for the successive re-incarnations of the 
 Dalai Lama. ^ ^ l^:^ 
 
8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 though, as he says, no Christian was ever in the country before. 
 Among other remarks which are true of Tibetans to-day, he men- 
 tions the feminine habits of wearing the hair plaited tightly into 
 a number of small cords, of bearing the " patug " or turquoise- 
 studded head-dress, and of smearing the face with kutch.* In 
 1708 the Capuchin mission in India was pushed forward and four 
 fathers were sent to make a settlement in Lhasa. Elsewhere I 
 have sketched the career of this ill-fated hospice. For the moment 
 it is only necessary to say that it was persecuted by the Jesuits and 
 eventually abandoned in 1745. Brother Orazio della Penna of this 
 mission acquired a perfect knowledge of the Tibetan language. 
 He wrote an account of the country, which is a somewhat bald 
 aggregation of facts and fancies. To him is probably due our 
 knowledge of the mineral wealth of the country, and a certain 
 light upon its internal dissensions during the first quarter of the 
 eighteenth century. His summary of the chief features of La- 
 maism is colored by the scholasticism of his own religion. 
 
 Hippolito Desideri and Manuel Freyre, Jesuit spies, reached 
 Lhasa in 1716, and stayed there thirteen years, until they were 
 recalled by the Pope. The manuscripts of the former are still 
 unpublished, but, contrary to general belief, they have been thor- 
 oughly examined, and full extracts have from time to time been 
 made from them for private use. About this time the famous 
 survey of China was made under the auspices of the Jesuit colony 
 in Peking. 
 
 One Samuel Van der Putte was the next visitor. He was a 
 
 shrewd, adventurous Dutchman, and twice succeeded in making 
 
 his way to Lhasa. But the anti-foreign prejudices of the Tibetans 
 
 * Grueber drew a picture of the Potala palace in his day, which is of con- 
 siderable interest. In its earlier state it must have resembled Gyangtse-jong 
 in the disposition, character, and stability of its buildings, and it is also clear 
 that the gigantic buttress-building which sweeps sheer up the side of the 
 rock from the plain to the Dalai Lama's own palace covers two deep ravines 
 which are probably converted into secret treasure chambers at this moment. 
 See Appendix B. 
 
FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET 9 
 
 were fermenting. Van der Putte was obliged to travel between 
 China and India in disguise, and during the whole of his stay 
 in Tibet and China — a period of about twelve years, 1724- 173 5 — 
 was unable to compile any connected narrative owing to the dan- 
 ger which surrounded him. He made his notes upon slips of 
 paper, and ultimately, in fear lest improper or inaccurate use 
 should be made of them, ordered them in his will to be burned. 
 He appears also to have kept a small journal which was, it 
 seems, destroyed at the same time. It is difficult to find a parallel 
 to the loss which scientific exploration has suffered by the holo- 
 caust of the entire notes of a man who was equally distinguished 
 as a traveler, a linguist, and a scientific expert. 
 
 About this time the names of three Englishmen are conspicuous 
 among those who have explored Tibet. It is, indeed, almost en- 
 tirely upon their notes that our information as to the interior of 
 Tibet rested until the organization of the traveling Pundits by 
 the Indian Survey Office comparatively late in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. Between the years 1774 and 1812 Mr. George Bogle, a 
 young writer of the East India Company, Lieutenant Samuel 
 Turner, and Mr. Thomas Manning— an eccentric mathematician 
 and Oriental scholar— all penetrated with more or less success 
 into this country of mystery. The three men represented different 
 types: Bogle, as his diary shows, was, though a comparatively 
 young man, a peculiarly suitable envoy for the delicate work 
 which Warren Hastings intrusted to him. The Governor himself 
 showed in his dealings with Tibet the same grasp and foresight 
 that characterized his actions in every part of his huge De- 
 pendency; he realized the importance of securing friendly rela- 
 tions with a country which seemed at that time to be the most obvi- 
 ous link between Bengal and the rest of Asia. He therefore sent 
 George Bogle, as the accredited agent of the Company, to establish 
 communication, and, if possible, improve the commercial inter- 
 course between the two countries. A thin current of merchan- 
 
lo THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 disc filtered down over the passes into India, its owners exchang- 
 ing the musk, wool, and turquoises of Tibet for the rice and 
 hardware of India, but it is not likely that Warren Hastings had 
 any very definite intention to open up a thoroughfare to India 
 from the north and east. Many years were needed to consolidate 
 the British rule in Bengal, and he had difficulties enough in India 
 proper to contend with without in any way inviting the inter- 
 ference of outside tribes or nations. It is probable that his chief 
 aim was to secure information. Nothing whatever was known 
 of this particular route between India and Tibet ; the very names 
 of the towns, the nature of the country, the disposition of its 
 inhabitants, its products, its government, all were alike unknown, 
 and George Bogle was set a task by Hastings which might well 
 have daunted a diplomatist more experienced than the young and 
 unknown writer twenty-seven years of age. But from first to 
 last he carried through his mission with unfailing tact, and, so 
 far as it was possible, with complete success. His object was not 
 Lhasa. The Dalai Lama was then a boy of fifteen, and the vir- 
 tual government of the country lay in the hands of the Tashi 
 Lama; this man, whose name was Jetsun Poldan Ye She, has 
 remained the most distinguished figure in all the list of re-incar- 
 nate Grand Lamas. He was a man of commanding personality, 
 of wide-minded sympathy and toleration, and remarkable, even 
 beyond the confines of his country, for his courtesy and wisdom. 
 To him, therefore, Bogle was sent, and making his way through 
 Bhutan, he arrived at Tashi-lhunpo without serious delay in 
 December, 1774. His diary and the ofi^cial report which he sent 
 to Warren Hastings, by that time appointed first Governor-Gen- 
 eral of India, contain by far the most judicious description of 
 the life and customs of the inhabitants of this unknown country 
 that has been written. He was received as an honored guest, 
 and, though, indeed, he was asked not to press his request for 
 permission to visit Lhasa, the favor of the Tashi Lama was 
 
FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET ii 
 
 suflficient to secure for him unique opportunities of examining 
 the nature, habits, and peculiarities of this unknown neighbor 
 across the Himalayas. All that could be done to promote 
 friendly relations between the two countries was cheerfully at- 
 tempted by the Tashi Lama, but it is clear from Bogle's own 
 account that he met with considerable opposition from the rep- 
 resentatives of Lhasa, even in the court of the actual ruler of 
 Tibet, and the death of the Tashi Lama shortly afterward, com- 
 bined with the accession to supreme power of the Dalai Lama 
 in 1776, effectually put an end to any hope of an amicable under- 
 standing between the two countries. Bogle's narrative will be 
 quoted in the following pages, and it would be difficult to im- 
 prove on the shrewd insight and steady judgment with which 
 many of the peculiarities of Tibet were unerringly noted down, 
 generally with some characteristic comment, shrewd or satirical. 
 After the death of the Tashi Lama in 1780, followed within 
 six months by the decease of Bogle himself at Calcutta, and the 
 consequent failure of his intended scheme, Warren Hastings 
 determined to make another attempt. Samuel Turner, his own 
 cousin, was despatched at the head of a small party to Tashi- 
 Ihunpo. After some delay • in Bhutan he successfully accom- 
 plished the journey, traveling over the same route as that which 
 had been taken by Bogle, and reached Tashi-lhunpo on the 226. 
 of September, 1783. Turner, however, found that the center 
 of Government had been transferred to Lhasa; the new Tashi 
 Lama was an infant, and the Dalai Lama showed no disposition 
 whatever to allow his visitor even to discuss the object of his 
 mission. After formally congratulating the Tashi-lhunpo hie- 
 rarchy upon the speedy and successful re-incarnation of the de- 
 ceased primate, he took his leave. On his return to England, 
 Turner embodied the result of his observations in a sumptu- 
 ously printed volume, illustrated with steel engravings, which 
 for a long time remained the only English printed record of 
 
12 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Great Tibet, and we owe a deep debt of gratitude to Sir Clem- 
 ents Markham for having given to the world, in 1875, the some- 
 what more interesting and reliable account written by Turner's 
 predecessor at the Tashi court. 
 
 The third, and last, name of these three, Mr. Manning, pre- 
 sents one of the most curious psychological studies in the whole 
 history of travel. That he was a man eccentric in his habits 
 and tastes throughout his life may be fairly argued from his 
 behavior during his last years, but it is difficult to reconcile 
 the extraordinary energy, courage, and fixity of purpose which 
 enabled him successfully to carry through, at the utmost per- 
 sonal risk, the most dangerous expedition that any man in his 
 day could attempt, with the utter vacuity of the only record 
 which he has left of his great and successful enterprise. It is 
 not too much to say that on no single point did the recent ex- 
 pedition glean a fact or an opinion of the slightest use from the 
 record left by a man who, presumably for the purpose of ob- 
 servation, had traveled over a route to Lhasa which for the 
 most part was identical with that of 1904. .From the first day 
 recorded in his journal, the 7th of September, 181 1, to his re- 
 turn to Indian territory, in June of the following year, such 
 notes as these constitute the main bulk of his observations: 
 
 " I came in thoroughly wet and dried my clothes on my body. 
 Afterward, upon walking across the room, I was seized with a 
 violent palpitation. The insects disturbed me all night. 
 
 " I saw a lad gnawing a turnip, and called to him immediately, 
 and, showing it to my conductor, asked the name and told him 
 to give me plenty of it. I thus got an excellent well-dressed 
 stew with turnips." 
 
 His account of his own behavior during the crossing of the 
 Tsang-po is one which most Englishmen would have blushed 
 to recall, far more to incorporate in their record of travel. 
 
 " The reminiscences occasioned by the motion of the boat 
 
FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET 13 
 
 brought on a fit of European activity. I could not sit still, 
 but must climb about, seat myself in various postures on the 
 parapet, and lean over. The master of the boat was alarmed, 
 and sent a steady man to hold me tight. I pointed to the or- 
 namented prow of the boat, and assured them that I could sit 
 there with perfect safety, and to prove to them how commo- 
 diously I was seated, bent my head and body down the outside 
 of the boat to the water's edge; but finding, by their renewed 
 instances for me to desist, that I made them uneasy, I went 
 back to my place and seated myself quietly. As the boat drew 
 near shore I meditated jumping over, but was pulled back by 
 the immense weight of my clothes and the clumsiness of my 
 boots. I was afraid of jumping short, and having the laugh 
 against me." 
 
 The manner in which he permitted his Chinese servant to 
 treat him is a revelation to those who know the East. His 
 only protest against the discourtesy, insubordination, disobe- 
 dience, and, at last, openly expressed contempt of his Chinese 
 servant, was to fill the pages of his diary day after day, and 
 week after week, with whining complaints of the man's " un- 
 kindness." It will hardly be believed that, after he had achieved 
 the end which he had set before him, and at last actually found 
 himself inside the Sacred City, he still occupies himself with 
 petty personal grievances, with long notes upon the treatment 
 which he applied to his patients there, with the effect of his 
 medicines, and with lengthy moral disquisitions upon the under- 
 lying influences which affect all human nature alike. Until 
 almost the end of his visit, with the doors of the Jo-kang open 
 to him, he does not seem to have visited a single temple, and 
 when at last he did so he occupied a page of his diary by a 
 petty narration of his servant's incivility and his own silly con- 
 duct; of the temples visited, he left no description whatever, 
 and the only clear thing is that the Jo-kang was not one of them. 
 
14 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Manning returned to England after this great expedition and 
 lived a life of seclusion, and, it must be confessed, of eccentricity. 
 Sir Clements Markham has published the diary to which refer- 
 ence has been made, and it certainly possesses a very remarkable 
 interest, if not as a record of observation, at least as a psycho- 
 logical document which has probably no parallel in the world. 
 
 With one exception, the record of Tibetan travel from that 
 day to the present year is, so far as Europeans are concerned, 
 a record of interesting and picturesque failure. That exception 
 was the visit of two Jesuit Fathers, Evariste Hue and Joseph 
 Gabet. Traveling by the southwestern route from China, 
 through Sining, these two adventurous priests reached Lhasa 
 in January, 1846. After a stay of less than seven weeks they 
 were expelled by the Amban, and returned to China by the east- 
 ern route through Tachienlu. The book which Hue wrote upon 
 his travels in Eastern Asia is graphic and vivacious, and the 
 picture which he draws of his own experiences in Lhasa is 
 graphic and true; but of the natural and architectural features 
 he says almost nothing, and there was wanting in him a realiza- 
 tion of the intense importance, as well as interest, of his travels. 
 It is true that many of his statements, which at the time were 
 received with undisguised incredulity, have since received cor- 
 roboration from later travelers, but Hue cannot be said to have 
 added very much to our scientific knowledge of the countries 
 through which he passed, and, though his narrative possesses 
 a racy charm of its own which will always make it a popular 
 classic in the history of missionary effort, it is greatly to be 
 regretted that he did not use his unique opportunities in a 
 steadier and better informed record of the national and physical 
 peculiarities of this almost virgin country. 
 
 As has been said, the record of all other travel to Lhasa has 
 been a record of failure.* In the whole history of exploration, 
 
 ^ Hue gives a curious account of the supposed visit of an Englishman, Moor- 
 croft, to Lhasa. Briefly stated, his assertion is that, though WilHam Moor- 
 
FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET 15 
 
 there is no more curious map than that which shows the tangled 
 lines of travelers' routes toward this -city, coming in from all 
 sides, north, south, east, and west, crossing, interlocking, retrac- 
 ing, all with one goal, and all baffled, some soon after the journey- 
 had been begun, some when the travelers might almost believe 
 that the next hill would give them a distant glimpse of the golden 
 roofs of the Fotala. It has often been remarked to the writer 
 that this consistent failure to reach a known spot, barely 200 
 miles from our own frontier, across a thinly inhabited region, 
 has never yet been accounted for. As a matter of fact, the 
 reason is, I think, clear enough when that region has been 
 visited. Roughly stated, there is in Tibet only one way of 
 going from one place to another, whether the necessity lies in 
 the nature of the ground or in the inability to obtain food, 
 fuel, and fodder elsewhere, and that in itself effectually re- 
 duces the chance of traveling without attracting observation. 
 Thanks to the extraordinary system of Chinese postal relays, 
 it is absolutely impossible for a traveler to prevent the news of 
 his arrival reaching Lhasa. The population of Tibet is, it is 
 true, small, and it might be thought that therefore a traveler 
 enjoyed greater opportunities of escaping detection. It is a fact 
 that one may go, not for hours only, but for days, along a well- 
 known trade route without meeting a soul more than half a 
 mile from the nearest village. But this very scantiness of popu- 
 lation is the undoing of the trespasser; every face is as well 
 known to the Tibetan villager as the face of the local Chinese 
 official, to whom, under horrible penalties, the presence of a 
 stranger, in whatever guise, must be at once reported. The 
 
 croft is supposed to have died in 1825 at " Andkou," he really reached Lhasa 
 in 1826, and Hved there for twelve years undetected. Even his own servant 
 believed him to be a Kashmiri. He was assassinated by brigands on his return 
 journey, and the discovery of elaborate maps upon his person after death was 
 the first indication to the Lhasans of his nationality. It must be remembered 
 that Hue had this story direct from the Regent in Lhasa only eight years after- 
 ward. The authority for the fact of his death in 1825 is a letter written by 
 Trebeck, his companion. Trebeck himself died a few days later. 
 
i6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 merchants who pass up and down upon the road are the only- 
 new faces that the Tibetan sees from year to year. High Lama 
 officials may hurry through, and now and then the Chinese 
 garrison of the nearest post may be relieved, but in both these 
 cases there is a robe or uniform readily distinguishable by the 
 villager, and he would be a daring man indeed who would at- 
 tempt to thrust himself in disguise into the company of* either 
 the actual, or the nominal, ruling class in Tibet. Excepting 
 these two classes, every passer-by along the high road is subject 
 to an unceasing scrutiny, which, it can readily be understood, 
 has hitherto effectually prevented all attempts to visit the For- 
 bidden City by stealth. 
 
 We have not space to include even the briefest summary of 
 these plucky but doomed enterprises, but each of the tracks that 
 contribute to the tangled skein which envelops Lhasa has its own 
 peculiar interest. One remembers, one after another, the light- 
 hearted and purposeless raid of Bonavalot and Prince Henri 
 d'Orleans in 1890, the steady and scientifically invaluable prog- 
 ress of Bower and Thorold in 1891, the triple attempts of 
 Rockhill — a determined American, whom every one in the col- 
 umn would gladly have seen accompanying us into the city he 
 had striven to reach for so many years at such a cost of time 
 and labor — and the debt which geography owes to Henry and 
 Richard Strachey must not be forgotten. All of these enter- 
 prises have, unfortunately, not ended in failure alone, and the 
 murder of Dutreuil de Rhins, in 1894, and the disappear- 
 ance of Mr, Rijnhart, in 1898, remain as significant proof 
 of the very real danger which has been in the past, and, so 
 far as one can forecast the future, will still remain an inevitable 
 characteristic of travel in Tibet. Of all these journeys, that of 
 the Littledales, in 1894, was perhaps the most interesting, and 
 those who knew either Mr, Littledale, or his nephew, Mr, 
 Fletcher, will realize that further progress was absolutely and ir- 
 
FORMER EXPLORATIONS OF TIBET 17 
 
 revocably prevented when even these two determined men ac- 
 quiesced in the inevitable and gave up the attempt when within 
 70 miles of their long-desired goal. 
 
 The work of Russians in Tibet has been watched with some 
 interest from India, and the names of Przhevalsky, Roborovsky, 
 Kozlov, and Pevtsov honorably recall a series of explorations, 
 extended over many years, of which the pursuit and ultimate 
 object were none the less admirable in themselves because they 
 did not happen to commend it to the policy of the British Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 These men were, of course, all Europeans. Of the secret 
 surveys undertaken by the Indian Government I shall speak 
 later. 
 
 Of Sven Hedin, it is not necessary to remind the reader. 
 His own gallant attempt to reach Lhasa, which occupied over 
 two years, is sufficiently recent to need no further description 
 at this moment. His own record — unostentatious, and bearing 
 the stamp of accurate observation in every line — is still wet 
 from the press, and, though his adverse opinion as to the justice 
 of our expedition had been freely expressed, the regret felt by 
 every member of the Mission that Sven Hedin was not with us 
 in Lhasa was genuine and deep. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 
 
 FOR many years there were almost no relations between the 
 English conquerors of India and Tibet; but so far as any 
 might be said to exist, they were, if anything, friendly. The 
 policy of isolation which the authorities of Lhasa adopted had 
 been formulated first in the early years of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, and we must not suppose that even previous to that date 
 the lamas would have been willing to allow strangers to come 
 to their capital in any numbers. But, as a matter of fact, the 
 incredible remoteness of Lhasa, and the extreme difficulty of the 
 road thither, had always prevented any but the hardiest from 
 even attempting the grim journey. When, therefore, it became 
 obvious that European trade and European traders were going 
 to flourish in the Far East, it made no great difference that the 
 Lhasan authorities decided once for all that strangers were not 
 welcome there. This decree, however, they did not put into 
 force with extreme rigor for a long time, and it is possible that 
 Bogle, so late as 1774, might after all have succeeded in over- 
 coming the opposition of the Regent. 
 
 Chinese supremacy over Tibet nominally dates from the year 
 1720, and as about that time the policy of isolation was adopted, 
 it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Chinese pressed it 
 upon the Tibetans with the idea of making a " buffer state " of 
 the most impenetrable description between their western prov- 
 ince and the unknown but growing power of the foreigners in 
 
 India. Perhaps it was not the white foreigners alone that they 
 
 18 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 19 
 
 dreaded; Nadir Shah's invasion of India in 1727 must have 
 been the cause of some anxiety to the Middle Kingdom. In 
 any case we may fairly accept the definite statement of many 
 travelers that the isolation of Tibet was in its origin a Chinese 
 device. But they taught willing pupils, and the tables are now 
 so far reversed that the Chinese are unable to secure admittance 
 into the province even for the strangers to whom they have 
 given official permission. Mr. W. W. Rockhill, than whom no 
 man has earned more deservedly a reputation for Tibetan eru- 
 dition, has of course long wished to visit Lhasa. The Ameri- 
 can Government, on three occasions, has sent in a request to the 
 Chinese that he should be permitted to make the journey, and that 
 the Tibetan authorities should be compelled to receive him. The 
 first promise was readily granted; the second, that which pre- 
 supposed a real suzerainty over the Tibetans, they were frankly 
 unable to make. They did their best : three times, as the suzerain 
 power, they sent an order to Lhasa. Three times the Dalai 
 Lama flatly and unconditionally refused even to consider Mr. 
 Rockhill's admission.* The main responsibility, therefore, for 
 the exclusion of foreigners from Tibet rests now with the La- 
 maic hierarchy. But the great game of exchanging responsibil- 
 ities is as well known to those Oriental hermits as it was to the 
 firm of Spenlow and Jorkins. At one time the Chinese said that 
 they were willing enough to allow strangers to travel freely in 
 Tibet, but they deplored their inability to coerce the Lhasan 
 Government ; the Lhasan Government, on the other hand, stated 
 that they would be glad to see foreigners within their borders, 
 but unfortunately the orders of China were imperative. Lat- 
 terly, however, the Tibetans abandoned this pretense, and at 
 a great meeting of the Tsong-du, which was attended by rep- 
 resentatives from all parts of the country, they made a national 
 vow that no stranger, under any circumstances whatever, should 
 *This we discovered after our arrival in Lhasa. 
 
20 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 henceforth be permitted to enter the country. This vow they 
 made doubly sure by annexing it as an article of faith to the 
 Buddhist creed! One of Colonel Younghusband's earliest dip- 
 lomatic successes was the silencing of this plea. He asked them 
 whether it were indeed part of the Buddhist faith or not ? They 
 answered that it was; he replied, that he knew the Buddhist 
 scriptures well, and that nowhere from end to end of them was 
 there one word which could justify this assertion. Retreating 
 a little from their position, the Tibetans then said, " Well, it is 
 not perhaps really an article of faith, but we have decided that 
 so it must be." To this Colonel Younghusband naturally an- 
 swered that those who could make could also unmake, and that 
 if their religion were not concerned there was no reason that 
 they should not at once reconsider what was a mere matter of 
 policy. 
 
 Had the Tibetans confined themselves to this assertion of 
 their inviolability, pur relations with the country would have 
 remained as satisfactory as could have been wished. The loss 
 of trade was after all a small matter, and, in any case, it was 
 one which the Tibetans had every right to decide. But the 
 presence in Lhasa of a single man began the trouble which 
 eventually made the expedition necessary. The history of Dor- 
 jieff may as well be told at once. 
 
 About twenty-five years ago there arrived in Lhasa a young 
 lama from the Siberian steppes to the east of Lake Baikal. He 
 was by birth a Mongolian Buriat, but by nationality a Russian 
 subject. He was born at a place called Azochozki, and was 
 destined from his youth to holy orders. He came to Lhasa and 
 was received into that hot-bed of sedition, the Debung monas- 
 tery, where, displaying unusual ability, he ultimately became 
 professor of metaphysics. In no way did he dabble in political 
 affairs, and he seemed destined to spend the autumn of his life 
 as a teacher. He had reached the age of fifty-two when, more 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 21 
 
 by chance than by design, he found himself involved in high 
 international politics, and entered upon the adventurous career 
 of intrigue which has made his name notorious in the chan- 
 celleries of Calcutta, London, and St. Petersburg. His first 
 journey from Lhasa to Russia was innocent enough ; he was sent 
 in 1898 to collect contributions from the faithful, of whom 
 there are many communities in the southeastern provinces of 
 Russia in Europe. He traveled in the country from town to 
 town, and at last the Russian ministers seemed to have awakened 
 to the opportunity which lay before them. 
 
 Throughout this book I do not wish to suggest that Russia, 
 in attempting to gain influence in Lhasa, was guilty of anything 
 which reflects the least discredit upon her statesmen. On the 
 other hand, it was a far-sighted and, from many points of view, 
 an entirely laudable attempt to consolidate the Central Asian 
 Empire which she believes to be her rightful heritage. The 
 only reason why the British found it necessary to intervene was 
 that the equally justifiable policy which they had themselves 
 deliberately adopted, and their own vastly greater interests. in 
 Tibet, clashed all along the line with those of the Muscovite. 
 Except that we have no wish to make ourselves responsible for 
 the protection and good government of this huge and unwieldy 
 province, the aims of the government of the Tzar are no doubt 
 those of ourselves also. On either side it has been a mere mea- 
 sure of self -protection ; we happen to have been the better placed 
 to achieve our end. What the Russians did in allowing Dor- 
 jieff to represent them unofficially in Lhasa we should have been 
 glad to be able to do, and it is a deplorable thing that the millions 
 of northern Buddhists under our sway do not produce men of 
 the capacity which is exhibited by a Dorjieff or a Norzunoff; 
 if these men were to be found I fancy we should have used them 
 willingly long ago. For these quick-witted adventurers are 
 often the most effective screen which can be interposed between 
 
22 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 two advancing nationalities, so long, of course, as they are offi- 
 cially recognized by neither. But there was no one whom we 
 could oppose to the dexterity of this Buriat lama. 
 
 He was originally best known by his Tibetan name, Ghomang 
 Lobzang, but after his adoption of the position in which he has 
 become famous, he is known to Western nations by his Russian 
 title of Dorjieff— a name, by the way, which is merely a Rus- 
 sianized form of the typical Tibetan word, which means a " thun- 
 der-bolt," a " diamond," or, more important than all, the ulti- 
 mate symbol of Lamaic authority, a small brass ornament, 
 shaped somewhat like two royal crowns joined together by an 
 inch of molded brass. Other names, too, he has; Kawaguchi, 
 the Japanese traveler, refers to him as Ngaku-wang-dorje; the 
 commonest name in Lhasa itself for this man was that of his 
 official position, or Khende-chega, and his name appears also 
 as Akohwan Darjilikoff. This list does not exhaust the number 
 of his aliases, but it may indicate why the Government of India 
 took some time to realize that one and the same man lay behind 
 these different personalities which had, it was clear enough, 
 at least one bond of union — that of hostility to British influence. 
 
 Precisely what took place in Russia has not been made public, 
 but in these days of indiscreet memoirs it is not likely that the 
 true inner history of Dorjieff's mission to Russia will long re- 
 main a secret. All that is known is that when he returned to 
 Tibet, Ghomang Lobzang found himself in the unofficial position 
 of Russian agent in Lhasa. He brought with him a large num- 
 ber of exceedingly valuable presents, and he lost no time in try- 
 ing to persuade the Lhasan hierarchy that it was to their in- 
 terest to secure the informal protection of the Tzar of Russia. 
 Briefly stated, his arguments were these: You have no strength 
 in the country to resist invaders; your natural protector and 
 suzerain, China, is a broken reed; even at this moment she is 
 entirely under the domination of the British. If you remain any 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 2Z 
 
 longer trusting to her support, you will find that she has thrown 
 you as a sop to the Indian Government. The English are a 
 rapacious and heretical nation; they will not respect your reli- 
 gion; they will bring you into servitude, and the ancient and 
 honorable rule of the priests in this country will be surely put 
 an end to. On the other hand, if you will ask the aid of Russia 
 you will secure the most powerful protector in the world. You 
 will have gained on your side the only military power which is 
 able to crush the English nation. More than that, you may be 
 able to induce the great monarch of that nation to embrace your 
 faith. Another emperor, as great as he, has in past ages been 
 converted to our great faith, and if you can convince Nicholas, 
 whose sympathies with Buddhism are universally admitted, it 
 will not be long before the whole Russian race are obedient 
 servants and loyal disciples of your Holiness. 
 
 Such, in rough outline, was Dorjieff's policy. It produced 
 an almost immediate effect upon the Dalai Lama himself. Im- 
 petuously, without consulting his national council, he accepted 
 the suggestion, and even proposed to visit St. Petersburg in per- 
 son. The sacred cushion on which his Holiness should sit in 
 audience with the Tzar, and a beautiful codex aureus from his 
 own library, were sent at once, and will probably remain in the 
 Imperial museum on the banks of the Neva as a curious and 
 significant reminiscence of the great and daring policy which 
 so nearly succeeded in Russianizing, at a stroke, the most auto- 
 cratic and far-reaching religious empire of Asia. But the Dalai 
 Lama had reckoned too hastily; the Tsong-du had still to be 
 consulted, and here the Dalai Lama received a check which was 
 the beginning of all the internal troubles which have hampered 
 the proper management of Tibetan diplomacy ever since. The 
 Tsong-du replied diplomatically that it was very nice of the 
 Russian Emperor, but that they required no protection, and that 
 the Dalai Lama had exceeded his authority in committing the 
 
24 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 country even to a consideration of Dorjieff's offer. The Grand 
 Lama did all in his power to induce them to accept his scheme, 
 but without avail, and the next year another ruse was adopted 
 by Dorjieff to further the interests of his patrons. 
 
 He went again to St. Petersburg, and there was received in au- 
 dience by the Emperor himself; he returned after a short stay, the 
 bearer of two interesting things.* One was a letter, asking that 
 the Dalai Lama should despatch an envoy to Russia to discuss the 
 matter more fully. The other was a complete set of vestments 
 appertaining to a Bishop of the Russian Church. Later on in this 
 book their importance and significance will be referred to ; for the 
 moment, the political fruits of this embassy to St. Petersburg 
 claim our attention. In spite of the recent declarations of the 
 Tsong-du, the Dalai Lama, on his own responsibility, sent in re- 
 sponse Tsan-nyid, an abbot of high rank, to accompany Dorjieff, 
 who, a month after his arrival at Lhasa, was again on the road 
 to Europe. The two men made their way through Nepal and In- 
 dia to Colombo, where they embarked on a Russian vessel for 
 Odessa. Upon their arrival in Russia they were received with 
 the highest consideration, and a second audience with the Tzar 
 was granted them. Ultimately they set off on their return jour- 
 ney and reached Lhasa about December, 1901. They there laid 
 before the Dalai Lama a proposal from the Russian Government, 
 that a Prince of the royal house should take up his residence in 
 Lhasa for the purpose of promoting friendly relations between the 
 two countries. It may well be imagined, whether it were so ex- 
 pressed or not in the message, that the Russians would have con- 
 sidered it necessary that a small armed guard should accompany 
 his Imperial Highness. The other document which the returning 
 abbot laid before his master was the hotly discussed agreement 
 between Russia and Tibet. Those who deny that a treaty was 
 
 * It is of some interest to note that he made the record journey between 
 Urga and Lhasa ; he covered the distance in ninety days. 
 
A TIBETAN MONK WITH HIS PRAYER-WHEEL 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 25 
 
 ever formally made between Tibet and Russia are perfectly cor- 
 rect. It requires no great perspicacity to see that under the rela- 
 tions then existing between Tibet and China no such treaty could 
 have been valid, even if it had been made. But it was not made ; 
 the treaty, the terms of which were definite enough, remained 
 rather as a pledge than as an assurance ; it represented, in a per- 
 manent form, the kindly feelings of the Russians toward Tibet; 
 it was there to encourage the Tibetans should any difficulty arise 
 with their southern neighbors; it was a comfortable guarantee 
 that the Russians would encourage Buddhism in their extending 
 empire of Central Asia. In return, the Russians asked for facili- 
 ties which the poor people of Lhasa may be pardoned for having 
 misunderstood. Concessions to construct railways must seem in- 
 significant enough to a country which has not a wheel within its 
 borders except a prayer-wheel ; but to the eye of the uncharitable 
 European diplomatist the very mention of railways in connection 
 with Russia calls up a wide field of reminiscence and implication. 
 That treaty was an informal reduction to terms of an unratified 
 and an unratifiable arrangement with Tibet. It was none the 
 less dangerous. The Chinese officials in Lhasa were from the first 
 aware of it, and at once attributed to this understanding with 
 Russia the sudden insolence and insubordination with which Tibet 
 continued to treat the advice and even the orders of their suzerain. 
 
 So far as the Dalai Lahia was concerned, the treaty would have 
 been signed at once, but the other authorities were imrhovable. 
 On behalf of the suzerain's power, the Chinese Viceroy denounced] 
 it as treason to his Imperial master ; as to the proposed residencej 
 of a Russian Grand Duke, the objections of the high officials to 
 the intrusion of a European among them, be he prince or peasant,/ 
 were loud and universal. The Tsong-du refused to be drawn intc 
 the discussion again, or to allow the Chinese Emperor's positior 
 as suzerain of Tibet to be ousted by the Tzar, or by any one else! 
 
 The Dalai Lama, in bitter anger, then adopted other tactics; if 
 
 L/" 
 
26 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 he could not persuade the Tsong-du to accept Russian protection 
 by fair means, he was not averse to use others. From this date 
 onward he was without question riding for a fall with the Eng- 
 lish. To provoke aggression with India would, in his opinion, 
 bring the whole matter to a crisis. The Chinese were neither 
 willing nor able to interfere effectually to protect Tibet. The 
 Russians were, as he believed, both able and willing, and he 
 looked to compel the Tsong-du to adopt his policy by placing them 
 in a position in which they had no other resort but to accept it. 
 Russian rifles came into the country in camel-loads; the arsenal 
 at Lhasa was furbished up and a new water-wheel put in, and 
 Dorjieff, on his side, stated that the Russians would have a de- 
 tachment of Cossacks in Lhasa by the spring of 1903. It occurs 
 to one that there must have been a considerable body of opinion in 
 Lhasa sympathetic to Dorjieff's suggestions, or he would never 
 have ventured to make so daring a prophecy. As it was, however, 
 he seems to have taken pains that this boast should reach Lord 
 Curzon's ears. It did, and the fat was in the fire. A 
 
 yf^ Such, then, was the position of affairs into which it became im- 
 perative for India to intervene. Excuses for interference were 
 ready to hand. The Tibetans had encroached upon our territory 
 in Sikkim, they had established a customs post at Giao-gong, fif- 
 teen miles inside the frontier, and had forbidden British subjects 
 to pass their outposts there ; they had thrown down the boundary 
 pillars which had been set up along the undisputed water-shed 
 between the Tista and the Ammo chu. They had insulted the 
 treaty rights of the British by building a wall across the only 
 road from Tibet to the market of Yatung, which had been thrown 
 open to trade with India by the stipulations of the Convention 
 of 1890-3 ; more than this, they returned unopened letters sent by 
 the Viceroy to the Grand Lama in Lhasa. These insults wouldl 
 never have given rise to the despatch of an expedition if the TibeJ 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 27 
 
 tans had not added injury to them by their dalliance with Russia.| 
 As it was, there was nothing else to do but intervene, and that 
 speedily. With characteristic decision Lord Curzon made up his 
 mind to come to an understanding with these turbulent children, 
 and in the spring of 1903 he sent hastily to Major Bretherton and 
 asked him to present a scheme for the immediate advance to 
 Lhasa of 1,200 rifles. But this was found to be impracticable, 
 and the home authorities were as yet far from understanding the 
 urgency of the matter. 
 
 It is not unjust to say that from first to last the home Govern- 
 ment had mistaken the real importance of the issue. The utmost 
 that Lord Curzon could persuade them to do was to sanction the 
 despatch of Colonel Younghusband, with a smair escort, to await 
 the Tibetan representatives in the little post of Kamba-jong, some 
 fifteen miles north of the true Sikkim frontier. This the Govern- 
 ment consented to do, but they added loudly and publicly that 
 under no circumstances whatever would an advance from Kamba- 
 jong be permitted. This intelligence was instantly communicated 
 by a gentleman in the pay of the Chinese to the Amban in Lhasa, 
 and from that moment, naturally enough, the ultimate necessity 
 of an advance to Lhasa itself was insured. 
 
 The stay at Kamba-jong of the Mission was, therefore, not of 
 the greatest political importance, but a brief account of it is here 
 necessary. At the end of July Mr. Claude White, the Political 
 Officer in Sikkim, and Captain W. F. T. O'Connor, the only white 
 man who can speak Tibetan fluently, moved up the Tista Valley, 
 and arrived at Giao-gong, where they were met by a small party 
 of Tibetans who attempted to oppose their progress. It was 
 pointed out to them that Kamba-jong had been chosen by the 
 Indian Grovernment for negotiations, and that the Chinese Gov- 
 ernment had assented and undertaken to co-operate with the 
 Tibetans in negotiating at that place. To Kamba-jong, there- 
 fore, the members of the Mission intended to proceed. Hands 
 
28 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 were laid upon their bridle-reins, but easily brushed aside, and no 
 further active opposition was offered. They moved on that day 
 to the true frontier at the Kangra Lamo Pass. On the next day 
 they actually set foot on Tibetan territory and were met by a 
 small Chinese official named Ho, who asked them not to go on 
 to Kamba-jong; they returned the same answer to him as to the 
 Tibetans at Giao-gong, whereupon he ceased all further opposi- 
 tion and drowned his cares in opium. On the next day Kamba- 
 jong was reached, and a small encampment was made at the foot 
 of the hill on which the fort is built. This fort is an imposing 
 structure, crowning, in the usual Tibetan manner, the crest of a 
 sharp hill ; the plain over which Kamba-jong dominates is a wide, 
 flat stretch, separated only by low hills from the main Himalayan 
 ranges. This first view of the world's backbone from the north 
 is, from one point of view, disappointing, because of the great 
 height, i5,cxDO feet and more, from which it is seen. But the 
 distant view of Mount Everest, here clearly distinguishable from 
 the surrounding ice-fields, is imposing, though nearly a hundred 
 miles away. The plain of Kamba is a bare stretch of earth and 
 wormwood, dotted with big boulders, and here and there affording 
 a scanty pasturage of coarse grass. 
 
 The camp was pitched in two portions and earthworks were 
 thrown up; small as it was, it would have been a difficult camp 
 to take by storm, and here the Mission waited in patience. For 
 the reasons I have just suggested their patience was not re- 
 warded; emissaries did, indeed, come down from Lhasa, but af- 
 ter a formal visit to Colonel Younghusband, who followed Mr. 
 White after an interval of a few days, they shut themselves up in 
 the jong and had nothing further to do with the Mission. At 
 times a Chinese official, more out of curiosity than anything else, 
 would come into the camp. Always there were a few Tibetans 
 lounging outside the earthworks in mild curiosity, but the days 
 went on and nothing further was done than the surveying and 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 29 
 
 geological work of the Mission experts. Mr. Hayden, of the 
 Geological Survey, was intrusted with the latter work; Captain 
 Walton, I.M.S., here began his natural history notes and collec- 
 tions. Mr. White roamed about the district as far as the Tibetans 
 permitted him to go. Life was not unpleasant,^ but no business 
 was done, and the advent of the Abbot of Tashi-lhunpo was a 
 welcome break in the monotony. This typical ecclesiastic ap- 
 peared bringing a courteous message from the Grand Lama of 
 Tashi-lhunpo. He was an intelligent man of a superior type, and 
 evinced the utmost interest in all the instruments and habits of 
 the English. The gramophone was employed to impress him ; 
 hereby a somewhat amusing tale hangs. This gramophone had 
 been exhibited before to some Tibetan officials, who had said that 
 it was not half as good as the gramophone in Lhasa. This state- 
 ment somewhat paralyzed the Mission. They inquired the rea- 
 son. " Oh," said the official, " the Lhasa machine will not only 
 give out sounds, but it will take down and give out again our 
 own voices ! " After this there was no question but that phono- 
 graphs were among the European luxuries which Dorjieff had 
 brought from his new masters. Something had to be done to re- 
 store British credit, so by night a disk was scraped flat, and it was 
 found that a fairly good original record could be made. On the 
 following day, therefore, a Tibetan was asked to speak or sing 
 into the machine ; this he promptly did, and after a pause of some 
 anxiety the gramophone rendered back his voice, to his amuse- 
 ment and delight. This record was triumphantly rendered on the 
 machine to the Abbot of Tashi-lhunpo, but it was not until the 
 interpreter explained the matter afterward that the growing 
 stoniness of the worthy cleric's face during the performance was 
 fully understood. Apparently our Tibetan, being in a mischie- 
 
 *0n one occasion Mr. White and Major Iggulden rode up on ponies to a 
 height of 21 ,000 feet above the sea. This must sound strange to many Alpine 
 mountaineers. 
 
30 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 vous mood, had recited into the gramophone a popular Tibetan 
 song of the most unfortunate description. 
 
 One thing is worth recording: One morning the Abbot paid 
 a visit to the camp and listened to accounts of the latest discov- 
 eries of Western science calmly and not without interest. He 
 himself suggested no criticisms until he was directly asked by 
 Captain O'Connor some point in connection with the Tibetan 
 knowledge of this planet. He answered courteously, but very 
 decidedly, that what we English believed as to the nature of the 
 earth was interesting as showing the strides which science had 
 begun to make in distant parts; "but," he said, " of course you 
 are quite wrong in this matter ; the earth is shaped like a shoulder 
 of mutton bone, and so far from being only a small country, Tibet 
 occupies nearly one-half of its extent. However, do not despair; 
 if you will continue to read industriously and will read better 
 books, there is no doubt that you will be learned in time." In the 
 face of this I regret to have to record that our scientists collapsed 
 ignominiously, and no one even attempted to justify the illusions 
 of Europe. 
 
 M^ Now and then the usual message was received : " Go back 
 to Giao-gong and there we will discuss the matter; we will not 
 discuss the matter while you are at Kamba-jong." On one 
 occasion a small durbar was held, though Colonel Younghus- 
 band entirely demurred to the social position and the political 
 importance of the men who represented themselves as the Tib- 
 etan delegates. He explained the whole position at full length; 
 he set out the reasons which had induced us to attempt to come 
 to an amicable arrangement with our neighbor; he recapitu- 
 lated the events of the past few years, reproaching the Tibetans 
 with having broken the treaty of 1890-3, and, finally, concluded 
 by earnestly asking that the Tibetans should co-operate with 
 ourselves in bringing matters to a satisfactory conclusion. In 
 order that there might be no mistake his speech had been care- 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 31 
 
 fully written out to be handed on to the Dalai Lama. At the con- 
 clusion he presented the envelope to the chief Tibetan official, who 
 shrank from it in horror; he utterly refused to touch it, and he 
 as positively declined even to report in Lhasa the speech to 
 which he had just listened ; no one, in fact, would take the respon-1 
 sibility of having any official intercourse with us. 
 
 This was the universal attitude of the Tibetan representatives 
 up to the last. The following story is a curious illustration of 
 it: The Tibetans once sent in an oral protest chiefly directed 
 against the extended ramblings of Mr. White and others of the 
 Mission. They also protested against Hay den's chipping little 
 pieces from the mountains ; they said, and it was difficult to refute 
 it, that we should not like them to come and chip pieces off the 
 houses in Calcutta. Nor did they approve of the heliograph, by 
 which they believed that we could both see through mountains and 
 control the rain. But the wanderings of the members of the Mis- 
 sion were what they particularly disliked. This was, perhaps, not 
 unreasonable, though a certain amount of reconnoitering was ne- 
 cessary in order to collect firewood, and even country produce, 
 which the good people of the country were always eager to sell 
 us, provided they could appease their superiors by the pretense 
 that we had compelled them to trade with us. Colonel Young- 
 husband, wishing in every way in his power to accustom the 
 Tibetans to communicate with ourselves, asked that the request 
 should be put into writing and signed. It was a very simple 
 thing, and the Tibetans wrote the request without demur, but, 
 to the Colonel's surprise, they point-blank refused to sign it. 
 After interminable persuasion one of them snatched up a pen and 
 made a little mark in the corner of the sheet ; this, when examined, 
 proved to be no signature at all. The thing was so ridiculous 
 that the ponies for another excursion were saddled up and 
 brought to the gate of the camp, and the Tibetans were told that 
 if they could not put their names to this protest the English could 
 
32 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 not believe that they had authority to make it. Then, and then 
 only, in despair did the Tibetan officials sign the paper. This 
 was a most illuminating little incident, and to the very end the 
 Tibetans were faithful to the policy of which it forms so good an 
 illustration. 
 
 So it became evident that nothing could be done at Kamba-] 
 jong, and Colonel Younghusband suspected, as was indeed the 
 case, that the Tibetans had got wind of his strict injunctions not 
 to advance further into the country. It then became necessary to\ 
 take stronger action, and with the concurrence of the India Office 
 it was arranged that he should go to Gyantse, and there make a) 
 second attempt to carry through the negotiations with which h^ 
 had been intrusted. 
 
 At this point a divergence of opinion occurred; it was origi- 
 nally suggested by Younghusband that two columns should con- 
 verge upon the Kala tso; one with 2,500 yaks as transport should 
 occupy the Chumbi Valley, and move on directly by the side of 
 the Bam tso, under Colonel Macdonald, who had been at work for 
 some time in Darjeeling as C.R.E., organizing the routes along 
 which the Expedition was to travel; the other, consisting of the 
 Mission, of which the guard was to be considerably reinforced, 
 with 500 yaks, was to go across country by the Lango la ; at the 
 same time, 400 Nepalese troops were to occupy Kamba-jong, and 
 cover the advance of the Mission. To this scheme Macdonald, 
 who now appeared for the first time, demurred; he pointed out 
 that this advance in two weak columns without means of com- 
 munication gave the Tibetans the opportunity of dealing with 
 each separately; that the rendezvous was an unknown point in 
 the enemy's country ; that the roads to it were also unknown, and 
 that it was, therefore, difficult to effect a meeting at a given mo- 
 ment. He further pointed out that the Mission, which would be 
 the weaker of the two columns, would have to march with its 
 flank exposed to the enemy and without communications in its 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION ss 
 
 rear. On the i6th of October, Colonel Younghusband, who had 
 returned from Kamba-jong, seeing the uselessness of any further 
 residence, met Colonel (now Brigadier-General) Macdonald at 
 Darjeeling. By this time the matter was further complicated by 
 the question of yak transport. The Nepalese made a present of 
 500 yaks to the Mission ; these were intended to act as transport 
 for the Mission in their cross-country journey; the other yaks 
 were to be bought in Nepal and taken across Sikkim. Macdonald 
 pointed out the dangers of attempting to take the yaks through 
 the Tista Valley, and his forebodings ultimately proved to be well 
 justified. But the 500 yaks which were to cross into Tibet by 
 the Tipta la were turned back by the Tibetans; whereupon the 
 Nepalese asserted that, in spite of anything urged to the contrary, 
 the yaks could safely be taken down to the level of the Tista Val- 
 ley, and the military authorities, accepting their statement, com- 
 mitted themselves to this course. 
 
 The official estimate of the distribution of the Tibetan force 
 at this date is interesting ; they were supposed to have 500 men at 
 Kamba-jong, where a night attack was imminent, 2000 men at 
 Shigatse, 500 between Shigatse and Kamba-jong, 1000 at Gy- 
 antse, and a few in the Chumbi Valley. On the 8th of November 
 the Tibetans were reported to be moving 3000 men toward 
 Chumbi, and a week later it was said that nearly 3000 more sol- 
 diers were advancing upon Kamba-jong, a somewhat significant 
 action : foot-and-mouth disease was at the same time reported to 
 have made terrible ravages among the Nepalese yaks.^ For these 
 accumulated reasons the advance in two columns was abandoned, 
 and it was decided to advance in a single strong column through 
 the Chumbi Valley. 
 
 The question then arose, first, as to the route by which the 
 Chumbi Valley should be reached, and, secondly, as to the date 
 at which the retirement from Kamba-jong should be carried out. 
 * This was afterward discovered to be anthrax. 
 
34 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Colonel Younghusband was naturally anxious, under the cir- 
 cumstances, that no retreat should be made from Kamba-jong 
 until a footing had been effected in Tibetan territory in the 
 Chumbi Valley. It was, therefore, decided to make the two 
 movements coincident in point of time. As to the route to be 
 adopted, Mr. Claude White was of opinion that the Jelep Pass 
 in October was preferable. There was this to be said in its favor 
 that it was already well known to us, and had been used in the 
 1888 expedition. It was arranged that the original advance was 
 to be made over the Jelep, but it was also decided to improve and 
 utilize the Natu la route through Gangtok, and this eventually 
 became the sole line of communication. By the loth of December 
 there were concentrated at Gnathong two guns of No. 7 Mountain 
 Battery, the machine gun of the 2d Battalion Norfolk regiment, 
 two seven-pounders, half a company of the 26. Sappers, eight 
 companies of the 23d Sikh Pioneers, and six companies of the 
 8th Gurkhas, with the necessary hospital, ammunition, and postal 
 columns. On the nth a short march was made to Ku-pup, and 
 on the 1 2th the Jelep was crossed in bitter weather. On the 13th 
 the column reached Yatung, and after a formal protest made its 
 way through the gateway in the Tibetan wall, where a not un- 
 friendly welcome was extended by the officials. On the i6th 
 Chumbi was reached, and two days later a column of 800 men 
 set out to Phari, which was reached on the 21st; the jong at this 
 place was at once occupied by our troops. This gave rise to a 
 difference of opinion between the Commissioner and Macdonald. 
 The former had, for diplomatic reasons, undertaken to the Tibe- 
 tans that the fort should not be occupied unless it were defended ; 
 the Gieneral, for overbalancing military considerations, decided 
 that it would be dangerous to leave it unoccupied, and it was con- 
 sequently taken. 
 
 The behavior of the Tibetans now became more threatening.^ 
 
i 
 
 THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 35 
 
 Representatives of the Three Monasteries * arrived at Phari, and 
 forbade the people round to supply us with any of the necessaries 
 of life ; the Chinese Colonel Chao was willing to do all he could, 
 but he evidently had little authority, and his successor, Major 0,^ 
 said that nothing could be done in Lhasa at this moment, as th 
 Grand Lama was relying upon Russian support and would pay 
 no respect to the Chinese demands. Colonel Younghusband no- 
 ticed about this time the despondency even of our own followers 
 at the thought of invading Tibet. They believed that we were 
 doomed men ; the whole of the drivers of the Tibetan Pony Corps 
 had bolted at Gnathong, and the desertions of followers and even 
 private servants were innumerable. He summed the position up 
 tersely: " We have not one ounce of prestige on this frontier." 
 From political motives, he determined to winter at Tuna, a small 
 village about nineteen miles from Phari, across the Tang la. He 
 adopted this course because of the unwillingness of the Tibetans 
 to admit that entrance into the Chumbi Valley was really entrance 
 into Tibet itself; and he felt it necessary to occupy a position at 
 least as far advanced into Tibet as Kamba-jong had been. Gen- 
 eral Macdonald found the position inconvenient from the point 
 of view of transport, but the political reasons were important 
 enough to decide the question. 
 
 At Tuna, therefore, three months of weary waiting ensued 
 while Major G. H. Bretherton, a man of experience and great 
 capacity, was organizing supply and transport along the lines of 
 communication. It was felt that a very large amount of stores 
 must be accumulated in the Chumbi Valley before any advance 
 to Gyantse was possible. Life at Tuna was uninteresting and 
 bitterly cold. The Tibetans had gathered in considerable strength 
 
 * The three monasteries of Sera, Debung, and Gaden, near Lhasa, are the ulti- 
 mate poHtical authorities in Tibet. In very important matters they are able to 
 orerrule even the Grand Lama. 
 
36 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 at Guru, a place about nine miles away on the road to Gyantse. 
 Here for the first time the Commissioner was able to deliver his 
 message to thoroughly representative men. But its reception was 
 unsatisfactory. After a fruitless attempt to make the delegates 
 pay him an official visit, Colonel Younghusband determined to 
 ride over in person to their camp informally ; it was a character- 
 istically audacious action, and if it had failed — if, that is to say. 
 Colonel Younghusband and the two or three officers with him 
 had been killed or kidnapped, as was not unlikely — the respon- 
 sibility for the outbreak of war which would have inevitably fol- 
 lowed must have rested upon the Commissioner. But Young- 
 husband is a shrewd judge of Orientals, and, besides, he is not one 
 of those men with whom an Oriental takes a liberty ; and, though, 
 as will be seen, the visit was not entirely successful, it seemed at 
 the time to be almost the last chance of coming to terms with our 
 opponents upon a perfectly friendly basis. The Tibetan general 
 was the senior Depen of Lhasa, one of the Lheding family, and 
 he received Colonel Younghusband with great politeness. But 
 upon the Commissioner's introduction to the room in which the 
 representatives of the three monasteries were seated, the atmo- 
 sphere became electric at once. They neither rose nor returned 
 his salutation, but after an informal discussion had been initiated 
 they took command of the conversation, maintaining throughout f 
 an unfriendly attitude, and insisting that no European could be 
 allowed in Tibet on any account, and that if any settlement was 
 to be carried through we must return to Ya-tung.^ As Young- 
 husband was taking his leave and expressing a hope that the 
 Tibetans would visit him at Tuna their tempers changed ; in 
 a threatening way they clamored for the instant retirement' 
 of the British; they demanded insolently to know the exact 
 
 * This place was sometimes confounded by the Tibetans themselves with 
 Gna-thong. It is spelled "Sna-mdong," and the "s" and the "m" are of 
 course not sounded. I do not know how the English pronunciation was 
 originated. 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 37 
 
 date on which the British would evacuate Tibetan territory, 
 trumpets were blown outside, and the attendants closed 
 round the small party. Younghusband betrayed not the slight- 
 est uneasiness, and O'Connor helped to save the situation 
 by the almost superhuman suavity which he can assume when 
 he wishes. A messenger accompanied Colonel Younghus- 
 band back to Tuna to receive his answer, which was, of course, 
 to the effect that he was obliged to carry out the orders of his 
 Government. 
 
 The Lheding Depen subsequently called at Tuna; he was a 
 pleasant man, but, in the words of the Commissioner, he was not 
 clever; he had little strength of character, and he was entirely 
 in the hands of his three monk colleagues. Nothing, therefore, 
 had been done, and Colonel Younghusband was obliged to wait 
 in the cold everlasting wind of the Tuna plateau for the first ad- 
 vance of the troops. Meanwhile the Tibetans gathered strength 
 in his immediate neighborhood, and from time to time there were 
 disquieting rumors of their intention to make a night attack. 
 Colonel Hogge, with four companies of the 23d Pioneers and 
 the Norfolk Maxim detachment, was, however, thoroughly 
 able to hold Tuna against any conceivable concentration of 
 Tibetan forces. The telegraph wire was not put up to Tuna till 
 March, so a heliograph on the summit of the Tang la was in 
 daily use. 
 
 Meanwhile, the General took up his quarters at Chumbi, in a 
 not uncomfortable house at Bakcham, about three-quarters of a 
 mile from the encampment at New Chumbi. The Coolie Corps, 
 which Mr. White had undertaken to organize, was in working 
 order by the middle of January, and under the able superinten- 
 dence of Captain Souter contributed greatly to the accumulations 
 of stores, which were steadily passing over the Jelep route, and 
 creating tarpaulin-covered hillocks at Chumbi. The choice of the 
 Natu la was accepted by Mr. White after the alternative road 
 
38 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 over the Yak la ^ had been tried. The Yak la is the shortest road 
 between Chumbi and Gangtok, to which place a good cart-road 
 runs from Siliguri in the plains of India, but to the best of my 
 belief only one party ever crossed it. It was my fortune to be one 
 of them. Bad as all these passes are, the eastern descent of the 
 Yak la is beyond comparison the worst — a mere semi-perpendicu- 
 lar scramble four miles deep, down which one could only go by 
 jumping from one boulder to another ; many of these were coated 
 with ice, and some crashed down the khud upon the lightest pres- 
 sure. I do not think I have ever been so cold in my life as when 
 I was helping Mr. White to put up a valuable self-registering 
 thermometer upon the extreme summit of the Yak la. I do not 
 remember what the temperature exactly was; I remember that 
 when we took it out of the box it was 4° below freezing-point, 
 but in the five minutes which it took us to set up strongly the pole 
 to which it was to be attached, it had fallen over 30° ; there was 
 a wind like a knife edge the whole time, against which thick 
 clothing and poshteens were as gauze. To illustrate the difficulty 
 and hardship of that crossing, it is, I think, only necessary to say 
 that that thermometer still stands at the summit of the pass; no 
 one has ever summoned up enough courage to go and take it 
 away. The idea of using the Yak la was abandoned, and the 
 lines of supply were thenceforward the Jelep and the Natu la. 
 Over these no burdened beast can pass. Only on the backs of 
 coolies could the precious stores be carried across, slowly and 
 painfully. It was a tremendous task, and it was difficult to believe 
 that day after day, week after week, month after month, obstacles 
 so appalling could be overcome by the small men of Sikkim who 
 composed the corps. 
 
 Still, forty thousand pounds' weight of stores was daily deliv- 
 ered in Chumbi, and Major Bretherton and Captain Souter are 
 
 * The yak pass— pronounced Ya la. The Jelep is the "beautiful flat pass" 
 
 and is spelled " Tges-lep-la. " 
 
THE REASONS FOR THE EXPEDITION 39 
 
 alike to be congratulated indeed upon so brilliant an achievement. 
 The road from India that these stores had traveled is worth a 
 chapter to itself. Beyond all question the track that leads from 
 Siliguri through Sikkim to Phari is the most wonderful and beau- 
 tiful on earth. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 
 
 SILIGURI itself was of no greater interest than the rail- 
 head of any expedition usually is. It is true that it had be- 
 come transformed from an idle little junction, whence the toy 
 train started daily for Darjeeling, into a bustling warehouse of 
 military supplies. New tents sprang up in rows, tarpaulin- 
 covered heaps rose like great boulders from the plain, loaded 
 trucks crammed the sidings of the station, long droves of mules 
 detrained and were sent off— too soon in many cases— on their 
 long journey to the front. Officers reported themselves and 
 went on, but the village itself remained the same dull, mosquito- 
 ridden spot, which has always been avoided like the plague by 
 any one whose business or duty brings him into this part of the 
 world. There is an English club at Jalpaiguri, an hour's run 
 away, and the inadequacy of the dak bungalow at Siliguri is 
 chiefly due to the fact that no one used it. A man can get a good 
 dinner at seven o'clock in the railway refreshment rooms, take the 
 Calcutta express an hour later, and sleep at Jalpaiguri. Travelers 
 who have looked out from the train at the scattered patch of low 
 houses that spot the burnt brown grass of the plain have seen all 
 that there is of interest in Siliguri. The tiny track of the Dar- 
 jeeling railway runs in timidly beside the broad gauge of the 
 Bengal line, and the place is only remembered by most travelers 
 as the point at which they climbed into the little char-a-banc cars 
 that suggest rather a child's playing at traveling than a serious 
 railway which is going to deposit them and their luggage in 
 
 40 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 41 
 
 Darjeeling 7,cx)0 feet up in the clouds to the north. Then Siliguri 
 passes into the limbo of forgotten things, even while the train 
 is making its violent little scamper across the flat to the foot of 
 the hills, or leaping, catlike, from side to side of the slowly up- 
 winding cart-road, pouncing upon it only to let it crawl out again 
 from under the wheels of its little engine for another two hun- 
 dred yards on the other side. 
 
 But there is another journey to be made from Siliguri, a differ- 
 ent journey indeed. It promises little enough at the beginning. 
 One rides out from the station, threading one's way at first 
 through the little houses of the town, and then dodging across 
 the irrigation channels of the fields until the North road is gained. 
 As you climb the slope of the low embankment and kick up the 
 first hoofful of the deep dust you are on the road to Lhasa. The 
 opening stage is common and dreary enough, but four hundred 
 miles away this road, which you see slowly slipping below you, 
 ends in a loop insnaring the golden roofs of the Potala and of the 
 Cathedral, and round that loop the sad-eyed lamas, muttering 
 their unchanging prayer, creep solemnly all day, turning ever to 
 the right. 
 
 Here all round is the wide flat plain, north, south, east, and 
 west ; the grass is burned, the fields are dusty, and the white ribbon 
 of the road swerves and straightens between the heavy-scented, 
 white-flowered siris trees, like any other road in the peninsula. To 
 the northward the clouds conceal the rampart of the Himalayas 
 with a deep gray and indigo veil ; elsewhere the sun shines crudely 
 from the hard white sky. Napil-para slowly heaves in sight, just 
 where a belt of trees slants inward to the track ; a mile further on 
 the road plunges into the great Baikuntpur sal forest. A country 
 bullock cart, with whining wheels, jolts very slowly in front, 
 haloed in a cloud of dust. The driver is asleep, and the flies settle 
 spectacle-wise around the sore eyelids of the sedate beasts. In 
 after days, the moaning, dusty cart, redolent of all the heat of 
 
42 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Indian plains, just entering the shade of the tall straight sal trees 
 with their wide, crimsoning leaves, was a curious memory in 
 which the " ching-chik, ching-chik " of the spear-bells of the mail 
 runners, bringing their letters over the last stage of their long 
 journey, rang continually in very different scenes. Under the 
 shade of the sal forest the white dust heaps itself on either side of 
 the track, powdering the glossy vegetation and reducing every 
 bush and plant alike to the nameless insignificance of the under- 
 growth which is common to all countries in all dry seasons. For 
 sheer folly the idiotic energy of a sweeper sweeping in mid- jungle 
 was equaled by the inspiration of the English engineer, who 
 had wasted hundreds of precious iron telegraph posts beside the 
 road where nature was offering him a pole every six yards gra- 
 tuitous and perfect. 
 
 Half-way through the wood the crossing of the Phulbari Ghat 
 path attracts two or three huts. At last there is a dip and the road 
 drops at the eleventh mile to cross the stream into Sevoke. The 
 sight of a Himalayan river reaching the plain is worth looking 
 at. The Tista, pent up between narrow and precipitous hills for 
 eighty miles, here bursts fan-wise over the Terai, marked and par- 
 celed by long smooth banks of sand, through which in twenty 
 channels the suddenly contented water drifts slowly and at peace. 
 
 The Himalayas' southern front ends with an abruptness which 
 is almost startling, and five or six miles away it would have been 
 difficult to point out a fissure in the great wall of mountains which 
 stands untopped across the wide flat waste of northern Bengal. 
 Through this curtain there is this one narrow channel and India 
 ends at its jaws. The towering cliffs, clothed suddenly with vege- 
 tation wherever root-hold can be found, spring sharply upward 
 and the first turn in the track by the river hides the plain, with 
 their blue lines of trees fifteen miles away beside the leveled water. 
 Sevoke, planted at the water-side just where the sticks of the fan 
 diverge, is a little street of grubby huts. Dust hangs heavy in the 
 
A ROAD IN THE HIMALAYAS 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 43 
 
 air, and dryness dulls the leaves. The only wet thing at Sevoke 
 is the water itself, as it slackens way and gently swerves outward 
 at the foot of its long stair. Even the rough dug-out boats, 
 moored to the pebbly bank, are coated with dust, and the lumps 
 of camphor are almost indistinguishable in the boxes in the shops 
 from the inevitable Pedro cigarettes beside them. From Sevoke 
 onward the beauty of the road begins to grow. The track runs 
 on the westward bank of the Tista, fifteen or twenty feet above 
 the snow-green water. Almost from the first mile-post it is a 
 gradually increasing riot of foliage such as Hooker himself ad- 
 mitted to be unparalleled in the world. There is no color on God's 
 palette which he has not used along this road. There is no 
 variety of vegetation which he has not permitted to find its own 
 place somewhere beside the slowly chilling path. Sal and gurjun 
 lead on through teak to kapok and bamboo, then on through tree 
 fern and rhododendron to the pine. Beyond these last, birch- 
 trees alone survive among the frozen rocks of the upper snows. 
 At their roots, or from the hill-side above their tops, round their 
 stems, or springing from their wood is almost every flower known 
 to man, here wasting its luxuriance along the loneliest and love- 
 liest two hundred miles on earth. Pepper ferns, with their dark 
 green glossy foliage, vines and bind-weeds, begonias and aspho- 
 del tangle themselves about the undergrowth'of gorgeous shrubs, 
 or stumps gay with scarlet fungus and dripping moss. Overhead 
 the bald scarp of the rock, orange and ocher and cinnamon, rarely 
 broke through the trailing glories of smilax and other creepers. 
 Once or twice down on the road itself, where a passage had been 
 blasted years ago, the deep crystalline garnet rang not only with 
 the echoes of the sweeping water below, but with the tiny per- 
 sistence of the drip-well from its roof. Ferns lurk in every cleft, 
 and, higher up, the majesty of some great osmunda thrusts itself 
 clear of the green confusion round its roots. Of greens, indeed, 
 from the dark moss myrtle of some varnished leaf that ought to 
 
44 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 have been a magnolia, but probably was not, to the aquamarine 
 of the young and dusted bamboo grass, from the feathery emerald 
 of some patch of giant moss to the rich olive of a crown- vallary 
 of orchid, none is unrepresented. 
 
 Where the valley vegetation lies in the ugliest putrefaction, 
 there you will find the living jewels of this long fillet— a flash of 
 emerald and chrome glazed with chocolate; a patch of brown, 
 shot through and through with sapphire in the sun; a swallow- 
 tail with olivine and black velvet where we may rarely see, beside 
 some Norfolk broad, the dun and cream of his poor English 
 cousin. Strong in the wing, zigzagging unballasted in ten-foot 
 swoops of pure color, the butterflies lace the sunlight. And un- 
 derfoot in the deep soft white dust the kidney footmark of the 
 brown ox or the kukri-like print of the high-instepped native are 
 the only reminders in that hot world of color that there are other 
 things as graceless as oneself. 
 
 At Riang, where the road falls into the river every year with 
 a regularity worthy of something better, a stream breaks through 
 from the west, and for a moment the dingy picturesqueness of a 
 semi-Indian settlement beneath its trees drives back the beauties 
 of the road. But in half a mile the path turns again beneath close 
 matted branches overhead and winds, deep rutted, beside the rank 
 dark vegetation which is characteristic of just this place — flower- 
 less, amorphous, and heavy. The Tista bridge swings out its 
 curve from behind a rock, and one crosses the narrow span, re- 
 alizing from its scanty width that one has left behind the normal 
 limits of wheeled cart traffic. The road, still ascending, keeps on 
 the left bank of the Tista river, passing Mali-ghat among its trees 
 three miles on. Slowly the character of the vegetation changes, 
 though the fact of its being still tropical is clear enough from a 
 tiger trap half-way between Mali-ghat and Tar Kola. Beside this 
 latter place the road runs along tirelessly, curving and recurving 
 beside the shallow stream. At the junction of the Tista with the 
 
ENCAMPED UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE HIMALAYAS 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 45 
 
 Rang-po the creaming white crests over the rock points below 
 vahantly hold their own all day against the down sweep of the 
 green turquoise flood. Sometimes for a mile one does but hear 
 the stream of the Rang-po murmuring invisibly through the 
 trees; again over its very waters the track clings scantily round 
 the bare red scarp of some intruding spur, hand-railed most rot- 
 tenly. A warm breath of guimauve-like scent pants out at one 
 here: there is the sweet acrid perfume of wild geranium, more 
 taste than smell. The fierce glare of the day sinks imperceptibly 
 into a cooler and a steadier light; there is no sign of sunset yet 
 awhile ; only the high crowned ridges of the western heights break 
 his force. And presently the dust on the patient road-side foliage 
 seems half shaken off, and tints and shades creep out on surfaces 
 which the blatant heat of midday had frightened into an insignifi- 
 cant blur of neutral colors. 
 
 Here the cactus stops for a while, why, I do not know : there are 
 . many puzzles in this Himalayan botany. Why does the rhodo- 
 : dendron grow to the very highest spot on the south and refuse 
 to put forth a leaf at any elevation to the north? Why does the 
 blue poppy of Tibet despise utterly the identical rocks and ledges 
 offered at the same height south of the Tang la? Why does the 
 bamboo stop with a certainty and cleanness at a height of 9,500 
 feet on the south, which enables the Bhutanese to use it as their 
 frontier mark, while two hundred miles away on a hillside at 
 Lhasa a flourishing twenty-five-foot hedge keeps the cold from 
 the Chief Wizard's house, nearly 13,000 feet above the sea? 
 
 You will cross the bridge at Rang-po ; and there you will stay 
 the night, sleeping under mosquito nets for the last time. The 
 stream you have just crossed you will meet again under very dif- 
 ferent circumstances, but some suggestion of the clear emerald 
 of its ice-bound pools at Lagyap still lingers as it joins the snow- 
 stained waters of the Rang-po. Still going on, your path lies on 
 the left bank of the latter river, chiefly bound up against the side 
 
46 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of the river cliff. Six miles will take you to the last river 
 that you will have to follow till Tibet is reached. The Rong-ni 
 is, after all, the most beautiful stream that you will have 
 tramped beside. Here the two vegetations mingle, and the orange 
 groves of Dowgago mark the transfusion of the two. Here the 
 maples and the violets begin, the geraniums and the daphnes, 
 the lobelias and the honeysuckles, the ivies and the elder- 
 trees — the first outposts of the European zone. But we have 
 not yet lost the creepers and hydrangeas of the south before 
 the first azalea-like rhododendrons bear promise of the shrub 
 that, towering at the 7,000-foot line to eighty feet in height and 
 dwindling again to three or four inches on the pass, will remain 
 with us till the frontier line is crossed. Here the bamboos in- 
 sinuate themselves at last, and as the road sweeps up and up, the 
 undergrowth rising here and there into the magnificence of the 
 tree fern, every corner betrays a fresh scene of luxuriance and 
 grace. Sometimes the bank opposite rises steep as a precipice 
 and red as an old English garden wall, veiled with overhanging 
 creepers and rich with green moss in every crevice and on every 
 ledge : elsewhere the bank breaks away into a wide slope of tan- 
 gled jungle, clothed with small ponds of greenery where the need 
 of the dotted white huts has cleared, leveled and sown. Here the 
 first tender rice tips peep above the mud. Round the echoing, 
 waterworn curves of rock overhung by trees and screw-pines, 
 hanging on, God knows how, to the bare face of the rock, cross- 
 ing some small stream rustling under its canopy of shade, still 
 mounting every mile, the track goes on, until the last bridge is 
 crossed and the long splendid zigzags of the new road to Gang- 
 tok, which no one uses, seam the hill in front. The barest novice 
 knows the short cuts, and with your ears cracking every twenty 
 minutes, you clamber up the old stony road, which saves two miles 
 in six. At last the Residency, or rather the foliage which con- 
 ceals it, seems less hopelessly distant than it did, and coming out 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 47 
 
 again upon the white, well-made road, one climbs at an easy gra- 
 dient to the capital of Sikkim. On the left is the deep green cut- 
 ting of the river we have crossed, a league in width and lost be- 
 hind a ten-mile distant corner. The double Residency gates open 
 and shut behind one, and through the tree ferns and the dying 
 bamboos of the drive* one emerges into the English roses and 
 clean, short turf of Mrs. Claude White's home-made Paradise. 
 
 The Residency brings a whiff of England into this far distant 
 country. It is a substantial and handsome little building of stone, 
 roofed in red of such a well-remembered tint, that it is some time 
 before one realizes that tiles are impossible at Gangtok. Hitherto 
 it has been the end of all northern travel in India, and it must 
 have been curious for the rare travelers who made demands on 
 Claude White's famous hospitality, to find this dainty gem of a 
 house, furnished from Oxford Street within, and without en- 
 circled with the tree ferns and orchids of this exquisite valley. 
 It is a perfect spot. Far off to the west rise the pinnacles of Nur- 
 sing and Pan-dim ; to the north there hangs in heaven that most 
 exquisite of all peaks of earth, Siniolchu. 
 
 Beyond Gangtok, before the Expedition came, there was no 
 road. Indeed, a road wide enough for carts was finished only 
 eighteen months ago up to the gates of the Residency. Further 
 on, it is still a bridle track hugging the side of the hill, barely 
 thrusting its way through the dense wall of bamboo which rises 
 on either side like the green walls through which Moses led his 
 flying countrymen.^ Overhead the giant rhododendrons branch 
 upward to the sky, high as a London house. No one who 
 knows the rhododendron of England can form the faintest con- 
 ception of what these monsters of the upper hills are like. The 
 trees at Haigh Hall and at Cobham are regarded by their own- 
 
 * All the bamboos of the Gangtok district fertilized and died in 1904. 
 
 •The color, too, contributes to the fantasy, for here the blue-leaved Hooker's 
 ba^iboo grows more freely among its commoner brethren than anywhere else 
 in the Himalayas. 
 
48 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 ers with some complacency. But in size they are mere shrubs 
 compared with their brothers of Sikkim, and in beauty they are 
 left far behind. " I know nothing of the kind," says Hooker, 
 " which exceeds in beauty the flowering branch of rhododendron 
 argenteum, with its wide-spreading foliage and glorious mass 
 of flowers." This variety, though it does not grow to the height 
 of its brethren, is the finest of them all. The enormous glossy 
 leaves, powdered with white underneath, are thrown with a care- 
 less grace around the splendid blossoms, arranged with all the 
 delicate looseness and lightness which none but the Master 
 Gardener could give to this royal and massive foliage. The ac- 
 tual florets of the commoner kinds are undoubtedly poorer than 
 those of the English variety, and there is an ineffective conical 
 arrangement of their azalea-like blossoms which the Englishman 
 notices at once. But in their masses, crimson, lemon, and white, 
 they star the dark green steamy recesses of the path, and, except- 
 ing only the magnolia, are the most striking flowers upon the 
 road. 
 
 These magnolias are strange plants. They seem to turn 
 color as they reach the limit of their growth, and the pure white 
 is lost in a tinge of purple. Unlike the magnolias which occa- 
 sionally overpower the scents of an entire rectory garden in 
 England, the waxen flowers grow on naked lilac stickery. The 
 wide, enameled leaves, which seem so indispensable at home, 
 are gone. I do not know whether they appear later, but the 
 magnolia seems to be outside ordinary rules of plant life. One 
 species has even the depressing habit of dropping its flowers 
 unopened on the ground below. Oaks grow here, though in 
 a chastened way. An English tree which takes fuller advantage 
 of the rank vegetable mold and steamy hothouse climate of Sik- 
 kim is the juniper. This, which is best known to the inhabi- 
 tants of towns in the shape of " cedar " pencils, grows to a 
 height of forty or fifty feet, and Mr. White has, on two occasions, 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 49 
 
 made an attempt to develop a regular trade with the manufac- 
 turers. They admitted that the wood sent was as good as any 
 they could buy, but the contracts they had entered into for the 
 supply of this wood bound them for some years to come. An- 
 other industrial product of this jungle is madder, and the dark 
 crimson robes of both Tibetan churches, Red and Yellow alike 
 — for the distinction is shown only in the cap — owe their rich- 
 ness to the hill-sides of Sikkim. Elephant creeper winds up the 
 forest trees, the huge leaves nuzzling into the bark all round 
 like a swarm of gigantic bees. The common white orchid, which 
 is wired to make a two-guinea spray in London, is a weed at 
 Gangtok. Its quaintly writhen blossoms of snow hang over- 
 head in such profusion that one welcomes a shyer blossom, 
 trumpet shaped, and of the color and coolness of a lemon-ice. 
 The orchids are not the only epiphytes ; other parasites than they 
 crown the living branch with their coronals of leaves, more 
 lovely than the trees they feed upon. 
 
 The game here is very scanty : the reason is not uninteresting. 
 For, dormant or active, visible or invisible, the curse of Sikkim 
 waits for its warm-blooded visitor. The leeches of these lovely 
 valleys have been described again and again by travelers. Un- 
 fortunately the description, however true in every particular, 
 has, as a rule, but wrecked the reputation of the chronicler. 
 Englishmen cannot understand these pests of the hot mountain- 
 side, which appear in March, and exist like black threads fring- 
 ing every leaf till September kills them in myriad millions.^ 
 Spruce grows here under a Latin name, and the writer enters 
 thereupon a layman's protest. It takes away half the interest 
 of new and tropical vegetation if the only names that one can 
 
 *It is worth a passing note that these unwelcome visitors can be driven 
 from the nostrils of the cattle exactly as MacComglinney enticed the "law- 
 less beast " from the throat of King Cathal. A bowl of warm milk at the cow's 
 nose, a little slip-knot, and a quick hand are all that is required. Fourteen 
 or fifteen have been successively thus taken from the nostrils of one unfor- 
 tunate heifer. 
 
50 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 be told for some magnificent or graceful thing are Latin atro- 
 cities, generally embedding some uncouth Teutonic surname. 
 In a country like Sikkim one's resentment is doubled; when a 
 good English word lies ready to hand, why should it be nec- 
 essary to call the spruce tree abies excelsa, or, worse still, Smith- 
 
 iana? 
 
 Leaving Gangtok, the last reminder of the West, one strikes 
 out east by north to make the final climb which takes us out of 
 the Empire. For five miles the road is— or rather, until the 
 rains came, was— a good one. Beyond that, in spite of much 
 hard work of pioneers and sappers, the track is bad indeed. 
 Karponang,^ when I returned through it for the last time, is 
 a far-stretched hamlet, lying in long tiered sheds against the 
 mountain wall, and the last pretense of a road along which a 
 wheel can go is here frankly abandoned. Beyond it is a section 
 of the road which for months was the despair of the engineers. 
 "The tenth to the thirteenth mile " passed into proverbial use 
 as a standard of utter badness and instability. When the road 
 was cut out of the rock it was too narrow for the easy passage 
 of a loaded beast; where it was cut out of the hill soil, a night's 
 rain sent it down the khud. Where it crossed a cataract, the 
 bridge gave more trouble than a quarter of a mile of honest 
 rock. Where, as it too often did, it jutted straight out on bam- 
 boo brackets from the side of the cliff, 800 feet above the whis- 
 pering stream below, the bamboos used to rot with a rapidity 
 unknown elsewhere. Landslips were the rule rather than the 
 exception. The whole length was sprayed with continual rivu- 
 lets through the rank vegetation which overhung the track; 
 
 *The name Karponang was suggested for the ten-mile stage by the 
 writer. From a perilously insufficient knowledge of Tibetan, karpo seemed 
 to mean " white " and nang was clearly a " house " ; and as some shorter title 
 was needed for the political officer's bantling, Karponang stuck, though it is 
 not, perhaps, a particularly idiomatic rendering of what it was intended to 
 mean. 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 51 
 
 all afternoon these washed away the mold with which the bald 
 sharp rock-points of the blasted road were covered; all night 
 they formed a coat of ice which made it impossible for man 
 or beast to stand or go upon it. Accidents upon this stretch 
 were painfully common; two men were killed by a dynamite 
 explosion, though in common fairness to even this unfortunate 
 exhibition of nature, she can hardly be held responsible for the 
 folly of men who dry their dynamite at a fire. Four men were 
 overwhelmed here by a gush of liquid mud, just when three 
 weeks' hard work upon the road at that point was finished. One 
 man slipped down, or maybe he was kicked — for the mules 
 disliked this " trang " with almost reasonable intuition— and the 
 loss of mules near Karponang was heavier than anywhere else 
 upon the road. On a winter afternoon a mile an hour was good 
 going along this stage. Any attempt to ride was out of the ques- 
 tion ; painfully prodding one's way with a khud-stick, one scram- 
 bled up or glissaded down over the unfenced ice-slides thinly 
 veiled with dirt. One's beast was led behind one with mincing 
 steps and starting eyes. It was a bad road; and the noise of 
 waters many hundred feet sheer below was always painfully 
 present in the ears. Lagyap was the next halting-place, hanging 
 over the gulf like an eagle's nest. 
 
 Beyond Lagyap, the road, as a road, did not exist. The 
 ascent was tolerably steep, and one either strode from boulder 
 to boulder, or trod, at the risk of one's ankles, between the stones. 
 This, after five miles, is wearisome work. And even the sight 
 of Lagyap Pool, the most beautiful basin of ice-bound emerald 
 water that I have ever seen, fails to cheer one up. Up under 
 the pine-trees, slipping and staggering, where no road pretended 
 to have been ever cleared, we reached Changu Lake at last. 
 Here we were clear of trees ; the dwarf rhododendrons ran along 
 the ground in acre patches, a foot in height, but the last tree 
 barely showed its head over the great natural dam which shuts 
 
52 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 in the waters of the lake. One leaves a land of timber; one 
 comes to a land of rock, and the dividing-line is as clean as if it 
 had been the work of man. Behind us, also, we left one of the 
 most magnificent views in the world, for the deep green valleys 
 of Sikkim, like some loosely thrown length of myrtle-green 
 velvet, lie out for the last time many thousands of feet below, 
 stretching on till the gray gauze of sheer distance overtook the 
 tint, and only the pure, clean argent of those Himalayan snows, 
 which have no rival on this planet, lifted themselves into the 
 blue. 
 
 It is an austere country into which we are now moving. 
 The lake is a mile long and perhaps 6cx) yards in width; nearly 
 all the year round it is frozen, though in the bitterest days of 
 mid-winter, when the thermometer is nightly going down to 
 5° or io° below zero, there is always on the southern side of 
 the lake an unfrozen pool. The cliffs sweep down into the basin, 
 bare and unlovely. To the east, whither our road still is to run, 
 the nakedness of a steep ascent of wearisome boulders is barely 
 qualified by the stunted rhododendron growth. At Changu 
 there is now a comfortable bungalow, and only those in dire 
 necessity will fail to stop the night. The hardest work of all 
 the road to Lhasa lies before us on the morrow, and though I 
 have more than once passed through from Chumbi without a 
 halt, there is no doubt that the exertion can only be justified by 
 real urgency. Leaving Changu in the morning, the traveler, 
 considering the very short way he knows he has to go, will 
 demur at the earliness of his start. But there will be no mercy 
 shown him. He will be allowed, perhaps, to ride for 500 yards ; 
 after that he will prefer to trust to his own feet until all except 
 the last three miles of the stage have been covered. Climbing 
 over these boulder-strewn surfaces would be bad at the sea-level ; 
 here, where the air is so thin, it soon becomes a burden to pull 
 one's solid body over the heartless obstacles. If the ascent be 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 53 
 
 at all steep, the newcomer will sit down every twenty or thirty 
 yards. His muscles are not tired, and he regains his strength 
 in a surprisingly short time, but at the moment he sinks upon 
 some friendly stone he thinks that another step forward would 
 be his last. This is a peculiarity which it is impossible to de- 
 scribe to those who have never been more than a thousand feet 
 or so above sea-level. The lungs seem foolishly inadequate to 
 the task imposed upon them; the pluckiness of one's own heart 
 is an unmistakable, but somewhat terrifying, symptom, for it 
 goes on beating with increasing strokes till it shakes the walls 
 of the body; and not the written testimony of the leading 
 heart expert in London will convince you that it is not on the 
 point of bursting its envelope. Then you may be thankful indeed 
 if you escape mountain sickness. If that should come upon you, 
 your bitterest enemy will lead your horse for you. I have seen 
 cases of mountain sickness in which amazement overwhelmed 
 even one's sympathy. I have seen men in such a state, that they 
 seem to have every symptom of habitual drunkenness; all the 
 limbs shiver, and in the bloodless face the eyes have that ex- 
 traordinary look of insanity which is, I think, caused by an in- 
 ability to focus them. The speech comes with difficulty, and in 
 one case that I saw the mental coherence was as obviously at 
 fault as the physical. But, strange though the appearance is 
 to the outsider, for the sufferer himself I do not suppose that 
 there can well be condensed into three or four hours such an 
 agony of aching. The brain seems cleft into two, and the wedge, 
 all blunt and splintery, is hammered into it as by mallet strokes 
 at every pulsation of the heart. Partial relief is secured by 
 a violent fit of sickness (which, however, is not always forth- 
 coming), and through all this you have still to go on, to go on, 
 to go on. 
 
 Here, too, the wind exacts its toll, and drives a cold, aching 
 shaft into your liver. This is no slight matter, for the toil of 
 
54 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 climbing is excessive, and the exertion of covering half a mile 
 will drench a man with perspiration. He then sits down, and 
 this strong wind plays upon him to his own enjoyment, and 
 to the destruction of his lungs.^ 
 
 Up one still goes till the lake lies a mile behind one, still un- 
 touched by the first rays of the dawn. Often a steep descent 
 as treacherous to the foot as the ascent has to be made. One 
 of the most tedious and tiresome things about this track is the 
 wearisome necessity, which awaits you round every corner, of 
 losing at a stroke two-thirds of the advantage that you have 
 just won by an hour's hard work. It appeals to the mind, and 
 shortens the temper at a time when any friction in the human 
 microcosm is waste of strength. One resents the man who first 
 pointed out the track. One is inclined to think, that had one 
 only a few hours more, one could oneself find a far more 
 economical path than that by which one is now obliged to go. 
 This, a very common failing, as I have noticed myself, perhaps 
 indicates that one's common sense also is a little affected in 
 these high altitudes. Two miles from Changn is the only level 
 portion of the day's march. One goes across the little plain, 
 and makes for exactly the one point which a stranger would 
 decide to be the most impossible in all the amphitheater. 
 
 The Sebu la is beyond question the most difficult point of 
 all the road from Siliguri to the end, a sheer wall of precipitous 
 rock, springing up from the level plain. On looking closely 
 one can see some symptoms of a zigzagging road climbing up- 
 ward, and by those zigzags you have to go, for the rock itself 
 allows no other path. This is the most heart-breaking climb 
 of all the day. You may, perhaps, here overtake the slow, 
 painful tramp of the coolies sent on, even before your own ris- 
 ing, from the last stage; pack animals are impossible on a road 
 like this. The strange thick-calved, patient men, carrying bur- 
 * Pneumonia caused more deaths than any other disease. 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 55 
 
 dens which no EngHshman would shoulder, move steadily on- 
 ward over their six-mile stage.^ 
 
 One climbs at last to the crest of the Sebu la. One goes 
 thirty yards round a projecting rock, and at once one is obliged 
 to scramble as best one can down a declivity which lands one 
 400 feet below the level of the little plain from which one 
 has climbed to the top of the Sebu la. It all seems so unneces- 
 sary, so wanton. At the bottom, one crosses the bed of a river 
 closely packed with rough and heavy water-worn rock, but no 
 stonier than the road leading down to it on either side. There 
 is still another steady rise to the heights of the Natu la. One 
 seems to have wandered in a vast amphitheater of rock and stone 
 for days. The homely bungalow at Changu has faded among 
 the recollections of another year, and you are wise if you do 
 not ask how loQg it will still take to climb to the summit of 
 these weary hills. Just about this time, you begin to realize 
 why Tibet has remained a shut-up country for so long. The 
 transportation of an army and, what is far more wonderful, 
 its daily supply across the water-shed between the Tista and the 
 Ammo chu will probably remain an unrivaled feat of transport 
 and supply in the history of warfare. In old days, marches, 
 which would to-day be regarded as impossible, were somehow 
 carried out. But we have never been told the loss of life that 
 
 *The weight that these Central Asian coolies can carry is astounding; the 
 ordinary load is from 80 to 100 pounds, nearly double a man's pack on the level 
 plains of India. But these Bhutias, when paid by the job, do not hesitate to 
 double and even treble the load. I have myself seen a man carry into camp 
 three telegraph poles on his back, each weighing a trifle under 90 pounds. Fur- 
 ther east the tea porters of Se-chuan are notorious and loads of 350 pounds are not 
 unknown. Setting aside the story of a Bhutia lady who carried a piano on 
 her head up to Darjeeling from the plains as too well known to be likely to 
 be exact, the record seems to be held by a certain Chinese coolie who under- 
 took, in his own time, to transport a certain casting, needed for heavy ma- 
 chinery, inland to its owner. The casting weighed 570 pounds, and the carriage 
 was slowly but successfully accomplished. 
 
 An English bricklayer is forbidden, by the rules of his union, to carry more 
 than 14 pounds. 
 
56 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 accompanied the ultimate arrival in India of Genghiz Khan, 
 Alexander, or Nadir Shah. But the road dips downward for 
 the last time at the half-way stage, and we are free to make 
 the best of the remaining clamber which lies now uninterruptedly 
 before us to the pass. 
 
 Much has been made of the added horrors of ice and snow. 
 As a matter of fact, bare-footed though the coolies are, it was 
 a merciful relief for them when the snow lay packed into 
 a kindly carpet blanketing the boulders under foot. The 
 only difficulty then was said to be that of losing the road. 
 Only those who have been over the Natu la can quite understand 
 the grim foolishness of speaking of losing the road over it. 
 It is true that there is a track. Probably that track, so far as it 
 can be distinguished from the hill-side, above and below, repre- 
 sents as good a means of getting to the top as any other. But 
 so far as the ground is concerned there is almost nothing to 
 choose; and not the least remarkable thing is the steady persis- 
 tent refusal of the coolies to use the easy zigzag path which has 
 been made for them over the last 200 yards to the top. It is 
 roughly true to say that no hill coolie will deign to use an easier 
 path than that which goes straight to his journey's end, though 
 one might have expected that after a long and wearying climb 
 over this heart-breaking mountain-side, the chance of an easy 
 and steady climb for even so short a distance would have been 
 eagerly accepted. 
 
 We have now reached 14,300 feet, and before we climb the 
 last remaining steps, it is worth while to turn back and watch 
 for the last time the scenes through which we have come so 
 painfully. Away to the left a gigantic bastion of rock carries the 
 sister road over the Jelep la, and away to the southwest Ling-tu, 
 on the crest of the 6,000 feet precipice up which the road is 
 zigzagged, can be seen in the clear air. The Jelep Pass itself 
 is hidden by the bulk of the range, though only three miles 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 57 
 
 away. A little lake lies frozen in the stony bowl up the sides 
 of which we have just come. Far below its edge falls another 
 mighty hollow, and yet we do not see a blade or leaf. Only 
 beyond and below, peering through one of the little crevasses 
 in the ringed hills, there is the dark mantle of the Sikkim woods. 
 One turns one's back upon it for the last time, and gains the 
 summit, where three heaps of stones, piled by pious travelers, 
 support a flagged bush, the usual ornament of every pass in 
 the country. One takes another step, and one is in the Chumbi 
 Valley. 
 
 The first sight of Tibet, thus seen, is not without a somber 
 interest of its own. It is at once obvious that the general level 
 of the country is very much higher than that of Sikkim. The 
 mass of Chumolhari fills in the end of the valley. Glittering in 
 the bitter air, it rises thirty-five miles away, though the richer 
 aquamarine of its crevasses can be seen from where we stand. 
 The ridges and ranges swarm between, intersected with the 
 courses of rivers invisible. All is bare and dull, but a thousand 
 feet below us the dripping pines send their single spies up toward 
 the barren and unlovely path. 
 
 There is something fascinating about the very sight of this 
 long, slow line of burdened men, in spite of the miserable cold 
 that almost prevents your watching anything. Up there, high 
 above the most venturesome pines, where only the dwarf rhodo- 
 dendron, two or three inches high, survives here and there be- 
 neath the shelter of a friendly rock just piercing the two-inch 
 snow that fell last night, the laden team crawls slowly to the top. 
 The green and golden lichen spreads over the dull and bitter 
 crags of gneiss, and under foot the tense stiff bents of frozen 
 grass prick themselves scantily through the dirty ice. Up hither 
 the coolies thrust their way painfully, and the thick, duffle-clad 
 figures in a long line zigzag up the side of the pass, swaying 
 from side to side under their burdens as they gain a bare foot- 
 
58 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 hold on the blunt rocks; the sky is overcast and this vivid cold 
 searches through everything, in spite of the thick winter cloth- 
 ing which has been liberally supplied. Butterflies, birds, and 
 beasts are alike fled. Only a lammergeier floats still in the air 
 some 300 feet below, wheeling slowly with motionless wings, 
 and far down in the gulf there is a scurry of lavender snow 
 pigeons. The pass itself is nothing but elemental rock, and the 
 Indian file of men drops down again as quickly as it can into the 
 stiller cold of the sheltered side of the peak. One goes down. 
 At first lichen and stunted moss alone mask the coarseness of the 
 huge boulders ; lower down the scarlets and reds of the barberry 
 and a few stunted bushes of feathery juniper, as high as one's 
 hand, come up as forerunners of the fast-thickening vegetation 
 of the gorge. Two thousand feet below the pass, while one is 
 still sliding and scrambling over frozen washes of curving ice 
 across the track, the silver firs and stunted junipers crowd beside 
 the zigzag path that still leaps from rock to rock. Of under- 
 growth there is but little, even when the mountain-ash and silver 
 fir have given place to the Pinus excelsa and a silver-gray variety 
 of the deodora, and the air is heavy with warm resin. Behind, 
 fifteen miles away on the Sikkim side of the pass, the dull roar 
 of blasting may perhaps remind one of the wide ten-foot road 
 which the Government are still intending to throw across this 
 terrible sierra. 
 
 The coolies still crawl upward and over. Compared with 
 the western face, the descent of the Natu la on the Tibetan 
 side is a comparatively easy thing. The road soon runs at a 
 gentle gradient over the spurs which buttress the precipices that 
 frown over Sikkim, and after a mile you may, if you come in 
 winter, get thankfully upon your pony once again. The track 
 runs straight and level along the mountain-side, and you may 
 wonder why the engineers have corduroyed the road. There 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 59 
 
 seems so little reason for this fearful waste of time and timber. 
 But if it is your luck to retrace your steps when the rains are 
 in full swing, you will wonder no longer. 
 
 There is no end to the devilish ingenuity with which Nature 
 has strewn this path with obstacles. That one which hitherto 
 we had hardly found was waiting us after all. And you may 
 have to get wearily off your pony once again to pick your way 
 unsteadily from rock to rock, in a sea of mud which defies de- 
 scription. Two feet deep, black, stinking, slippery, your pony 
 has to make the best of it. And once in every ten paces you too 
 will sound it to the knee. Not a mere stretch of a quarter of a 
 mile is this disheartening morass; before the transverse logs 
 were laid there were five miles of this unending slide and slip 
 and splash to be overcome. Corduroy itself is no luxurious 
 floor. Your beast will like it only a little better than the quag- 
 mire he has scrambled through. The wood is slippery, and 
 though the ribbing of the road prevents a long slide it insures 
 a short one at almost every step. 
 
 The path on the bare mountain-side, bad as it was, is better 
 than that which threads the close pine trunks of Champi-tang. 
 Torrential rain may wash a path away, but nothing so entirely 
 ruins a made track as the drip from trees. There is something 
 about the slow persistence that does harm which even a water- 
 spout could not compass. And if by this time you have any 
 spirit of curiosity left in you, you may notice that the corduroy 
 work upon the road coincides with those very parts, which at 
 the first blush you might consider most protected by foliage 
 overhead. It is getting late now in the afternoon, and you will 
 thank your good fortune in having as companions unfeeling men 
 who made you rise at five. The worst is over, and you can 
 stumble along at more than two miles an hour. The hill-sides 
 opposite become clothed with forestry, and after an hour or two 
 
6o THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 you will find yourself before the blazing hearth of the luxurious 
 bungalow at Champi-tang. 
 
 On the following day, you go down to Chumbi. You make 
 your way along a greasy path, now passing underneath a lonely 
 little shrine, half hidden by the trees, now emerging among the 
 bared, charred trunks of the pine army which was burned three 
 years ago. Doubling the spurs again and again, you make your 
 way at a fairly level altitude, until a Bhutia-tent marks the 
 division between the official main road by the Kag-ue monastery, 
 and the short cut over the hills to Chema. Down the first you 
 elect to go. The road is longer, but the road is easier, and you 
 have not yet acquired either the mental attitude or, what is 
 more important, the muscles of a hill man. Through junipers 
 and birch you pass out to the bare hill-side, and descend sharply 
 to the monastery. 
 
 This is a curious place. It is the most important religious 
 community in the valley. It is a special favorite with the Dalai 
 Lama, and when, some years ago, owing to certain scandals 
 which were, unfortunately, too well known in the valley to be 
 disregarded, the older monastery in these parts was broken up, 
 the lamas were permitted to build a far more magnificent tem- 
 ple within a mile of the scene of their misdoings. Service is 
 going on as you enter the courtyard. They will pay no attention 
 to you if you go into the shrine itself — that is, the monks will 
 not. Only the acolyte children will gaze, round-eyed, at the un- 
 known white men, while their mouths still move with the shrill 
 and simple cadence of the chanted office. Now and again a 
 bell is rung, or a drum beaten with the sickle-shaped stick. Once 
 in a while the long, eight-foot trumpets emit a ponderous blast 
 of discordance. Tea is handed round continually, and the chant 
 pauses now and again to allow the presiding lama to monotone 
 a passage from the Buddhist scriptures. At the further end, 
 in the darkness, lighted by the pale beads of butter-lamps, sits 
 
CROSSING THE HIMALAYAS 61 
 
 the gilded image of Gautama, half-hidden by " katags " or 
 scarfs. 
 
 Leaving the monastery, the track flings itself down the steep 
 sides of a hollow, and at last comes out upon the good and 
 welcome level of the Chumbi road. We have almost reached 
 the end of the first stage of the long journey. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE TIBETANS OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY 
 
 BEFORE the coming of this Mission, no white man had ever 
 seen the Chumbi Valley. 
 The women of Chumbi think a good deal of themselves, though 
 to the eye of the stranger there seems very little distinction be- 
 tween the stunted and dirty little people of one part of Tibet and 
 those of another. The head-dress used by them is the usual tur- 
 quoise-studded aureole of the province of Tsang. The outer and 
 possibly only garment * is of the same very thick crimson dun 
 cloth, tied round the waist with a string and fastened at the throat . 
 with a plain yoke-like hasp of silver. This dress is generally 
 patched, until it is difficult to say with certainty which part of it 
 is the original garment, and it is of course open to more objec- 
 tions than the presence of inanimate dirt alone presents. The 
 shoes worn reach up to the knee, and are made of the same dark 
 red cloth, variegated over the instep by a streak of scarlet extend- 
 ing down to the toes. Here the plain tanned yak hide incases it. 
 These shoes are not uncomfortable, though the entire absence of 
 any heel makes it necessary that a little practice in them should 
 precede a long or a difficult tramp, otherwise the Achilles tendon " 
 is apt to make a violent protest. In face, the men and women are 
 strangely alike. Neither here nor elsewhere in Tibet do the men 
 grow mustaches or beards ; the utmost that one ever sees is a thin 
 fringe of scanty hair marking the lips or pointing the chin of a 
 
 * These ladies seem to use their outer dress as their dessous when torn and 
 worn beyond decent use. A girl at Bolka had apparently two such under- 
 garments. 
 
 62 
 
THE TIBETANS OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY 63 
 
 high official. It cannot be claimed that Tibetan ladies look beau- 
 tiful. It is, of course, difficult to say what the effect would be if 
 some of them were thoroughly washed. As it is, they exist from 
 the cradle, or what corresponds to it, to the stone slab on which 
 their dead bodies are hacked to pieces, without a bath or even a 
 partial cleansing of any kind. One could imagine that they were 
 of a tint almost as dark as a Gurkha, but this is by no means the 
 case. In spite of the dirt, wherever the bodies are protected by 
 clothes the skin remains of an ivory whiteness, which is indis- 
 tinguishable from that of the so-called white races. At times 
 also accident, perhaps in the shape of rain, has the effect of re- 
 moving an outer film of dirtiness, and then it is quite clear that 
 Tibetan girls, until they are two or three and twenty, have a 
 complexion. Of course the habit of the race, of besmearing the 
 forehead, cheeks, and nose with dark crimson kutch, which 
 blackens as it dries, militates against any display of beauty. The 
 origin of this strange custom is, like most facts and theories about 
 Tibet, the subject of hot dispute. Some contend that it origi- 
 nally marked the married women only: some will have it, and 
 there seems some evidence in their favor, that this disfigurement 
 was intentionally introduced in order to save the ladies of Tibet 
 from the sin of vanity, and incidentally, also, to reduce the 
 chances of young men's infatuation. The third and more prosaic 
 explanation is that it is done to mitigate the glare of the sun from 
 rock and snow.^ This would be a more convincing reason, if 
 the kutch was actually worked into the hollow of the eye, and on 
 the eyelid ; but these are left unstained. Two other reasons, also 
 of a flatly contradictory nature, have been suggested to explain 
 this custom of Tibetan women, but there does not seem any ne- 
 cessity to accept either view. One thing must in common fairness 
 
 * Mr. Talbot Kelly recommends essentially the same thing for use against 
 the glare of Egypt. The Sikkim coolies pull their hair over their eyes in a 
 curtain for the same purpose. 
 
64 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 be said, and that is, that nowhere in the world will you find such 
 exquisite teeth in men, women, and children alike as in Tibet, 
 though it is beyond dispute certain that no tooth-brush, or any 
 form of cleansing them, has ever been practised, or indeed known, 
 from one end of the country to the other. 
 
 Prayer flags in Tibet are the commonest possible means of in- 
 vocation. The " airy horses " printed upon long perpendicular 
 strips of limp tarlatan, or rather butter muslin, about twelve 
 inches wide, are nailed to the pole, from twenty to thirty feet in 
 height. These fringes stand out in the wind, till they are frayed 
 back to the very nails, or tear themselves loose in ragged stream- 
 
 ers.* 
 
 Among the private convictions of Sir Isaac Newton was the 
 singular belief that prayers went to Heaven by vibration. It was 
 not, perhaps, one of the most demonstrable theories of that great 
 man, and very little stress has ever been laid upon this curious 
 idea, though I believe it underlies the almost universal use of in- 
 cense as a symbol of prayer. But your pious Tibetan would have 
 understood Sir Isaac in a moment; to him, movement is prayer, 
 and no inert petition finds its way to the ear of the gods. The 
 turning of a prayer-wheel, whether in the hand, or by the agency 
 of water, wind, or fire, is the best illustration of this. The pere- 
 grinations round the Ling-kor or the Jo-kang at Lhasa are other 
 examples of an acted prayer. Attention is not necessary; merit 
 is acquired, whether the mind be fixed or not, and Claudius' tru- 
 ispi, " Words without thoughts never to Heaven go," would be 
 scouted as foolishness by the piety of this land. Nor would the 
 Lamas be inclined to agree with the counsel which deprecates 
 repetition, for some of the larger prayer-wheels contain the sacred 
 mantra, " Om mani padme hum," repeated to an extent that al- 
 most defies calculation. Very thin sheets of paper made from the 
 
 *In Lhasa itself a peculiarity is noticeable. The prayer flags there 
 are tightly bound in to the pole. 
 
THE TIBETANS OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY 65 
 
 Daphne Cannabina, as thin as Oxford India paper, are printed 
 with symbols of this invocation as closely as the space permits. 
 Many hundreds of sheets of this paper are compressed into every 
 inch within the great revolving tub. The contents remain in a 
 tight, hard block, even if the outer covering is broken. A prayer- 
 wheel eight feet in height may contain this same mantra about a 
 hundred million times. Every revolution of a wheel like this adds 
 considerably, therefore, to the credit side of the Tibetan's account 
 in Heaven. So easy is it to add a thousand billion or so of these 
 ejaculations to one's account in a five minutes' visit to the near- 
 est gompa, that the plain mind of the Occidental wonders why, if 
 all this is really necessary, the Tibetan does not accumulate his 
 merit in this easy fashion, instead of wandering all day long, un- 
 economically twisting in his hand the comparatively inefficacious 
 hand wheel, or moving the still less expeditious lips. But here 
 we soon learn to leave behind us all the logic of the West. A 
 thing is so in Tibet because it has always been so ; research is not 
 encouraged ; progress is a form of heresy. 
 
 Galinka lies at the foot of the great dam which once fell across 
 the waters of the Ammo chu and made a lake where now the 
 plain of Lingma-tang stretches itself. This is a curious feature 
 of the valley. One climbs 200 feet up from Galinka by the side 
 of the sprawling torrent and at last reaches a piece of turf about 
 a mile and a half long, a quarter of a mile wide, and as flat as 
 Lord's. In the rainless months the turf grows here short and 
 thick, and provides the best grazing of all the valley. It would 
 be easy to make some arrangement for the draining of the plain 
 in the rains, but, as it is, from the end of July onward, Lingma- 
 tang is a mere swamp, overgrown indeed with luxuriant vegeta- 
 tion and bright flowers, but, from a more practical point of view, 
 a useless nuisance. Through this plain, in the curves of a tortured 
 worm, the Ammo chu winds and rewinds itself. When the ex- 
 pedition first crossed the plain the rocky sides of the containing 
 
66 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 hills were bare of all but the seemingly dead trunks of birch, and 
 the hardly more lifelike blackish-green of the pines. A scanty 
 and thorny brush filled in the interstices among the boulders just 
 where the steep hills stood knee-deep in the plain, but that was 
 all. The " vleis " of South Africa, which have been formed in 
 a similar manner, will offer the best suggestion of the exactly 
 perfect surface — then covered with brown, burnt grass, cropped 
 short by sheep, and, as we once discovered, by shao also. At the 
 southern end of the valley the forest comes down close to the 
 plain, and one leaves behind the treeless level to be engaged at 
 once among the junipers and pines of the last stage of vegetation 
 which at this great altitude the valley of the Ammo chu can show. 
 The thorny shrubs cease as if by magic when the road has reached 
 the upper part of the rocky slope which has to be scaled before 
 the road begins again an even ascent by the side of the stream. 
 The silver firs come down thickly to the very edge of the water, 
 and under their shade the track runs between moss-covered rocks 
 some twenty feet above the water, which here falls in a torrent 
 from boulder to boulder, pausing only when delayed by the frost, 
 which hangs great combs of ice from every gray dead fir athwart 
 the stream. Junipers and a few twenty-foot rhododendron trees 
 take advantage of the shelter of a turn in the range of hills just 
 where the stone breast-work of Tong-shong crosses the road. 
 The heavy, resinous smell of the pines harmonizes well with the 
 carpet of dark-green moss which sprawls at will over the seamed 
 rocks of Indian red and sienna. The mountains, 2,000 feet over 
 our heads, barely allow the road to squeeze between their gigantic 
 Symplegades. Five miles beyond the end of Lingma-tang the 
 road crosses the torrent twice and one comes out over a stony 
 patch and a carpet of brown pine needles into a little clearing, 
 where a heavy fall of grayish-black granite warns the traveler of 
 the strange characteristics of the road for the next two or three 
 miles. 
 
THE TIBETANS OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY ^7 
 
 Some years ago — ninety or a hundred, perhaps, if one may 
 judge by the size of the largest of the trees growing among the 
 debris — a Himalayan convulsion shattered vertically the eastern 
 side of the hills which hem in the tumbling river on the west. 
 They now stand stark, austere, and perpendicular a thousand feet 
 above the roadway and the stream. No trees crown their sum- 
 mits, not a bush can find root-hold on their granite faces. But at 
 their feet a long, continuous buttress of granite, torn rawly from 
 its matrix by the shock, forms a ramp 200 feet in height below the 
 crannies and clefts of the gigantic curtain overhead. This ramp 
 is composed of boulders varying in size from mere splinters of 
 granite, which have been used wherewith to metal the bridle-path, 
 to one great giant at Ta-karpo or " White Rock." This is one 
 of the most prominent features of the Chumbi Valley. There are 
 in it over 70,000 cubic feet of stone above the level of the debris 
 over which the road goes, and on which the Chinese post has been 
 built.i 
 
 The name of this rock must have been given years ago. 
 When this granite is newly exposed to the air it is of a vivid, 
 crystalline whiteness. Such granite is not, perhaps, to be found 
 elsewhere in the world. For not only is it incomparable in 
 color, but its hardness almost defies dynamite; the explosion of 
 the charge does not cleave the boulders, it merely breaks out 
 great craters from the stone. The stone darkens rapidly on 
 exposure to the air, and the sparkling purity is soon hidden 
 under a film of dull grayish-black. Beside this sloping terrace, 
 crowned only with birch and juniper, the river rushed between 
 frozen banks. Sometimes there was only a narrow channel 
 left in the middle, and one could see the three-foot balks of 
 
 ^ The use by the Tibetans of the stored warmth of the sun in these vast 
 blocks of stone is quite intentional. The vegetation immediately surround- 
 ing this great rock showed the stimulating power of the accumulated heat, 
 slowly surrendered all the frosty night by the fallen monster. To this may 
 also be due the constant use by wayfarers of the natural shelters formed by 
 hollows under projecting rocks. 
 
68 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 ice which hedged the water in, and listen to the quiet " seethe " 
 with which, now and again, a thin detached layer of ice be- 
 gotten of last night and astray upon the current mounted and 
 came to rest upon the thickening, greenish mass below. It was 
 just like the prickling crackle of a glazier's diamond. Some- 
 times the ice extended from shore to shore, broken here and 
 there by some whirlpool which had defied the cold, or some spirt 
 of water where the stream flowed too viciously over a rounded 
 stone to be entirely caught by the closing-in grip of the frost. 
 It was a wild scene, and very soon the limit of vegetation, which 
 is here about 13,300 feet, was apparent a little way up the hill- 
 sides. Birches are the last to go. 
 
 Another sharp climb brings one to the last phase of the 
 Chumbi Valley. This, indeed, is different from all the scenes 
 through which we have passed. A promontory, now being 
 avoided by the work of pioneers, gave us a view of the bare 
 plain of Dota ahead. To the east a frozen waterfall, nearly 
 a hundred feet in height, was the rallying-point of our attention. 
 It was a gigantic, irregular pillar of ribbed ice, through which 
 the evening sun played with the colors of a Pacific shallow. 
 But this was the last example of abruptness. From that point 
 till the Tang la rises gently beneath the ice-bound crags of 
 Chumolhari, on all sides the hills sweep down gently to the 
 stream or valley, bellying, brown, grassy slopes — for all the 
 world like Sussex downs tilted together at an angle. There 
 was not on all that waste of formless and almost naked rock a 
 stick of vegetation a foot high. Only little dead bents of aconite 
 prick up still brown and innocent. Nothing else breaks the 
 monotony of the finger-long blades of coarse low-lying grass. 
 I do not suppose that in all the world you could find a contrast 
 so great as that which meets the eye at Dota during your stage 
 from Gautso to the plain below the pass. From Dota to the 
 Tang la, and indeed on northward for three thousand miles, ex- 
 
A MEMBER OF THE EXPEDITION 
 Outfitted to cross the high passes of the Himalayas in July 
 
THE TIBETANS OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY 69 
 
 cept for the fertile alluvial flats which hem in the rivers of south- 
 ern Tibet, this scenery remains monotonous, waterless, heart- 
 breaking. One has said good-by to the Himalayan landscape with 
 a suddenness that can hardly be conceived, and from this point 
 onward the track winds round the easy curves of hills or picks 
 its way along the flat, stubbly plains till, as one turns the last 
 corner beyond Kamparab, Phari Jong comes out from behind 
 the last spur on the left and dominates the distance, a square, 
 grayish block of keep and bastion and parapet commanding 
 the converging highways of three States, and itself humiliated 
 by the overhanging 10,000 feet of Chumolhari's rock and ice. 
 
 The town of Phari deserves more than a passing notice. The 
 name — which in Tibetan is spelled " Phag-ri," or the " pig- 
 hill " — has been explained in many ways. The small mound on 
 which it is built may, or may not, have been shaped like a pig, as 
 the inhabitants say. The name may or may not have some refer- 
 ence to the pig goddess who is re-incarnated by the shores of the 
 Lake of Palti as the Dorje Phagmo — the Abbess of Samding. 
 There is a third explanation, which the lamas of the monastery of 
 Chat-sa, four miles away to the north, say is self-evident, but 
 of that later. The Jong itself is clearly of Chinese-plus-Euro- 
 pean construction. Its date, as ascertained by papers at Lhasa, 
 was said by the two Jong-pens, or fort commandants, to be 
 about 1500 A.D. ; it is, indeed, impossible to assign it to a date 
 later than 1600, and the assertion of the custodians may well 
 be true. A well-constructed stone parapet eighteen feet high, 
 with corner bastions, surmounts a low hill about twenty feet 
 in height. Above this, occupying the center of the hill, stands 
 the keep, about fifty feet in height and a hundred and twenty 
 wide, of several stories, and irregularly bastioned, or rather 
 buttressed. The fort lies square to the points of the compass, 
 each side of the parapet being about no yards in length. The 
 peculiar features in its construction conclusively prove that the 
 
( 
 
 70 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 place was built in unreasoning imitation of some European 
 model, for the little machicolated galleries which bestraddle 
 the corners of the outer bastions are entirely useless. Nothing 
 could be dropped from them, as they dominate precisely the 
 points at which no sane commander would deliver an attack. 
 Moreover, they are of the flimsiest construction, and, at present 
 at any rate, do not even possess floors. Inside, the Jong is dark, 
 badly constructed, and, to some extent, positively dangerous, as 
 the seeming solid walls are actually thin skins of granite ma- 
 sonry filled with rubble. In many places one skin has fallen 
 and the interior beams are supported wholly upon the other. 
 Quite recently a large part of the northern wall has completely 
 fallen. A certain amount of armor, both of iron and bamboo, 
 was found in the Jong, but every weapon of modern construction 
 had been carefully removed to the north or buried. 
 
 It is, however, the town of Phari which will remain longest 
 in the memory of those who have seen it but once. The head- 
 quarters mess of the escort to the Mission included several men 
 whose experience of the outlying places of the world it would 
 be difficult to equal round another table. But by common con- 
 sent Phari was the filthiest town on earth. This is a charge 
 not infrequently made against other towns, so it may be worth 
 while to justify the right of Phari to that bad eminence. First, 
 let it be said in fairness that there are more than a few reasons 
 why the inhabitants of this town are of necessity dwellers in 
 dirt. To begin with, Phari, at a height of 15,000 feet, is the 
 highest town worthy of the name in the world. The cold is 
 consequently fearful, a nightly temperature ranging in Feb- 
 ruary rather downward than upward from — 3° F., being often 
 joined with a merciless grit-laden cold wind from the north. 
 Cold is admittedly an excuse for dirt, but it is not cold only that 
 palliates the filth of Phari. At this altitude the least exertion 
 brings on breathlessness and apathy. To put on a pair of boots 
 
THE TIBETANS OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY 71 
 
 and gaiters is often a serious exertion for the new-comer, and it 
 is not, perhaps, to be expected that the good people of Phari should 
 go out of their way to secure by unwelcome activity a sanitation 
 and cleanliness which appeal to them as little as to other Tibetans. 
 Indeed, any others of that uncleanly race would, under similar 
 circumstances, attain an equal degree of dirt. The absence of 
 trees, compelling the wretched people here to use argol or dried 
 yak-dung as their only fuel, is another contributory cause. The 
 heavy, greasy blue fumes of these fires coat the interior of the 
 squat houses with a layer of soot which it would be useless 
 labor to remove. Unfrozen water is almost non-existent, except 
 during the summer, and, so far at least as the women are con- 
 cerned, the dirt which seams their faces is not perhaps unwel- 
 come, for, as we know, custom compels the disfigurement with 
 , kutch (or raddle resembling dried blood) of the brows and 
 cheeks of women in Tibet. 
 
 Having thus pleaded the cause, I have now to explain the 
 results of this want of cleanliness upon the town of Phari. 
 The collection of sod-built hovels, one or, at most, two stories 
 in height, cowers under the southern wall of the Jong for pro- 
 tection against the wind from the bitterest quarter. The houses 
 prop each other up. Rotten and misplaced beams project at 
 intervals through the black layers of peat, and a few small 
 windows lined with crazy black match-boarding sometimes dis- 
 tinguish an upper from a lower floor. The door stands open; 
 it is but three black planks, a couple of traverses, and a padlock. 
 Inside, the black glue of argol smoke coats everything. A brass 
 cooking-pot or an iron hammer, cleaned of necessity by use, 
 catches the eye as the only thing in the room of which one sees 
 the real color. A blue haze fills the room with acrid and pene- 
 trating virulence. In the room beyond, the meal is being cooked, 
 and a dark object stands aside as one enters. It is a woman, 
 barely visible in the dark. Everything in the place is coated and 
 
72 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 grimed with filth. At last one distinguishes in a rude cradle 
 and a blanket, both as black as everything else, an ivory-faced 
 baby. How the children survive is a mystery. It is the same 
 in every house. Nothing has been cleaned since it was made, 
 and the square hole in the flat roof, which serves at once to 
 admit light and air, and to emit smoke, looks down upon prac- 
 tically the same interior in five hundred hovels. 
 
 But it is in the streets that the dirt strikes one most. Let it 
 be said at once that in the best quarter of the town, that in which 
 the houses are two-storied, the heaped-up filth — dejecta and re- 
 jecta alike— rises to the first-floor windows, and a hole in the mess 
 has to be kept open for access to the door. It must be seen to 
 be believed. In the middle of the street, between the two banks 
 of filth and offal, runs a stinking channel, which thaws daily. 
 In it horns and bones and skulls of every beast eaten or not eaten 
 by the Tibetans — there are few of the latter — lie till the dogs 
 and ravens have picked them clean enough to be used in the 
 mortared walls and thresholds. The stench is fearful. Half- 
 decayed corpses of dogs lie cuddled up with their mangy but 
 surviving brothers and sisters, who do not resent the scavenging 
 ravens. Here and there a stagnant pool of filth has partially 
 defied the warmth, and carrion, verminous rags, and fur- 
 wrapped bones are set round it in broken yellowish ice. In the 
 middle the brown patch is iridescent. A curdled and foul tor- 
 rent flows in the day-time through the market-place, and half- 
 bred yaks shove the sore-eyed and mouth-ulcered children aside 
 to drink it. The men and women, clothes and faces alike, are 
 as black as the peat walls that form a background to every scene. 
 They have never washed themselves. They never intend to wash 
 themselves. Ingrained dirt to an extent that it is impossible to 
 describe reduces what would otherwise be a clear, sallow-skinned, 
 but good-complexioned race to a collection of foul and grotesque 
 negroes. 
 
^'^^i^^sg^T^s^s^>ssmw^i^i^^(^^9i^fWW*^^ 
 
 ti1*^K?sWM 
 
 THE TWO ABBOTS OF A TIBETAN MONASTERY 
 
THE TIBETANS OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY 73 
 
 " Dirt, dirt, grease, smoke." Thomas Manning's concise de- 
 scription of Phari as he knew it on the 21st of October, 181 1, 
 holds to this day, and the cleaning up which went on inside the 
 walls of the great buttressed fort after our arrival provoked no 
 imitation in the foul streets and grimed turf-built hovels at its 
 foot. 
 
 And the disgust of all this is heightened by an ever-present 
 contrast, for, at the end of every street, hanging in mid-air above 
 this nest of mephitic filth, the cold and almost saint-like purity 
 of the everlasting snows of Chumolhari — a huge wedge of ar- 
 gent a mile high — puts to perpetual shame the dirt of Phari. 
 
 The Jong-pens, or twin commandants of the fortress, had 
 trimmed their sails with some dexterity under the stress of this 
 breeze of foreign influence. They had served us not unfaith- 
 fully, a fact which they had doubtless kept from the knowledge 
 of those far Lhasan authorities with whom their correspondence 
 was neither confessed nor unknown to us. For their reception 
 of the English into the fort — an occupation which every suc- 
 ceeding week more fully justified — the two Jong-pens were cere- 
 monially degraded at Peking. This, however, is the East. At 
 the request of the very Power whose reception had caused their 
 disgrace, they were at once, with equal formality, reinstated 
 in their dignities of the crystal button and the backward-slant- 
 ing peacock feather — avowedly for services rendered to the Eng- 
 lish. What wonder if these two worthy men were a little be- 
 wildered as to their duty! Nor was it clear to them on which 
 side their bread would ultimately prove to be buttered. With 
 gratitude they accepted the offer of a monthly salary of 50 rupees 
 apiece during our occupation of Phari; with foresight they de- 
 clined to accept any money from us until after the expedition 
 was over. Asked whether they believed that we should be un- 
 successful, they smilingly put the question by. But, they said. 
 
74 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 there were many and powerful forts lying between us and Gy- 
 antse, and though the Pilings— they ought not to have used the 
 word to us— were beyond question a mighty race, who could 
 foresee the future? They accepted the invidious position with 
 a good grace, and, on the whole, after a preliminary attempt 
 to smuggle cattle over the near Bhutanese frontier, they acted 
 with apparent integrity. 
 
 Such was the road along which the toilsome preparations for 
 the advance crept slowly to the storehouses of Chumbi and Phari 
 from the plains of India. Through all the tedious months neces- 
 sitated by this provision for the future, Brigadier-General Mac- 
 donald, with the exception of one or two expeditions up and 
 down along the line of communication, remained at Chumbi. 
 Meanwhile, Colonel Younghusband, with the members of the 
 Mission, remained pent up in the wretched little houses which 
 cower beneath the hills of Tuna from the eternal blast which 
 drives the grit under foot along the open frozen wastes of Tuna. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FIGHT AT THE WALL 
 
 ALL preparations were ready by the last week in March, 
 ±\. and on the 26th Brigadier-General Macdonald started 
 from Chumbi. His first march brought him to the small wooded 
 plain of Gautso, where a strong little camp had been maintained 
 for some time. It was the last halt below the upper limit of 
 trees, and for the last time we enjoyed here an unlimited supply 
 of fuel. The next day the force pushed on to Phari, where a 
 day's halt was made to compose the column finally for the ad- 
 vance. On the following day a short march was made to a 
 camping-place on the bare plains one mile short of the Tang la. 
 It was a bitterly cold spot, utterly unprotected in any way, and 
 the two slight valleys which meet here acted as funnels for the 
 wind that blows everlastingly across these frozen plains. On 
 the 29th of March,^ the camp was struck early. Chumolhari 
 rose overhead, veiling its vast icy slopes with thin, half-frozen 
 cloud. From behind it the sun rose coldly, forming, by some 
 curious series of accidents, the most beautiful and complete white 
 rainbow that any of us had ever seen. There is something 
 about a white rainbow which is not entirely different from the 
 plumage of a white peacock. If you look closely you will find 
 that the structure of the missing bands of color remains almost 
 unchanged, and in this perfect half-circle of the purest white 
 one could almost imagine the ghostly lines of division between 
 the customary tints. For twenty minutes it arched over the 
 * Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. 
 75 
 
76 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 valley running up westward toward Pahamri, and vanished 
 slowly as the long line of the expedition moved out of camp. 
 
 It was a bitter morning; the promise of the sun was betrayed, 
 and, as we ascended the last furlongs of the southern slope, the 
 cold came down upon us again with bitter intensity. Crossing 
 the Tang la into Tibet proper was a terrible experience. The 
 frozen mist, laced with stinging splinters of ice, was blown hori- 
 zontally into our faces by the wind which never sleeps over this 
 terrible pass. Men and animals alike were stiff with an ar- 
 mor of ice, and beards and even eyelashes were, powdered and 
 hoary with the fine particles of frozen mist. It was difficult 
 to see fifty yards away, and it would be difficult to form a just 
 idea of the hardships which no human activity can ever hope 
 to remove from the highway leading on to Lhasa. 
 
 Slowly creeping on against the blizzard, the long line of ani- 
 mals and men moved into and out of the narrow radius of one's 
 sight, demi-cloaked with ice. About eight o'clock the sun gath- 
 ered enough power to melt the frost in the air, and an hour 
 later, looking up from the mist which rose like steam from the 
 plain, one could see the clear white top of Chumolhari sailing 
 against the thin light clouds of the upper air. We had crossed 
 the frontier. Half an hour later the plain was clear to the hori- 
 zon, and we trudged on against the wind and over as forbidding 
 a floor as exists on earth. It was grit and pebbles all the way. 
 There was not the slightest hint of even the dead brittle shrubs 
 . of wormwood that gave promise of greenery on the plain of 
 Phari. Two streams, hard bound with ice, lay across our path, 
 and Tuna was not to be seen till we were almost upon it. When 
 it at last came in sight it seemed a strange place, indeed, for 
 the residence of a British Commissioner for the whole winter. 
 Backed by arid sand-stone dunes 600 or 700 feet high, its only 
 outlook is toward the snow-fields, peaks, and glaciers of the 
 dividing range between Bhutan and Tibet, culminating to the 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE WALL -j-j 
 
 west in the gigantic mass of Chumolhari. There had been no- 
 thing to do all the winter. There was little game to shoot, and 
 the only walk, unless one climbed the hills at the back of the 
 post, was "there and back again" across the accursed frozen 
 waste. As we came near, the houses which the Mission had 
 originally occupied appeared. They are squalid in the extreme, 
 and one could well understand that Colonel Younghusband and 
 his men had early preferred to brave the cold of the winter in 
 their tents. 
 
 On our arrival we had luncheon with the Mission — these were 
 the days before the stores began to run low — and a surprisingly 
 good luncheon it was. We heard the latest news. The Tibetans 
 had been watched for some days; they had built a wall across 
 the road at a point between six and seven miles to the north, 
 and there was no doubt that, besides the force (then estimated 
 at about a thousand men) who were manning this defense, 
 large bodies of Tibetans were also busy on the other side of the 
 Bam tso. From the old narratives of the eighteenth century, 
 one had expected to find this lake within sight of Tuna, and 
 it is quite clear that at no very remote period Tuna itself was 
 almost washed by its waters. But not a sign of them was now 
 to be seen, though the short cut to Lhasa through the La-tse 
 Karo la, just visible across the plain, proved how recently the 
 ground had at any rate been a swamp by the wide curve which 
 it took before it started northeast, from the posting-station and 
 village of Hram.* 
 
 A typical day followed. From the earliest dawn till after sun- 
 set, a piercing wind swept the camp from end to end with a 
 liurricane of tingling grit, and the discomfort of the men was 
 increased by the device which Brigadier-General Macdonald 
 adopted to deceive any Tibetan scouts who might be lurking 
 
 ^This village is supposed to give an alternative name to this sheet of water. It 
 appears as the Hramtso on many maps, but without any real justification. 
 
78 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 among the hills which hemmed in the plain to the west. All 
 tents were struck and the men received strict orders to con- 
 ceal themselves. Captain Ottley, after a reconnaissance with 
 his mounted infantry, reported that the Tibetans had tempora- 
 rily retired from their wall, and from the string of sangars which 
 led upward from its western end over the spurs of the neigh- 
 boring hills. But as they had returned in full force by the 
 morning of the 31st, it is more probable that they were driven 
 away, not in any belief that the Mission had retreated, but 
 simply because even the Tibetans found the discomfort of the 
 day unbearable. 
 
 At twenty minutes past eight on the 31st the column moved 
 out. About a mile and a quarter of the road ran eastward im- 
 mediately under the high spur to which I have referred. Then, 
 turning sharply to the north, it makes its way five miles to the 
 little promontory and ruined house between which the road 
 runs. Here, as we could see two miles away, the Tibetans had 
 built their defenses. On the plain itself, the wall ran from the 
 spur to the house, constructed in the shape of four redans with 
 narrow openings between them. On the left hand the hills, 
 grassless and stony, rose steadily until the saddle joined the two- 
 thousand-foot ridge three miles away to the west. Here there 
 were seven or eight sangars. But to our right a clear space 
 of three thousand yards of level plain stretched between the end 
 of their poor little defenses and the nearest swamp bordering 
 the far but just visible waters of the lake. The fatuity of the 
 Tibetan scheme of defense would, one thinks, have been manifest 
 to a child. No attempt whatever to block this space was made. 
 The truth is that the whole project had been conceived in Lhasa. 
 The authorities there were guided by an obsolete map, or possibly 
 by a mistaken remembrance of the locality, and the general who 
 came to conduct operations had no authority to select another 
 field for his defense. The fact that the lake had retreated about 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE WALL 79 
 
 two miles from its ancient shore was a matter of which the 
 lamas in the capital were either ignorant or careless. 
 
 We tramped steadily across the plain — a mere continuation 
 of the Tuna plateau, frozen deep, and barely supporting the 
 scanty growth of thistles that pricked up here and there through 
 the patches of still lying snow. Everything under foot or in the 
 distance was gray and colorless. You will understand more 
 clearly the scene of the coming incident if you will remember 
 the bitter frost-laden south wind blowing all day with increas- 
 ing strength beneath a hard ash-gray sky. 
 
 Just when the Tibetan wall had become clearly visible in 
 the distance, a messenger, riding forward in haste, announced 
 the coming of the leading men of the defending force. The 
 Lheding Depen himself was in the field, and he, accompanied by 
 his brother general from Shigatse, the late Commandant of 
 Phari, and Gesur Yeshe Wang-gyuk (the representative of the 
 great Ga-den monastery), ambled quickly across the plain, and 
 an informal conference was held between the military and po- 
 litical chiefs on either side. It was merely a repetition of the 
 same old story. Coached from Lhasa, the delegates had no 
 power, if, indeed, they had the wish or saw the necessity, to 
 say anything but the old parrot-cry, " Go back to Yatung.'* 
 As Colonel Younghusband himself reminded them, this obsti- 
 nacy had served the Tibetans in good stead for fifteen years. 
 Hitherto it had always succeeded; how then were they to realize 
 that at last the British Government was in earnest? After 
 twenty minutes of excited but fruitless discussion, carried on 
 through the interpretation of Captain O'Connor— at such times 
 the most immovably patient of men— the small durbar was 
 broken up and the more important of the Tibetans cantered back 
 to their defenses in a cloud of dust. One or two only endeavored, 
 by violent gesticulation and shouting all together, to secure the re- 
 treat of the English commissioner. O'Connor, though he was be- 
 
So ■ THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 ing jostled and ridden off ten times a minute, retained his compo- 
 sure, explaining again and again that the advance must now 
 continue, and that Colonel Younghusband could listen to no- 
 thing before Gyantse was reached. At last they were made to 
 understand, and shouting excitedly to each other they, too, 
 scampered away on their stout little ponies. It was a curious 
 incident — the impassive non possumus which Younghusband re- 
 turned to the heated declamations of the two senior delegates; 
 •the gay yellow and green coats of the generals from Lhasa and 
 Shigatse; the various head-dresses; the purple and blue of the 
 robes; the strange forked guns embossed with turquoise and 
 coral; the richly worked sword hilts; the little gray and bay 
 ponies, saddle-clothed with swastika-patterned stuffs and gay 
 with filigree brass headbands and wide molded iron stirrups 
 — all these things straight from the sacred and forbidden city 
 possessed a new and intense interest for all of us. 
 
 There was no doubt about it ; the Tibetans intended to defend 
 
 ' their walls, and this created a most unpleasant predicament. 
 
 - Acting upon Colonel Younghusband's instructions, the General 
 ordered that not a shot was to be fired until the enemy had be- 
 gun. This, in other words, meant that our men were to forego 
 ■every advantage which discipline and modern weapons conferred 
 upon them. At the worst, it meant that they were obliged to 
 march straight up to sangars, held by men equipped with firearms 
 of unknown strength, and that, not only were they to suffer a 
 .possibly destructive volley before opening fire, but that they 
 might even be compelled to carry on the combat at a range so 
 short and from ground so coverless that the Tibetans would en- 
 joy other advantages besides that of sheer numbers, which they 
 already possessed. Still, the thing was done. It was such a pol- 
 icy as has probably had no parallel since the days of the Old 
 Guard at Fontenoy, and it is more to the credit of Indian disci- 
 •plme than English readers may realize that not a man, Gurkha 
 ^r Sikh, disobeyed the order all the day. 
 
< 
 
 U 
 
 n 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 <; 
 
 H 
 H 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE WALL 8i 
 
 The scene was a strange one. Out toward the lake a thin ex- 
 tended line was pushed forward, far outflanking the wall and 
 entirely commanding the line of the Tibetans' retreat. Mean- 
 while, the 23d Pioneers and the 8th Gurkhas were slowly clearing 
 the hills on the left, making each sangar disgorge its holders one 
 after the other. It was done in silence, and almost with good- 
 humor; but there was a hush of suspense among the two staffs 
 out in the plain who were watching with straining eyes the slow 
 progress of the khaki dots on the hillsides two miles away. At 
 any moment a shot might fire the powder magazine, and it was 
 not till the last of the hundreds of gray-coated figures had slowly 
 come down to the wall that the officers shut up their field-glasses 
 and moved on to where the work of disarmament was just begin- 
 ning. The sense of an insecurely leashed anger which might 
 break out at any moment was suddenly replaced by an exag- 
 gerated sense of security and congratulation. The incident 
 was regarded as practically over. The Commissioner and the 
 General rode in together to the wall to watch the huddled 
 group of Tibetans massed behind it, covering as much ground 
 as a battalion in quarter column. On either side of them were 
 our men. In front also the wall was lined with the 32d Pioneers ; 
 the line of retreat alone lay open to them. Two hundred others 
 had been taken prisoners up the hillside and disarmed there. 
 These remained passive and thankful spectators of what was to 
 follow. 
 
 The main body of the Tibetans were bewildered, but not sub- 
 dued. The whole thing must have been incomprehensible to these 
 poor men. No order had been given to them to retreat, and they 
 seemed to have acquiesced in their friendly expulsion by the Gur- 
 khas and Sikh Pioneers in a dazed way. Gathered together in a 
 body, their enormous superiority in numbers must have struck 
 them. They had no idea, of course, of the advantage which we 
 possessed, and there was a growing murmur as they discussed the 
 matter excitedly behind the wall. Some of them then and there 
 
82 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 concocted a scheme which might have had terrible results, and 
 the unwitting action of the Mission leaders almost put it into 
 their power to carry it out. As we afterward found from the 
 prisoners, they on the spot determined upon nothing less than 
 to permit the advance guard of the expedition to go through, and 
 then fall suddenly upon the members of the Mission themselves. 
 The disarmament upon which the General insisted of course de- 
 feated their plans, and it was in the attempt to carry out this op- 
 eration that the storm broke. When the Sikhs advanced toward 
 the wall and began the work there was difficulty from the outset. 
 In some cases the Tibetans actually struck the Pioneers ; in others, 
 there ensued a struggle for a weapon ; but this was not immedi- 
 ately noticeable from where Younghusband and the General were 
 standing, ten yards away from the house at the far end of the 
 wall. Homer has given the explanation of what then took place. 
 Steel of itself, says he, draws a man, and this handling of weapons 
 was a terrible risk. It was almost exactly noonday. 
 
 The Depen of Lhasa himself was the man who set the slum- 
 bering mine ablaze. He was seated on his horse just outside the 
 wall, and, exempt himself from the confiscation of his arms, he 
 shouted hysterically to his men to resist. They replied by stoning 
 the Sikhs. Even then, though the whole affair hung in a slippery 
 balance indeed, the latter held themselves in check. One of them 
 advanced to the head of the Depen's pony as the Lhasan General 
 tried to move up toward the wall. In an evil moment for himself 
 and his countrymen, the head of the great house of Lheding drew 
 his pistol and fired, smashing the Sikh's jaw. There was an 
 awful pause, that lasted for perhaps three seconds; and then an- 
 other report broke the stillness. A jezail, for which a Sikh and 
 a Tibetan were struggling, discharged itself into the air. But it 
 was almost unnoticed in the sudden yell with which the Tibetans 
 hurled themselves with drawn swords against the thin line of Pio- 
 neers leaning up against the wall. Such of them as had their 
 
o 
 
 •a 
 
 V 
 
 H 
 H 
 
 o i 
 
 I 
 
 H 
 v 
 
 .13 
 
 •O 
 
 O 
 
 V 
 
 
 W 
 X 
 
 a „ 
 
 o .. 
 
 W ''' 
 
 03 la 
 
 H ^ 
 
 en « 
 
 ;::> -5 
 
 '-> c 
 o 
 
 
 u 
 
 O 
 u 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE WALL 83 
 
 pieces ready fired point-blank at the Indian guard, and then drop- 
 ping them, flung themselves with their long, straight, heavy- 
 swords into the melee. Two Europeans were caught inside the 
 wall, and both were wounded. One, Mr. Candler, the correspon- 
 dent of the Daily Mail, was severely cut about before his assail- 
 ants could be shot down. The other, Major Dunlop, found him- 
 self confronted by a furious Tibetan who cut his hand upon his 
 rifle stock with a fearful thrust before Dunlop was able to kill 
 him. 
 
 By this time the storm had broken in full intensity, and from 
 three sides at once a withering volley of magazine fire crashed 
 into the crowded mass of Tibetans. It was like a man fighting 
 with a child. The issue was not in doubt, even from the first mo- 
 ment; and under the appalling punishment of lead, they stag- 
 gered, failed, and ran. Straight down the line of fire lay their 
 only path of escape. Moved by a common impulse, the whole 
 mass of them jostling one against another with a curious slow 
 thrust, they set out with strange deliberation to get away from 
 this awful plot of death. Two hundred yards away stood a 
 sharply squared rock behind which they thought to find refuge. 
 But the Gurkhas from above enfiladed this position and the only 
 hope they had lay in reaching the next spur half a mile away. 
 Had we been armed with their weapons, another hundred yards 
 would have brought them into safety, even in the open. It was 
 an awful sight. One watched it with the curious sense of fasci- 
 nation which the display of unchecked power over life and death 
 always exerts when exercised. Men dropped at every yard. 
 Here and there an ugly heap of dead and wounded was concen- 
 trated, but not a space of twenty yards was without its stricken 
 and shapeless burden. At last, the slowly moving wretches— and 
 the slowness of their escape was horrible and loathsome to us— 
 reached the corner, where at any rate we knew them safe from the 
 horrible lightning storm which they had themselves challenged. 
 
84 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 All this was necessary, but none the less it sickened those who 
 took part in it, however well they realized the fact. This was no 
 fighting in the usual sense of the word. As soon as their first 
 assault had failed there was nothing for the Mission escort to 
 fear, except, perhaps, the bullets of their own companions. This 
 was so real a danger that the company of the 32d, which had 
 been sent round on the right, as has been described, was obliged 
 to retreat so as to leave a clear field for the fire of the 
 Gurkhas on the slope of the spur. The guns had come into 
 action on the right as soon as possible, but the extraordinary 
 difference which these high altitudes make in the burning of a 
 fuse * nullified their work to a very great extent. I do not 
 suppose that any white man in the force was anything but sin- 
 cerely glad when one more dark-coated little figure disappeared 
 in safety behind the distant corner. But the behavior of the native 
 troops was beyond all praise. They had kept their temper and 
 their discipline till it was almost beyond human endurance. And 
 when the word was given they naturally had no mercy upon an 
 enemy whose attempt to equalize matters by the hand-to-hand 
 use of vastly superior numbers had been tried and failed. It was 
 a short but a terrible lesson. 
 
 An attempt was made to defend Guru itself, two miles on, but 
 this was easily defeated ; and after leaving a small garrison in the 
 place, the column returned to Tuna against a bitter wind and a 
 darkening sky. 
 
 The lesson which Guru should have taught was hardly learned 
 by the Tibetans. It should have been patent to them from that 
 moment, that until they had adopted modern weapons and, per- 
 haps, also had adopted some of the methods of the tribes on the 
 northwest frontier, it would be vain for them to attempt to resist 
 by force the progress of our troops. But every one of the men 
 
 * At the Kara la a distance requiring a 19 half-second fuse was only properly- 
 shelled by reducing the fuse to 9. 
 
A FEW MINUTES LATER 
 The British force still firing at the retreating Tibetans 
 
THE FIGHT AT THE WALL 85 
 
 whose report might have carried weight in Lhasa was dead, and 
 all we could ever afterward learn suggested rather that this com- 
 plete and utter rout of the pick of the Tibetan army was looked 
 upon in Lhasa rather as a disgrace to the officers concerned than 
 as a final proof of the foolishness of opposing us in the open field. 
 We afterward found that about fifteen hundred men in all had 
 been detailed for the defense of the Tibetan position on this side. 
 Another force of about one thousand men was ready to defend the 
 road to Lhasa across the lake, where twenty-four well-made san- 
 gars had been built across the road. Another body of men, esti- 
 mated variously at from two hundred to one thousand, remained 
 in Guru when their companions advanced to their position.^ The 
 troops returned to Tuna for the night, and before we advanced 
 again, it had been found necessary to amputate Mr. Candler's left 
 hand. He stayed at Tuna some time, and when he was well 
 enough to be moved, returned to Darjeeling till the final advance 
 began. 
 
 This incident made it imperative that the advance to Gyantse 
 should be carried out as quickly as possible. The road was re- 
 ported clear to the Kala tso. Beyond that, vague rumors reached 
 us of a concentration of Tibetans, generally embroidered with 
 accounts of mailed horsemen and other picturesque details, which 
 unfortunately were never justified by the fact. 
 
 ^ Here, as elsewhere, it seems to me that the numbers of the enemy 
 have been overrated in the official estimates. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FORCING THE WAY TO GYANTSE 
 
 AFTER the fight at the Hot Springs the force remained at 
 JTx. Tuna for three days. On the morning of the 4th of April 
 the Mission and its escort moved on to Guru, passing over the 
 scene of the sudden disaster of the previous Thursday. Every- 
 where, indeed, ugly traces of the tragedy were still only too visi- 
 ble. Everything that could possibly be done had been carried 
 out by the medical officers, and it is only fair to record the quiet 
 work among the Tibetan wounded which was done on their own 
 initiative by the surgeons connected with the force. Captains 
 Walton, Baird, and Kelly, and Dr. Franklin had worked unceas- 
 ingly all day on the ist among the wounded Tibetans, and it would 
 be difficult to describe adequately the blank amazement with which 
 our prisoners regarded this treatment. Mercy to prisoners is not 
 a characteristic of the Oriental, and not one of the wretched men 
 whose wounds had rendered it impossible for them to escape or to 
 be carried away had the least idea that any mercy except a coup 
 de grace would be extended to them. They were tenderly treated 
 and the resources of the expedition were lavishly used. In the 
 end the inevitable occurred, and it was with the utmost difficulty 
 that we could shake off from us the Tibetans whom we had re- 
 stored to health and strength. 
 
 The information that was received from these men was simple 
 and always to the same effect. They had no quarrel with us; 
 they had been driven to the front unwillingly, partly by the super- 
 stitious hold which the Lamas had over them, partly by the threat 
 
 86 
 
FORCING THE WAY TO GYANTSE 87 
 
 of physical punishment which the hierarchy did not fail. to wield; 
 and they realized soon enough that any attempt to stop us was 
 not only unnecessary but impossible. At any rate they would pre- 
 fer to take up any service, however menial, with us rather than go 
 back to the tyranny of their priests. Many wounded men came 
 in from a distance of their own accord. Morning after morning 
 one or two dead figures would be found a few hundred yards 
 away from our outposts — men who had been painfully trying 
 . to drag their broken bodies in to this miraculous healing of which 
 the fame had spread far and wide. It has often been said, and 
 no doubt said with some truth, that the work that we then did to 
 heal our wounded enemies, besides sorely depleting our stock of 
 bandages and other surgical necessities, was a source of weakness 
 rather than strength to the subsequent negotiations. The methods 
 of a Genghiz Khan would no doubt have brought our Mission to 
 a speedier end. But knowledge is not to be confounded with 
 wisdom, and many of our Oriental experts have forgotten in their 
 experience of detail that, after all, the Oriental is a man. What- 
 ever may be the ultimate success or permanence of our diplomatic 
 relations with the present priestly government of Tibet, the repu- 
 tation for magnanimity which we have secured among the poor 
 unlettered peoples of these uplands will as a tradition long out- 
 live the remembrance of political success, however great. Besides, 
 the thing had to be done. 
 
 The column halted at Guru. This is an unattractive spot, bare 
 and wind-swept, and marked only by a few disreputable houses 
 in two clumps, gathered in each case round a house of more re- 
 spectable appearance. Here the Chinese " General " Ma appeared. 
 But Captain Parr, of the Chinese Maritime Customs, declined to 
 recognize his representative character. On the morning of the 
 5th, the Mission moved on past Dochen toward Chalu by the 
 northern shore of the lake. It was a long march, and the narrow- 
 ness of the shore made it impossible to advance in more than one 
 
88 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 column. Here we struck into the heart of the land of Bogle and 
 Turner. What they wrote 130 years ago is true to the letter to- 
 day. The high, naked spurs which inclose the plain upon which 
 the Bam tso is now but a dwindling stretch, frowned upon us as 
 we moved past the successive openings. Some grazing might 
 perhaps be found here in the height of the summer, but in April 
 there is no blade of vegetation except the usual wormwood. Di- 
 vided from the road by a wide swamp, the waters of the lake, then 
 partly frozen, were dotted with the innumerable wild-fowl which 
 the previous explorers had reported. Ruddy sheldrake, pintails, 
 bar-headed geese, pochards, terns, teal, and wild-duck were all to 
 be seen and it was easy to approach within twenty yards of them. 
 A curious thing was here to be seen. These birds undoubtedly 
 migrate annually across the Himalayas from the plains of India. 
 Lower down, they had had experience enough of the meaning and 
 danger of a man's figure. Here in Tibet, where no bird had been 
 shot since Bogle offended the susceptibilities of his companions, 
 they did not show the slightest fear when the long dusty column 
 bore down upon them. But after the evening of the 5th, when ' 
 shooting was for the first time permitted after our arrival in camp^ 
 the change that came over the fowl was strange indeed. In a mo- 
 ment they became, and remained, as shy as ever they had been 
 in India. 
 
 Under foot, on the cinderous slopes, the only vegetation was 
 the hard circular sponges of saxifrage or the tiny plants of edel- 
 weiss, no larger than a florin, hiding away between the boulders 
 and the stones. Here and there a hare scurried away before the 
 feet of the column, but it was a rare break in the monotony. 
 Across the lake to the east, the road to Lhasa ran visibly, and 
 away to the south-east could be seen the deserted walls and san- 
 gars of Hram, which the enemy had deserted during the fight at 
 Guru. Chalu was reached about three o'clock. 
 
 The village itself lies half-way between the two lakes on the 
 
FORCING THE WAY TO GYANTSE 89 
 
 borders of the stream which flows from the Bam tso into the 
 Kala tso, a distance of about three miles. A halt was made 
 just where this stream leaves the former lake. It was a cold, 
 pitiless afternoon, with a horizontal sleet blowing and the prom- 
 ise of heavy snow that night. A few duck were shot and a wel- 
 come store of bhusa was obtained from Chalu. Lu-chea mon- 
 astery was visible half-way up the hills to the east, but it was 
 not visited, except by a foraging party. The stream joining the 
 two lakes is traversed by a long stone causeway, about a quarter 
 of a mile from the upper lake, and on the following morning 
 it was crossed by the column, who were to make only a short 
 march that day. The road between the two lakes runs at a little 
 height above the stream in the defile. On either side there are 
 steep hills, and Chalu occupies the only level place beside the 
 road. It is only a short distance before the gorge ends and the 
 waters of the Kala tso are seen. Even the most recent map 
 makers, I notice, have insisted that this gorge is ten miles long. 
 It is curious that they should have persisted in this mistake in 
 spite of the far more accurate map which Turner drew in 1784. 
 As one goes on an extraordinary optical delusion is seen. 
 The Kala tso stretches out, a great shield of silver gray on the 
 left front, and the river, some thirty feet below us on the same 
 side, appears to run up hill into it. This delusion, which is very 
 striking, can only be accounted for by assuming that the eye is 
 mistaken in the apparent height of the Kala tso. This lake cer- 
 tainly seemed to be on a level with the path along which we were 
 marching, and the river is perhaps only seen as an accidental item 
 in the picture. When, however, it is perceived running close un- 
 der our feet, the inference that it has to make its way up hill to 
 fall into the lake is, I suppose, irresistible. In any case, it is a cu- 
 rious spectacle, and one to which Manning evidently referred in 
 his journal, though he must have misread his notes. He records 
 this optical delusion as visible in Red Idol Gorge. The Kala 
 
90 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 tso, on the banks of which the column halted for the night of the 
 6th, after a short march, is the remains of a very much larger 
 lake, which in earlier days covered the whole plain that now lies 
 east of its shore. The scenery was the same as before, though 
 the scanty grass bents now became a little more frequent, and 
 thick wormwood appeared here and there in patches on the 
 mountain-side. 
 
 The most remarkable thing here is the evidence of a very 
 large population in earlier days which the continuous string of 
 ruined walls and houses supplies. For a space of nearly two 
 miles the hill-side road — which clings still to the mountains in 
 avoidance of the now vanished lake — is marked by a wilderness 
 of great pebbles which have dropped from the walls and houses 
 of a lost civilization. The ground is still marked by lines of 
 crumbling structures held together in the ground plan of their 
 first shape by dry layers of mud-mortar. Thousands must have 
 lived here once. As with most other things in Tibet, there are 
 many different reasons suggested for this wholesale desertion — 
 a small-pox, the subsidence of the lake, the Mongol invasion, 
 the utter inability of the inhabitants to adjust themselves to 
 so wretched and inhospitable an environment. Perhaps, also, 
 the closing of the trade routes over the Sikkim passes may have 
 had its effect. It is only clear to-day that the scanty duffle- 
 clad figures who bow with protruded tongues at the entering in 
 of their hamlets and the black-aureoled women whose heads 
 appear inquisitively over the sordid sod-parapets of the roofs 
 above are but the hundredth part of the population of a scattered 
 but important trade center in the past. 
 
 The question that now exercised the General was whether the 
 jong would be defended or not. It was apparent, even at this 
 distance, that it would be no light matter to drive an enemy, how- 
 ever weakly armed, from so strong a position, and we were, as 
 
X 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 z 
 
 H 
 ►J 
 < 
 
 O 
 
 a 
 
FORCING THE WAY TO GYANTSE 91 
 
 a matter of fact, confronted by the easier slopes of the rock upon 
 which it is built. There is no approach on the western side. 
 Standing out as it does in the plain, joined only by a narrow sad- 
 dle to the hills beside and above it, the jong is a formidable fort 
 indeed. There was some delay about crossing the river, and then 
 the column encamped above the river flats on the edge of the wide, 
 fertile plain. 
 
 Emissaries came out from Gyantse— the Jong-pen and the 
 Chinese General Ma who had first accosted us at Guru. The 
 Jong-pen put the whole situation clearly enough. On the one 
 hand, he said, if he were to surrender the jong to us, his throat 
 would be cut by the Dalai Lama ; on the other hand, he said, with 
 naive simplicity, that as all his soldiers had run away, he was not 
 able to offer any effective opposition to our occupation of it. This 
 was indeed true. Hundreds of Tibetan soldiers during the last 
 halt made by us on the plain took advantage of our inaction to 
 escape, carrying with them, it was reported, most of the available 
 weapons from the jong and town. The Jong-pen of Gyantse is a 
 kindly heavy old man like a saddened Falstaff ; and it was with 
 considerable regret that we were obliged to disregard his peti- 
 tions. As events proved, however, it would have been a wiser 
 thing if, instead of a temporary occupation of the fort, followed 
 by inadequate demolitions near the two main gateways, we had 
 boldly undertaken to occupy the place. Meanwhile it was clear 
 that the Tibetans could not be allowed to remain undisturbed in 
 the fort which commanded the country round. They were indeed 
 promised that no harm should be done to any one in the place, and 
 that the temples of the jong and of the town should remain un- 
 touched if, on their side, the Tibetans behaved with straightfor- 
 wardness to us. We camped for the night beside a new and well- 
 built house, and on the following morning moved in, prepared both 
 for treachery and for the task, if need be, of taking the fort by 
 storm. There was, however, no necessity for apprehension. The 
 
92 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Jong-pen and the Chinese General came out to meet us and surren- 
 dered the entire place. Still, precautions were not relaxed until the 
 small party of pioneers, which we sent forward to investigate the 
 ruined walls and towers that crowned the great rock, had climbed 
 to the topmost pinnacle, and the Union Jack run up beside the gilt 
 copper finial which marked the highest point. The utmost cour- 
 tesy was shown to the Jong-pen, and he in his turn, though it 
 must be feared with a heavy heart, undertook to help in the col- 
 lection of necessary foodstuffs from the town and from the sur- 
 rounding villages. Already a cursory examination, of the store- 
 houses and cellars of the jong had shown that the whole place was 
 one gigantic granary. All was not, of course, discovered at first, 
 but nearly eight thousand maunds * of grain and tsamba were 
 found inside the storerooms of this fort alone. Two positions were 
 selected by the military authorities as suitable for the residence of 
 the Mission. One of them, Chang-lo, lay at the head of the ap- 
 proach across the Nyang chu, 1,350 yards from the large modern 
 barrack round which the defenses on the jong were centered. 
 The other lay within 500 yards of the rock, and (as the jong was 
 not occupied by our troops) would have proved utterly untenable 
 in the circumstances which afterward resulted in the practical in- 
 vestment of the Mission post. As it was, Chang-lo, the place oc- 
 cupied by Colonel Younghusband, was unpleasantly near and a 
 thousand yards within the range of a Tibetan jingal. The follow- 
 ing day the work of collecting the foodstuffs of the jong began 
 under the able generalship of Major Bretherton, and the long 
 convoys of mules began to go backward and forward between 
 Chang-lo and the jong. Small bodies of mounted men went out 
 to report upon the stores that could be supplied by the surround- 
 ing villages, and the amount far exceeded that reported as likely 
 
 * The maund used in the north-east of India weighs 80 pounds. This was, 
 during the expedition, the accepted unit of measurement, and was also the 
 normal weight carried by a single cooHe. 
 
THE HIGH PRIEST AT GYANTSE 
 " Who looks like a saddened Falstaff " 
 
■I 
 
FORCING THE WAY TO GYANTSE 93 
 
 by the Mission. On the fourth day, Colonel Younghusband and 
 the men moved into the smaller of the two compounds which com- 
 prise Chang-lo. It was a pretty place. A beautifully painted and 
 columned open room opened upon a small courtyard, in the south 
 wall of which was a gateway leading straight out on to a grav- 
 eled court in which the finest poplar trees we ever saw in Tibet 
 rose bare and branching over our heads. The other part of 
 Chang-lo consisted of a very irregularly shaped building which 
 probably represented the actual daily living-house of the ducal 
 family of Chang-lo. It was very thickly built, and presented its 
 most impregnable side toward the jong. This peculiarity, which 
 was common enough in the houses of the plain to suggest that it 
 was not wholly unintentional, proved afterward the salvation of 
 the situation. The place was capable of defense, and to the south, 
 away from the jong, a thick plantation of leafless willow-thorns 
 was carpeted from end to end with iris. The river ran beside us 
 sixty yards away, turning in its course toward the far distant spur 
 upon which the scattered houses and temples of Tse-chen were 
 built. Other white houses dotted the plain on all sides within a 
 mile, and twelve hundred yards away to the north-east the little 
 village of Pala, then deserted, guarded the road to Lhasa. 
 
 It is worth while to review the political situation at the time 
 of our arrival at Gyantse. Colonel Younghusband had sent a 
 letter to the Amban announcing to him the impending arrival of 
 the British Mission, and requesting him to come to Gyantse to 
 discuss the terms of the agreement, bringing with him properly 
 qualified Tibetan representatives of sufficiently high rank. This 
 letter was sent off during the march up, but I do not suppose 
 that any one in the force really believed that the Tibetans were 
 willing to treat with us. The news of their loss at Tuna was 
 brought to the Lhasan authorities in a wholly mendacious form. 
 It is easy to see how the incidents of that unfortunate day lent 
 themselves to misconstruction. It was reported, and believed, in 
 
94 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Lhasa that the English had decoyed the Tibetan soldiers away 
 from their defenses and had then wantonly shot them down. The 
 truth was indeed known to the friendly States of Bhutan and 
 Nepal, but these carry little weight in Tibetan councils. The 
 only man in Lhasa who seems to have understood the gravity of 
 the situation was Dorjieff himself. His action was immediate 
 and characteristic. As soon as the news arrived of our occupation 
 of Gyantse he suggested to the Tibetans the advisability of over- 
 whelming the Mission by a night attack. This had been proposed 
 by him already, while the Mission were still encamped at Kamba- 
 jong, and it is likely that the retirement of the Mission from that 
 place was rendered doubly ignominious in the eyes of the Tibetans 
 because they believed our evacuation to be directly due to the 
 attack for which they were preparing. Dorjieff was, however, far 
 from confident as to the upshot of this Experiment. He realized, 
 better perhaps than any one else in Lhasa, that if the small force 
 accompanying Colonel Younghusband were able to force their way 
 on to the capital they would unhesitatingly do so. The name of 
 Younghusband is unpleasantly well known in the chancelleries of 
 St. Petersburg. He has never been associated with want of enter- 
 prise or of readiness to seize the least opportunity afforded by his 
 opponent, but his far-sighted prudence was perhaps better recog- 
 nized still. That the Colonel should have decided to remain in 
 Gyantse with a small escort while Macdonald returned to the 
 Chumbi Valley to organize arrangements for a further advance 
 to Lhasa cannot, therefore, have seemed to Dorjieff to be the rash- 
 ness of an over-confident man. So far Dorjieff's influence with 
 the Dalai Lama was unimpaired ; his position in the country was 
 however weakened, not only because in spite of his assurances the 
 English had actually been able to penetrate into the country, but 
 also because it was now becoming known that Japan was actually 
 at war with Russia, a disquieting suggestion of the latter's real 
 strength. News of the Russian defeats did not reach Lhasa until 
 
A VALLEY NEAR SAMONDA 
 
 EAST END OF THE JONG, OR FORTRESS, AT GYANTSE 
 Captured after a long and bitter fight 
 
FORCING THE WAY TO GYANTSE 95 
 
 the middle of May, if information received there is to be trusted. 
 Dorjieff, therefore, determined, after setting the fuse alight, to 
 make the best of his way to a place of safety. If the British Mis- 
 sion were annihilated he could always return and claim the credit 
 of the suggestion. If, on the other hand, the English were able 
 to beat off the attack, Dorjieff foresaw only too clearly that his 
 influence in Lhasa was doomed, and that even the Dalai Lama 
 himself could not protect him. 
 
 While the Tibetans were preparing to send a fresh force for 
 this hostile purpose they naturally refused to allow the Amban to 
 negotiate with the Mission. The Viceroy himself repeatedly saw 
 the Dalai Lama in person, but could get nothing from him ; to his 
 demands for transport and for responsible and accredited repre- 
 sentatives of Tibet in the forthcoming negotiations no answer 
 was returned. At one time he thought that when it came to the 
 point the Tibetan government would hesitate to repudiate in any 
 direct manner the suzerainty which he represented. He there- 
 fore bluntly reminded them that he was acting under the orders 
 of the Chinese Emperor in demanding that they should negotiate ; 
 he added that the responsibility of acquiescing in the refusal of 
 the Tibetans was so serious that he declined to be any party to 
 their action. The orders had been given and signed with the ver- 
 milion pencil — those orders he intended to carry out. The im- 
 mediate answer of the Dalai Lama was an assumption of all re- 
 sponsibility for the action of the Tibetan government. He said 
 that he was willing to accept the onus of acting in contravention 
 of his suzerain's commands. 
 
 Meanwhile, Colonel Younghusband found himself in a difficult 
 position. The advance to Gyantse had been accepted as inevitable 
 by the home government. But they did not believe that it would 
 be necessary to make any further advance, and their policy at this 
 time assumed the ultimate submission of the Tibetan government 
 during this phase of our relations with the country, and Young- 
 
96 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 husband, in some way which is neither entirely clear nor entirely 
 fair, was regarded as unduly anxious to press on to the capital. 
 This was true in so far as that he recognized the importance, in 
 dealing with Oriental nations, of concluding the treaty in no 
 place short of the capital. Sound as this theory is in all cases, it is 
 especially so in the case of Tibet. Gyantse is a place the political 
 importance of which has been greatly over-rated; the truth is, 
 that no city or district, except Lhasa, is of any political impor- 
 tance whatever. A treaty signed at Gyantse might have achieved 
 one object. It might have given us a satisfactory basis for insist- 
 ing, when we thought fit, upon the observation of its terms. But as 
 binding the hierarchy of Lhasa it was of no more real importance 
 than the treaty of 1890-3, which they Jiad repudiated. Colonel 
 Younghusband appreciated the difficulty of securing any finality 
 in our relations with the Dalai Lama by negotiations at Gyantse, 
 but he was throughout perfectly willing to accept the opinion of 
 the Government and negotiate at this place. He may have re- 
 garded it as a half measure, but he recognized the necessity of 
 carrying out his orders to the letter, if it were possible for him 
 to do so. At the same time he also recognized the improbability 
 of getting the Tibetans to co-operate. 
 
 Tradition and experience alike had combined to persuade the 
 Tibetans of the truth of Disraeli's statement that delay is the se- 
 cret of success. They had always succeeded in the past by a pol- 
 icy of abstention ; why, then, even if we were able to reach a town 
 of the political insignificance of Gyantse, should they be induced 
 to abandon the policy which had served them in good stead for so 
 many centuries? The Dalai Lama had perhaps good reason for 
 his confidence. He remembered that assurances had been received 
 long ago from a trustworthy source that the British Government 
 were opposed to the risks involved by sending troops further 
 into Tibet. It is true that he cannot be supposed to have under- 
 stood the enormous advantage which the Parliamentary system 
 
FORCING THE WAY TO GYANTSE 97 
 
 of England put into his hands : he cannot have known that there 
 was any serious criticism of Lord Curzon's policy in England : of 
 the chance — which seemed to us in Tibet to be a considerable one 
 — of a change of policy as the result of a General Election he can 
 have known nothing. But there were many other things which 
 may have influenced him in risking our unwillingness to proceed 
 further into the country. In the first place, first by a long interval, 
 Lhasa had never before been reached, and he may well have 
 trusted to the experience of history. In the second place, he prob- 
 ably imagined that the advance to Lhasa would necessitate the 
 employment of a very much larger force than that with which 
 we had reached Gyantse, and no one knows so well as a Tibetan 
 the impracticability of taking large bodies of men over these high 
 uplands without long and careful preparation. Then, again, he 
 looked forward to the evacuation of southern Tibet by the Eng- 
 lish as a matter of necessity, not so much because they were un- 
 able to withstand the climate there as because it was impossible 
 to maintain communications during the winter over the terrible 
 passes of the Chumbi Valley, Delay, therefore, was his obvious 
 policy. It is an odd thought that if he had limited himself to this, 
 his opposition might perhaps have been successfuK 
 
 Of all these considerations. Colonel Younghusband was fully 
 aware. He did not for a moment believe that negotiation at Gy- 
 antse could be carried through. His knowledge of Oriental habits 
 and thought told him unerringly that in the capital only was there 
 a chance of making such an impression as might secure the due 
 observation of the treaty. But, on the other hand, his instruc- 
 tions from home were clear enough, and for some time, while the 
 matter hung in the balance, it must have been difficult for him to 
 see how any middle course was possible which would enable Lord 
 Curzon to achieve even the most moderate triumph in the face of 
 misconceptions in Whitehall, As we now know, the Tibetans all 
 along were on the point of settling the matter by their own foolish 
 
98 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 action, but until the early days of May the outlook was blank 
 indeed. 
 
 In the light of after events it was lucky that during those first 
 three weeks after our arrival at Gyantse we did not let the grass 
 grow under our feet. Much had to be done by the military au- 
 thorities in putting Chang-lo into a proper state of defense, but 
 for the members of the Mission, excepting Captain Ryder, R.E., 
 and Captain Walton, I.M.S., there was little to do. Negotiation 
 of any kind was obviously not intended by the Tibetans, and some 
 of us spent our time in making expeditions to eyery point of in- 
 terest in Gyantse and in the plain around. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 
 
 THE first view of Gyantse is imposing. Across the wide, 
 level plain, cultivated in little irregular patches as closely 
 as an English county, the high-walled peak from which the town 
 gets its name^ rises 500 feet into the air. From the first the 
 jong fills the eye, and it is not until one is close that the low, 
 white two-storied houses of the town are seen at its foot, nestling 
 under the protection of the battlements and bastions of the great 
 fort. 
 
 So huge is the mass of masonry and sun-dried brick with 
 which the steep and isolated hill is crowned, that it is a matter 
 of some surprise that it has received scanty or no attention from 
 the few travelers who have passed beneath it. Manning, indeed, 
 in 181 1, refers to it as "a sort of castle on the top of a hill," 
 a somewhat inadequate description of a pile of buildings hardly 
 less in size than those of Mont St. Michel. Ruinous it was 
 even in April, but that was hardly perceptible at a distance, 
 and the apparent strength of the huge towers and curtains which 
 overhang the almost precipitous rock would, one thinks, have 
 impressed the most incurious of observers, among whom Man- 
 ning, the only Englishman who has ever reached Lhasa, is 
 unfortunately to be placed. Even in its existing condition, a 
 week's siege and a couple of hundred casualties would have 
 
 * The name is written rgyal-rtse and means " Royal Peak." The " n " is 
 merely an example of a common tendency to nasalize the close of a first sylla- 
 ble. " Palden Lhamo " is almost invariably pronounced " Panden Lhamo." 
 The great monastery at Gyantse is often called the " Pan-khor Choide." 
 
 99 
 
lOO THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 been the price of any attempt on our part to take the successive 
 defenses by storm in the face of the slightest really well-handled 
 opposition. 
 
 Leaving the level of the town at the south-eastern corner of 
 the rock— which is 400 or 500 yards in length— one makes one's 
 way up the zigzag approach hewn out of the side of the ocher- 
 ous quartz-seamed sand-stone. The roadway, after running the 
 gauntlet of a large detached bastion built against the flank of the 
 almost perpendicular stone, leads up to the great gateway, in the 
 deep recess of which — then partly supported by two stout 
 wooden pillars and of no great strength— there hung from the 
 ceiling four huge stuffed carcasses of dongs or wild yaks, with ar- 
 tificial eyes and tongues protruding in a fearsome way. But the 
 beasts were falling to pieces from age, and rather resembled badly 
 stitched leather bags than anything else. Everything that could 
 fall from them — hair, horns, hoofs — had already fallen, and 
 handfuls of the straw stuffing bulged out from every seam. 
 After passing the gateway the road zigzags upward again, pro- 
 tected by a rough breast-work in which recent repairs and new 
 loopholes were obvious every few yards. The latter were 
 " splayed " on the inside, contrasting strongly with the older 
 useless little slits which only allow a defender to fire straight 
 in front of him. Higher up, beside some houses which are fall- 
 ing rapidly to pieces, was a new and well-built barrack store- 
 room, in which thousands of pounds of powder, tons and tons 
 of supplies, and tens of miles of matchlock fuse were found. 
 Another hundred paces to the left brought one to the door of the 
 most interesting series of rooms remaining in the jong. Dark- 
 ened by the blocking up of their windows, one cellar-like low 
 room leads into another — some little chapels, some living rooms, 
 some storerooms. Out of these one came into a little court 
 with a rotten wooden ladder and a loyal dirty gray watch-dog 
 who exhibited more pluck than his flying masters had. At the 
 
> > > 
 
 ) > ' , 1 ' > ', > > ' 
 
 » > » » » » 
 
 THE TOWN OF GYANTSE 
 
 Here the Mission made a long lialt. 1 1 did not advance until the military escort, after a fierce battle with the Tibetans, 
 captured the stronghold. The Palkhor Choide. inclosed in walls, fills the upper end of the picture. 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN loi 
 
 top of the ladder a step to the left takes one into a small yard, 
 one end of which is occupied by a little gompa or temple. Look- 
 ing in from the sunlight one could just distinguish the great 
 dull gold figure and smiling, placid countenance of the Master 
 whose presentment no superstition or latitude can either deface 
 or materially change. Whatever stage in art his devotees may 
 have reached, the great teacher's own image remains the same 
 from Japan to Java, and the gaudy " katags " or ceremonial 
 scarfs hide in Gyantse as severely simple a design as you may 
 find at Kamakura or Mandalay. One large turquoise supplied 
 the ever-present bump of wisdom on Gautama's forehead, but 
 otherwise there was no decoration. But when one entered the 
 luxury that had been denied to the central figure was seen to be 
 lavished on the ornaments that strew the kyil-kor or altar shelves 
 beneath the Buddha. One great wrought-steel chorten with 
 chased courses and turquoise and gold ornamentation stood out 
 among a crowd of lesser ones of brass or silver, antique ivories 
 from India, vases with peacock feathers, and great brass and 
 copper lamps. These lamps are perhaps the most striking orna- 
 ment of a Buddhist shrine. Sometimes single, there may be 
 dozens and even hundreds, each composed of a wide and deep 
 bowl of heaped-up butter, in which, floating in a little pool which 
 its own warmth has made, burns a single wick with a small 
 yellow flame. These are the last things that the priests will 
 take away. If they fear looting, they will hide every other 
 ornament, replacing them by strange, many-colored erections of 
 butter (torma), which they mold with extraordinary dexterity 
 into conventional structures, sometimes five or six feet high. 
 But the altar lamps must, and do, remain, whatever the risk, 
 and one of the pleas subsequently brought forward by the Abbot 
 of Gyantse was that a fine to be paid in butter might be com- 
 muted, as they needed all the butter they could get for cere- 
 monial use on their hundred altars — and they urged, with shrewd 
 
r r c 
 
 «■ r r r 
 
 I02 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 flattery, it was well known that the British never interfered with 
 the religion of the countries into which they made their way. 
 
 Outside this little orange-walled gompa were five pots in 
 which bloomed courageously well-grown plants of simple Eng- 
 lish stocks. It was a curious shock to see them. How they 
 came there it would be useless to guess, but surely never before 
 did stocks justify so well Maeterlinck's eulogy of those little 
 flowers that " sing among ruined walls and cover with light the 
 grieving stones." For up above the gompa rise the great towers 
 and buildings which lead up to the topmost structure on the 
 very edge of the precipice which confronts the Lamasery to 
 the north-west ; and even then, before the bombardments and ex- 
 plosions of later days, they were all roofless shells of stone which 
 quivered in the light afternoon wind. 
 
 From the castle a fine view is to be had of the town of 
 Gyantse and the great Lamasery of Pal-khor Choide, which 
 stretches on the slope of a southerly spur facing the jong three- 
 quarters of a mile away, protected by a long crimson wall from 
 the assaults of the prevailing north-west wind. There are two 
 curious things about this monastery. First, although it is sub- 
 ject to Lhasa, and therefore nominally a Gelukpa or Yellow 
 Cap foundation, it contains representatives of nearly all the 
 recognized sects in Lamaism, which are numerous and jealous, 
 though not vitally opposed to each other in doctrine. A curious 
 custom, however, is, that when the Nying-mas or Red Cap com- 
 munities in Pal-khor Choide worship with the Gelukpas the 
 former make the not inconsiderable concession of wearing the 
 yellow cap instead of their own distinctive red one. 
 
 The other point, which is perhaps of little interest, is the 
 legend that the great chorten or caitya outside the central tem- 
 ple was copied from the well-known temple of Buddh-Gaya 
 long before the restorer's hand had obscured some of the char- 
 acteristic features of the latter. This legend is, as a matter of 
 
> > 3 J . 
 
 > » 
 
 ft > 
 > J 
 
 ' ,» > » » » 
 
 ■ji 
 
 ■J 
 
 <; 
 
 o 
 
 > 
 Pi 
 w 
 
 < 
 
 
 CO 
 
 O 
 Z 
 
 r' 
 
 
< I 1 1 < I 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 103 
 
 fact, wholly untrue. There is hardly any similarity between the 
 two buildings. Chandra Das calls the architecture of the Gy- 
 antse building unique. In a way this is true, but the lower part 
 represents fairly well on a minute scale — the whole base is only 
 120 feet each way — the great vihara of Boro-Bodoer in the mid- 
 dle of Java. There is the same number of balustraded terraces, 
 and the sides of each contracting stage are broken by square 
 projections in a similar way. Each projection or angle con- 
 tains a small chapel. The upper part of the structure consists 
 of a large white drum with four grotesquely ornamented door- 
 ways of a Burmese type, and a thirteen-ringed cone surmounted 
 by a " htee " and finial, decorated with leaf-clapper bells, is also 
 suggestive of Burma. The upper part is thickly ornamented 
 with gold leaf, and the gilt copper plates composing the rings 
 are each decorated with two incised figures of Buddha. The 
 lower part of this pagoda — which is generally white — is roughly 
 decorated here and there with color in an effective way, and the 
 interior walls and passages are painted with microscopic finish, 
 in some medium that produces an enamel-like surface. 
 
 As one leaves the chorten and enters the main temple, an 
 exquisitely painted "Wheel of Life" (if we may accept the 
 rough translation which Rudyard Kipling borrowed for " Kim " 
 from Waddell) meets the eye to the left of the doorway leading 
 from the vestibule to the central apartment. It is difficult to 
 convey any idea of the minute finish of this piece of work. A 
 few will realize it when I say that it is probably the only prod- 
 uct of man's brush which rivals the " Book of Kells " or the 
 " Lindisfarne Gospels." Up in the balcony above there is ex- 
 quisite work, but upon this circle the artist has lavished an ob- 
 vious affection and care which must be seen to be believed. In 
 style it resembles thirteenth century illumination, but, for ex- 
 ample, no Vision of Hell was ever drawn with such amazing 
 delicacy and hideous ingenuity as are the quaint tortures of the 
 
I04 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 damned in this representation of the Buddhist Sheol. Inside 
 the central crimson-pillared hall the only conspicuous object is 
 the great seated figure of Maitreya, the next Buddha to be re- 
 incarnated. He is, as always, seated in European fashion, a 
 tradition which is more suggestive than most modern Buddhist 
 legends, and instinctively recalls the belief of Lamaism that the 
 end of the present age will be marked by the surrender of 
 Buddhism into the hands of the " Piling " or western foreigner. 
 In a recess of each of three sides of the central hall are great 
 seated images of the Buddha. Sakya-muni himself is sur- 
 rounded in the dark northern chapel by half-seen gigantic stand- 
 ing statues of Egyptian massiveness and simplicity, almost 
 touching each other as they line the walls, and looming out of 
 the obscurity with dignity and no small dramatic effect.* To 
 the left of the vestibule is an odd chamber of horrors. It is 
 reported to be sufficient to overawe the most insubordinate of 
 lamas, but the decaying stuffed beasts that hung from the roof 
 and the dingy demons painted on the walls were scarcely as hor- 
 rible as the common blue and scarlet guardians of religion who 
 protect the entrance to every gompa. A dragon's skin was 
 pointed out to me. It was, perhaps, no bad imitation. Allowing 
 for contraction, the python which once owned this covering 
 must have been at least 25 feet long and 13 inches in diameter. 
 Chain-armor, bows, quivers, flags, painted cloth, skins, a few old 
 guns and spears, and a few little untidy altars, from which, as 
 from every other shrine we visited in the Lamasery, every orna- 
 ment, except the lamps, had been taken and hidden away in ter- 
 ror, and, of course, dirt everywhere, completed the furniture of 
 this dismal chamber. But there remained many more temples 
 and apartments, from the inspection of few of which we were 
 excused by the talkative and, apparently, perfectly friendly 
 
 * A similar arrangement is to be seen in the sanctuary of the "Jo" in 
 
 the cathedral of Lhasa. 
 
< 
 
 H 
 
 a 
 
 3i 
 
 OS 
 
 'J 
 < 
 
 -a 
 
 'J 
 
 E =^ 
 
 ::j ^ 
 
 -5; 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 w 
 a: 
 
 en 
 
 a 
 < 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 105 
 
 lamas. After drinking tea with the Abbot under the somewhat 
 oppressive chaperonage of four Sikhs armed to the teeth, we 
 left the monastery with many expressions of good-will. 
 
 This was the first of many excursions to places of interest 
 in the neighborhood. The strangest visit we ever paid was that 
 to the Buried Monks. One day O'Connor and I rode out down 
 the valley about twelve miles to a small village in the cleft of the 
 mountains almost opposite Dongtse; we took with us the Sheb- 
 dung Lama. Nothing could have been more peaceful and rus- 
 tic than the long stretches of the plain dotted here and there 
 . with little figures engaged on their farm work. We stopped 
 once to examine more closely the elaborate head-dress of a 
 couple of plowing yaks, much to the pleasure and pride of the 
 clear-eyed boy who was their driver. Everywhere the villagers 
 were pleased enough to see us; the first prickle of green was 
 rising from the brown squares of irrigated mud, and some of 
 the trees were timidly putting out the purple that precedes the 
 green of spring. The nights were still cold, though the heat 
 in the middle of the day was excessive, and the hot dry wind that 
 scoured the valley every afternoon still burned up the vegetation 
 on the hill-sides and in other places where no artificial moisture 
 could supply sap for the young foliage. We took the road on 
 the right bank, not crossing over the bridge at Tse-chen; this 
 road keeps a constant level following the curves of the mountain- 
 sides ten feet above the valley flats. There was little enough 
 to mark the journey down. Carelessly enough we ambled along 
 with our two Mounted Infantry men, whom we had taken out 
 of deference to Colonel Brander's wishes, rather than from any 
 real belief that then or thenceforward we should be in actual 
 need of them. Nothing could have been more peaceful and 
 promising than the affairs of Gyantse at that moment; we had 
 come through the town and — an unquestioned proof of our popu- 
 larity — the beggars had become both familiar and insolent. It 
 
io6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 was a bright day and we had our luncheon with us. The good 
 people of the valley were always willing enough to give us 
 hospitality to the best of their ability, but after all it was as well 
 to have a couple of sandwiches and a boiled egg. About twelve 
 o'clock we paused opposite Dongtse, lying out sleepily in the sun 
 with the great three-decker palace of the Pala family anchored 
 in the trees below. Very soon after this we rode through a little 
 hamlet with some name like Chi-lang. A sharp turn round a 
 projecting spur brought us face to face with the little valley in 
 which the monastery of Nyen-de-kyi-buk hides itself. The as- 
 cent was easy between bushes of thorn and roses covered with a 
 wealth of traveler's joy; we passed beside the usual chortens 
 and through a gateway over which a peach-tree spangled the blue 
 of the sky with pink and snow. There was another blossoming 
 against the walls of the monastery half-way up the hill. A hun- 
 dred yards further on we found the abbot and the " chanzi " of 
 the community waiting to receive us. 
 
 The Shebdung Lama had lived for many years across the 
 valley and must have seen from his master's windows above 
 the town and gompa the rock-clinging monastery to which we 
 had come was really responsible for our visit. With the usual 
 inability to recognize the things which really interest a traveler 
 in a strange country he had, while insisting upon the interests 
 and the beauty of the Sinchen Lama's home, only incidentally 
 spoken of a small community across the valley where, he said, 
 extreme self-mortification was practised by a small company of 
 the Nying-ma sect. We left our ponies in the monk's care and 
 went inside the temple. We were glad to escape the white 
 and dazzling sunshine. There was instantly visible a curious 
 distinction between the monks of Nyen-de-kyi-buk and those 
 whom we had met elsewhere. With the exception of the officials 
 of the monastery these recluses wear their hair long, not plaited 
 into a pigtail, but allowed to fall almost loose over their shoul- 
 
GAILY BEDECKED YAKS DRAWING A PLOW 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 107 
 
 ders in a matted and filthy tangle. But besides this, there was not 
 very much to distinguish the lamasery from others in the valley. 
 The abbot, a quiet, sad-eyed man of about forty, v^as shaven, 
 as also were a dozen children playing about with wholesome 
 bickerings in the dust of the courtyard opposite the great door- 
 way of the temple. All were dressed in the usual sacred maroon, 
 and they seemed cheerful and contented. Inside the chapel of 
 the monastery, however, there was certainly an austerity which 
 we had not seen elsewhere. This Du-kang had few of the usual 
 silk banners and hangings which contribute so much both to the 
 color and the darkness of an ordinary gompa. There were the 
 usual cushions on the ground, but the rows of images and cere- 
 monial ornaments which generally fill the sanctuary end of 
 these chapels were replaced by precise rows of books, each lodged 
 sedately in its own pigeon-hole. In the center, in place of the 
 usual kyil-kor, with its multifarious confusion of cups and bowls 
 and lamps, there was a narrow shelf in front of a glazed recess. 
 I think that there were on this shelf ten or twelve little brass 
 bowls full of water, but there were no butter lamps. The sight 
 of glass in Tibet always attracted attention : it was rare enough 
 to see a piece a foot square; this glass was five times as large, 
 and one wondered how it had escaped safely across the passes 
 to this sequestered spot. Behind it a hard-featured Buddha 
 scowled, a very different representation of the Master from that 
 placid and kindly countenance which sanctifies him still to many 
 not of his own creed. Under the abbot's guidance we visited 
 the rooms opening out from the temple. There was nothing of 
 great interest, nothing to distinguish it from twenty other 
 gompas. We then had tea with our host, and afterward we asked 
 permission to see one of the immured monks. Without any 
 hesitation the abbot led the way out into the sunshine, which lay 
 sweltering over the spring-teeming spaces of the valley below, 
 and venturesome little green plants were poking up under our 
 
io8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 feet between the crevices in the stone footway. We climbed 
 about forty feet, and the abbot led us into a small courtyard 
 which had blank walls all round it, over which a peach-tree 
 reared its transparent pink and white against the sky. Almost 
 on a level with the ground there was an opening closed with a 
 flat stone from behind. In front of this window was a ledge 
 eighteen inches in width, with two basins beside it, one at each 
 end. The abbot was attended by an acolyte who, by his mas- 
 ter's orders, tapped three times sharply on the stone slab; we 
 stood in the little courtyard in the sun, and watched that wicket 
 with cold apprehension. I think, on the whole, it was the most 
 uncanny thing I saw in all Tibet. What on earth was going 
 to appear when that stone slab, which even then was beginning 
 weakly to quiver, was pushed aside, the wildest conjecture could 
 not suggest. After half a minute's pause the stone moved, or 
 tried to move, but it came to rest again. Then very slowly and 
 uncertainly it was pushed back and a black chasm was revealed. 
 There was again a pause of thirty seconds, during which im- 
 agination ran riot, but I do not think that any other thing could 
 have been as intensely pathetic as that which we actually saw. 
 A hand, muffled in a tightly wound piece of dirty cloth, for all 
 the world like the stump of an arm, was painfully thrust up, 
 and very weakly it felt along the slab. After a fruitless fum- 
 bling the hand slowly quivered back again into the darkness. 
 A few moments later there was again one ineffectual effort, and 
 then the stone slab moved noiselessly again across the opening. 
 Once a day, water and an unleavened cake of flour is placed for 
 the prisoner upon that slab, the signal is given, and he may take 
 it in. His diversion is over for the day, and in the darkness 
 of his cell, where night and day, moon, sunset, and the dawn, 
 are all alike, he— poor soul!— had thought that another day of 
 his long penance was over. 
 
 I do not know what feelings were uppermost at that moment 
 
w 
 
 A LONG-HAIRED MONK AT HIS MONASTERY 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 109 
 
 in the others, but I know that a physical chill struck through me 
 to the marrow. The awful pathos of that painful movement 
 struggled in me with an intense shame that we had intruded our- 
 selves upon a private misery ; and that we should have added one 
 straw to the burden borne in the darkness by that unseen and un- 
 happy man was a curiously poignant regret. We came away, 
 and the abbot told us the story of the sect. " These men," said 
 the abbot, when we questioned him, " live here in this mountain 
 of their own free will; a few of them are allowed a little light 
 whereby reading is possible, but these are the weaker brethren; 
 the others live in darkness in a square cell partly hewn out of the 
 sharp slope of the rock, partly built up, with the window just 
 within reach of their upraised hand. There are three periods of 
 this immurement. The first is endured for six months; the sec- 
 ond, upon which a monk may enter at any time he pleases or not 
 at all, is for three years and ninety-three days ; the third and last 
 period is for life. Only this morning," said the abbot, " a hermit 
 died here after having lived in darkness for twenty-five years." 
 The thing was almost more revolting because the men entered 
 willingly upon it. " What happens when they are ill ? " O'Connor 
 asked the abbot. The answer came concisely enough, " They 
 never are." It is true that when pressed he qualified this state- 
 ment a little, but it seemed still to have considerable truth. He 
 himself was waiting for the moment, now not long to be delayed, 
 when he should bid his final farewell to the world. 
 
 Voluntary this self-immolation is said to be, and perhaps tech- 
 nically speaking it is possible for the pluckier souls to refuse to 
 go on with this hideous and useless form of self-sacrifice, but the 
 grip of the lamas is omnipotent, and practically none refuse. 
 These hermits store up such merit— for themselves— by these 
 means as no other life insures. That may be some consolation for 
 a Tibetan mind ; it would be little enough for any one else. On 
 our return the children in the courtyard were invested with a ter- 
 
no THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 rible pathos. To this Hfe of painfully useless selfishness they are 
 condemned, and the very difference in their coiffure is one more 
 link which ties down their young lives. After their first immure- 
 ment their hair is allowed to grow, and the sanctity which en- 
 haloes a Nyen-de-kyi-buk hermit, whenever recognized by his 
 tresses, effectually prevents his turning back. He is a marked 
 man, and, as in so many other cases in this world, he ends by 
 doing what he is expected to do. Our horses were made ready 
 and we said farewell to our kindly host and rode away into the 
 warmth and life of the valley in silence. 
 
 This memory still makes a deeper impression than one thought 
 possible even in the first shock of the moment. Even now the 
 silver and the flowers and the white linen and the crimson-shaded 
 lights of a dinner table are sometimes dimmed by a picture of the 
 same hand that one shook so warmly as one left the monastery, 
 now weakly fumbling with swathed fingers for food along the 
 slab of the prison in which the abbot now is sealed up for life ; for 
 he was going into the darkness very soon. 
 
 At Little Gobshi (one had to distinguish it from the better 
 known Gobshi, seventeen miles away along the Lhasa road) there 
 was, and now probably is again, the finest rug factory in Tibet. 
 A large two-storied house with a courtyard was filled entirely 
 with the weaving looms of both men and women workers. The 
 patterns used are native Tibetan, and the colors are excellently 
 blended and rich in themselves. It is difficult for them to make a 
 piece of stuff wider than about thirty inches, because their looms 
 are of a primitive description, scarcely more advanced than those 
 of the Chumbi Valley, nor do they attempt to make a pattern 
 larger than can be contained upon a single width. The plain 
 orange and maroon rugs are made in narrow strips and sewn to- 
 gether to any desired width, but this is not done with the figured 
 cloths. The difference in quality between one rug and another is 
 often a matter of expert knowledge only. At first one is surprised 
 
THE WINDOW OF A HERMIT CELL AT NYEN-DE-KYI-BUK 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN in 
 
 and inclined to resent the great differences in the price of these 
 rugs ; two will be shown you, one slightly softer in the pile, per- 
 haps also slightly looser in design. You will get that for three 
 rupees. The other one, crisper to the touch and, if you will look 
 closely, far richer in color, they will not sell you for less than 
 twenty-five. But when the eye is once taught to recognize the 
 difference, the cheaper rugs are easily seen to be inferior from 
 every point of view. They are, however, more than good 
 enough for the London market, and this is one of the indus- 
 tries at Gyantse which might most profitably be developed. 
 Even now if a big London firm were willing to place an order for 
 five hundred rugs in Grobshi, that is to say, if it were to buy up 
 practically the entire annual output of this first factory in Tibet, 
 it could, while it held the monopoly, charge almost any price it 
 liked to London buyers and obtain it. It is an experiment which 
 is, perhaps, worth the attention of Farringdon Street Without. In 
 those halcyon days at Gyantse I wrote to Lord Curzon in London 
 and offered to act as commercial traveler for any firm which cared 
 to make a trial of these really beautiful things, but long before an 
 answer could be sent, times had changed and we were prisoners 
 in Chang-lo. 
 
 The village of Gobshi, which, like so many other villages in 
 Tibet, is divided into two entirely distinct parts, separated by a 
 waste of common-like land dotted with willow thorn, is not un- 
 interesting. It lies comfortably among its trees, with a truant 
 channel of the main river plashing lazily over hard pebbles 
 within a few hundred yards. Overhanging it to the north is a 
 very sharp conical rock, surmounted by an orange-colored build- 
 ing, which attracts the eye from afar. This is the residence of the 
 local magician. He only resides there during such part of the 
 year as the young crops are in danger from damage by the wea- 
 ther. He then takes up his residence, and is ready at any moment 
 with due incantations to deliver a charm against lightning or hail 
 
112 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 to a timid countryman. The charms against hail are large cir- 
 cular sheets, adorned, not in the most delicate way, with figures 
 of the four Winds. These figures are represented bound and 
 shackled, to signify the supernatural power exerted by the magi- 
 cian ; pointing at them from the inscribed center are the eight in- 
 struments of power: the Dorje, the bow and arrow, the sword, 
 the double purbu, the flame-like knife, the scepter, and one other 
 thing that might be anything. 
 
 These magicians occupy a very curious position. They are all 
 now sanctioned by the Gelukpa hierarchy, but this does not mean 
 that they have always been obedient and loyal members of the 
 orthodox church. As a matter of fact, many of them remain dis- 
 ciples of the Beun-pa, or aboriginal devil worshipers of the coun- 
 try. This sect is bitterly opposed in every way to the tenets of 
 Buddhism, and it is only on this point that a truce has been pro- 
 claimed. The reason of this is clear enough. Successful in all 
 other ways, the Yellow lamas have never been able wholly to 
 transfer to themselves by the exercise of wizardry the deepest awe 
 of the plain village peasants of Tibet. These men continued to 
 pay their tribute of terror to the old autochthonous sorcerer, 
 whose tradition and succession were undoubted. The authorities 
 of Lhasa were shrewd enough to recognize the one case in which 
 the invincible ignorance, which they deliberately foster in their 
 flock, has turned to their own harm. They accepted and indorsed 
 the magicians of the countryside en bloc, making no distinction 
 of creed. By these means the sorcerer works hand in hand with 
 the lamas of the district, and thereout, we may be sure, they both 
 suck no small advantage. There is in Lhasa the head of all these 
 magicians, but it is necessary at this moment to draw a sharp line 
 of distinction between him, a responsible and revered reincarna- 
 tion—whose authority is hardly less than that of the Dalai Lama, 
 and whose position, though different, is scarcely less venerated — 
 and these local magicians, whose scope is very different from his. 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 113 
 
 To a small degree every great gompa in Tibet trades upon the 
 influence of occultism upon the Tibetan peasants. Charms and 
 written mantras are by no means issued by the magicians alone. 
 The katags, which lie sometimes in heaped-up confusion over the 
 shoulders of the chief Buddha of a monastery, can afterward be 
 sold in fragments, and few relics are more potent. These little 
 charms, to which reference has already been made, are worn 
 round the neck, in what the Tibetans call a gau-o. These are little 
 boxes, of silver as a rule, thickly set with turquoise, and suspended 
 round the neck by necklaces of beads ; in the case of the rich, they 
 may be fronted with gold, but this metal is but rarely used for the 
 rest of these trinkets. It is used in Tibet in a singularly pure state, 
 and in the economical amounts with which the Tibetans are 
 obliged to be satisfied would not be strong enough. Men, espe- 
 cially when going on some dangerous expedition, carry much 
 larger gau-os of copper, upon which the monogrammatic symbol 
 of the great mantra is embossed by repousse work. These also are 
 always stuffed with relics and charms of different kinds; every- 
 thing, it might almost be said, in Tibet that is capable of being 
 stuffed is full of these little luck-bringing spells or charms. The 
 biggest idols are packed with paper and silk charms, interspersed 
 here and there with small brass images and occasionally silver 
 ones. To this fact unfortunately the destruction of several of the 
 larger idols — which were afterward " taboo " to the troops — was 
 due at Gyantse. Lieutenant-Colonel Waddell gives, in his learned 
 and careful work upon Lamaism, a large number of instances of 
 the cases in which these charms are used, and the ritual employed. 
 
 One odd fact came under our notice. The charms issued from 
 Lhasa to the Tibetan soldiers opposing our advance included pro- 
 tection against almost every known material used in war. After 
 Guru, some of the wounded who were being tended by us were 
 asked whether their faith were shaken or not ; they, in some sur- 
 prise, entirely repudiated the idea. " We did not know in Lhasa 
 
114 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 what metals we should guard ourselves against : lead and iron, and 
 steel and copper, and silver, none of these could have hurt us ; but 
 we did not even know that there was a metal called nickel ; there- 
 fore no charm was given us to protect us against your bullets." 
 The unwinding of a grimy little silk-covered packet from the in- 
 side of a gau-o is rather an interesting occupation; the contents 
 are cleaner than might be thought. One of the oddest things I 
 found in any was a little pebble with the thumb imprint of the 
 Dalai Lama upon it in vermilion. Unfortunately damp had 
 blurred the lines. 
 
 The prayers printed on the prayer-flags of Tibet are generally 
 identical in arrangement and, perhaps, also in the words of the 
 prayer. In Gyantse I bought one of the wood-blocks, from which 
 these flags are printed; it is a curious piece of careful and not 
 ineffective wood engraving. It is about sixteen inches in length 
 and twelve inches in width. This is about the largest size that 
 is used ; the flag, being attached to the mast perpendicularly, only 
 allows a thin upright fringe to be printed, and you will find fifteen 
 or twenty repetitions of the same prayer, reaching one above an- 
 other all the way up the mast. These " flying horses " (lung-ta) 
 were probably mistaken by the traveler who originated the idea 
 that the Tibetans sent horses to belated wayfarers by throwing to 
 the winds pieces of paper with the figure of a horse printed upon 
 it. It is quite possible that this may actually have been done, but 
 continued inquiry on my part elicited no corroboration whatever. 
 
 To return to the country surrounding Gyantse. The monas- 
 tery at Dongtse, twelve miles away toward Shigatse, the sacred 
 residence of the Sinchen Lama, was visited by O'Connor, Wilton, 
 and myself very soon after our arrival at Chang-lo. 
 
 The road to Dongtse serpentines across the wide level plain of 
 the Nyang chu, idly acquiescing in the obstacles which villages, 
 water-courses, field boundaries, chortens, houses, or irrigation 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 115 
 
 ditches throw in its way. The patchwork of cultivated fields, 
 some no larger than allotments, none more than an acre in area, 
 reminds one of high farming in Berkshire, so jealously is every 
 square foot made to serve the owners and grow its patch of 
 barley. There are no trees, no hedges, not even a weed. The 
 very dikes which restrain the irrigation channels are grudged 
 from the rich, dry, gray loam, as fertile as the Darling Downs. 
 
 Agriculture is a serious business with the Tibetans. Here and 
 there, but very rarely, the darkened garnet or dirty amber of a 
 lama's dress adds a note of color to the thirsty stretch of alluvial 
 soil, fenceless and flat. But generally the work is done by quiet 
 little figures, whose patched gray dresses are blotted out among 
 their own furrows and whose very existence is often betrayed 
 only by the slow plod and turn of the scarlet and white head- 
 dressed yaks in the plow-yoke. Among these people there is no 
 shyness, scarcely even curiosity. The spring work has to be done, 
 and there is no one but themselves to do it — perhaps the yaks can 
 only be borrowed from friend Tsering up at the hamlet for this 
 day; perhaps, too, the lamas will exact their corvee to-morrow. 
 And there is much to do. Meanwhile these strange foreigners 
 can wait to be inspected. 
 
 Always, of course, there was civility as we rode by. The Tib- 
 etan peasant's 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, exhibits two inches 
 of tongue, and gives a Napoleonic salute as we pass by, pulling 
 his cap down over his face to his chest. Rosy-backed and 
 breasted sparrows fly in a twittering company before us through 
 the gray-white sallowthorn brake, and a vivid golden wagtail 
 flirts his tail beside a puddle. Redstarts sit on the top of prayer 
 poles, and hoopoes flash black and white wings by the stream. 
 Ruddy sheldrake and bar-headed geese barely move aside from a 
 
,ii6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 wet patch of recent plow-land as we approach, and iridescent 
 black-green magpies, half as large again as our English luck- 
 bringers, keep pace beside us with their dipping flight. The sun 
 is hard and vivid, and the flat plain shivers a little in the heat, 
 confusing the lines of leafless willows beside a whitewashed mill. 
 There is promise of foliage, but no more. The houses are streaked 
 perpendicularly with wide welts of Indian red and ash-gray, and 
 long strings of many-colored little flags droop between their 
 housetops and the nearest tree. Tibetan " mastiffs " bark from 
 every roof until the housewife quiets them with a stone. She 
 throws better than her European sister, in spite of a grimy coral 
 and turquoise halo round her head and a baby on her left arm. 
 
 The story of the last Sinchen Lama is one which it is worth 
 while to tell. He was the seventh in succiession of one of the 
 most important secondary reincarnations of Lamaism. His abode 
 has always been at Dongtse, but his predecessors were buried 
 with great ceremony each under a gilded chorten at Tashi-lhunpo, 
 the metropolis of the province of Tsang. The last Sinchen Lama 
 was the man who in 1882 received Sarat Chandra Das, and ex- 
 tended to him continual patronage and hospitality. In the narra- 
 tive of his journey the famous spy refers to him repeatedly as 
 " the minister." He was, as a matter of fact, minister of tem- 
 poral affairs of the province of Tsang at this time, and a most 
 important man. On his way to his first interview with his patron 
 Chandra Das passed in the market place of Tashi-lhunpo a party 
 of prisoners loaded with chains, pinioned by wooden clogs, and in 
 some cases blinded. It was an ugly omen of the end. To the 
 Sinchen Lama's influence Chandra Das owed the facilities which 
 enabled him eventually to make his way to Lhasa, and that he 
 was not ungrateful is clear in every line in which he refers to his 
 patron. The minister seems to have been in his way strangely 
 like that enlightened Grand Lama of Tashi-lhunpo who received 
 Bogle in 1774; he was anxious to improve his knowledge of the 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 117 
 
 world, and especially of English affairs; he even attempted to 
 learn our language, and he seems throughout to have been a 
 broad-minded, intelligent, and sympathetic man, Chandra Das 
 stayed with him for some time at Dongtse, on his way to Lhasa. 
 A year or two after Chandra Das had returned to India the truth 
 leaked out about his individuality. The Lhasan Government 
 threw the entire blame upon the carelessness of the authorities in 
 the province of Tsang. Upon the Sinchen Lama they visited 
 their anger in a fearful manner. His servants were taken— all 
 except one — they were beaten, their hands and feet were cut off, 
 their eyes were gouged out, and they were left to die in the streets 
 of Tashi-lhunpo. The Sinchen Lama was reserved for another 
 fate. He was taken to Gong-kar, a fort on the right bank of the 
 Tsahg-po, a few miles below the confluence of the Kyi-chu. 
 
 The rest of the story must be told as it is believed by the com- 
 mon people, who had known and loved the Lama in his life. A 
 message was received from Lhasa to the effect that the Sinchen 
 Lama must commit suicide. This he quietly refused to do. He 
 said, " I am indeed in your hands; you will do with me what 
 seems good to you. But I will not kill myself, and if you kill me, 
 you will incur for yourselves a terrible reincarnation." This an- 
 swer produced another peremptory demand that the Lama should 
 lay violent hands upon himself. To this the Lama made no re- 
 ply at all. The days went on, and at last the authorities in Lhasa 
 determined to take his life, though they still hoped that they 
 might avoid the awful consequences to themselves of blood- 
 guiltiness. A boat was taken, and innumerable holes of different 
 sizes were bored in her. In this the Lama was placed, and he was 
 sent spinning down the current of the great river. Thus he would 
 be drowned, but to the ingenious minds of the hierarchy it seemed 
 that the responsibility lay perhaps with their victim, whose weight 
 would have sunk the unseaworthy craft. Blood, at any rate,* 
 would not have been spilled. But the Lama was in no way dis- 
 
ii8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 mayed ; he raised a prayer, and fishes innumerable came ; they in- 
 truded their blunt noses into the holes in the boat, and slowly pro- 
 pelled it safely to the shore. The Lama disembarked and walked 
 quietly back to his prison. The news of this miracle produced 
 but momentary consternation in Lhasa ; the brute creation might 
 indeed be at the orders of this holy man, but die he must; they 
 must try another way. Therefore, almost immediately, another 
 attempt was made; large rocks of granite were bound upon his 
 back, and he was once more thrown into the river. But again 
 they had reckoned unwisely. If the Sinchen Lama's life were to 
 be taken, the sin of murder must accompany it. This was the 
 eternal law, and as the sainted Lama's body touched the water, the 
 rocks were turned into pumice stone, and his friendly fishes soon 
 nuzzled him again to shore. Thereafter Lhasa grew desperate. 
 They sent a wicked man, a Kashmiri Mohammedan, for whom 
 the prospect of reincarnation as a louse had no terrors, and the 
 Sinchen Lama's head was hacked from his body.^ 
 
 Nor was this all. Having destroyed the body, the hierarchy 
 at Lhasa proceeded to annihilate the soul. No further reincar- 
 nation of the Sinchen Lama has been recognized from that day. 
 In the long gallery of reincarnated Bodisats who occupy the chief 
 place of Lamaism there is one frame, as there is in the Venetian 
 ducal palace, blank and empty. This has been a very serious 
 trouble to the good people of Dongtse, and they are apparently 
 not without sympathizers at Lhasa. A few years after the mur- 
 der of their loved Lama a child was admitted into the Ga-den 
 monastery. He had been born immediately after the crime, and 
 to the awe-struck amazement of the ruling lamas he exhibited the 
 one final proof of Sinchen Lamaship. His left kneecap was ab- 
 sent. That child lives still, and in sullen determination the peo- 
 
 ^ This is the native tale, and it is almost a pity to correct it in any particu- 
 lar. Another story is that the Sinchen Lama with his hands tied behind him 
 was thrown into the river and never seen again.. 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 119 
 
 pie of Dongtse are but waiting till their Lama shall be restored 
 to them. Meanwhile Dongtse is in a parlous state. Its religious 
 life has been broken into and a stranger imported from another 
 province to rule over them. Down in the town below affairs are 
 no better. The Pala family which reigned in the great palace un- 
 derneath the hill is exiled and expropriated. A government 
 chanzi, or bailiff, collects the rents and pays them over to the 
 man who by auction obtained the beneficiary rights of the de- 
 posed family. At Dongtse it is said that those rents are paid over 
 to a member of the family, and certainly the local bailiff seems to 
 be in a difficult position, for the offense for which the Pala family 
 was banished was merely that of having abetted the late Regent in 
 retaining temporal power in his hands after the coming of age 
 of the Dalai Lama. At any moment, therefore, the Pala family 
 may be reinstated in their property with unpleasant powers of 
 retaliation. 
 
 Our small party — one of us the only servant of the Sinchen 
 Lama who had escaped death — reached Dongtse about noon, and 
 immediately climbed the hill on which the monastery stands ; we 
 were received with the greatest friendliness by the abbot, and one 
 or two of the senior monks. The great temple was hardly as 
 richly endowed with silver and jeweled ornaments as we had been 
 told. It was curious to watch the Shebdung Lama as he wandered 
 round the old familiar halls. For many years he had been an ex- 
 ile, and he had never believed that he would see the home of his 
 loved master again, and as he put his forehead on the lip of the 
 lotus throne, upon which the great Buddha of the place was 
 seated, and so remained motionless for ten seconds, there must 
 have passed through his mind something strangely like Nunc 
 dimittis Domine. For this man's love for his murdered master 
 after eighteen years is still as fresh to-day as when they lived at 
 peace on this hillside of the Nyang chu Valley, and in all the 
 time since, the Shebdung Lama's only happiness has been bound 
 
I20 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 up with the memories of his life here. He could hardly speak as 
 we entered the shrine, and was again visibly affected when we 
 ascended to the actual rooms occupied by the Sinchen Lama. 
 
 • These consist of a set of well-painted chambers, opening out 
 one from another. In the main room, still empty and forlorn, 
 save for a table containing a hundred little brass bowls filled with 
 water, there is one of the strangest things in Tibet. The Sinchen 
 Lama, continuing the series of his ancestors painted round the 
 wall, had also a record of his own life and ministry painted in a 
 series of scenes by an artist. His own portraiture is encircled by 
 these little pictures ; the figure of the Lama is purely conventional, 
 a mild-eyed, celestial face with a pursed up rosebud mouth. 
 Round him there is a series of stiff little drawings not without 
 some strength, recording from his birth, passage by passage, the 
 events of his momentous life. Now these were painted in the 
 happy days before Chandra Das came. 
 
 At the end of this record there is the strange thing. There is 
 in a corner the picture of a fortified house, and, above it, the pic- 
 ture of a man who has been thrown into a stream of water. But 
 there is no such appended written description as may be seen be- 
 neath other scenes depicted on the wall. The artist requested him 
 to dictate the legend for these two pictures. The Lama refused ; 
 he said, " These two incidents shall remain undescribed ; one day 
 you will understand." We were assured there that the house 
 painted on the wall bears a strong resemblance to Gong-kar jong ; 
 the meaning of the last scene is obvious enough. There the two 
 pictures are, and in its main lines the story must be a true one, but 
 it is difficult to explain. 
 
 Immediately beyond this series of pictures is the most touching 
 thing I have seen in the country. In sheer gratitude to the only 
 companion of his lonely exaltation, far removed from the com- 
 mon friendship of men, the Sinchen Lama had painted upon the 
 wall his little shaggy-haired dog, feeding out of a blue and white 
 
LIFE IN A TIBETAN TOWN 121 
 
 china bowl. I do not know that anything in the record of this 
 man could tell the story of his kindly sympathy and humanity so 
 well as this ill-drawn little figure. 
 
 We spent an hour or two there, and had tea, both with the 
 abbot of the monastery and with the occupants of the Pala palace 
 in the town below ; then we set off for home in the middle of the 
 afternoon, facing south-east to where the high fort-crowned peak 
 of Gyantse rose indistinctly, amid the daily driving dust-storm 
 which wrapped its base and indeed all the valley in a tawny fog. 
 
 Ne-nyeng — or, as it was invariably known, Nai-ni — was an- 
 other place which was afterward to become of great interest and 
 importance to us. Seven miles away to the south, just before 
 the valley opened out from the gorges of the Nyang chu, it 
 commanded our road to India, and was the scene three or four 
 times of fighting between the Tibetans and ourselves. Ne- 
 nyeng lies in an amphitheater of steep hills; looking at it from 
 across the river the sight was typically Eastern, and might have 
 been a theater " back-cloth," painted with the deliberate intention 
 of including every suggestion of the Orient; but he would have 
 been a clever man who limned such a scene as this. All round 
 this half-circle of converging spurs the plain hot rock glared at 
 one. The line cut by its upper cornices against the sky was 
 harsh and exact. The blue that descended into the ravines and 
 arched the peaks was cloudless and whitened; on one conical 
 hill, almost inaccessible, sat a square yellow block-house com- 
 manding the town from a height of a thousand feet. A little 
 lower down, when the eye got used to the glare, another and 
 stronger fort, built of the very rock on which it rested, could 
 just be made out by the straightness of its lines. In the middle 
 of this great recess the river flats stretched white and dusty, 
 draining down by a slackening gradient from the clefts of the 
 amphitheater. Just where it gained its equilibrium, Ne-nyeng 
 
122 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 rose in a garden of greenery. The square white houses bhnked 
 in the sun, the high unchecked line of the square building in 
 the center of the town, half monastery, half keep, showed up 
 dustily above the flat roofs of the houses, which cling to it for 
 protection. 
 
 Between us and the town the sweeping river cuts its way, 
 leaving perpendicular banks of pebbled banquette purple in the 
 shades and amber in the sun, for all the world like the moldings 
 of a clustered Gothic pillar. We had little to do with the in- 
 habitants, except in an unpleasant manner. Now and again 
 they fired upon our mail runners, and eventually the place had 
 to be cleared when the relieving force was nearing Gyantse. 
 There was in this monastery, if some of the reports are to be 
 believed, a reincarnation in the form of a little girl, of about 
 six years old. We never heard anything more about her; the 
 story seems unlikely, because there was no nunnery in the place. 
 The only monastery over which a woman presides in Tibet is 
 that of Sam-ding, where the Phag-mo Dorje was reigning many 
 centuries before the coming of the " new woman " in the West. 
 
 In this connection one thing was frankly admitted by the Tib- 
 etans. We were often surprised to find the monasteries stripped 
 of their valuable and most precious ornaments upon our arrival. 
 Without any hesitation the monks would admit that they had 
 all been taken away, and put in the nearest nunnery, because, 
 they said, the English people do not attack women, and do not 
 enter nunneries. It was a simple device and one that implied 
 no small compliment. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 
 
 COLONEL YOUNGHUSBAND occupied Chang-lo on the 
 19th of April with a force of about four hundred and 
 fifty men. He had also about fifty mounted infantry, two Max- 
 ims, and two ancient seven-pounder field-pieces, now officially 
 discarded, which, in their popular nicknames " Bubble and 
 Squeak," were at once described and appraised. This force was 
 amply sufficient to defend the place against any attack that the 
 Tibetans could deliver. They, however, seemed in no way will- 
 ing to test the defensibility of Chang-lo; and nothing could 
 have been more peaceful than the reception of the British force, 
 not at Gyantse only, but for a score of miles up and down the 
 valley. It is true, that for our expeditions beyond the imme- 
 diate neighborhood of the post, two or three mounted infantry 
 were always taken as an escort, but we imagined no danger, and 
 nothing seemed less probable than that which actually occurred. 
 I am quite certain that the events of the 5th of May were not 
 less surprising — and a great deal more dismaying — to the good 
 people of Gyantse than they were to ourselves. In the last chap- 
 ter I have described one or two visits paid somewhat far afield 
 in the Nyang chu Valley, and it will be clear that nothing could 
 have exceeded the hospitality and, in most cases, the welcome 
 which we received. At Gyantse itself, the friendliness of the in- 
 habitants was almost excessive. We afterward found that from 
 the date of our expedition till the 4th of May, the servants 
 of the Mission (who were unavoidably under less strict mili- 
 
 123 
 
124 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 tary surveillance than other followers) not infrequently spent 
 the entire night within the town enjoying themselves among 
 their Tibetan kin, with results on the following morning 
 which were more natural than edifying. It need not be said 
 that as soon as this was discovered the military authorities made 
 a severe example of the chief offenders. Shopping in Gyantse 
 was an almost daily amusement. The great Palkhor-choide 
 monastery was willingly opened to us by the abbot, and the mem- 
 bers of the Mission looked forward to a pleasant two months' 
 stay in one of the most interesting cities of Tibet, and a full 
 enjoyment of the extraordinary opportunities which the undis- 
 guised friendliness of our neighbors promised. 
 
 More than this. Captain Walton, the surgeon and natural 
 history expert attached to the Mission, had invited the Tibetans 
 to make the fullest use of his own skill and the medical equip- 
 ment of the Mission; and, as a result, he soon had as many 
 cases as he could deal with. By preference he selected cases 
 requiring surgical treatment, and many unfortunate wretches 
 disabled by cataract or disfigured by a particularly hideous form 
 I of hare-lip, which is common in Tibet, were relieved by him. 
 
 Everything was peaceful. There was not a cloud on the ho- 
 rizon. The dak ran through from the Chumbi Valley without 
 interruption, day after day. The British intruders had given 
 commissions freely in the town, and the local artists were work- 
 ing overtime to execute orders for " tang-kas." Carpenters from 
 Pala attended daily in the compound and worked from morn to 
 night upon the furniture needed for the post. Their use of tools, 
 by the way, which seemed in most cases to be of European origin, 
 was extremely quick and certain, and the work which the adze 
 was made to do would have surprised the British carpenter. 
 Planes, saws, bradawls, and, in rare cases, chisels, were also 
 used; but nothing showed originality or suggested any device 
 that might possibly be used to advantage at home except a little 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 125 
 
 machine, simple, ingenious, and compact, for marking a straight 
 line upon wood by means of a thread loaded with black pigment. 
 Gardeners also were called in, and the courtyard in front of 
 the Commissioner's tent was carefully dug up, divided into 
 beds, and manured. There the seeds which the Mission had 
 brought from home were hopefully planted, and beans, peas, 
 cabbages, scarlet-runners, onions, and mustard-and-cress were 
 sown with an almost religious care — in return for which, it 
 must be confessed that only the last-mentioned vegetables pro- 
 duced any return. Still, the experiment was well worth making, 
 and, incidentally, it had the effect of laying the dust in the com- 
 pound—by no means a slight blessing. To tend this garden a 
 worthy Tibetan lady, with her two husbands, was hired; and 
 if her treatment of her brother-spouses was characteristic of 
 Tibetan domesticity as a whole there is perhaps more to be said 
 
 • 
 
 for this strange custom than a somewhat bigotedly monogamous 
 nation like England could be expected at first sight to admit. 
 " Mrs. Wiggs," as she at once came to be known, was certainly 
 the moving spirit in her own domestic circle, and the work that 
 she got out of her pair of semi-imbecile husbands was quite ex- 
 traordinary. 
 
 Outside the compound a bazaar was dail^ held, and over one 
 hundred Tibetan men and women made it a daily practice to 
 come with the small commodities of the place and spend a cheer- 
 ful and, probably, not unlucrative morning in chaffering with 
 the Sikhs and Gurkhas of the garrison. The afternoon weather, 
 but for clouds of dust that blew eastward from Dongtse, was 
 perfect; and though the trees were long in showing the first 
 sign of spring, the lot of the Mission seemed cast in a fair 
 ground indeed. 
 
 While everything round us was pointing toward peace and 
 good-will, the action of Colonel Brander in clearing the Karo la 
 Pass needs some explanation. A week after our arrival the 
 
126 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 rumor came from a trustworthy source that the Tibetans were 
 fortifying this pass ; but as we had never deceived ourselves into 
 believing that our presence in the country was even acqui- 
 esced in at Lhasa, the news was neither surprising nor dis- 
 quieting. The pass, or rather the actual position across which 
 the wall was being built, was over forty-five miles from Gyantse, 
 and at the moment it lay somewhat outside the sphere of bur 
 immediate interest. Round us at Gyantse, there was, as I have 
 said, every indication of perfect tranquillity, and even welcome. 
 All up and down the valley agricultural work had been resumed, 
 and there is no doubt that somewhere about this time the men 
 of Shigatse definitely refused to obey the orders of the Dalai 
 Lama to take the field again against us. Another matter which 
 made it even almost impossible that there should be any immedi- 
 ate friction was the fact that the Amban himself had received, 
 and was still considering, an invitation to negotiate at Gyantse. 
 Matters, however, seemed somewhat affected by news which 
 came in by a special despatch rider on May ist — that a reconnoi- 
 tering party of ours, with a mounted escort of fifty men, had 
 been fired upon two days previously from the Tibetan fortifica- 
 tion. The affair in itself was not perhaps of the highest impor- 
 tance. Our own intentions were entirely peaceful, and we had 
 found no unfriendliness at any point on the journey to the Karo 
 la. We sustained no casualties, though the sudden heart failure 
 of one of the Sikhs at the unaccustomed altitude was naturally 
 hailed by the jeering Tibetans as proof of the skill of their 
 marksmen. We made no reply except two or three shots to keep 
 down the enemy's fire while we retired; we inflicted no casual- 
 ties.^ But, though unimportant in itself, this encounter was not 
 without its significance. In the first place, it put an end finally 
 to any hope of the Amban coming to negotiate at Gyantse, and, 
 
 Of this, however, I am uncertain. It was afterward said 
 in Lhasa that two were killed. 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 127 
 
 though this refusal was not unexpected, the disinclination of 
 Lhasa to take any steps whatever to open up amicable relations 
 with us was hereby exhibited in a somewhat unmistakable man- 
 ner. Nor was this all. From the Karo la toward Gyantse, ten or 
 twelve miles of an easy route brings one to Ra-lung. At Ra- 
 lung there is a division of the way, the main road running thence 
 westerly to Gyantse and ultimately to Shigatse. It is, in fact, 
 part of the main thoroughfare between the two capitals of Tibet. 
 From Ra-lung another road runs due south-west through Nyero 
 to Kang-ma, and upon this road we had no post. It was at 
 once obvious that the defenders of the wall on the Karo la 
 might, entirely unknown to us, move in two days upon our 
 line of communication to the south and cause us serious in- 
 convenience by the re-occupation of Kang-ma. The position, 
 therefore, was, that while we had no fear of the least unfriendli- 
 ness in the Nyang chu Valley, Lhasa was obviously prepared 
 to withstand us by force of arms, and might at any time compel 
 us seriously to weaken the little garrison at Gyantse in order ' 
 to relieve the post at Kang-ma, and re-obtain control of our com- 
 munications. 
 
 There was, however, an understanding with Lhasa that, until 
 negotiations at Gyantse were shown to be impossible, we should 
 not move further along the route to the capital. The detach- 
 ment of a force sufficient to clear the Karo la would, moreover, 
 cripple the garrison at Chang-lo; nor could we possibly hold 
 the pass, although we might without great loss secure it for the 
 moment. On the one hand it might be argued that our prestige, 
 as well as our line of communications, was in danger, and that 
 the presence of a large and well-armed body of Tibetans hold- 
 ing the best strategical position between Gyantse and Lhasa might 
 speedily undermine the existing friendliness of our neighbors. 
 On the other hand there is no doubt that popular opinion in 
 England would have been seriously affected by the news that we 
 
128 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 had again assumed the offensive unless, of course, the necessity 
 were overwhelming. 
 
 Such was the situation with which Colonel Younghusband 
 had to deal when Colonel Brander, commanding the post, laid 
 before him an urgent request that he would sanction the imme- 
 diate dispersal of the fifteen hundred Tibetans who had been 
 located at the Karo la. One of the difficulties which every ex- 
 pedition subject to a twin control must experience is the ex- 
 treme reluctance of the political authorities to interfere in the 
 slightest degree with the operations of their responsible mili- 
 tary escort. Colonel Younghusband appreciated to the full the 
 pros and cons of this proposal, and, in giving his unreserved 
 assent to Colonel Brander's suggestion, he was no doubt in- 
 fluenced by the conviction that all chance of negotiation at Gy- 
 antse was not only at an end, but had never really existed. At 
 all costs the Tibetans must be made to respect our strength, 
 and against such an enemy as we had before us, the effect of 
 a successful blow might at any time turn the scales and convince 
 them that further active opposition to our advance was a mere 
 act of folly. Colonel Younghusband therefore consented, and 
 accordingly, on the 3d of May, Colonel Brander, with two com- 
 panies of the 32d Pioneers, one company of Gurkhas, two Max- 
 ims, and almost the entire force of mounted infantry, moved 
 out to Gobshi, seventeen miles on the road to the Karo la. As 
 they set forth news arrived that Tibetan troops were moving up 
 the Nyang chu Valley to occupy Dongtse, a post which, it will 
 be remembered, lies twelve miles west of Gyantse. Almost at 
 the same moment a despatch was received from the Amban, say- 
 ing that the Dalai Lama had definitely refused either to satisfy 
 his demand for transport, or to answer his request that a properly 
 qualified Tibetan should be empowered to deal with the ques- 
 tions in dispute between the British and himself. 
 
 Colonel Brander moved rapidly on. At Gobshi he found the 
 headman of the village seriously disquieted, and, though he had 
 
ATTACKED BY THE. TIBETANS 129 
 
 no difficulty in obtaining what he wanted, the wretched villagers 
 clearly realized their position between the devil and the deep 
 sea. Gobshi itself is a picturesque village with an untenable 
 jong, perched upon a tooth of rock half a mile from the Chinese 
 post-house, which had attracted to it the little community of the 
 " Four Gates." As a matter of fact, if ever a village deserved 
 the name of " Three Gates " it is Gobshi, for there, hopelessly 
 shut in by mountain spurs and heights almost precipitous, three 
 roads, from Gyantse, Nyero, and Ra-lung respectively, meet 
 abruptly. Here the Ra-lung chu joins the Nyero chu, and 
 shortly below " waters meet " the little town sits precariously 
 on the edge of the river cliff, at the end of a wide alluvial terrace, 
 a mile in length, which presents, perhaps, the best instance of 
 successful cultivation that one can see from the road for eighteen 
 miles. From this place until it descends steeply into the valley 
 of the Tsang-po, cereal crops will not ripen, though here and 
 there they can be used for fodder. After a hasty inspection of 
 the Chinese rest-house it was unanimously decided to make no 
 use of its grimy and obviously populous accommodation. 
 
 On the next day Colonel Brander moved on up the right bank 
 of the Ra-lung-po. Threading his way over the two bridges just 
 above the confluence of the rivers, he came in two miles through 
 the gorge and out into the easier road which makes its way 
 through the poor fields of the Ra-lung Valley. The first place 
 one passes is the Kamo monastery, a strange community, in 
 which the monks and nuns live a common life together — a thing 
 permitted by the Dalai Lama and one that causes no great scan- 
 dal even among the strictest disciples of Lamaism, though it 
 is regarded as a concession to the weaker brethren. This part 
 of Tibet has a Red Cap colony, and the ash-gray, white, and 
 Indian-red perpendicular stripes that characterize the buildings 
 of this community form for miles a peculiarity in the landscape 
 and strikingly relieve its monotony. 
 
 Of that monotony, the dead sameness of mountain tracks 
 
I30 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 across the top of the world, it is hard to give any idea. The 
 blue sky, of a clearness and depth of color that no less altitude 
 can give, vaults over the slippery hill-sides between which the 
 thin stream cataracts or spreads itself in runlets across a waste 
 of sand. There is no verdure at that time of the year except 
 that which is artificially grown on the river-flats where the 
 valley is wide enough. Rich umber and light red, seamed and 
 filmed with gray purples of the clefts; bald ocher of spurs that 
 thrust the water from their feet; bare red of whip-like willows 
 growing over a mud wall; coarse grit-colored road, here gray- 
 ish with slate, here dun with granite, there again rufous with 
 a floor of limestone — these are all the colors except here and 
 there, when one meets a hurrying lama, wrapped in his habit of 
 dull maroon. As the sun sets the richer pigments, beaten all 
 day by his rays into the hot hill-sides, are cooled out of the 
 rocks; and as the sunlight is slowly lost in the valleys below 
 a faint orange gauze spreads and reddens into carmine on the far 
 snowy peaks to- the northeast. 
 
 One side of the river is like the other; you may cross it any- 
 where and find the same view, the same road. Perhaps Long-ma, 
 well placed upon a bluff overlooking an alluvial flat where 
 stunted barley grows, is the most interesting town on the route; 
 and the village itself, though quite as dirty as every other in 
 Tibet, has, at any rate in the distance, a certain dignity of its 
 own, to which, in a rather specious way, the buildings set up 
 on the rapidly ascending slope behind the main path of the town 
 contribute. There is a large house here which was unoccupied 
 and shut up on our arrival, and interested us chiefly because it 
 was said to have recently contained a community of Lamaic 
 acolytes. From Long-ma to Ra-lung the road is comparatively 
 uninteresting. Here and there, in the distance, filling the end 
 of the valley, one saw the great white mass of Nichi-kang-sang ; 
 here and there steep jutting pinnacles of red rock; here and there 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 131 
 
 across the river the remains of a house crumbling on the alhi- 
 vial ledge. The river itself runs entirely round the stone but- 
 tresses of the fields, and over the waste of uncultivated ground 
 a few patches of vetch — at that time without even a promise of 
 flower— a few stunted thistles, and the inevitable gray brushes 
 of wormwood star the dun naked slopes. Nothing is more strik- 
 ing up here than the way in which the dark blue of the sky over- 
 head shades quickly down toward the horizon on every side into 
 the palest shade of turquoise. The clearness of the air is such 
 that not the faintest screen of blue is interposed between oneself 
 and the hills four miles away; while the clefts in the glaciers 
 of Nichi-kang-sang himself seem as clearly defined at a range 
 of fifteen miles as those which criss-cross upon the gravel of the 
 further bank. 
 
 Ra-lung was reached on the afternoon of the second day. 
 This march of thirty-three miles in forty-eight hours at this al- 
 titude was, perhaps, the most creditable feat of endurance of 
 the whole campaign. Such distances as these may not seem of 
 any particular military interest, or of credit to the troops con- 
 cerned, but it must be remembered that the lowest estimate that 
 one can fairly place upon the additional labor of marching at 
 these high altitudes is a hundred per cent. It is true that the 
 actual fatigue to the muscles is hardly increased, and that though 
 men may arrive in camp almost dead-beat, an hour or two's rest 
 (if they are lucky enough to get it) will always set them up 
 again. But the strain on the heart and lungs is terrible, and 
 nothing but use can accustom a man living nearly all his life 
 in the plains of India to that intense heaviness of both himself 
 and his accoutrements which, in these highlands, is the most 
 conspicuous sensation. I have elsewhere referred in more de- 
 tail to the physical experiences and sufferings of the troops, 
 and these circumstances of all our work in Tibet should be 
 borne in mind as an ever-present environment, from the first 
 
132 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 climbing of the heights of Changu or Ling-tu to the scaling of 
 the little ridge between Potala and Chagpo-ri. 
 
 Ra-lung is divided by a small stream into two parts. The 
 Tibetan village lies to the south, a mere cluster of common 
 adobe huts whitewashed or in ruins. On the northern side of 
 this affluent is the Chinese post-house, set a hundred yards back 
 from the edge of the river cliff on the very spot where there 
 is one of the curiously marked out camping-grounds used by 
 the two Grand Lamas alone. The bridge over the Ra-lung chu 
 is a typical line of roughly heaped stone piers, bridged across 
 with larger slabs of the same schistose limestone. Crossing 
 the river here the main road to Lhasa keeps close beside it on the 
 northeastern bank for one or two miles of a bad track. Small 
 streams intersect its progress, running in the wet weather in 
 a plashy torrent at the bottom of deep-cut ravines; otherwise 
 the steep cliff wall comes down sharply on to the very path until 
 the last corner is turned and the wide valley of Gom-tang is 
 seen spreading out a mile or two wide toward the northwest. 
 Here the track leaves the river-side and runs northward over the 
 gently sloping highlands beneath the snowy backbone of this 
 great spur of the Himalayas. 
 
 Some reference should be made to these hills. A high range 
 rises to the elevation of 24,000 feet, through which a deep fissure 
 between Nichi-kang-sang on the north and on the south a peak, 
 which, I believe, is known in the surveys as D 114, allows the 
 road to Lhasa to creep along far down between the gigantic 
 ice-fields. To the north and to the south this uplifted stretch 
 of snow is carried onward, terminated to the north by the abrupt 
 valley of the Rong chu, to the south curving eastward and form- 
 ing the snowy southern frontiers of the basin of the Yam-dok tso. 
 This description is necessary in order to make clear the impor- 
 tance and the military ^kill of the Tibetans' choice of a position 
 to defend. No flanking movement is possible, either to the north 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 133 
 
 or to the south, unless an invading force is willing to wait 
 five days for the co-operation of any mounted column sent 
 round by the northern route to come upon the enemy's rear from 
 a point within a mile or two of Nagartse. 
 
 After a march of about seven miles from Ra-lung, the road 
 keeps well away to the right to avoid the marshes covered with 
 hummocky grass, reeds, stunted primulas, and, it must be added, 
 quagmires through which the clear brown waters of the Ra-lung 
 chu run ice-cold from their snowy source. Across the river 
 the plain still extends, sweeping upward between the projecting 
 spurs of the western hills in long ascending plains of bare stone. 
 As our force reached this point, it seemed only possible to con- 
 tinue the march in one direction. The long plain stretched out 
 in front, ascending gently until the farthest limits cut upward 
 into the sky itself. But this was no road for a laden force, and, 
 as a matter of fact, it is not used at all except by shepherds and 
 goat-herds in the brief summer months. As I have said, the 
 real road to Lhasa turns suddenly inward under the snowy 
 shoulders of Nichi-kang-sang ; and over 8,000 feet below the 
 gigantic mass of unrelieved ice and snow which forms his high- 
 est peak, the ribbon-like track dives abruptly into the river-bed 
 beside a little stream which has cut its way through this gigantic 
 curtain of rock. 
 
 The gorge that opens here is narrow and the road bad. 
 Closely hugging the southern bluff the trang * makes its snowy 
 way over the boulders and almost through the waters of this ice- 
 fed rivulet. On either side the cliffs rise so steeply that one 
 hardly catches a sight of the eternal snows that slope steeply back 
 from the crest of these frowning heights. Now and again a 
 ravine betrays the sparkling glory of the white ice-cornice against 
 
 * A trang is a track cut out of the cliff beside a stream. There is a steep 
 rock on one side and the water immediately below. It is a useful word for a 
 feature which is not easily described otherwise. 
 
134 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 the deep blue of the upper sky. In May there is nothing to be 
 seen here in the way of plants except the dead sticks of a curious 
 thorny scrub, which during its hibernation is of an unusual pink 
 color, cobwebbed about with the gray dead filigree of last year's 
 leaves. This will burn, and, indeed, it forms the only fuel to be 
 found for many miles. 
 
 Sharply ascending, the road after a mile and a half crosses 
 the stream, now sparkling in a noisy shallow between the pebbles 
 of its bed ; and a climb of another two hundred yards brings one 
 into an oval plain which, probably from the fact that in the 
 summer the whole extent of it is permeated and saturated with 
 water from the melting glaciers, the Tibetans call the Plain 
 of Milk.* In May the cold was intense enough, except in the 
 middle of the day, largely to reduce the volume of the stream, 
 and the force made its way without difficulty over the shales 
 and slate of this lonely little flat-bottomed cup buried away 
 nearly 17,000 feet above the sea, and ringed in by the eternal 
 snow-fields of the Himalayas. 
 
 At the farther end, immediately under a great glacier — one 
 infinitesimal projection of the huge land of ice of which Nichi- 
 kang-sang is the highest point — the force encamped. The 
 mounted infantry had, of course, been sent on ahead. They 
 reported that the wall was strongly held by the Tibetans; and 
 Colonel Brander, who had accompanied them to a point a mile 
 or two further on, within range of the wall itself, made his dis- 
 positions for the next day. To the east the Karo la itself, the 
 highest point between Lhasa and India, was within an easy 
 climb, barely three hundred feet higher than the Plain of Milk. 
 Beyond that the valley takes a turn to the northwest between 
 precipitous cliffs, ^11 immediately crowned by the snow-fields 
 of the Nichi-kang-sang group; and at its narrowest and most 
 precipitous point the Tibetans had built an enormous wall. This 
 * This is also the name of the plain in which Lhasa stands. 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 135 
 
 was, perhaps, the greatest triumph of Tibetan construction that 
 we found throughout the expedition. I do not suppose that any 
 other nation in the world, with similar means at their disposal, 
 could hold their own for half an hour against the Tibetan in this 
 one art of wall building. With apparent ease the most enormous 
 stones are collected and placed with unerring judgment, and with 
 a rapidity which seems almost miraculous to the eye-witness. 
 This was no ordinary wall. It was composed of angular and 
 well-adjusted pieces of granite about two feet in thickness; the 
 loopholes, at a height of about four feet, were constructed with 
 wide-angled " splays " permitting an extensive field of fire ; 
 and above these carefully made little embrasures there was 
 head cover for at least another twelve inches. Between each 
 man's recess the Tibetans had built up a partition wall of heavy 
 slabs of stone, so that the damage caused by direct shell fire 
 was reduced to a minimum, and loss by enfilading shrapnel al- 
 most entirely avoided. At this time the wall was about eight 
 hundred yards long; the enemy had thrown forward two san- 
 gars, one on either side, which at once prevented any chance of 
 an easy flanking movement, or, indeed, of our bringing forward 
 without danger either the Maxims or the main body of the 
 force; and secure in this position they awaited our coming on 
 the following morning. 
 
 It was by no means a promising task for the small forces to 
 attempt, and whatever anxiety Colonel Brander might naturally 
 have entertained as to the rapid success of the enterprise was 
 gravely increased by two despatches which an urgent messenger, 
 riding through the night, had brought from Gyantse. The first 
 was a telegram from General Macdonald, far to the south, ex- 
 pressing his disapproval and insisting that the force should in- 
 stantly retire, unless it were at the moment of the receipt of the 
 orders irrevocably committed to an engagement with the enemy. 
 In itself this was not calculated to encourage a man immediately 
 
136 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 confronted with a difficult military problem. That in any case he 
 would have regarded himself as irrevocably committed there can 
 be no doubt ; retreat under the circumstances would have been a 
 serious blunder, even though no actual contact between the two 
 forces had yet taken place. But with characteristic loyalty, Colo- 
 nel Younghusband, who throughout had accepted full responsi- 
 bility for the expedition, appended to it the opinion that under 
 no circumstances should the proposed operation be abandoned or 
 delayed. 
 
 The other news was much more serious. A postscript to the 
 letter, in which Colonel Younghusband confirmed his instructions, 
 gave the intelligence that before dawn on the previous morning 
 the Mission post at Gyantse had been surrounded by 800 armed 
 Tibetans, and that the attack, although beaten off by the reduced 
 garrison of the place, had been renewed at once by bombardment 
 from the abandoned jong, which had been retaken by another 
 column of similar strength. This was grave indeed, and though 
 it was necessary to dismiss it from all consideration till the day's 
 work in front of him was done, this double intelligence greatly 
 increased the anxiety with which Colonel Brander set himself to 
 secure, not a victory only, but a victory that must be complete at 
 any cost and before nightfall. 
 
 As we have seen, the Tibetans had built sangars on both sides 
 of the valley in advance of the wall. Two of these sangars— one 
 on each side — were occupied by about thirty men apiece, and 
 Major Row and a company of Gurkhas were sent forward to the 
 left to secure the northern outwork. At the same time two com- 
 panies of the 32d Pioneers had been sent down the river-bed to- 
 ward the wall. One, under Captain Bethune, arrived almost at 
 the barrier itself, but so heavy was the fire from the loopholes, and 
 so impossible any effective reply, that cover had to be taken under 
 the river bank itself, some two or three hundred yards away. The 
 second company, under Captain Cullen, fought its way across an 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 137 
 
 open stretch of ground to comparative security within a fold in the 
 ground, about the same distance from the wall. Further advance 
 was impossible, though Captain Bethune very early in the day 
 made a magnificent but doomed attempt to carry the wall by as- 
 sault. It was here that he was killed, close under the very wall 
 itself; according to one account he was at the moment of his 
 death even clutching the barrel of a protruding matchlock. He 
 was killed on the instant, and the force thereby lost the most popu- 
 lar, and, perhaps, also the most capable of the junior regimental 
 officers. The Sikhs under his command retreated to their former 
 cover and held their places for the remainder of the day. 
 
 A small body of Pioneers had been detached to drive the enemy 
 from the sangar which was being held on the southern slope, op- 
 posite to that toward which Major Row was now advancing; but 
 it was almost impossible to climb the slippery shale slopes, which 
 had already assumed their utmost angle of repose; there was no 
 cover, and it was necessary to abandon this direct attack. There- 
 upon Colonel Brander had recourse to an heroic measure. A 
 dozen men under a native officer, Wassawa Singh, were sent up 
 the almost perpendicular face of the 1,500-foot southern scarp,, 
 in order that from the ice field above they might enfilade the san- 
 gar which was the chief obstacle to a direct attack upon the wall. 
 
 Meanwhile, on the left the Gurkhas had pressed on pluckily 
 over the difficult sliding surface of the northern slope, now glis- 
 sading for a dozen feet, now helping each other up over a difficult 
 spur ; here creeping under a projecting shelf on hands and knees^ 
 there making a quick dash across an open space, but always under 
 a steady and pretty well directed fire from the sangar they had 
 been told to clear. After a time advance along their present line 
 was seen to be impossible, and the whole action of the morning 
 was suspended while Major Row detailed a few of his small 
 force to climb the rock face overhead commanding the enemy's 
 sangar. For two hours it was the guns only that answered the fire 
 
138 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 from the wall and from the sangars. There was a deadlock, and 
 if no means could be found to drive the enemy from the advanced 
 defenses which they were holding so gallantly, there seemed in- 
 deed little chance of doing anything more until nightfall. It was 
 an anxious moment, and Colonel Brander did not spare himself. 
 Up with the Maxims, within easy range of the Tibetan rifles, he 
 watched the developments of the fight. 
 
 But little by little the almost indistinguishable dots moved up- 
 ward along the face of the cliff to the south. A deep chimney 
 afforded them both protection from the Tibetans manning the 
 wall, and the bare possibility of an ascent. What the hardship 
 must have been of climbing up to an altitude which could not 
 have been less than 18,500 feet it is difficult for the ordinary 
 reader to conceive. Hampered alike by his accoutrements and 
 by the urgent anxiety for rapidity, Wassawa Singh still gave his 
 men but scanty opportunities of rest. It was such a climb as many 
 a member of the Alpine Club would, under the best circumstances, 
 have declined to attempt, and the Order of Merit which was after- 
 ward conferred upon Wassawa Singh was certainly one of the 
 most hardly earned distinctions of the campaign. 
 
 Still, in spite of everything, the little figures crept upward, and 
 at last reached the line of perpetual snow, where they could be 
 seen clambering and crawling against the dazzling surface of 
 white. There was still a long way for them to go when an out- 
 break of fire from the southern slope of the valley showed that 
 Major Row's men had established themselves above the enemy's 
 right-hand sangar. A brisk crackle of musketry broke out; the 
 exchanges were heavy, but the issue was never in any doubt. 
 Covered by the fire from the party above. Major Row led the 
 main body forward over the unprotected glacis, at the upper end 
 of which the little fort had been made. The enemy's fire slack- 
 ened, broke out again, and finally died down as the surviving Tib- 
 etans flung away their guns and attempted to escape down the 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 139 
 
 almost perpendicular slope of the hill. Not one of them got away. 
 The wretched men one after another scrambled amid the pitiless 
 bullets that pecked up the dust all round, and then slid in an inert 
 mass till they lay quiet on the road below. 
 
 With a cheer that we could hear with odd distinctness in the 
 bottom of the valley, the Gurkhas sprang forward and captured 
 the post. But even then much remained to do. The holders of 
 the southern sangar kept up as steady a fire as before at any one 
 who showed himself, and it was impossible to move on from the 
 recently captured outpost so as to enfilade the main position, 
 which ended on the north against a precipitous cliff. For up- 
 ward of an hour the fight again languished. Nothing could be 
 seen of Wassawa Singh and his little force; they had taken a 
 course which was hidden behind the edge of the rock and ice 
 above us. 
 
 Nothing in Tibet is more curiously deceptive than the little 
 upright boulders which stand, for all the world like men, against 
 the sky line of the hills, and time after time a false alarm was 
 given that the Pioneers had at last reached the mountain brow 
 from which they could enfilade the enemy. At last, however, 
 one of the stones upon which our glasses had been fixed for so 
 long seemed to move and, half-fainting over it, a tiny figure 
 halted and unslung the miniature rifle into its right hand. He 
 was joined in a moment by another, and his comrades in the 
 valley below gave the first warning to the defenders of the 
 sangar by raising a thin distant cheer. The enemy did not wait ; 
 not more than four or five of the escalading force had reached 
 their goal before the Tibetans bolted from their advanced post 
 and ran back across the open coverless slopes of the mountain- 
 side to the protection of the great wall. In a moment the fire 
 was concentrated upon the fugitives, not only from three points 
 of the compass, but from angles which must have varied nearly 
 180°. There may have been about twenty-five men in the sangar: 
 
I40 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of these two or three were hit at once, and the remainder, clam- 
 bering and sprawling over the slippery shale, made their way 
 back in a rain of bullets. Rifle fire is one of the most unaccount- 
 able things in the world. Judging by the standards of the 
 shooting range it would seem impossible that even one man 
 should have escaped from this converging battery ; as a matter of 
 fact, though the aim was fairly good, that of Lieutenant Hadow's 
 Maxim being especially well managed, I do not think that of the 
 remainder more than five men fell before the shelter of the wall 
 was reached. But the day was won; for the Tibetans behind 
 the wall, who cannot have lost more than two or three men 
 throughout the whole day, and whose position was really hardly 
 weakened as yet, fled as one man back down the valley of the 
 Karo chu. We afterward heard that all day long there had 
 been a steady melting away of this force, and that in consequence 
 reinforcements of 500 men from Nagartse, sixteen miles down 
 the road, had been sent up to stiffen the courage of the waverers. 
 
 We found, on passing over the wall, that the tents were still 
 standing, the fires still alight, and the water in the cooking ves- • 
 sels still boiling. Furs, blankets, horse furniture, spears, powder- 
 flasks, quick-match, bags of tsamba, skins of butter, tightly 
 stuffed cushions, everything was there as the Tibetans had left it 
 in their haste ; but almost no rifles or matchlocks were recovered. 
 
 By the time the force had secured the position Captain Ottley, 
 with his mounted infantry, was hurrying after the flying hordes. 
 At one time it seemed more than likely that his little force of 
 fifty or sixty men would be surrounded by the compact body of 
 reinforcements which was halting for a rest at Ring-la nine miles 
 away, when the dreaded mounted infantry swept round the cor- 
 ner. Never was the inherent incapacity of the Tibetan as a sol- 
 dier better shown. There is no doubt that the very names of 
 Ottley and the mounted infantry were associated by this time 
 in the minds of the Tibetans with an almost superhuman strength 
 
H 
 I! 
 O 
 
 < 
 
 O 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 2 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 
 CM 
 
 u 
 o 
 
 3 
 
ATTACKED BY THE TIBETANS 141 
 
 and invulnerability. These reinforcements, which consisted to a 
 great extent of monks, made almost no attempt to defend them- 
 selves, but fled in all directions up the ravines and clefts of the 
 sides of the valley— anywhere out of the reach of the " Night- 
 mare " and his men. The blow inflicted upon the enemy was 
 trebled by this successful pursuit, and in Lhasa afterward we 
 heard that the Tibetans themselves admitted 600 casualties. This 
 is certainly an over-statement, made partly in order to justify 
 their expulsion from so strong a position, partly also to persuade 
 the authorities that it was no longer any use attempting to oppose 
 our advance. We took a few prisoners. Our own casualties, 
 besides the loss of Bethune— a host in himself— were but four 
 killed and thirteen wounded. The day's work reflects the utmost 
 credit on the two out-flanking parties, and if it had been possible 
 to retain any sort of control of the position we had gained, this 
 fight in itself might have been the turning point of the expedition. 
 As it was, there was nothing to do but to return with the utmost 
 speed to Gyantse. Colonel Brander had not the time even to pull 
 down the Tibetans' wall. The tents and the ammunition were 
 destroyed, as much damage to the wall as could be done in the 
 short time was carried out, and then the force returned to their 
 ■camping-place of the previous night four miles back in the Plain 
 of Milk. 
 
 The altitude to which the southern flanking party attained was 
 probably the highest point on the earth's surface at which an 
 engagement has ever taken place, and the accounts given by the 
 men of the terrible labor of climbing, and of the utter inability, 
 at this height of over 18,000 feet, to do more than crawl forward 
 listlessly, were not the least interesting part of this extraordinary 
 action. 
 
 Immediately beyond the wall is a very curious freak of nature. 
 The ice-field on the south here comes down to a basin three hun- 
 dred yards across, the lower or northern end of which is banked 
 
142 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 up ; and the melting of the ice has produced there a deep and al- 
 most clear lake, the waters of which on one side lap up against 
 the high glacier itself. The Tibetans, recognizing any natural 
 eccentricity as the predestined home of devils, have taken the 
 greatest pains, with little pyramids of quartz and fluttering flags, 
 to propitiate the evil spirits of this pretty little imitation of the 
 Merjelensee. 
 
 On the following morning, the 7th of May, the column began 
 the return march, and Captain O'Connor and I set off in good 
 time to cover before nightfall the forty-four miles which lay be- 
 tween us and Gyantse. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 
 
 WHAT exactly we should find when we reached Gyantse 
 neither O'Connor nor myself had the least idea. We 
 knew that the first attack had been gallantly and satisfactorily 
 beaten off ; but we also knew that only half the Tibetan force had 
 been employed on the 5th — knew too that the attacking party had 
 bungled things in some way or other. We did not know the size 
 of the guns which the Tibetans had mounted on the jong, we did 
 not know how far the post had been surrounded, and to tell the 
 truth we rather trusted to luck and to the shades of night to get 
 back into the post at all. Rumor reached us when we got to Ra- 
 lung that the Tibetans had determined to hold the gorges through 
 which our little party, consisting of Captain Ottley with ten of his 
 mounted infantry and our two selves, had to pass. If this were 
 found to be the case we could hardly hope to force a way 
 through; but we knew that the earlier we pushed on the better 
 hope there was of being able to make our way to the open plain 
 of Gyantse, which it was impossible for the Tibetans to barricade, 
 and in which we might then be able to hold our own against any 
 number the Tibetans were likely to send out from the jong to 
 cut us off. It was an uneventful ride of fifteen miles from 
 Ra-lung to Gobshi, and we covered it in a little over three hours. 
 We halted at the village of the Four Gates to collect intelligence 
 and to rest. The head men of the village were, not unnaturally, 
 in a state of considerable agitation. It is possible that they knew 
 nothing whatever about the intentions or the actions of their 
 
 143 
 
144 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 countrymen eighteen miles away; but their nervousness inevita- 
 bly suggested that they were lying when they so assured us. So 
 we determined not to hurry on, but to take care that the evening 
 should have set in before we reached the last and most difficult 
 stretch of our journey. 
 
 Leaving Gobshi at half-past four in the afternoon, we moved 
 on slowly down the valley of the Nyero chu, watching the slow 
 transformation of one of the finest sunsets I have ever seen in 
 Tibet. Luckily we found all the bridges along the road intact. 
 This was a never-ending source of amazement to us throughout 
 the expedition. The Tibetans had never taken the trouble or 
 perhaps even had the idea of impeding our progress by so simple 
 and effectual a device as the breaking of the road in any way; 
 perhaps the most glaring example of this was seen in the way in 
 which they eventually left for our use the two great barges at 
 the Chak-sam ferry. The rebuilding of a bridge is no small 
 matter in Tibet. Of wood on the spot there may be nothing, and 
 in many cases where the bridge is made of timber brought from 
 a distance the space across is much too great for the substitution 
 of stone at a moment's notice. Accustomed as we were, it was a 
 relief to find that the stone causeway at Malang, about three 
 miles from Gobshi, was standing intact. After that there was 
 at least no bridge by the destruction of which they could bar our 
 return to Gyantse that night. 
 
 There was not a sign of a Tibetan an)rwhere. The little 
 houses and rare gomi>as, nestling here and there in the bare 
 valleys to the north and south, showed no sign of life. So we 
 made our way unnoticed till we faced the crimson blaze of the 
 sunset over the open plain of Gyantse, two miles beyond the big 
 ■chorten which is the most conspicuous object of the track astrad- 
 dle of the road just where a sharp turn in the river half incloses 
 a wooded peninsula. We moved on in the dying red light for 
 a couple of miles, and then the night of these high uplands crept 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 145 
 
 in upon us from all sides. As we passed the house of the eldest 
 son of the Maharajah of Sikkim we could still distinguish dimly 
 the houses near Ne-nyeng. A mile and a half further on we 
 passed the long ruins of a battlemented wall and were just able 
 to distinguish the jong in the darkness as we moved over the low 
 neck of white quartzite, which here thrusts out into the plain a 
 line of little peaks. After that the gloom deepened and soon we 
 could hardly see each other. It was a moonless night, and four 
 miles from home we literally could not see the ground under our 
 horses' hoofs. Now and then a Tibetan wayfarer ran into our 
 arms before he knew what or who we were; such travelers we 
 questioned and turned behind us. The explanation each gave of 
 his night wandering was not wholly uninteresting. One man 
 had been into the city for a charm for his sick wife, and was 
 returning confident in the efficacy of his closely cuddled treasure. 
 Another man was a lama who had been relieved by a friend at a 
 monastery all day, and was hurrying back to keep his word and 
 release his already over-taxed proxy. A third had an ugly story 
 to tell to us— he was the first who gave us any information of 
 the horrible fate which had overtaken our unfortunate servants. 
 They all agreed that the Tibetans were holding all the houses in 
 the plain past which our road necessarily ran ; but more than that 
 none of them honestly seemed able to tell us. 
 
 By this time our escort had been reduced to six men. Captain 
 Ottley had decided to remain behind at Gobshi to secure a safe 
 escort for a belated baggage mule and her leader. So we moved 
 on through the night, and for the first time I realized the skill of 
 a native of India as a tracker. There was not the slightest indi- 
 cation of a road anywhere. There was not a light visible in the 
 whole plain, and even the stars were obscured by the light night 
 mist that was rising into the cold air from the still warm fields. 
 By daylight one would have made half-a-dozen mistakes in trying 
 to thread one's way across the three miles of flat country, deeply 
 
146 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 intersected in every direction with wide and often unfordable 
 water-courses; but now in the dark the guidance of our Sikhs 
 was unfaiHng. One road there was, and one only, after we had 
 struck out toward Chang-lo from the beaten path. This took 
 a fantastic course over the plowed fields, along the bunds con- 
 taining the marshy squares where the first barley was beginning 
 to show itself, across the irrigation channels by single-stone 
 bridges, swerving now to the right and now to the left, dipping 
 down into a dry water-course, rising on the farther side at some 
 unindicated point, brushing past little clumps of sallow-thorn, 
 skirting an old reservoir, and often verging too close to be com- 
 fortable to some occupied house which was invisible at ten yards, 
 but was betrayed by the furious barking of the inevitable watch- 
 dogs. Along this tortuous path the Sikhs of our escort led us 
 in the darkness without the slightest hesitation or mistake. Even . 
 at the end, when a single light could be seen from the window of 
 the upper story of our besieged post, they made no mistake in 
 going straight toward it. A sharp turn to the right along an 
 iris-covered embankment saved us a heavy wetting in the deepest 
 water-channel of the plain. 
 
 As we approached Chang-lo we suddenly remembered that we 
 were in considerably more danger from the high-strung watch- 
 fulness of our own sentries than from all the forces that Tibet 
 could put into the field. After a while we could barely distin- 
 guish against the vague duskiness of the sky the mass of our tall 
 poplars. And then two men were sent on to feel our way into 
 the post — no easy matter. The garrison were not expecting us, 
 and the approach to a defended position is a difficult matter, 
 wholly apart from the possibility of the sentry firing before he 
 challenges. Barbed wire entanglements, well-planned stakes and 
 abattis of felled tree-tops and other impedimenta are no light 
 things to penetrate on a dark night; and in the present case we 
 had no means of knowing what additional precautions the garri- 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 147 
 
 son had, as a matter of course, taken. But all was well ; and at 
 about a quarter to ten we found ourselves in the Mission mess 
 heartily welcomed as earnest of better things to come. 
 
 The story of the attack on the Mission in the early hours of 
 May 5th reads like a romance. As I have said, news had come 
 that a body of Tibetans was moving up the valley of the Nyang 
 chu to Dongtse, twelve miles away to the north-west. These men, 
 1,600 in number, no doubt had their instructions, and it subse- 
 quently was shown that those instructions had been given them 
 by Dorjieff himself. They had to retake the jong and anni- 
 hilate the Mission with its escort. It may be questioned, how- 
 ever, whether they would ever have had the determination to 
 attempt to carry out the latter part of their orders, if at the last 
 moment they had not received what must have seemed to them 
 the miraculous news that two-thirds of the defenders of Chang-lo 
 had suddenly been called away. Marching in two bands through 
 the night of the 4th of May, one-half reoccupied the jong, while 
 the other moved as silently as shadows up to the very walls of 
 the English post. 
 
 Speculation as to what would have happened if another course 
 had been adopted is, perhaps, useless; but there was a fair con- 
 sensus of opinion in the post that' if the Tibetans had simply 
 thrown away their useless firearms, and had contented them- 
 selves with rushing the sentries with drawn swords, the issue of 
 that evening might have been painfully different. Actually, the 
 men who reached the post were under the walls by about three 
 in the morning ; and there in silence they seem to have remained 
 for nearly an hour. Not a sentry perceived them ; and if it had 
 not been for an alarm given by the last joined recruit of the 
 whole force, a boy who had not been thought to have sufficient 
 steadiness for the work of a soldier, and was only accepted be- 
 cause of the unexpected loss of another man, they could with- 
 
148 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 out difficulty have made their way within striking distance of at 
 least two of the four sentries. This boy, looking through the 
 darkness, thought he saw the movement of what might have 
 been a man about twenty yards from the southern' entrance. It 
 will be remembered that our relations with the Tibetans were of 
 the most friendly character, and as a matter of fact the nightly 
 visits paid by the followers of the Mission to Gyantse, for more 
 or less disreputable purposes, must have been well within his 
 knowledge; he must, in fact, have known that at that moment 
 there were at least eight of the servants of the force in the town ; 
 and it says a good deal for his coolness and discipline that, whe- 
 ther he were betraying a friend or not, he did not hesitate for a 
 moment to rouse the echoes of the night by a hasty shot follow- 
 ing upon a single loud challenge. 
 
 The effect of a shot at night upon a defended post is something 
 which should be experienced to be fully understood; the whole 
 place is galvanized as though it had received an electric shock. 
 And every other sentry realized in a second the danger that lay 
 in the swarming black ring of men, which now, for the first time, 
 were seen clearly enough encircling the whole post. The Tibe- 
 tans also were naturally startled into action ; they stood up under 
 our very walls and actually used our own loop-holes, thrusting 
 the muzzles of their matchlocks into the Mission compound. A 
 doctor was the first man to dash into the place from the redoubt 
 and warn Colonel Younghusband of his danger. His descrip- 
 tion of the compound is curious; he says that a network of 
 flashes and humming bullets struck in every direction over the 
 inclosure. By some merciful accident not a single man was hit, 
 though several of the tents received four or five bullets straight 
 through them. Captain Walton in particular had a very narrow 
 escape ; he said that the first thing that he realized, after this rude 
 awakening, was the muzzles of two or three rusty matchlocks 
 poking down through the wall in his direction. One thing prob- 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 149 
 
 ably saved the situation; the Tibetans, being naturally shorter 
 men than the Sikhs, for whom the loop-holes had originally been 
 made, and at no time paying much attention to fire discipline or 
 aim, simply held their guns up over their heads and fired through 
 the loop-holes in any direction that was convenient. For a few 
 seconds, which seemed almost as many minutes, the walls re- 
 mained unmanned; then round by the water gate the quick 
 reports of the Lee-Metford heralded a blaze of fire from every 
 point of the perimeter. 
 
 From the point of view of the Tibetans, the moment chosen 
 for the attack was most unfortunate. They secured, indeed, for 
 themselves the advantage of an approach in the dark, and, of 
 course, had they been successful in effecting their purpose and 
 forcing a hand-to-hand struggle inside the walls of the post, the 
 coming of dawn might have served them in good stead. As it 
 was, however, the growing light caught them, not only still out- 
 side our defenses, but a beaten crowd, for whom there was not a 
 stick of cover, huddled up under the walls of the post. When 
 their inevitable flight had to be attempted some fled at once 
 among the trees of the plantation behind Chang-lo; some hid 
 themselves idiotically in the walled-up bays of the bridge, where 
 they were caught like rats in a trap by the first skirmishing party 
 that set out to clear the ground. The luckiest were the most 
 cowardly; large numbers, as soon as our firing broke out, had 
 made their way back in terror through the shrubs and willows 
 immediately overhanging the river bank toward the white house, 
 600 yards ahead of us, toward the jong, which was afterward 
 captured by us and known as the Gurkhas' post. Here they were 
 in safety. On the way they passed a small shrine which Captain 
 Walton had been using as his consulting room and hospital for 
 Tibetan patients. 
 
 It was from this hospital that the first intimation of anything 
 wrong had been received. On the morning of the previous day 
 
150 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Captain Walton's suspicions had been aroused by the sudden 
 exodus of a very large number of his patients. One and all 
 seemed anxious to get away, and though this might really mean 
 little with a shy and probably mistrustful people like the good 
 folk of Gyantse, there was a unanimity about the whole matter 
 which caused him to make some disappointed comment, and then 
 it appeared that one of his patients had been told of the intention 
 of the Tibetans to make a night attack upon the Mission. Such 
 rumors had, of course, been common ever since our occupation 
 of the place, and had been proved time after time to be the merest 
 canards. Captain Walton paid very little attention to it, but he 
 was sufficiently aware of a change in the attitude of his patients 
 — such of them as remained for treatment— to make him report 
 the matter to Colonel Younghusband that evening, without, how- 
 ever, expressing any belief or, indeed, much interest in the mat- 
 ter. By this time his hospital was empty of all its inmates 
 except, I believe, one or two bedridden men who could find no 
 one to come and help them away. 
 
 I have said that the luckiest were the most cowardly, but for 
 the main body of the attacking force there was no help. When 
 their attack failed and flight was necessary they were obliged to 
 make the best of their way back across the flat plain to the jong 
 and Gyantse. The defenders' post numbered in all about 170 
 men, but this number was to a large extent weakened by the fact 
 that Colonel Brander had naturally taken with him the strongest 
 men of the force, and those who remained behind were certainly, 
 to the extent of forty per cent., either weakened by dysentery or 
 actually in hospital blankets. But, well or ill, every man reached 
 for his rifle and came out to his place. The members of the Mis- 
 sion — Colonel Younghusband, Captain Ryder, Lieutenant-Colo- 
 nel Waddell, and, it should not be forgotten, Mr. Mitter, the con- 
 fidential clerk of the Mission — immediately manned the upper 
 works, and a certain number of the followers displayed consider- 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 151 
 
 able martial energy in positions of more or less personal danger. 
 About a dozen of the mounted infantry had been left by Colonel 
 Brander, and these men saddled their ponies with feverish haste. 
 Bullets were still singing over the post, but there was no doubt 
 that the Tibetans had been successfully beaten off, and the lesson 
 to be taught them was one which mounted men could best convey. 
 The real flight of the Tibetans did not begin till forty minutes 
 after the first alarm, and though it would be inaccurate to say 
 that the issue was really in doubt after the first five or ten, it 
 will be seen that the engagement was for a time hotly contested, 
 and it is doubtful whether the Tibetans lost many men till they 
 broke and ran. After that it was simply a case of shooting down 
 the flying figiu-es in the gray morning twilight. It is one of the 
 peculiarities of Tibet that as soon as a leafless bush can be distin- 
 guished twenty yards away in the dawn you can almost as clearly 
 see a willow tree on a slope a mile and a half distant. The tiny 
 body of irregular infantry, made all the more irregular by the 
 volunteers who aided in the pursuit, were busily and systemati- 
 cally clearing the plantation of the enemy, and preparing to carry 
 a counter attack home to the very foot of the rock from which 
 the first jingal balls were now being fired toward Chang-lo. 
 
 The Tibetans left behind them but few under the actual walls 
 of the post, but 180 dead were found within a radius of one 
 thousand yards, and, under the circumstances, at least three 
 times that number must have been wounded. On our own side — 
 besides our wretched servants and the unhappy Nepali shepherd 
 who was caught outside the defenses watching his flock through 
 the night, and fell a shocking victim to the Tibetans' savage lust 
 for blood — there were but two casualties all this time. This is 
 but another example of the immunity which, time after time, was 
 enjoyed by our men against all probability and, indeed, expe- 
 rience. 
 
 The work of the mounted infantry was finished about six 
 
152 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 o'clock in the full light of the quick Asiatic dawn. The Tibetans 
 flying helplessly over the flat irrigated fields had been scattered 
 to the winds. The luckier ones on horseback made good their 
 escape almost to a man. The others either ran for their lives 
 with the characteristic heavy-shouldered tramp of their race, or 
 hid in vain desperation among the irrigation channels of the 
 fields. One or two fled to the river bank and there immersed 
 themselves, leaving their mouths and noses only above the thick, 
 brown flood, under the friendly shelter of an overhanging shrub. 
 One or two by the banks, with animal-like cunning, feigned 
 death, and when detected pretended to be severely wounded. 
 
 An hour and a half after this heavy and responsible work two 
 Sikhs threw the post-bags of the dak across their saddles and 
 moved out to take the mails as usual to Sau-gang. Later in the 
 day another man cantered off on the road to the Karo la. The 
 lesson of the morning was emphasized by a spasmodic bombard- 
 ment all the day, and a Sepoy was killed while standing almost 
 immediately behind a high adobe wall. Captain Ryder instantly 
 assumed the direction of the additional defenses which had to be 
 made, and the next two days produced an extraordinary altera- 
 tion in the aspect of Chang-lo. Great traverses of timber logs, in- 
 terspersed with granite boulders, rose up like magic everywhere. 
 The Masbi Sikh is by nature and intention a lazy man ; yet it is 
 possible that no Sikh in the history of his race ever worked with 
 such desperation as the hundred laborers who, in very truth, had 
 to work like the famous artisans under the direction of Nehe- 
 miah. There was no time to lose, for the only information we 
 could certainly get from the prisoners was that more men and 
 larger guns were even at that moment being hurried up against 
 us from Lhasa. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when O'Connor and I rode in 
 on the evening of the 7th. The column from the Karo la could 
 not arrive until the afternoon of the 9th ; an attack, meanwhile,. 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 153 
 
 was threatened for that same night. But the Tibetans had had 
 too heavy a lesson, and nothing, therefore, was done before the 
 arrival of the main body of the defenders had put an end to all 
 hope of carrying the post by storm. 
 
 As soon as the place was put in a proper condition of defense 
 we had leisure to consider the extraordinary change in the politi- 
 cal situation which had been caused by the attack of the Tibe- 
 tans. Of course, in one way it simplified the position enormously ; 
 there could no longer be any pretense on the part of the Tibetans 
 that they were a peace-loving and long-suffering race ; the issues 
 were cleared. It was obvious that no negotiations had ever been 
 intended. We were able at last to estimate the authority of the 
 Chinese suzerains and the influence of the Amban himself — nei- 
 ther existed. Unless we were willing to help ourselves, it was 
 in a moment clear that the Chinese were neither willing nor able 
 to help us. I do not suppose that any one in his senses has ever 
 seriously criticized the right of the Tibetans to massacre the 
 
 • 
 
 Mission if they could, and if they were ready to accept the con- 
 sequences of success. It is true that the circumstances of this 
 attack during a period of practical armistice, while we were 
 awaiting, if not perhaps expecting, the advent of the Amban, 
 gave some reasonable ground of complaint ; but as we were our- 
 selves tarred with the same brush, reproach was a boomerang-like 
 weapon for us to employ. The situation, as I have said, was 
 undoubtedly cleared, but it may well be doubted whether that was 
 any particular gratification to the Cabinet at home. That it was 
 not is perhaps clear from the fact that Lord Lansdowne seems 
 immediately to have gone out of his way to make a gratuitous 
 re-statement of the pledges which the Government had given six 
 months before to Russia. Herein, perhaps, there is some just 
 reason to demur to the policy of Whitehall. It is an open secret 
 that our policy in Egypt just then demanded that we should be 
 on good terms with Russia, but even so, it seemed common sense 
 
154 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 to lay every conceivable stress upon an active hostility which was 
 at once recognized as due to the presence of a Russian subject 
 in Lhasa. In any case, whatever the responsibility of an unau- 
 thorized representative of the great northern neighbor of Tibet, 
 it was perfectly clear that the attack on the Mission had practi- 
 cally justified to the full the presumptions of active hostility 
 which had seemed to us to necessitate the accompaniment of the 
 Mission by a strong escort. The chief point, therefore, which 
 had excited the mistrust of continental critics Was clearly demon- 
 strated as a wise and, indeed, a very necessary precaution on our 
 part. 
 
 More than this, the behavior of the Tibetans had justified at 
 a stroke our taking action in the matter at all. It was clear from 
 the kindly reception which the Mission received on its coming 
 to Gyantse from every one except the local representatives of the 
 close Lamaic corporation that governs the country, and from the 
 subsequent attack promoted by that corporation, that our forecast 
 was correct, not only in assuming that the Lamaic hierarchy in 
 no way represented the feeling of the bulk of the population, but 
 also that it was from the priestly autocrats of Tibet alone that 
 danger to British interests was to be feared. It was no part of 
 the business of the British Government to play the role of Perseus 
 rescuing Andromeda from a monster; but somewhat to our sur- 
 prise we found that the policy of the Viceroy, begun for very 
 different and somewhat prosaic reasons, was actually compelling 
 us into a position which was not very different. We had begun, 
 without questioning the form of government which obtained in 
 Tibet, by working for the conclusion of some agreement with a 
 properly accredited representative of the country. We had ac- 
 cepted the peculiarities, not to say the brutalities, -which mark this 
 extreme form of religious tyranny, not in ignorance, but as 
 being no affair of ours. With the Grand Lama as the head of 
 the country we had certain business to transact; and if he had 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 155 
 
 been willing to meet us at Kamba-jong, our difficulties would 
 have been over. We should never have moved a mile farther 
 into the Forbidden Country, and, perhaps, the hold of the lamas 
 over the country might have been even stronger than before, inas- 
 much as our diplomatic relations with Lhasa would have formed 
 an additional proof of the ability of the Tibetans to manage their 
 own foreign affairs, and of the uselessness of continuing the farce 
 
 of Chinese sovereignty. This the Grand Lama failed to see, and 
 the upshot of our interference has been that the reign of supersti- 
 tious tyranny has received a severe blow, not only by the prestige 
 we have gained by our successful advance to Lhasa, but by the 
 deposition of the Grand Lama, and by the strength which has 
 thereby been temporarily given to the tottering structure of Chi- 
 nese sovereignty. 
 
 These considerations might perhaps have made the home au- 
 thorities hesitate before wantonly reiterating to the Russians 
 assurances which were perfectly honest but in their origin appli- 
 cable only to an entirely different and much less complicated 
 state of affairs. The attack on the Mission was the throwing 
 down of the glove. It was a deliberate challenge on the part of 
 an autocrat who saw that in the slowly increasing friendliness 
 between the foreigner and the " miser " of the land there lurked 
 perhaps the seeds of trouble for himself in the future. We know 
 from an excellent source that the action of the English in paying 
 full prices, and even more than full prices, for the food-stuffs 
 they requisitioned in the Chumbi and Nyang chu Valleys was an 
 unexpected shock to the authorities in Lhasa ; they complained of 
 it. And knowing, as we now do, whose influence lay at the bot- 
 tom of this night attack upon the Mission, we can see not only 
 a shrewd and successful scheme whereby Dorjieff himself might 
 escape from the consequences of his own bad advice, but a not 
 
 unnatural determination at all hazards to put an end to the grow- 
 ing familiarity between the invaders and the invaded. 
 
156 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 About this time in Lhasa there was a wave of mistrust of the 
 Chinese. Actual power the Chinese had none, and the very- 
 advice of the Amban was believed to be tainted. Dorjieff had 
 assured the government of Tibet that the English had brought 
 into subjection the Middle Kingdom, and were using to the full 
 the authority of the Chinese representatives abroad when and as 
 it suited their purpose. The earnest and repeated advice there- 
 fore to them was merely a confirmation of the serious danger they 
 were in. They left no stone unturned to spur their people on to 
 harry those whom they called the English infidels of Hindustan. 
 The men of Kams at first refused to leave their province to op- 
 pose our advance; they argued that they could not leave their 
 own district unprotected, and, as the Dalai Lama's temporal 
 authority over Kams is somewhat nebulous, he very wisely ad- 
 jured them to assist him on the spiritual ground that the ultimate 
 intention of the Mission was to wreck Buddhism. 
 
 The state of affairs in Lhasa at this time was desperate. The 
 Emperor of China had ordered the Tibetans to negotiate with 
 the Maharajah of Nepal and the Tongsa Penlop, the temporal 
 ruler of Bhutan ; both had urged upon the Dalai Lama an imme- 
 diate compliance with the British demands. No help was forth- 
 coming from Russia, and, as a final blow, the good people of 
 Nakchu-ka said with some firmness that the English had already 
 killed many professional soldiers of the Tibetans, and how then 
 could peaceable cattle-drivers like themselves fight against them ? 
 Rather than come out they would go on pilgrimage. In these 
 depressing circumstances, the Dalai Lama appears to have acted 
 somewhat hurriedly, and, so far as can be gleaned, the Amban 
 seems to have had a bad quarter of an hour with him. At any 
 rate, upon his return through the green parks of Lhasa, which 
 separate the Potala from the Residency, his cogitations took a 
 definite shape, and the Viceroy of Tibet sent an urgent request 
 to the Maharajah of Nepal that a thousand Gurkhas should be 
 sent at once for his protection. 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 157 
 
 On the side of the Grand Lama also military preparations were 
 pressed on. The construction of a fort at Chu-sul, forty miles 
 from Lhasa, at the junction of the Kyi chu and the Tsang-po, was 
 ordered. A new water-wheel, presumably for the purpose of 
 turning a lathe, was set up in the arsenal, and, in utter need, the 
 magic powers of the Sa-kya monastery, the awful representative 
 of an old regime of divine tyrants, were called in, and the incan- 
 tations and charms of the contemned Red Cap faith rose up for 
 the first time from under the golden roofs of the Potala, Finally, 
 two days after our arrival in Gyantse, the Tibetans had deter- 
 mined to rush our post by night and reoccupy the jong. This had 
 been attempted with partial success. 
 
 It will be seen that there was no real hope of conducting nego- 
 tiations in Gyantse even before the morning of the 5th of May. 
 After that eventful moment, with the Tibetans all round us and 
 the guns of the jong playing at their will upon the Commissioner's 
 residence, negotiation was naturally farther off than ever. The 
 determination of the Government to adhere to its policy of con- 
 cession to Russian susceptibilities now crippled Colonel Young- 
 husband's right hand. The very Sikhs of the garrison came to 
 hear of it, and said gloomily that unless this business were car- 
 ried through as it should be and in Lhasa, they would never 
 be able to hold up their heads again among their own folk at 
 home. So long, however, as this bombardment lasted, so long 
 as the Tibetans retained possession of the jong, negotiation on any 
 basis whatever was in abeyance — except for Colonel Younghus- 
 band, whose weary pen again and again restated the position for 
 the benefit of the Cabinet, scarcely one of whose members, with 
 the exception of Lord Lansdowne, had even a bowing acquain- 
 tance with the East. 
 
 There is no doubt about it ; in the East you must do as the East 
 does, if you hope to achieve anything permanently good or per- 
 manently great in it. Had the two things been necessarily incom- 
 patible, the jettison of Lord Curzon's policy in order that Lord 
 
158 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Cromer's goods should be safely brought to port might well have 
 been accepted by every one, and certainly would have been by 
 every member of the Mission in Tibet. But this was not put 
 forward as inevitable, and it seemed to us unfortunate that the 
 Government should not have realized that the condition of affairs 
 had changed. 
 
 Meanwhile, the daily work of defense had to be done, and bet- 
 ter provision had to be made for the mules whose old lines lay 
 under the guns of the jong with scarcely a twig to protect them. 
 They were given a more secure position in rear of the buildings. 
 The abattis and horn-works were strengthened, the Gurkhas' gate 
 was re-staked, wire entanglements surrounded the entire post, 
 traverses rose up in every unprotected spot, the trees in the plan- 
 tation to the rear were cleared away for two hundred yards, and 
 the sentries were doubled. Captain Ryder's defenses of Chang-lo 
 were subsequently slightly extended by Captain Sheppard, but 
 the latter, on his arrival, found the place sufficiently secure to en- 
 able him to devote all his energies to the construction of bridges 
 and covered ways between the main position and the outposts at 
 the white house and Pala village, which had then been secured. 
 
 From day to day it became increasingly uncertain whether the 
 little mail-bag, which was taken out every morning to be met at 
 Sau-gang by the dak runners from Kang-ma, would ever reach 
 its destination. Why the Tibetans did not effectually prevent this 
 mail remains a mystery to this day. The bag was usually guarded 
 by four mounted men only, and it had a long road to cover, by 
 villages, from any of which the messengers might with impunity 
 have been shot down ; through defiles in which any ravine might 
 well conceal a dozen determined men; or across the open plain, 
 where its distant progress could be watched by a sharp-sighted 
 man six miles away. Once or twice a faint-hearted attempt was 
 actually made. On one occasion. May 20th, it was so far success- 
 ful that the mounted infantry were obliged to make the best of 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 159 
 
 their way into Chang-lo, leaving behind them one mail-bag and 
 one of their number dead.* 
 
 The coming of the dak was the one incident that broke the 
 monotony of our daily life. The telegraph wire was with us al- 
 most from the beginning, and only once was there the slightest 
 attempt to interfere with it on the part of the enemy. In this 
 connection an incident may be noticed which reflects no small 
 credit upon Mr. Truninger. He, so the story was told to me, 
 with his second in command, was engaged in setting up posts and 
 laying the wires along one portion of the road to the undisguised 
 interest and curiosity of one or two innocent-looking lamas. 
 These men persistently asked what was the use of the wire. It 
 will be seen that this was, under the circumstances, an inquiry the 
 true answer to which might prove disastrous to our communica- 
 tions. We had not the men to defend even ten miles of this long 
 line, and without the slightest question the wire would have been 
 cut in twenty places a day if the Tibetans had had the least idea 
 of the enormous value it was to us. But the answer came simply 
 and earnestly. " We .English," said Truninger, " are in a 
 strange land, a land of which no foreigner has ever known any- 
 thing ; our maps are no good, and every day we go forward we are 
 like children lost in a great wood. Therefore we lay this wire 
 behind us in order that when we have done our business with 
 your Dalai Lama we may find the road by which we came and, 
 as quickly as possible, get hence to England." Needless to say, 
 nothing could more effectually have secured the wire from dam- 
 age, as the single ambition of the Tibetans from the first was to 
 be rid of us as quickly as possible. 
 
 The result of this forbearance on the part of the enemy was 
 
 that we often received the news in the first editions of the evening 
 
 ^ This dead man was the only one left in the hands of the Tibetans through- 
 out the expedition. His head was afterward found to have been hacked off and 
 sent to Lhasa to substantiate a claim to the grant of land offered by the Dalai 
 Lama in return for every head of a member of the expedition. 
 
i6o THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 papers in London before we sat down to dinner the same evening. 
 In point of actual time we received such news within three hours 
 of its publication, while the news which we sent westward at 
 times reached London long before the nominal hour at which it 
 had been despatched from Gyantse. Ordinarily, however, mes- 
 sages took about three hours apparent time, that is to say, eight 
 or nine hours actual time, in reaching their destination in London. 
 Diaries of sieges are dull. There was always plenty to do, but 
 it lacked distinction, although under other circumstances much 
 of it would have been exciting enough. One day, or rather one 
 night, there were water channels, supplying the town, to be cut 
 or dammed; there was a patrol to be sent out, with the general 
 intention of rendering night traveling unhealthy for the Tibetans ; 
 later on, there was a two-hundred-yard length of covered way to 
 be made in the exposed plain. Another day some of the houses 
 in the plain behind us, which the Tibetans were holding, had to be 
 cleared of their occupants. Another time there was a bridge to 
 be built beyond the end of the plantation, just within the furthest 
 range of the jingals from the rock. These jingals generally gave 
 the first intimation that the dak was arriving. Besides their regu- 
 lar morning bombardment, and one equally inevitable about half- 
 past four, they reserved aim and ammunition for the dak riders, 
 whom from their high eyrie they could easily see as they crossed 
 the bridge and made their way through the trees of the plantation 
 to the southern entrance of the post.^ All day long there was 
 something to be done; I spent the late afternoons in acquiring a 
 smattering of Tibetan. The wind used to spring up daily about 
 three o'clock, whirling a shower of catkins from the willows be- 
 side the wall of the Mission garden, and driving a penetrating 
 storm of grit through the post. Out across the plain, the long 
 trails of smoke from the burning houses were dissipated into the 
 
 * I do not think that a single man was ever hit in this way, but the amount 
 of lead the Tibetans thus used was extraordinary. 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND i6i 
 
 low-lying blue haze of the distant hills, and added another glory 
 to the sunset scene. 
 
 On the 19th of May it was decided to clear what was known af- 
 terward as the Gurkha post. This was a white house 600 yards 
 away from Chang-lo straight in the direction of the jong. The 
 Tibetans had occupied it with sixty men, and it was imperative 
 that they should at once be dislodged. Before dawn the storm- 
 ing-party, under Lieutenant Gurdon, moved out, followed by the 
 Gurkhas of the garrison. The main doors of the house were 
 blown in, and the place carried by assault in a quarter of an hour ; 
 our casualties were insignificant, and before the sun was well up 
 the house was occupied by a single company of the attacking 
 force, which remained in this exposed position during the re- 
 mainder of our stay at Gyantse. Against this house the chief 
 fury of the Tibetans was thenceforward directed; night after 
 night it was surrounded and had to beat off the Tibetan forces. 
 Day after day it was pounded by the guns on the jong, which here 
 seemed to rise almost perpendicularly above the house. A wall 
 was built up by the Tibetans from the westward corner of the 
 jong toward the river, and from two embrasures in it a continual 
 bombardment was kept up upon the defenders of the post. On 
 the following day occurred the attack upon the mail escort, to 
 which I have already referred. On this occasion Captain Ottley, 
 who went out with the mounted infantry to the rescue of the 
 dak runners, drove the Tibetans headlong from two farms, 
 hut found them so strongly ensconced about four miles further 
 on that he was himself obliged to retire, impeded by the necessity 
 of escorting two wounded and five unmounted men. 
 
 On the 2 1st a small force rnoved out under Colonel Brander to 
 dear the plain to the south ; they captured and burned three farms 
 held by the enemy, and returned to camp on receiving a report 
 that the enemy were moving out from Gyantse to attack Chang-lo. 
 Colonel Brander did not allow the grass to grow under his feet, 
 
i62 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 and five days later he swept the Tibetans from Pala village, the 
 most important position that they held, except the jong itself. 
 
 The taking of Pala was one of the most creditable bits of work 
 done by the garrison. In utter darkness, before the dawn. Colo- 
 nel Brander sent out a small column, composed of three hundred 
 rifles, four g^ns, and a Maxim. Their objective was this hamlet, 
 where the Tibetans had been strengthening a position and mount- 
 ing guns for the previous two or three days. This danger at all 
 costs had to be prevented. Pala enfiladed nearly the whole of our 
 defenses, and was barely 1,200 yards away to the north-east. The 
 relative positions of Chang-lo, Pala, and the jong were, roughly 
 speaking, those of the points of an equilateral triangle; the road 
 from Gyantse to Lhasa runs through Pala ; and the occupation of 
 this post gave us practical command of all direct communications 
 with the capital. For more reasons than one the place had to be 
 taken, and Colonel Brander's scheme was in its conception admir- 
 able. The guns were posted on an eminence, a quarter of a mile 
 away to the north-east, which completely dominated the village. 
 After skirting round the village to the south-east his plan was to 
 develop an attack in the first place upon the house which was 
 nearest to the jong. For this purpose Captain Sheppard and Cap- 
 tain O'Connor were deputed, with half-a-dozen men, to open the 
 assault by blowing in the wall of the next house, which wholly 
 commanded it. At the same time Lieutenant Garstin, with Lieu- 
 tenant Walker, R.E., was sent a few yards further to breach the 
 house itself. Major Peterson, with two companies of the 32d » 
 Pioneers, was to follow up the explosions with an instant rush. 
 This was the plan ; what actually happened was entirely different. 
 
 The column moved slowly through the darkness, until its lead- 
 ing ranks were within fifty yards of the high road to Lhasa. At 
 that moment a small party of three unsuspecting Tibetans tramped 
 slowly along it, and though Colonel Brander believed that not one 
 of his men was actually seen, it is possible that, in some way. 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 163 
 
 these men were able to give the alarm to the defenders of the post. 
 Certainly there seems to be no reason to charge any member of 
 the attacking column with carelessness, or even an accident. But 
 the Tibetans were on the alert, and, as soon as the first figures 
 were visible in the obscurity, a hot fire was poured upon them 
 from the roofs of all the houses in the village. The two storm- 
 ing-parties had by this time reached a low wall, thirty yards from 
 the house to be attacked, and there was nothing else to be done but 
 to make a dash for it. Captain Sheppard, followed by Captain 
 O'Connor, vaulted over the wall, and ran forward into the nar- 
 row lane between the two houses. From a doorway in the fore- 
 most house, opening into this passage, three Tibetans rushed out 
 with matchlocks and swords. Captain Sheppard drew his re- 
 volver and shot two of them, set the cake of gun-cotton under 
 the wall, and lit the fuse. He then ran back, preceded by the 
 third Tibetan, who, however, escaped into the door again. At the 
 same time, beside the smaller house, Garstin and Walker were 
 setting up their explosive, and everything seemed to promise im- 
 mediate success on the lines that Colonel Brander had mapped out. 
 Garstin's fuse, however, refused to act, and only Sheppard's ef- 
 fected its purpose. An earth-shaking roar was followed by blind- 
 ing dust, through which it was impossible to see the full extent 
 of the damage done. But all firing ceased for the moment, and in 
 one house at least a breach, big enough for the entrance of the 
 supporting companies, had been made. No one came. 
 
 It appeared afterward that Major Peterson's men had found 
 it impossible to advance in the face of the fire from the houses, 
 and instead of moving westward to the place from which they 
 could carry out the work begun by the storming-parties, they took 
 up a sheltered position to the east in a garden, where they re- 
 mained until the well-directed fire of " Bubble " and " Squeak " 
 enabled them to advance. The little storming-party was indeed 
 also supported by a company of the same regiment on its flank. 
 
i64 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 which had occupied a position in the sunken road a hundred yards 
 from the house, and did not understand the dangers in which the 
 two small bodies of men under Captain Sheppard were in a mo- 
 ment placed. These men were thus entirely cut off, and both 
 houses were full of Tibetans. 
 
 O'Connor acted with great presence of mind. He had his own 
 cake of gun-cotton intact, and, by the merest chance, the door 
 through which the surviving Tibetan had escaped back into the 
 house was left unfastened. Attended by one Sikh only, O'Connor 
 dashed through into the unoccupied house. Luckily every man 
 in it was on the roof ; for that very reason he considered it neces- 
 sary to go up on to the first floor, in order more effectively to ex- 
 plode the charge. Followed by his companion, he dashed up the 
 slippery iron-sheathed ladder, and set his cake in the corner where 
 it would do most damage. The men on the roof had seen him, 
 and in a rain of badly aimed bullets he lighted the fuse and, to 
 use his own phrase, " ran like a rabbit." His Sikh companion in 
 his excitement caught his rifle, to which the bayonet was attached, 
 between a wooden pillar and the hand-rail of the stairs, thus 
 completely barring the descent. Fuses used by storming-parties 
 are, naturally, short, and the stage directions for the descent of 
 O'Connor and his man would have : " exeunt confusedly." Pick- 
 ing themselves up at the bottom they made for the door, which, 
 however, they did not reach before the explosion took place. 
 O'Connor never has given a very lucid description of the moment, 
 but the fact that in his inside pocket a thick cut-glass flask was 
 smashed to pieces by the shock shows that his escape was a nar- 
 row one indeed. Sheppard outside saw with horror half of one 
 of the walls of the house subside in yellow dust before a sign of 
 O'Connor was visible at the doorway. 
 
 Soon after this a second attempt of Garstin's was more success- 
 ful, but in the absence of any support, the position of the little 
 storming-parties was dangerous indeed. Soon afterward, as we 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 165 
 
 were to hear with the deepest regret, Garstin was killed outright, 
 and O'Connor was seriously wounded by a ball through the 
 shoulder, before safe quarters could be taken up. In fact, these 
 exposed sections suffered all the more serious casualties of the 
 day, and in number no less than eight out of a total of eleven. 
 
 As soon as it was light enough, the guns on the little hill opened 
 fire upon the still strongly held houses to the east of the village, 
 and Major Peterson showed great gallantry in bringing up his 
 Pioneers through the gardens and houses, taking each by storm in 
 turn. The fighting was severe, for with the rising of the sun the 
 Tibetans found themselves caught without the chance of escape. 
 The jong lay 1,200 yards away, but to reach it fugitives were 
 obliged to cross an entirely coverless plain. Their fellows in the 
 town could be of little assistance to them. One plucky attempt on 
 the part of a score of mounted men was, indeed, made, but the 
 enterprise was hopeless; riding straight into the zone swept by 
 the Maxims, hardly three of them escaped back. Nor did the 
 bombardment, which the jong opened at the first streak of light, 
 help the defenders of the village. With an impartial hand the 
 gunners showered their balls upon friend and foe alike, and to 
 this cannonade some at least of the Tibetan casualties among the 
 crowded houses of Pala must have been due. A stout defense 
 against overwhelming odds was made for a short time; but as 
 the morning wore on, the Tibetans abandoned their loop-holes 
 and their windows, and fled to their labyrinth of underground 
 cellars, where they crouched in the darkness, and with their 
 matchlocks ready, formed a far more formidable antagonist than 
 in the open air. The place was practically cleared by one o'clock, 
 though for two or three days afterward a considerable number 
 of undiscovered Tibetans crept quietly away under cover of the 
 darkness of the night. 
 
 In the center of the village was a large and comfortable house, 
 owned by the Pala family, one of the most aristocratic stocks 
 
1 66 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 in Tibet. Besides a well-built three-storied house, there was 
 also the usual little summer-house beneath the trees of the 
 garden. The excellent workmanship of the few things, such as 
 tea-pots and brass images, which were found in the house gave 
 proof of the luxury of its late occupants, A more significant 
 find, however, was the discovery of two heavy jingals in the 
 cellars. It is a little difficult to account for their presence. 
 They had certainly not been brought there recently, and it is 
 curious that the Tibetans in bringing guns even from Lhasa 
 itself, for the purpose of bombarding our post, should have over- 
 looked within a mile of Gyantse two pieces throwing a ball as 
 heavy as those which they had laboriously transported from a 
 distance. The larger of the two guns weighed over four hun- 
 dred pounds, the diameter of its bore was three inches, and the 
 outside was curiously fluted. It was made of gun-metal, and 
 altogether seemed serviceable enough for the limited ballistic 
 requirements of Tibetans. 
 
 The village was occupied by a detachment of the Pioneers, 
 whose exploits were recognized in their Colonel's orders on the 
 following day. It is perhaps a pity that the work of the storm- 
 ing-parties did not receive acknowledgment, though the sur- 
 vivors of them, wounded or not, were the last people to notice 
 the omission. It was a good piece of work, and Colonel Brander 
 is to be congratulated. The delay of even twenty-four hours 
 in capturing this village might have made a serious difference 
 to the defense of Chang-lo, and when the Tibetans had once 
 been driven out the fullest use was made by us of this second 
 point d'appui. 
 
 The situation created by the capture of Pala was briefly this : 
 the English force was placed in a strong position with regard to. 
 the jong; we were enabled to cut the communications of the 
 Tibetans eastward, and, by holding the bridge at Chang-lo itself, 
 communication with the south was only possible after the river 
 
THE DALAI LAMA SHOWS HIS HAND 167 
 
 had risen by going five miles down stream to the bridge at 
 Tse-chen. We had for some time been able to keep the Tibetans 
 under cover all the day; a few sharp-shooters and Lieutenant 
 Hadow, with an itching thumb upon the trigger-lever of his 
 Maxim, had long made it impossible for any Tibetan to show 
 himself by daylight on any part of the jong, or in so much 
 of the town as was visible from the roof of the Commissioner's 
 house. But we had hitherto of course been unable to stop steady 
 communication with Lhasa by night. Now, however, we were 
 astride the road, and an occasional patrol was all that was neces- 
 sary to prevent the Tibetans holding any communication with 
 their capital, except by the circuitous and difficult track, which 
 could only be followed by retreating thirty miles down the valley 
 of the Nyang chu. 
 
 On our side we were still surrounded, and it was a daily 
 uncertainty every morning whether our thin line of communi- 
 cations would have continued to exist through the night. We 
 were therefore in a curious situation, both sides besieging the 
 other; and the word investment (which was generally used to 
 describe our position) is not perhaps strictly accurate. The hon- 
 ors were pretty evenly divided ; neither the Tibetans nor we were 
 able to storm the others' defenses; a mutual fusillade compelled 
 each side to protect its occupants by an elaborate system of trav- 
 erses ; and straying beyond the narrow limits of the fortifications 
 was, on either side, severely discouraged by the other. The Tib- 
 etans had, however, two considerable advantages. They were 
 fighting in their own country, and in numbers they probably ex- 
 ceeded us by ten to one. For them, every village or house that 
 dotted the wide plain round us was a refuge, and might also be- 
 come a post from which to operate against us. The loss of a few 
 men now and then mattered little to them; they had the whole 
 of Tibet from which to make good their casualties, and from 
 almost the same wide recruiting ground reinforcements crept 
 
1 68 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 in nightly in small companies. Sometimes in the past they had 
 ventured in during the daylight, bent double, running from 
 cover to cover like hares, now waiting for a quarter of an hour 
 behind a friendly overhanging bank, now making quick time 
 to the shelter of a white-washed chorten, or a ruined wall. But 
 our success at Pala made a great difference to the relative po- 
 sitions of ourselves and the Tibetans. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST 
 
 AT Gyantse, from dawn till sunset, there was generally a 
 AIL breeze. Except for an hour or two in the white heat of 
 mid-day the lightly strung leaves of the branching Lombardy 
 poplars in the compound were every moment shifting edge-ways 
 to the faint indraft from the plain, and, overhead, the long strings 
 of prayer-flags, orange and faded gray and gauzy chrome, rocked 
 gently in the stirring air. Silent the post never was by day, 
 not even in the motionless glare of noontide when the wind was 
 stifled and the heat sweated out from the wide empty plains, 
 a teeming mirage veil. These were the hours which the shrill 
 whistle of the kite or the monotone of the hoopoe filled — hours 
 when the petty restlessness of a camp, even in the hour of siesta, 
 assumed ear-compelling importance. Never during the day 
 could one hear the faint rush and race of the Nyang chu over 
 its pebbles a hundred yards away. At night there was no other 
 sound. 
 
 Gyantse under the stars will remain an impressive memory 
 for every one in the little post at Chang-lo. Perhaps the picture 
 of the nights there is worth giving so far as one can. Close 
 behind the fortified parapet of the Commissioner's house the 
 trees stood up with their sable branches sharply etched against 
 the powdered spaces of the night sky. One had to look upward 
 at them to be sure that it was not, indeed, their rustling, but the 
 voice of the river that hushed the silence and was itself muted 
 by the distant bark of a dog or the lifted heel-chain of a rest- 
 
 169 
 
I70 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 less mule in the lines below. Far behind, straightly ascending 
 like a column of phosphorescent smoke, the Milky Way ribbed 
 the sky to the south-southwest. Beneath it, the heavy sloping 
 buttress of the redoubt stood out boldly, the outer angle cutting 
 sharply across the line of the river as it flowed westward in its 
 shadowy channel, only a little brighter than the sky, till a curve 
 carried it behind the thin fringe of sallows, where all day the 
 rosefinches chattered in a crowd. 
 
 Looking downward over the sand-bags, the thick tangle of 
 the nearest abattis is barely seen, and beyond it the plain is only 
 certainly broken by an acre patch of iris, or by the darkness 
 under a clump of trees. These, uncertain in the gloom below, 
 are blackly silhouetted above, over the outline of the distant hills 
 which are clear against the sky of the horizon round; for in 
 these pure altitudes the stars invisibly assert themselves, and 
 interstellar space has a half-latent illumination of its own, against 
 which the peaks and saddles of these Himalayan spurs are better 
 defined than on a moonlight night. At the end of the parapet 
 is a sheeted Maxim, and beside its muzzle the motionless sentry 
 looks out into the night toward the jong. All day long the 
 high rock and its forts, clean cut in the bright air, have towered 
 up against the ash and ocher of the distant mountains, scored 
 and scarred with sharp water channels, cut fan-wise by a thou- 
 sand of the brief rains of these high uplands. Six hours ago 
 every stone of it could be counted ; now it had vanished and the 
 blank levels run to the foot of the distant ranges. Other fa- 
 miliar things but a few yards away — a worn foot-path, a clay 
 drinking-trough, or a half up-rooted tree-stump — have vanished 
 with the jong. Pala village is faintly betrayed in the distance 
 by its whitened walls, but even of that there is no certainty. 
 Six hundred yards to the front the position of the Gurkha Post 
 is only distinguished by the trees which cut the sky line over it. 
 
 As one peers out into the warm night, a long monotone is 
 
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST 171 
 
 faintly droned from the darkness ahead. It is one of the huge 
 ■conch shells in the jong and it may only mean a call to prayer 
 —the " hours " of Lamaism are unending— but as the moaning 
 note persists softly and steadily, a vivid speck of flame stabs 
 the darkness across the river. A second later the report of 
 the gun accompanies a prolonged " the-e-es " overhead. There 
 is another and another, and the balls chase each other through 
 the trees. The Tibetans are out for the night. A heavy fire 
 breaks out for two or three hundred yards along the further 
 hank, the neater crack of the European rifles in their possession 
 blending with the heavy explosion of matchlocks an inch in bore, 
 and the malicious swish of the conical bullets with the drone of 
 leaden lumps. 
 
 The sentry moves inward shadow-like and rouses an oflicer 
 sleeping in a corner of the parapet. It is only a word or two, 
 ** Water-gate, sir." As the fire increases, the garrison, a ghostly 
 company of half-seen men, move silently and mechanically to 
 their posts from their beds behind the traverses. After a little, 
 • the officer of the watch comes round and one hears a few whis- 
 pered words in the compound below. But this has happened 
 so often, night after night, that there is not much to do; the 
 defenses are manned without question needed or answer given. 
 A minute or two later there is hardly a change to be noted in the. 
 quietness of the post, except for the wail of the bullets over- 
 head, and the occasional inevitable cough of the awakened Se- 
 poys. But the post is ready from end to end, and the oflftcer 
 at his Maxim traverses her snub muzzle once or twice to see 
 that she runs easily. 
 
 The conch drones again from the hidden jong. Nothing is 
 easier now than to people the darkness with creeping figures. 
 One seems to have seen them — one always seems too late actually 
 to see them — here and there in the obscurity, but the small force 
 betraying its front by the flashes across the river is the only 
 
172 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 certain thing. These men keep up a persistent but useless fire, 
 though not a shot is returned. The spots of flame jerk out of 
 the night along a widening front, but there is no sign of an 
 advance, and, failing to draw any response from us, the aimless 
 fusillade slackens after a time. From the enemy's position, 
 Chang-lo must seem a sleeping, almost a deserted, post. But the 
 Tibetans have been taught a severe lesson time after time, and 
 they will not easily come on. Two or three, indeed, of their 
 hardiest come right up to the other side of the bridge and, at 
 a range of sixty yards, fire straight into the mud walls of the 
 water-gate. There is a rifle muzzle out of every loophole that 
 commands the bridge, of which the seven sagging bays may 
 just be seen against the dim stream from a corner of the re- 
 doubt. But not a sound of life is betrayed. The Tibetan 
 " braves " fire half-a-dozen shots along the roadway and then go 
 back to urge on their reluctant followers. There is a momentary 
 increase in the firing, but the sparks of flame have not moved up 
 a yard, and the faint sound dies down again into silence. It is 
 difficult to convince oneself that anything has happened, so com- 
 pletely has the night swallowed up everything except the chuckle 
 of the river over its stones. 
 
 After a lull of twenty minutes it is clear that no attack is 
 ^o be brought, at least against the central post. There was per- 
 haps no real intention on the part of the Tibetans to follow 
 up their volleys ;• we are much too strong and they know it ; their 
 real object is disclosed as we watch. Round the detached Gur- 
 kha posts the darkness is suddenly pierced by a hundred tongues 
 of flame, and upon the rattle of the muskets, a babel of excited 
 shouting follows. The enemy have surrounded the house. 
 Again and again the Tibetan war-cry is caught up. It is like 
 nothing in the world so much as the quick and staccato yell 
 of a jackal pack, and it carries for two miles on a still night. 
 One from another the Tibetans take up the weird cadences in 
 
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST 173 
 
 an uprising falsetto, reviving and again reviving the hubbub 
 whenever there seems any chance of its dying down. But the 
 Gurkha house is mute, though its walls re-echo with the din. 
 Then the Tibetans adopt another course. Shouting together 
 in groups, they pour forth challenges and contempt upon the 
 little garrison of forty or fifty Gurkhas. One or two swagger- 
 ers come up within fifty yards of the very loopholes and scream 
 out a flood of foul abuse. There is never a word or a shot in 
 reply, and the braves retire. The fire re-opens and the enemy 
 advance a little. Even the most timid Tibetan takes heart and 
 looses off his piece a little less wildly. 
 
 Inside the post, the Gurkhas stand aside in the darkness be- 
 side their loopholes, through which a bullet whizzes every now 
 and then, burying itself in the mud wall opposite. Two men keep 
 watch for the rest, and Mewa, the jemadar, bides his time till 
 he has word from them. The war-cry breaks out again, rising 
 and falling like the bellowing falsetto of the mules' lines at 
 feeding time, and the Tibetans grow confident and move for- 
 ward, until a dim ring of them can just be seen from inside 
 the post. The fire re-doubles, and a Gurkha is hit in the neck, 
 but still there is not a sign of life about the house. The excite- 
 ment of watching this attack from the roof of the post is as fresh 
 to-night as if it were the first time we were seeing one. 
 
 There must be about a thousand of the enemy. From Chang-lo 
 we can hear them chattering and shrieking together, keeping 
 their courage up with noise. One thinks of the fate that awaits 
 every soul in that little garrison should they be caught unawares 
 some night, and one blesses the foolishness of the noisy Tibetans. 
 
 But the time is almost ripe. Mewa takes the place of one 
 of his watchmen and looks down keenly through the dark. Af- 
 ter a while, he is reluctantly convinced that the enemy cannot 
 be induced to come forward again for some time, and he knows 
 that the strain on his men has become severe. There is sud- 
 
174 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 denly a movement among twenty or thirty Tibetans ; they move 
 round almost out of sight for a rush at the stake-protected door. 
 From the parapet, we can hear a quick double whistle. It is the 
 awaited signal, for the Gurkha post will risk no storming-party. 
 
 In a moment there is pandemonium. From every window and 
 loophole, and from between the sand-bags and through the crev- 
 ices on the roof, a burst of Maxim-like fire is poured into the 
 misty ring of men, which envelops the building, and the air aches 
 with the incessant snap of the rifle and the very short scream 
 of the bullet. In another moment all is over. The Tibetans 
 have broken and are flying into the night, leaving five or six 
 dead behind them. Their road back to the jong lies flat and free 
 before them, and they never look back. The Maxim fire has 
 stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Silence falls upon every- 
 thing as before. Only the first rays of the rising moon strike 
 full upon the upper terraces and towers of the jong, and the mass 
 of it emerges from the distant darkness edged with silver and 
 strangely near. It is still some two hours before sunrise, but 
 as the moon frees herself from behind the hills to the east, 
 the first faint ripple stirs the leaves overhead, and the silence of 
 the night is lost. 
 
 After the sun had risen the day became monotonous, and 
 the monotony was repeated daily, from week's end to week's 
 end. Even the poor interest of watching the first appearance 
 of the vegetables in the garden palled. There was a day when 
 nine little green points promised nine bean plants to come. 
 Day after day added two or three to this number, but after 
 the appearance of thirty-eight, there was not only a cessation 
 of further evidence of fertility, but a lamentable check in the 
 development of the plants already above ground. At one time 
 the peas, two little square plots planted with a generosity of seed 
 which would have scandalized Messrs. Sutton, arose in ranks 
 almost in a single night, and a few days afterward were about 
 
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST 175 
 
 three inches in height. Captain Walton, to whose hands the 
 Mission had intrusted this responsible duty, assured us that 
 all was going well. Both the beans and peas were, he assured 
 us, of a dwarf variety. Indeed, he seemed to suggest, with 
 apparent self-conviction, that had these two plots exhibited any 
 further intention of growth he would have despaired of the 
 dishes we were looking forward to. The carrots made no at- 
 tempt to justify their credit, except in a prodigious growth of 
 green feathery leaves. To them, and to the radishes, one fault 
 was common. Where one expected to find the best part, a thin 
 leather-bootlace-like root descended weedily into our carefully 
 prepared loam. Nor, so far as I was ever able to ascertain, was 
 a single dish of any vegetable, except mustard-and-cress, pro- 
 duced from our carefully tended and certainly Eve-less garden. 
 
 There was very little to do from morn to night. Captain 
 Ryder planned the defenses of the post. Construction and 
 demolition were alike in his hands; and the ultimate result of 
 his care and technical skill was quaintly embodied one day by 
 Colonel Brander in a sentence in the orders, — Si monumentum 
 quaeris, circumspice. The original phrase referred, indeed, to 
 a structure which served as a tomb, nor perhaps was the quota- 
 tion strictly accurate, but Colonel Brander's intention was de- 
 lightfully clear, and every soul in the garrison of each one of 
 the many races there represented most cordially echoed the 
 phrase. 
 
 The direction from which most danger was to be expected 
 was that of the jong. Every morning and every afternoon the 
 usual bombardment broke out. It is possible that the Tibetans 
 had secured some knowledge of the hours during which, from 
 one reason or another, there was generally more movement in- 
 side the post than at other times. The free intercourse which 
 the Tibetan visitors to Kamba-jong enjoyed must, at least, have 
 taught them something of our habits, and, without doubt, they 
 
176 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 made whatever use they could of this information. We early- 
 received news that the Teling Kusho was directing operations. 
 He had been allowed to see a good deal of us at Kamba. 
 
 There was one thing in connection with this bombardment 
 which may throw some light upon the ability of beleaguered 
 garrisons in old days to hold their own until starvation com- 
 pelled them to surrender. The fact that the report of a gun 
 of an ancient pattern invariably precedes the ball was, we found, 
 of the most invaluable assistance. There was always time to go 
 four yards at least under cover of the nearest traverse before 
 the ball crashed into the compound. There was one jingal, how- 
 ever, which was christened " Chota Billy," which only allowed 
 three yards and in extreme cases of over-charge of powder only 
 two. The naming of the bigger guns mounted on the jong was 
 curious. From a large jingal, throwing a ball four inches in 
 circumference, and immediately receiving the name of Billy, 
 two Chota Billies, one big Billy, and finally two Williams suc- 
 cessively took their names. In all, there may have been at most 
 nineteen guns mounted on the jong, of a bore ranging from 
 one inch to three and three-quarter inches. All of them ranged 
 easily some two or three hundred yards beyond Chang-lo. Wil- 
 liam, the heaviest of all, would sometimes kick up the dust 
 600 yards in our rear, and 2,400 yards from the jong; that is 
 to say, from 800 to 1,000 yards beyond the post was the utmost 
 range of any gun, except one of the two Chota Billies, which 
 at a pinch could reach the bridge at the end of the wood 2,800 
 yards from the gun positions of the rock. 
 
 But most of their missiles fell short. The ground immedi- 
 ately in front of Chang-lo was scarred and seamed with hun- 
 dreds and even thousands of futile jingal balls which had 
 dropped uselessly into the " football field " or the field outside. 
 Only eight or ten of their best weapons threw projectiles with 
 accuracy and certainty. The others heaved their muzzles up 
 
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST 177 
 
 into the sky and trusted that elevation would counteract econ- 
 omy of powder and the amazing escape of gas all round the 
 ill-fitting bullet. Bigger guns made an astonishing report, and 
 a second and a half later a lump of lead from William, as big 
 as a Tangerine orange, would moan through the air, sometimes 
 with unpleasant accuracy whipping down into the compound, 
 or sometimes tearing its way through the high trees over our 
 heads. Altogether about four men were killed by these mis-, 
 shapen projectiles, which looked like sections of a solid lead bar 
 with the edges roughly filed down. At first lead alone was used, 
 but the appearance among us of balls composed of a heavy stone 
 wrapped with lead suggested that the supply was running short. 
 Later on, this surmise was justified, for a curious substitute for 
 lead was found in the use of pure copper. During the last two 
 weeks of the siege lumps of this glittering red-gold metal were 
 used almost as constantly as those of more humble material. 
 
 At one time the Tibetans adopted the principle of firing vol- 
 leys. At a given signal fourteen or fifteen guns were fired in a 
 ragged feu de joie. There was little additional danger to us 
 even from the first of these concerted pieces. But it is clear that 
 to follow such a volley by another, five minutes afterward, was 
 sheer waste of ammunition. Still, almost everything in the 
 post which could be struck was struck. Tents, sand-bags, trav- 
 erses, house-walls, and trees were pounded alike. The trees 
 suffered most; the Tibetans never seemed to be perfectly certain 
 of the direction of any ball unless it betrayed its billet a hun- 
 dred yards in front of our defenses. Naturally, therefore, in 
 order at least to insure that no such obvious failure of aim 
 should be noted against them by the Commandant, they preferred 
 to elevate their guns at an angle which often only resulted in a 
 shower of twigs and leaves from the lofty poplars over our heads. 
 
 In those trees the kites whistled and the ravens croaked all day. 
 Both species were twice the size of ravens and kites elsewhere. 
 
178 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Captain Walton would not admit that this enormous difference 
 in size justified him in setting them down as a new species, but 
 the practical results of having these double-powered scavengers 
 probably contributed in no small degree to our comfort. Outside 
 our defenses the unclaimed pi-dogs roamed all day and howled 
 nearly all the night. By day they were probably engaged in 
 unearthing the long-buried limbs of some wretched Tibetan 
 killed during the attack upon the post on May 5th. By night 
 they seemed to be disputing among themselves the possession of 
 the disgusting spoils they had secured during the day. At one 
 time Colonel Brander arranged for the destruction of some scores 
 of these parasites. But this was found to be a somewhat dan- 
 gerous proceeding when carried out within half a mile of the 
 camp. Two charges of attempted assassination were brought by 
 a person of no small importance in the post, and, though these 
 cases were smilingly dismissed, there was undoubtedly a certain 
 element of danger in permitting this indiscriminate dog-slaughter 
 with rifles which were capable of inflicting serious harm at a 
 range of 4,000 yards. So the dogs were permitted to grout in 
 the ground as they liked, and as a set-off against the intolerable 
 nuisance of their howls by night, it was remembered that they 
 might perhaps thereby give us useful warning of any second 
 attempt on the part of the Tibetans to creep up in the darkness 
 of a moonless night. 
 
 Of the dogs within the defenses " Tim " was perhaps the best 
 known, and certainly in his own eyes the most important. He 
 was an Irish terrier belonging, so far as any dog very certainly 
 belonged to any one there, to Captain Cullen, but the members of 
 the Mission, making a contemptible use of the few occasional tit- 
 bits which were found in their mess-boxes, successfully seduced 
 him away from his true allegiance for some time. Of other 
 dogs mention must be made of " Mr. Jackson," a little beauty of 
 an Irish terrier, who we were assured enjoyed every minute of 
 
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST 179 
 
 his life in spite of a permanently dislocated shoulder. He un- 
 doubtedly limped, and he evfen more certainly enjoyed life; but 
 we could not help hoping that some mistake had been made in 
 the diagnosis of his complaint. " Major Wimberley," a fearsome 
 hound, had undoubtedly bull-dog and fox-terrier as his chief 
 ingredients, but it was difficult finally to exclude his claims to 
 any other breed of dog, except perhaps a greyhound or Pekinese 
 pug. I do not remember what the real name of this entirely 
 attractive dog was, but he used to go, on the below-stairs princi- 
 ple, by his master's name, and I am sorry that no photograph I 
 possess seems to include his sober countenance. " The Lama " 
 was a snarling, bad-tempered little beast, who produced a litter 
 of pups of such appalling vulgarity and ugliness that, in spite 
 of the real need which we then had of the companionship of 
 even an animal, they were drowned by her native owner without 
 a protest from any one. 
 
 To many it may seem unnecessary, and perhaps silly, to make 
 even this passing reference to the dogs that shared our captivity. 
 But without going more deeply into the matter, I would only 
 say that a critic should experience even the slight investment 
 which it was our lot to undergo before he speaks slightingly of 
 the right of a dog to grateful recollection. 
 
 For the rest, one day succeeded another without change, and 
 except for the uncertainty of the arrival of the daily post, with- 
 out variety. There was little actual danger, but we were of 
 course restricted to the narrow limits of the defended posts for 
 the greater part of the time of the investment. Toward the end, 
 when we had secured and were holding Pala village and the 
 Gurkha post, and after Sheppard had constructed his covered 
 ways between us and them, more exercise was possible. But 
 for the greater part of the time we could not stray beyond our 
 own perimeter, and that in itself became somewhat of a burden. 
 Perhaps the want of exercise contributed in no small degree to 
 
i8o THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 the irritation caused by this sense of captivity, but whatever the 
 cause, an observant man might at times have noticed a shght 
 tendency toward what we believe was called, in Ladysmith, 
 " siege temper." In fact, with the exception — and in justice I 
 must say the absolute exception — of Colonel Younghusband him- 
 self and Captain Sheppard, there was hardly any one in the little 
 force who was entirely free from a touch of this pardonable 
 frailty. 
 
 It is a pity that there were not more men with the force who 
 were able to sketch. The most rudimentary skill in color would 
 have found scope indeed at Gyantse. As it was, there was hardly 
 a paint-box in the force, if we except the little old-fashioned 
 cakes of color which officially provide for the sappers the reds 
 and grays and ochers needed for their plans. However, even 
 had there been more skill and better equipment, there would have 
 been little time for the mere work of the artist. It is perhaps 
 worth while to try to catch in words a little of what the finest 
 photograph must fail utterly to record. 
 
 The color of Tibet has no parallel in the world. Nowhere, 
 neither in Egypt, nor in South Africa, nor even in places of such 
 local reputation as Sydney, or Calcutta, or Athens, is there such 
 a constancy of beauty, night and morning alike, as there is in 
 this fertile plain inset in the mountain backbone of the world. 
 Here there is a range and a quality in both light and color which 
 cannot be rendered by the best of colored plates, but which must 
 always be remembered if the dry bones of figure and fact are to 
 be properly conceived. 
 
 During the mid-hours of a summer day, Tibet is perhaps not 
 unlike the rest of the dry tropical zone. Here, as elsewhere, the 
 fierce Oriental sun scares away the softer tints, and the shrinking 
 and stretching shadows of the white hours are too scanty to 
 relieve the mirage and the monotony. All about Chang-lo the 
 contemptuous shoulders of the shadeless mountains stand blank 
 
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST i8i 
 
 and unwelcoming. All along the plain as far as the eye can see 
 the stretches of iris or barley and the plantations of willow-thorn 
 are dulled into eucalyptus gray by the dust; the trees lift them- 
 selves dispirited, and the faint droop of every blade and every 
 leaf tires the eye with unconscious sympathy. Far off along the 
 Shigatse road a pack-mule shuffles along, making in sheer weari- 
 ness as much dust as the careless hoofs of a bullock, that dustiest 
 of beasts. One does not look at the houses. The sun beats off 
 their coarse and strong grained whitewash, and one can hardly 
 believe that they are the same dainty buildings of pearl-gray or 
 rose-pink that one watched as they faded out of sight with the 
 sunset yesterday evening. Everything shivers behind the crawl- 
 ing skeins of mirage. There is no strength, there are no out- 
 lines to anything in the plain, and even the hard thorn trees in 
 the plantation are flaccid. As one passes underneath them a kite 
 or two dives downward from the branches. He will disturb 
 little dust as he moves, for your kite mistrusts a new perch, and 
 the bough he sits on must be leafless both for the traverse of his 
 outlook, and for the clear oarage of his wide wings. Also, you 
 may be sure he has been to and fro fifty times to-day. See him 
 settle a hundred yards away near that ugly significant heap of 
 dirty maroon cloth, and mark the dust thrown forward by the 
 thrashing brake-stroke of his great wings. It hangs in a petty 
 cloud still when we have come up to him and driven him away 
 in indignation for a little space. 
 
 Under foot the dwarf clematis shuts in from the midday heat 
 its black snake-head flowers, and the young shoots of the jasmine 
 turn the backs of their tender leaflets to the sun, drooping a little 
 as they do so. Veronica is there in stunted little bushes ; vetches, 
 rest-harrows, and dwarf indigo-like plants swarm along the sides 
 of the long dry water channels; and here and there, where the 
 ditch runs steep, you may find, along toward the southern face, 
 what looks for all the world like a thickly strewn bank of violets. 
 
i82 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Violets of course they are not, but the illusion is perfect, in color, 
 growth, and size alike. Near them tall fresh-looking docks have 
 found a wet stratum deep below the dusty irrigation cut, and 
 away in a sopping water meadow by the river stunted Himalayan 
 primulas make a cloudy carpet of pink. 
 
 Late in the afternoon the change begins. Details of flowers 
 and fields and trees vanish — and surely one is content to lose 
 them in the scene that follows. First, the light pall of pure blue 
 which has all day gauzed over the end of the valley toward 
 Dongtse deepens into ultramarine ash. Then, in a few minutes 
 as it seems, the fleeces of white and silver in the west have gath- 
 ered weight, and a mottled company of argent and silver-gray 
 and cyanine heaps itself across the track of the setting sun. The 
 sky deepens from blue to amber without a transient tint of green, 
 and the red camp-fires whiten as the daylight fades. But the 
 true sunset is not yet. After many minutes comes the sight 
 which is perhaps Tibet's most exquisite and peculiar gift: the 
 double glory of the east and west alike, and the rainbow confu- 
 sion among the wide waste of white mountain ranges. 
 
 For ten minutes the sun will fight a path clear of his clouds 
 and a luminous ray sweeps down the valley, lighting up the un- 
 suspected ridges and blackening the lurking hollows of the hills. 
 This is no common light. The Tibetans themselves have given 
 it a name of its own, and indeed the gorse-yellow blaze which 
 paints its shadows myrtle-green underneath the deepened indigo 
 of the sky defies description and deserves a commemorative 
 phrase for itself alone. But the strange thing is still to come. 
 A quick five-fingered aurora of rosy light arches over the sky, 
 leaping from east to west as one gazes overhead. The fingers 
 converge again in the east, where a growing splendor shapes it- 
 self to welcome them on the horizon's edge.^ 
 
 ^ Travelers have more than once referred to this curious phenomenon, 
 and the Tibetans have a word, "Ting-pa," for this rosy and cloudless beam 
 also. 
 
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED POST 183 
 
 Then comes the dimax of the transformation scene. While 
 the carmine is still over-arching the sky, on either side the horizon 
 deepens to a still darker shade, and the distant hills stand out 
 against it with uncanny sharpness, iridescent for all the world 
 like a jagged and translucent scale of mother-of-pearl lighted 
 from behind. Above them the ravines and the ridges are alike 
 lost, and in their place mantles a pearly underplay of rose-petal 
 pink and eau-de-nil green, almost moving as one watches. Then 
 the slowly developed tints tire and grow dull ; the quick evening 
 gloom comes out from the plain, and a sharp little wind from 
 the southeast is the herald of the stars. 
 
 These sunsets are as unlike the " cinnamon, amber, and dun " 
 of South Africa as the high crimson, gold-flecked curtains of 
 Egypt, or the long contrasting belts of the western sky in mid- 
 ocean. So peculiar are they to this country that they have as 
 much right to rank as one of its characteristic features as Lamaic 
 superstition, or the " bos grunniens " itself ; and to leave them 
 unmentioned, however imperfect and crude the suggestion may 
 be, would be to cover up the finest page of the book which is 
 only now after many centuries opened to the world. That alone 
 is my excuse for attempting what every man in this expedition 
 knows in his heart to be impossible. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 religion: manners and customs: art 
 
 IN Tibet the line of division between the layman and the priest 
 is sharply drawn indeed. The domestic life of the country, 
 its government, its cultivation and even, in some degree, its com- 
 merce, all are colored to a greater or less extent by the strange 
 religion centered in the divine person of the Grand Lama of 
 Lhasa; and the line of honorable demarcation, so far as persons 
 are concerned, permits of no mistake. If a man is a layman he 
 belongs to an inferior caste; however high his rank he does but 
 the more point the contrasts which exist between the rulers and 
 the ruled. The Lamaic hierarchy have succeeded in creating a 
 religious caste unparalleled in the world. 
 
 What that religion is, demands therefore more than a passing 
 notice. There is, or rather there has hitherto been, a belief that 
 the Buddhism of Tibet is a lawful descendant of the Buddhism 
 which the Master preached beneath the pipuls of Bengal. Ex- 
 travagant it was known to be; it was obvious that it had become 
 incrusted in ritual, and both adorned and humbled by traditions ; 
 it was clear also that for the common folk the letter had almost 
 killed the spirit, and the use by the priests of their sacred posi- 
 tion to secure entire tyranny over the laymen had not escaped 
 notice. But after all, the same things, each and all of them in 
 some form or another, are to-day true of Christianity also. And 
 yet the flame of Christianity, however strange or tawdry the 
 shrine, burns perhaps as steadily to-day as ever it did. This 
 
 ever-ready parallel— one which the student carries with him 
 
 184 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 185 
 
 almost unconsciously to the consideration of Buddhism — has ob- 
 scured the truth. 
 
 But the Buddhism of Tibet has no longer the faintest resem- 
 blance to the plain austere creed which Gautama preached. It 
 is doubtful if the great Founder of Buddhism would recognize in 
 its forms or formulae any trace of the purity and sobriety of his 
 own high creed. It is hard to say whether he would be more 
 offended by the golden cooking-pots of the Potala palace or by 
 the awful self-mortification of the immured monks of Nyen-de- 
 kyi-buk and other extreme hermitages. Except in so far as that 
 Buddha's face of quietism personified still gazes down from wall 
 and altar upon the rites of Lamaism, that religion can claim little 
 connection with the faith upon which their reputation and power 
 are wholly based. Under a thin mask of names and personifica- 
 tions suggested by the records of the Master, or by the reforms 
 effected by Asanga, a system of devil-worship pure and simple 
 reigns in Tibet; the monkish communities spare no effort to 
 establish their predominance more firmly every year by fostering 
 the slavish terror which is the whole attitude toward religion of 
 the ignorant classes of the land. The wretched tiller of the soil 
 is always the ultimate supporter of a religious tyranny, because 
 in a manufacturing community the faculties, and a sense of inde- 
 pendence, are necessarily developed too strongly for its tolera- 
 tion; but of all such superstitious servitudes the unhappy 
 " miser " of Tibet supplies us to-day with the classical example. 
 Not even the darkest days of the Papal States, nor the most big- 
 oted years of Puritan rule in New England, not the intolerance 
 of Genevan Calvinism, not Islam itself can afford an example of 
 such utter domination by an abuse of the influence upon men of 
 their religious terrors. The line between religion and supersti- 
 tion may be a fine one and hard to place. But wherever it may 
 be drawn the Buddhist of Tibet has long crossed it. 
 
 From a political point of view, the importance of the religion 
 
i86 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of any country lies less in its moral or ethical excellence than in 
 the extent to which it exerts a real influence upon the lives of its 
 professing members and in the use or misuse of that influence 
 in the government of the country. Apart, therefore, from the ac- 
 tual doctrine or ritual of this so-called Buddhism, the degree to' 
 which it enters into the public and private life of the Tibetans is 
 worth studying. It may be said at once that, so far at least as the 
 lower classes are concerned, it is paramount: no other influence 
 is of the slightest importance. But whether that influence de- 
 serves to be called religious is another matter. The distinction 
 between northern and southern Buddhism is one which is far 
 more than geographical. The common people of Burma and 
 Siam still apply the standards of Gaya to their daily life, but 
 northern Buddhism has long abandoned, except in name, the 
 Indian faith. In their vain repetitions and mechanical aids to 
 self-salvation, in their gaudy and frequently obscene ritual, in 
 their hells full of demon spirits and fearsome semi-gods, Bud- 
 dha's simple creed has long been dead. The doctrine of reincar- 
 nation, rather implied than taught by him, is still politically use- 
 ful, and therefore remains as almost the sole link which still 
 connects the two Churches. Brushing aside the films of ritual 
 and the untruthful suggestions of tradition, one finds in Lama- 
 ism little but sheer animistic devil-worship. 
 
 To the Tibetans, every place is peopled with the active agents 
 of a supernatural malice. Always in this country — at the sum- 
 mit of a pass, at the entrance of a village, at a cleft in the rock- 
 side, at the crossing of a stream by bridge or ford — one is ac- 
 customed to find the flicker of a rain-washed string of flags, a 
 fluttering prayer-pole, or a gaily decked brush of ten-foot willow 
 sprigs; evil spirits must be exorcised at every turn in the road. 
 Wells, lakes and running streams also are full of demons who 
 visit with floods and hailstorms the slightest infraction of the 
 lamas' rules. Tibet is peopled with as many bogies as the most 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 187 
 
 terrified child in England can conjure up in the darkness of its 
 bed-room. A natural cave, a chink beneath a boulder, a farm- 
 stead, the row of willows beside an irrigation channel, or the low 
 mill house at the end of them, a doorway or a chorten — every 
 habitation of man teems with these unseen terrors. The spilling 
 of the milk upon the hearth-stone needs its special expiation, and 
 the birth and death of men are naturally perhaps made the oppor- 
 tunity of securing oblations from the people of the land. For 
 there is but one way of exorcising these powers of ill. Prayers 
 are not of themselves the defenses of the poor in Tibet ; they can 
 only be lively and effectual when sanctioned by the priest; and 
 the fluttering prayer-flag, the turning-wheel, or the muttered 
 ejaculation is valid only after due consultation at the local gompa. 
 And not a pole is set up, not a string of flags pulled taut, not a 
 water-wheel or a wind-wheel set in motion without the payment 
 of the customary fee. The priestly tax is not paid in money 
 alone. The labors of the people's hands are g.t the disposal of 
 the ruling caste. The corvee is known in Tibet as it was known 
 in ancient Egypt, and no feudal seigniory of the Dark Ages in 
 Europe ever exacted its full rights as mercilessly as this narrow 
 sect of self-indulgent priests. 
 
 Invariably there will be found outside a house four things. 
 The first is the prayer-pole or the horizontal sag of a line of 
 moving squares of gauze ; the second is a broken teapot of earth- 
 enware from which rises the cheap incense of burnt juniper twigs 
 —a smell which demons cannot abide ; the third, a nest of worsted 
 rigging, shaped like a cobweb and set about with colored linen 
 tags, catkins, leaves, sprigs and little blobs of willow often crown- 
 ing the skull of a dog or sheep. The eyes are replaced by hid- 
 eous projecting balls of glass and a painted crown-vallary rings 
 it round. Hither the spirits of disease within the house are help- 
 lessly attracted, and smallpox, the scourge of Tibet, may never 
 enter there. Last of all is the white and blue swastika or fylfot. 
 
i88 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 surmounted by a rudely drawn symbol of the sun and moon. 
 This sign marks every main doorway in the country.^ 
 
 Other more public charms against evil are the chortens or 
 cairns which piety or terror has set up at small intervals along 
 the road to be a continual nuisance to the impious traveler. Like 
 the " islands " in Piccadilly or the Strand, they may only be 
 passed to the left, and their position on the edge of a cliff often 
 renders this in one direction a hazardous proceeding. There are, 
 of course, no carts or wheeled vehicles of any kind in Tibet, or 
 this superstition would long ago have become extinguished 
 through sheer necessity. As it is, the chorten remains till the 
 cliff itself falls, but to the last there is generally foothold on 
 which to climb round the outside of a cairn. It may be noted as 
 a psychological curiosity that, after living in the country for a 
 few months, the least thoughtful man in the force usually adopted 
 this superstition as he walked along, though, of course, when rid- 
 ing it is not unnatural for Englishmen. 
 
 Here and there one finds long walls, composed for the most 
 part of inscribed stones; these mendangs or manis represent the 
 accretions of many years, and some in Tibet are reported to be 
 half a mile in length. They do not, however, assume the impor- 
 tance in the province of U that they possess farther to the west. 
 To other pious memorials also the passer-by adds his contribution 
 of a stone. A few white pebbles of quartzite carefully selected 
 
 * A good deal of inaccurate statement has been made about the swastika. 
 To nothing did I pay more attention than in noting the color and shape of re- 
 ligious emblems as we penetrated deeper and deeper into the country. It is 
 said that the swastika which revolves to the right is consecrated to the use 
 of orthodox Buddhists of whatever school, and that the swastika which kicks 
 in the other direction, that is to say which revolves to the left, is used only by 
 the Beun-pa, the aboriginal devil-worshipers, whose faith was ousted by the 
 adoption of Buddhism. This is not borne out by the relative frequency of 
 position of the two swastikas in Tibet. The left-handed swastika {i.e., that 
 which turns to the dexter) is, if anything, the commoner of the two, and the 
 commonest use of this symbol is in the opposition of the two kinds : thus the 
 two halves of a doorway, or the pattern of a rug, will generally offer an ex- 
 ample of the two kinds confronted. 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 189 
 
 from the neighboring stone-strewn field will acquire for him no 
 small merit if heaped together in a little pyramid, or piled with 
 careful balance one on the top of another. Prayer-wheels offer 
 their fluted axles to the hand of the traveler in long rows, hung 
 up conveniently beside the wall of a house. The poorest may 
 thus accumulate merit. I have before referred to the use of 
 prayer-wheels, but it may be added here that besides the hand- 
 turned wheels and those moved by water, the principle of the 
 anemometer has long been known for the purposes of Lamaic 
 devotion, and the essential principle of the turbine is found in 
 little gauze-sided stoves which drive a tiny rotating tun by hot 
 air forced through a spiral. 
 
 The walls of the merest hovels are plastered with yellow paper 
 charms; and round their necks the people carry amulet boxes, 
 without which no Tibetan ventures far. These are packed with 
 a cheap little image of clay, a few grains of sanctified wheat, two 
 or three written charms and a torn scrap of a sacred katag, origi- 
 nally thrown over the shoulders or head of some famous image. 
 Pills, too, may be found in the box, red pills certified to contain 
 some speck of the ashes of the Guru Rinpoche. For the special 
 purposes of this year, one often found a small, sharply triangular 
 piece of flint. This was guaranteed to be a perfect protection 
 against the bullets of the foreigner. For all these things the 
 lamas have to be paid, and we soon realized that their control 
 over the souls of their flock was used solely to secure an unlimited 
 tyranny over their worldly possessions. The riches of Tibet are, 
 almost without exception, enjoyed by the priestly class. 
 
 It may be not without interest to draw attention to a curious 
 and special use of the one doctrine which connects Lamaism still 
 with Gautama by a fundamental dogma. It is a cynical misuse 
 of the theory of reincarnation, the employment of it as a political 
 lever. Augurs do not look at augurs when they meet, but when 
 they quarrel they sometimes afford the onlooker some amusement. 
 
I90 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 The present Dalai Lama (at the time of writing it does not seem 
 at all clear that we have succeeded in weakening his hold upon 
 place and power) made for political reasons a sudden and con- 
 venient discovery, that Tsong-kapa, the great reformer of Lama- 
 ism, was reincarnated in the person of the Tzar of Russia. This 
 announcement was, of course, intended to smooth the way to that 
 closer union between the two states which Dorjieff had so success- 
 fully managed to begin. As a statement in itself by the reincarna- 
 tion of Avalokiteswara, it was difficult to deny or even to discuss 
 the truth of the proposition. But the indignant Tsong-du were 
 equal to the occasion. They countered gracefully. In effect they 
 said, " How interesting and how lucky for the Tzar ! " But the 
 guardian of this country, the Chinese Emperor, is also a reincar- 
 nation. He, as they reminded the forgetful Tubdan, is, poor 
 man, the existing representation of the god of learning, Jampa- 
 lang, and therefore is not lightly to be ousted from his predomi- 
 nance in Tibet. 
 
 Here matters remain, though the Grand Lama had no reason 
 to regret the extension of this graceful courtesy to the Tzar. 
 It is a fact beyond dispute, deny it as the Russian individual may, 
 that the " Little Father," in virtue of his position as head of the 
 Christian Church in Russia, sent with all ceremony a complete 
 set of the vestments of a Bishop of the Greek Church to the Dalai 
 Lama. This is perhaps the most extraordinary thing of all the 
 strange incidents in connection with this odd expedition. A Rus- 
 sian would probably prefer to deny than to explain the fact. It 
 does not seem probable that it was caused by any similar lapse 
 from common sense as that which the early Christians displayed 
 when they raised Buddha to a place among the saints of the 
 Church. (This is a fairly well-known fact, and, if evidence were 
 needed, the life of St. Joasaph, as told in the " Golden Legend," 
 would convince the most skeptical.) Still, it is a long step from 
 including the personality of a very holy pagan by inadvertence 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 191 
 
 among the pillars of the Early Church to the symbolic acceptance 
 as a Christian, and subsequent appointment as an apostolically 
 descended bishop, of the most typical character in the heathen 
 world to-day. 
 
 Among these freaks of politico-religious strategy, one of the 
 most amazing was the reincarnate representative which, by uni- 
 versal consent, was found for the soul and spirit of one of the 
 terrible guardian deities of the land and of the faith. Palden- 
 Ihamo is a dark-blue lady with three eyes who sits upon a chest- 
 nut mule drinking blood from a skull and trampling under foot 
 the torn and mutilated bodies of men and women. Her crown is 
 composed of skulls, her eye teeth are four inches long, and the 
 bridle, girths, and crupper are living snakes kept in position by 
 the dripping skin of a recently flayed man. Of this atrocity the 
 Tibetans found a reincarnation in Queen Victoria. This they did 
 without the slightest wish or intention in the world to do any- 
 thing but convey the highest possible personal compliment. The 
 " horrible " aspect of these guardian deities does but increase their 
 virtue and their efficacy. They represent the old heathen tyrants 
 of the land who were brought into subjection by Buddha, and 
 left with all their horrible attributes to scare away every evil, es- 
 pecially the intruder and the enemy. This last reincarnation was 
 so well known, that a lama will think an Englishman ignorant if 
 he does not know it; and he will explain that, after all, if proof 
 were needed of the truth of what they believe, it is to be found in 
 the fact that Tibet, during Queen Victoria's long reign, was 
 saved from invasion, saved even from that intercourse which they 
 hate nearly as much, and that after her death and her return to be 
 reincarnated again in a little child in Tibet, the English troops 
 immediately bore down upon their sacred capital. 
 
 As I have said, no priestly caste in the history of religion has 
 ever fostered and preyed upon the terror and ignorance of its 
 flock with the systematic brigandage of the lamas. It may be 
 
192 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 that, hidden away in some quiet lamasery, far from the main 
 routes, Kim's lama may still be found. Once or twice in the quiet 
 unworldly abbots of such monasteries as those of Dongtse or 
 Ta-ka-re, one saw an attractive and almost impressive type of 
 man ; but the heads of the hierarchy are very different men, and 
 by them the country is ruled with a rod of iron. The vast aggre- 
 gation of symbols and ceremonies which have strangled the life 
 out of the simple and beautiful faith of Buddha is but a barrier 
 which the more effectually separates the priestly caste from its 
 lay serfs. To educate the latter in any way would be to strike 
 at the root of Lamaic supremacy, and, therefore, the whole land 
 is sunk in an ignorance to which it would be difficult to find a par- 
 allel. To these unlettered hinds the awful figures which scowl 
 from the gompa wall, blood bespattered, with dripping tusks and 
 bloated and beastlike bodies, are as veritable as were ever the pic- 
 tures of a medieval hell to the frightened catechumen. To them 
 the muttering or the fluttering of the strange charm, om mani 
 padme hum, is the easiest, and for them the only, pathway to a 
 vague well-being after death, provided spiritual pastors shall have 
 sanctioned and hedged about with charms their earthly life. 
 
 These simple people are a pleasant race. You will always meet 
 in the poorest hut with unfailing courtesy; not only is it an un- 
 questioned duty, but you would believe it also to be a pleasure, 
 for them instantly to bring forth an offering of their best. It may 
 be small enough — a little bowl of barley, three or four eggs in 
 the hand— but there it will always be. Eggs may cost but two- 
 pence a dozen in the nearest village, but it is only fair to remem- 
 ber that pennies are scarce among these poor people. They live a 
 toilsome and hard life uncomplainingly, without the wits to re- 
 alize that any other could be their lot. The ordinary villager 
 sleeps and eats on the floor of the hut. Furniture he has, of 
 course, none ; two or three brass or copper bowls, a big unglazed 
 red porcelain teapot^ a few lengths of thick red or gray cloth are 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 193 
 
 (besides the implements of his trade) all you will ever find in a 
 Tibetan house. 
 
 Perhaps the best known thing about Tibet is the habit prevalent 
 throughout the country for a woman to marry all her husband's 
 brothers as well as himself. This is a curious custom and I do not 
 think that any sufficient reason has ever been given for it; natu- 
 rally it fills the nunneries, and the population of the country, 
 whether due to this fact alone or not, is steadily decreasing. The 
 plan, however, seems to work well enough so far as the family is 
 concerned. Perhaps they expect very little, but the fact remains 
 that these many-husbanded ladies seem able to keep a comfortable 
 enough home for their changing housemates. That, I think, may 
 be the reason why friction rarely or never occurs. If there are 
 three sons in a family the third will become a lama, the eldest will 
 remain chiefly at home, the second son will tend the flocks on 
 the grazing grounds or carry the wool to the nearest market ; the 
 two brothers, therefore, do not very often meet, and the good 
 lady apparently chooses which of the two she would rather look 
 after for the moment. The result is apparent in one way; the 
 women have developed a distinctly stronger character than the 
 men. No layman or laywoman, of course, has any opportunity 
 of public influence— that is entirely reserved for the lamas; but 
 in the realm of commerce the women are usually supreme. Both 
 at Gyantse and at Lhasa my experience was the same. It was 
 the woman who managed the family trading, and if the man were 
 there at all it was only to help in carrying the goods backward 
 and forward between the bazaar and the town. I have at times 
 known a woman refer to her husband before she would sell me 
 any unusually good turquoise-studded charm box or other jewel, 
 but as a rule they seemed to dispose of the family possessions 
 without consulting any one. Any one who knows India will ap- 
 preciate from this fact alone the vast difference that the barrier of 
 the Himalayas causes. Some of these women are not bad-look- 
 
194 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 ing. I say this with some doubt, because beneath the dirt of 
 many years it is impossible to do more than guess at their com- 
 plexions. Their children are charming little things. 
 
 Into the home life of the Tibetans our almost complete igno- 
 rance of the language, coupled with the state of armed neutrality, 
 if not actual war, which so often characterized their attitude to- 
 ward us, made it difficult for us to enter. So far as I could — 
 far more than any one else except O'Connor, with whom I gen- 
 erally paid such visits, and whose fluency in Tibetan was as in- 
 valuable to both of us as it was exasperating and coveted by me 
 — I made a point of seeing the Tibetans, both lay and clerical, 
 in their homes. 
 
 On one occasion we went out for luncheon to a somewhat in- 
 teresting family. The man was the eldest son of the Maharajah of 
 Sikkim. At a period of stress in the relations between the Indian 
 Government and the royal family of Sikkim, this young man had 
 been given the choice between returning to the territory of Sik- 
 kim, or of forfeiting his succession. He elected to remain in 
 Tibet, and from that day he has never seen his relatives. The 
 present Crown Prince of Sikkim — one of the best known to Euro- 
 peans of all the young princes of India — assumed the position, 
 and, thanks entirely to the prudence and sympathy of Mr. Claude 
 White, promises to become a useful and loyal Rajah. To his 
 brother's house O'Connor and I went. Taring, his residence, is 
 situated seven or eight miles from Gyantse along the road to 
 Lhasa. It is a house of no great pretensions, prettily hidden 
 among trees. The young couple entertained us hospitably ; Prince 
 Namgyel was simply but richly dressed, his wife was wearing a 
 fine kincob and an exquisite head-dress in which the high aureole 
 commonly in use was barely recognizable under the strings of 
 pearls which webbed the whole thing. Servants there were in 
 half dozens, and the meal we had was full of interest. It began 
 with tea. 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 195 
 
 Tea in Tibet is a thing entirely after its own kind. It bears 
 not the vaguest resemblance to the pale, scented beverage of China 
 and Japan, nor to the milkless and lemon-flavored glassfuls of 
 Russia ; still less to the sugared slops which one finds in London. 
 Tea in Tibet is imported in the shape of bricks, which vary very 
 much in quality ; they are made in the province of Sze-chuan and 
 the tea-leaves are glued, with something that looks suspiciously 
 like sawdust, into hard blocks of which it would puzzle Mincing 
 Lane to distinguish the various grades. But for the veriest Tib- 
 etan child du-nyi is unmistakable for du-tang. Next to du-nyi 
 comes chuha, and the last and worst kind is known as gye-ha} 
 
 A corner is knocked off a five-pound brick and it is infused with 
 boiling water in a teapot. The tea is then poured into a cylindri- 
 cal bamboo churn and a large lump of salt is churned up into it ; 
 the amount of energy which is spent upon this churning is ex- 
 traordinary. I suppose the reason is that the heat should not be 
 lost before the tea is drinkable. The moment this is well churned 
 up, a pound of butter is also slid down into the bamboo and an- 
 other minute's furious work produces the liquid as it is drunk in 
 Tibet. If you are expecting the sweetened milky brew of Eng- 
 land, when you put your lips to it you will be disgusted. It is a 
 thickish chocolate colored mess, sometimes strengthened with a 
 little flour, to give it greater consistency. But if you will regard 
 it as soup you will find that it has certain very sound qualities as 
 a meal in itself. I have been actually glad to drink it after a long 
 day. 
 
 After tea our exiled hostess gave us the real luncheon. It be- 
 gan with a heaped bowlful of boiled eggs. The worst of these 
 meals in a new country is that you never know either how, or 
 
 * It is characteristically Eastern that these four grades of quality, first, sec- 
 ond, third, and fourth, should in Tibetan be called first, second, tenth, and 
 eighth. I make a small note like this in order to deter the matter-of-fact 
 European from contradicting the statements of Central Asian travelers merely 
 because they are logically impossible. 
 
196 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 how much to eat. The first question solves itself in Tibet because, 
 except as curiosities, there are no spoons or forks. But we did not 
 know how many courses were to follow, and it must be confessed 
 that the first draught of Tibetan tea is extraordinarily effective 
 in damping one's appetite. We tried two eggs apiece out of the 
 white heap and waited. The servants did not so much change the 
 dishes as accumulate them, and little by little other things came 
 straggling in from the kitchen. The next course was composed 
 of sweet chupatty-like things which had absolutely no taste what- 
 ever and were rather mealy in the mouth. Then came little balls 
 of forcemeat skewered by fours upon a straw. These we eat con- 
 scientiously, but a following dish of twenty different kinds of 
 sweets did not prepare us for the mo-mo which, as the Tibetan 
 pikce de resistance, we should have anticipated. These are dump- 
 lings of thick pudding wrapped round strange meat. I would 
 not for the world suggest that any mistake had been made by 
 the cook, but after the sweets, this mixture of suet and carrion 
 was almost more than we could stomach. However, the dish had 
 to be eaten, and eaten it was. Prince Namgyel was hospitality 
 itself and the drink he offered us was extraordinarily good. It 
 was a home-made whisky with all the peat reek of Irish potheen. 
 Only too conscious of the diminishing stores of the Mission, both 
 of us made a mental note of this excellent stuff and determined 
 that we would take off our host's hands as much as he was willing 
 to sell when our own supplies ran short.^ I remember noticing 
 behind me, nailed up against a pillar, two colored photographs. 
 One was of the new palace at Gangtok, the other, somewhat to my 
 surprise, was of our host's stepmother, the present Maharani. 
 This lady, still one of the most attractive looking of Tibetan wo- 
 men, was a daughter of the great aristocratic Lhasan family of 
 
 * Unfortunately, before another week had elapsed the Tibetans were bom- 
 barding the Mission, a state of war was declared, and poor Namgyel and his 
 wife had fled to his father's other property on the shores of Lake Tsomo. 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 197 
 
 Lheding. The circumstances immediately preceding her mar- 
 riage with the Maharajah, about seventeen years ago, drew a 
 good deal of attention at the time to a personality, the strength 
 of which is apparent after an acquaintance of five minutes. In 
 other circumstances she might have exercised the same power as 
 the Empress Dowager of China or as the mother of Queen Su- 
 pi-ya-lat; as it is, the political officer of Sikkim will, if you ask 
 him, assure you that she has long been a factor in our relations 
 with Tibet which by no means could be disregarded. Her two 
 eldest children were born to her husband's younger brother before 
 she reached Sikkim. This lapse cannot be explained away as an 
 instance of Tibetan polyandry, as no " wife " of a younger brother 
 is shared by the elder brothers. However, the matter was over- 
 looked. 
 
 The walls of Taring were painted with minute delicacy, and 
 the design of the invariably present animal acrobats — the bird on 
 the rabbit, on the monkey, on the elephant — was the best I ever 
 saw. We took leave of our kindly host and hostess, and the former 
 a day or two later rode into camp for a luncheon, which this time 
 was less of a change from the usual diet of the guest. 
 
 The servants of Tibetans, even of the highest, are abominably 
 dirty. It was a curious thing to see outside the tent, in which the 
 gleam of gold and brocade and light-blue silk mingled, the wait- 
 ing attendants with grimy faces and torn and dirty clothes. At 
 Chema I obtained permission from the lady herself to photo- 
 graph the belle of the Chumbi Valley. I wanted her to come out 
 to the doorway of her house, but she was much too aristocratic 
 a young woman to be so taken. I was asked to come into the 
 women's apartments, where, in an almost dark room, the lady, 
 most beautifully dressed and certainly looking extremely hand- 
 some, was seated on a raised platform, with her dirty maid stand- 
 ing behind her. I did not want the maid in the picture, and said 
 so. But Lady Dordem was firm ; she had three husbands in the 
 
198 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 room at the time, but she would not be taken without a chaperon. 
 She very properly argued that no one who saw the picture could 
 know that her natural protectors were at the photographer's 
 elbow. The photograph was not a success, for an enormously long 
 exposure was necessary and no contrast of any kind could be 
 obtained. 
 
 Tibetan women of the highest class travel very little, but when 
 they do, they wrap themselves in a huge shapeless rug, which al- 
 most conceals the fact that they are riding astride. The saddles 
 of the Tibetans are curious high structures, under which a beau- 
 tiful cloth is placed, and the whole is then concealed by rug after 
 rug. The rider is thus raised eight or nine inches from the horse's 
 back, which gives his mount a camel-like appearance. No Tib- 
 etan rides very fast, but the ponies are trained to amble at a pace 
 which gets over the ground as fast as any one would care to trot. 
 Shoes are not used, and the bits are merciful; but there is the 
 inevitable Oriental insensibility to the sufferings of a galled and 
 sore-backed brute. At these altitudes sores will not heal. When 
 the skin is broken the want of oxygen in the air delays the heal- 
 ing of the wound, but " out of sight, out of mind " is as true in 
 Tibet as elsewhere, and the beast is still ridden day after day. 
 On the crupper and bridle there are often fine filigree plates of 
 brass and sometimes good Chinese enamel. The stirrups are un- 
 necessarily heavy; a handsome dragon design is often embodied 
 in them. 
 
 I have said that the Tibetans are a courteous race. Unlike 
 Hindustani races, they not only have, but continually use, the 
 words for please (ro nang, literally " good help ") and thank you 
 (tu che). The greeting to a visitor, corresponding roughly with 
 " how do you do," is literally " sit and adhere to the carpet," 
 while the farewell of a visitor may be translated " sit down 
 slowly." His host speeds his departing guest with an adjuration 
 to " walk slowly." The language is entirely distinct both from 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 199 
 
 Hindustani and Chinese. It is an agglutinative, monosyllabic 
 tongue, and neither the structure nor the fairly large vocabulary 
 is difficult to acquire. But the trouble is that almost from the 
 outset the practical colloquial language is found by the learner 
 to be an inextricable tangle of idioms. Experience of the East 
 should long have taught one never to say " why? " but the eccen- 
 tricities of the Tibetan wrench it from one at every turn. A thing 
 which is at once apparent is the indistinctness with which it is 
 muttered. If you were to say to a man " call me to-morrow 
 morning at six o'clock," " nga-la sang-nyin shoge chutseu druk- 
 la ketang" deliberately and slowly, he would smile politely, but 
 make not the slightest attempt to understand ; but if, on the other 
 hand, you threw at him something like " nyalsannin-shoshutsti- 
 dullaketn " you would be understood in a moment. 
 
 Some words used in Tibetan are very expressive ; the word for 
 a duck is " mud fowl " ; to awaken is to " murder sleep " ; a flower 
 is a " button (or canopy) of fire "; a general is a " Lord of the 
 Arrow " ; bribery could hardly be more neatly defined than by 
 the Tibetan " secret push." One peculiarity of the language is 
 the use of two opposites in conjunction to express the quality in 
 which they differ — thus : distance is literally " far-near " ; weight 
 is " light-heavy " ; height, to-men, is " high-low," and dang-to, 
 ** oold-warm," means temperature. The honorific vocabulary is 
 an additional stumbling-block. For ordinary traveling pur- 
 poses it is hardly necessary ; the stranger will always be pardoned 
 if he prefaces his remarks with an apology for not being able to 
 spcok the language of courtesy ; but as every remark will instinc- 
 tively be made to him in that language in spite of his protest, he 
 will find himself very little advantaged. The vocabulary of the 
 Tibetan language is enormous, and it is very widely known ; such 
 comparatively delicate shades of meaning as are required to ex- 
 press slightly varying color shade in horses are ready in abund- 
 ance, and in Tibetan a chestnut horse with a black mane can be 
 
200 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 described in a word. It is not, perhaps, necessary to say more 
 than that there is ready for use in Tibetan a single word which 
 signifies " the interdependence of causes." * 
 
 The literature of the country is almost entirely religious. It 
 consists of the Kan-gyur, or sacred scriptures, in over one hun- 
 dred volumes; the Ten-gyur, or commentaries thereon, in three 
 hundred volumes, and countless tomes filled with the tales, para- 
 bles, biographies, and legends of the great teachers of the Lamaic 
 Church. These books are wonderful things. It is not the least 
 of the oddities of Tibet that in this unlettered country more beau- 
 tiful books are produced than anywhere else in the world. Before 
 the volume is opened, the covers alone present an example of 
 beauty and loving care which Grolier could never have secured 
 from the best of his binders. The outer cover is about thirty 
 inches by eleven inches ; it is of hard, close-grained wood, divided 
 into three panels ; each panel is carved with minute and exquisite 
 workmanship. In the center of each is one, or perhaps two Bud- 
 dhas seated on the lotus throne, cut in a quarter-inch relief. 
 Round him, with strong and free grace, the conventional foliage 
 of the Bo-tree fills the entire field, except immediately overhead, 
 where the gariida bird, all beak and eyes, sits keeping watch. 
 Above and below are rows of smaller images carved in exquisite 
 detail. The three panels are said to refer to the three conceptions 
 of the Buddha. If that be so it is the only instance of Maitreya, 
 or the coming Buddha, being represented squatting tailorwise in 
 the Oriental fashion.^ The whole cover is heavily gilt, and one 
 turns the leaf to find a silk veil, probably of olive-green, carnation, 
 and rose-madder, protecting the first page of the manuscript itself. 
 
 * This is hardly the occasion for a full account of either the written or the 
 spoken language. I may, however, in reference to the former, point out the 
 difficulty of the spelling. Thus the province of " U " is spelled " DBUS " 
 and "DE" (rice) is spelled "ABRAS." This is the spelHng of the first 
 syllable of De-bung monastery. 
 
 * This statement, like most statements which have long been accepted about 
 things Tibetan, is probably open to correction. 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 201 
 
 This page is made of fine stout paper, bearing in the middle what 
 looks exactly like the depressed plate mark of an etching; the 
 whole is of deep, rich-glazed Prussian blue, and in the inset panel 
 in the middle the opening words of the book are written in large 
 raised gold characters. The next page contains to the left a 
 miniature, and then the book begins. From one end to the other 
 it is painted in large regular letters of gold, some of the choicer 
 books having alternate lines of gold and silver. Although they 
 are no longer used, the holes through which the binding strap 
 originally ran through the leaves themselves in two places qre 
 still left clear and indicated by a thin gold circle. Cumbersome, 
 of course, these books are, but the care which is bestowed upon 
 them would have delighted the heart of William Morris. 
 
 Art in Tibet is still in a conventional state. It is true that 
 the technique of miniature painting upon an enormous scale has 
 been thoroughly mastered by them ; and, as I have said elsewhere, 
 the only parallel to the microscopic work used on the walls of 
 such buildings as the Palkhor choide, or the Nachung Chos- 
 kyong temple outside Lhasa, is that of the seventh and eighth 
 century illuminators of the Irish school. 
 
 A figure of Buddha in color was copied by myself from the 
 wall of the dining-room at Chang-lo. The original is of life 
 size and was evidently painted by one of the most capable artists 
 in Tibet. I do not remember ever having seen another similar 
 figure as strongly designed, minutely finished, or delicately 
 colored. The use, indeed, of gold, which it is impossible ade- 
 quately to reproduce, was both restrained and effective, and the 
 transparent brown mastic which covers it mellows the semi- 
 burnished surface. The rest of the wall was taken up with 
 figures almost as carefully painted by the same hand. The dis- 
 ciples of the Master stand or sit round him in varying attitudes 
 bearing the symbol of their identity, while the great teachers 
 of Buddhism smile blandly from the side walls dividing the 
 
202 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Master from the " terrible " guardian monsters which confront 
 the outer world in every Buddhist shrine. 
 
 The general effect of a painted wall in Tibet is not dissimilar 
 from that of Italian tapestries of the best period, and I am in- 
 clined to think that the object of the designer in both cases is 
 the same. In spite of the enormous amount of work brought 
 into the smallest details of dress and the delicacy with which 
 the flower work is done, I doubt whether the intention of the 
 artist in either case is to produce figures to be examined by 
 themselves. The general arrangement and composition of a 
 Tibetan fresco is masterful. The ground is well covered, but 
 never crowded; the subordination of the less important to the 
 more important is never mistaken, and in the greatest as well 
 as the smallest matters the symbolism is unerring and full of 
 significance. But the veriest stranger might go into such painted 
 courts as those of the first floor of the Palkhor choide and re- 
 main perfectly contented with it merely as an almost moving 
 carpet of color and light. 
 
 Convention reigns supreme, but it does not take long for the 
 most prejudiced European to realize that these golden and blue 
 and red faced figures are essential to the artistic balance of the 
 picture, as well as the meaning of the legend before his eyes. 
 Of the color there is less to say. It is intensely strong, and 
 though one rapidly realizes that it is justified in the mass, it 
 is not only as open to criticism in the detail as a holiday crowd 
 of natives in India, but the secret of the extraordinary har- 
 monies so successfully produced remains as completely beyond 
 the power of European reproduction. 
 
 In the general arrangement for the internal decoration of an 
 important room in a good house, Gautama will always be found 
 in one form or another, seated either as a statue or in paint. 
 The upper wall is sometimes furnished on either side with the 
 close rows of pigeon-holes which serve the Tibetan for library 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 203 
 
 shelves. At times a more realistic form of oraamentation is 
 attempted, and here the limitations of the artist are plain indeed. 
 The religious subjects have, in the course of centuries, had their 
 treatment crystallized into a purely national style of representa- 
 tion, and the moment the artist strays beyond this preserve he 
 leans heavily upon the Chinese for support. Chinese perspective 
 is used by them; Chinese landscape, Chinese dresses and faces 
 are helplessly copied by Tibetan artists, careless of the fact that 
 neither in feature, robes, nor surroundings are the two races 
 alike. Once or twice I have seen a Tibetan attempt to represent 
 some well-known natural feature in the country. In these cases 
 it is necessary to read the description which generally accom- 
 panies the object to be perfectly certain what it is intended to 
 represent. 
 
 The Sinchen Lama, as has been said, caused an able artist 
 to record upon the walls of his room the incidents in the lives 
 of preceding reincarnations, and the story has been told of the 
 strange way in which he thereby foretold his own death and of 
 a pleasant proof thereby of his affection for his little dog. The 
 picture is difficult to photograph, and the only picture I was 
 able to take is marred, not only by the reflected light from the 
 windows behind, but by the fact that it is partially concealed by 
 the open door to the right, through which alone sufficient illu- 
 mination could be obtained. All but the head of the dog is 
 hidden. But that dog is in a way the test of art in Tibet ; there 
 is apparently no conventional method of representing a dog, 
 and if there had been one, it is clear that the Lama would not 
 have been satisfied with it, so this man was forced face to face 
 with nature as he had perhaps never been compelled before. 
 The portrait of the master of the dog is a piece of pure con- 
 vention, but the painting of the dog, intensely bad as it is from 
 every point of view but one, remains the touchstone of Tibetan 
 art. There is such a minute and laborious representation of 
 
204 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 every cirri of hair that one would hardly be surprised to find that 
 the artist had attempted to paint both sides of the dog at once. 
 Bad as it is, that picture at any rate achieves its purpose, for 
 that dog is as living, as recognizable, and as pat-able an object 
 as ever Briton Riviere created, and the affection of the lonely 
 reincarnation, cut off from the living world from birth to death, 
 for his one fearless and disinterested companion is apparent in 
 every stroke of the brush. But I must confess that of all the 
 acres of painted surface which I saw in Tibet this dog remains 
 the only attempt to represent a subject naturally. 
 
 At Gyantse the chief local artist received several commissions 
 from us which, as I have said, were never fulfilled, but I suspect 
 that a good deal of his earlier work afterward fell into the hands 
 of our men at the taking of Little Gobshi. Hundreds of 
 tangkas'^ were then found, but as they were of no interest or 
 value in the eyes of the native troops, the vast majority of them 
 were thrown on one side, and the heavy rain of the following 
 night disfigured the majority almost beyond recognition. These 
 tangkas are the most characteristic and portable expression of 
 modem Tibetan art. It says something for their good taste 
 that those which they account most highly are the plain-line 
 drawings in Indian red upon a gold background, or of gold upon 
 Indian red. Here the artist owes nothing to color or shade, 
 and some of the work is as strong and quaint as that of the 
 " Guthlac " designs in the British Museum. 
 
 The majority of these tangkas display a large central figure 
 surrounded by smaller flame- or smoke-framed pictures of the 
 deities of Lamaism. These pictures often leave much to be 
 desired on the score of propriety. It is one of the things which 
 must be taken into consideration with regard to Lamaism that 
 decency forms no part of it whatever. Immoral the Tibetan 
 
 * A tangka is a roll painting on canvas or silk, framed in rich Chinese 
 brocade, and generally resembling the kakemonos of Japan. 
 
CO 
 
 Z, 
 < 
 
 O 
 
 w 
 !z; 
 
 K 
 cj 
 
 <! 
 
 H 
 
 W 
 
 a 
 
 O 
 
 CO 
 
 W 
 
 <; 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 205 
 
 religion certainly is not, but to Western eyes its manifestations 
 often assume the strangest shape.^ 
 
 Unfortunately a change has recently come over Tibetan 
 draftsmanship. There is a falling away from the austere 
 standard of other days, and there is a distinct tendency to- 
 ward merely pretty and pink and white designs of a Chinese 
 type. This is apparent not only in the coloring but in the 
 choice of subject. The colors used are curious; they are un- 
 doubtedly water-colors ground up with a large amount of body 
 color, and stiffened with glue or some such material. They 
 last indefinitely and, so far as can be guessed, the tints do 
 not fade. I do not think that the names of any artists are 
 preserved. 
 
 The jewelry of Tibet is exquisitely finished, and in a slight 
 degree suggestive of Byzantine work. I have in my possession 
 several objects that will serve as examples of the finest work 
 in the country. The crown came originally from the head of a 
 Buddha in Ne-nyeng Monastery. Nothing can exceed the deli- 
 cacy with which the figure of Buddha in carved turquoise is 
 inset into the central leaf. The foliation throughout is strong, 
 clean cut, and decided, and the general balance of the diadem 
 will, I think, be universally admitted. It is a good specimen 
 of the best Tibetan work, and the sparing use of turquoise in 
 its composition is the more satisfactory because it is clear 
 that neither time nor money was spared in its manufacture. 
 I bought two earrings in Lhasa. They are of gold and of the 
 usual design set with large pieces of turquoise. A square charm 
 box was also procured in Lhasa. It is of typical design, but 
 the stones and general workmanship are undoubtedly above the 
 average. I also obtained two beautiful charm boxes of gold and 
 
 *It is interesting to notice that of the two more valued kinds of tangka 
 those on a gold background are always austerely chaste, while those on a red 
 field leave much to be desired on the score of decency. I think that those also 
 on a dark blue background should be classed with the latter kind. 
 
2o6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 turquoise. Both workmanship and stones are of the finest class. 
 The single earring touching the crown is that worn by men, 
 and it is worthy of notice that the lower drop is never real tur- 
 quoise. Even in the case of the highest dignitaries this pen- 
 dant is invariably blue porcelain-like glass. The encircling 
 necklace is of raw turquoise lumps set in silver and separated 
 one from another by large coral beads. 
 
 The brass work of the Tibetans exhibits their art in its high- 
 est form. The little gods which sit in rows along the altar 
 shelves of Tibet are models of good and restrained convention. 
 The finish is delicate, and the sheer technical skill with which 
 the artist manipulates his material is undeniable. The same 
 delicate workmanship is carried also into other objects of their 
 daily life or religion. Tibetans are capable of producing pottery 
 of a fair quality, but it is quite beyond their powers to water- 
 mark a design into the material. 
 
 The woven stufifs of Tibet are extremely interesting, and the 
 patterns are indigenous. I have elsewhere suggested that in 
 rugs alone a thriving and successful trade might be carried on 
 with the neighborhood of Gyantse. Most of their silks are 
 imported from China. It may fairly be said that nothing manu- 
 factured in Tibet is positively ugly, and though the hierocratic 
 tendencies which have checked the political independence of the 
 people of the country have also tended to confine its artists within 
 narrow channels, the very stiffness of the style has not been with- 
 out its definite use in educating the natural taste of the people. 
 The blaze of color inside a Tibetan gompa might be thought 
 garish by a student of the half tones of Europe, but it must 
 be remembered that in this land of thin pure air and blinding 
 light, harmonies and discords are to be judged by other stan- 
 dards than those of Europe. 
 
 Of the music of Tibet it is impossible to say much. The tem- 
 ple services are intoned on three or four notes, which, I should 
 say, approximate fairly well to those of our own scale. But 
 
SPECIMENS OF CHINESE-TIBETAN WORK IN SILVER 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 207 
 
 the Tibetans have not reached the stage at which noise ceases 
 to be the first aim of the musician. By this I do not neces- 
 sarily mean that the noise is always an ugly one. The sound, 
 heard a mile away across the plain, of a temple gong beaten, 
 or the long seductive purr of a well-blown conch, comes into the 
 pictures of one's memory as not their least attractive feature. 
 But heard close at hand the music of Tibet is merely barbarous. 
 The temple orchestra usually consists of seven men; two of 
 them are occupied with one of the big trumpets, one to hold it up, 
 the other to blow it. These trumpets furnish a grating noise 
 approximating in depth to the length of the instrument. As 
 this is anything up to twelve, or, in the case of one trumpet 
 in Potala, eighteen feet, the note produced is low. Two other 
 men blow as seemeth good to them upon shorter trumpets, one 
 about four feet in length, the other a small sixteen-inch instru- 
 ment, generally made out of a human thigh-bone with copper 
 end pieces. Two men also will devote themselves to gyalings; 
 these are short reed-blown clarinets. The last and most im- 
 portant member of all is he who beats the drum. The drum is a 
 kind of warming-pan-like structure, and the parchment of its 
 three-foot head is struck with a sickle-shaped stick. By a con- 
 vention, which is like that of Europe, the drummer manages the 
 cyrhbals also. Powerful instruments these are, taking unques- 
 tioned command of the babel whenever used. 
 
 Besides all these the officiating Lama will from time to time 
 ring a sweet silvery-toned bell at, no doubt, the accurate inter- 
 vals, but it must be confessed that the general effect of a Tibetan 
 service is not unlike that of a farm yard, or a nursery, and 
 it may still be many years indeed before order is given to these 
 sounds confused. One or two tunes they have which can be 
 recognized. One of them is par excellence the melody of the 
 Orient. I do not know if it has a name, but Mrs. Flora Annie 
 Steel has sufficiently indicated its scope and cadence by wedding 
 to it the words, " Twinkle, twinkle, little star." 
 
2o8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 The marriage customs of Tibet are like those of the vast 
 majority of mankind— the lady is bought. But one feature in 
 the preliminaries differentiates them strongly from the methods 
 of modern England. The girl's mother will firmly and re- 
 peatedly insist upon the ugliness and uselessness of her debu- 
 tante whenever a suggestion is made by the professional match- 
 maker of the village. This modesty, however, can be overcome 
 by a little -negotiation. Groomsmen and bridesmaids are, I 
 believe, as necessary to a smart wedding in Tibet as in America, 
 and, if Chandra Das is to be believed, the difficulty of knowing 
 whether a wedding present is expected or not' is overcome in 
 Lhasa by a simple device. The maiden presents a cheap little 
 katag or scarf to every one from whom she would like a wed- 
 ding gift. There is a slight religious service at the actual mar- 
 riage. The officiating lama, after prayer, declares the woman 
 to be from henceforth the bride of her husband alone — and his 
 brothers. The usual Oriental overeating accompanies the rite. 
 Divorce in Tibet is expensive, but easily obtained, though the 
 necessity for any such annulment of the marriage tie is greatly 
 reduced by the frequency of " Meredithian " marriages. 
 
 In private life the Tibetan is a cheerful body with, of course, 
 the defects of that amiable quality. Not infrequently he gets 
 drunk and he has at no time many morals. But he is a hard 
 worker, capable of enduring for weeks extremes of physical dis- 
 comfort which would incapacitate a native of India in a day, 
 and, above all, it must be set down to his credit that he is mer- 
 ciful to his beast. The tail-twisting of bullocks stops at our 
 frontier. He has, of course, no nerves, or it is possible that the 
 dogs which swarm over the country and form one of its most 
 prominent features would fare badly even at the hands of a 
 Buddhist. 
 
 They are an unmitigated nuisance, savage by day and noisy 
 by night. Every breed of dog known to the fancier seems to 
 
RELIGION: MANNERS AND CUSTOMS: ART 209 
 
 have been mixed in this sandy-coated pack. It is curious, how- 
 ever, that in spite of the out-of-door life which is led by them, 
 the type to which they have reverted is not that of the wolf 
 or collie, but rather that of the Esquimaux sledge dog. Some 
 of them are easily domesticated, and the puppies are friendly 
 little things only too anxious to be adopted. The typical Tibetan 
 terrier, a long-coated little fellow with a sharp nose, prick ears, 
 and, as a rule, black from muzzle to tail, we found but seldom 
 in a pure state.* 
 
 ^The finest specimens of this breed are owned by Mrs. Claude White — 
 "Tippoo," " Jugri," and scantily coated " Nari " came up with us to Lhasa 
 with their master. But " Sebu," a sable freak in the same family, and beyond 
 question the most beautiful of them all, remained at Gangtok. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ^ INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA I9O2-4 
 
 BEFORE taking up again the story of the Expedition I 
 propose to sketch the internal affairs of Lhasa for the last 
 few years with somewhat greater detail than before. The key 
 to the situation in Tibet, which was now becoming desperate, is 
 to be found in the deliberate and steady determination of the 
 Tibetans to do away with the Chinese suzerainty. This is a 
 policy of long standing. Thirty-five years ago the spirit of in- 
 dependence was already abroad in Tibet, and there was a recog- 
 nized progressive party, headed by no less ^a dignitary than the 
 treasurer of Gaden monastery. Under the old regime, as is well 
 known, a consistent policy of regency, made possible only by the 
 equally systematic assassination of each successive young Grand 
 Lama before he reached the age of eighteen, resulted in a contin- 
 ual regency, and therefore also a continual opportunity for the as- 
 sertion and reassertion of the Chinese suzerainty, for no regent 
 could be appointed without the sanction of the Chinese Emperor. 
 The very election of the Dalai Lama himself was theoretically 
 subject to the approval of Peking, but this prerogative was sel- 
 dom, or never, exercised. In other parts of his dominions the 
 Chinese Emperor made undoubted use of his rights. At Urga, a 
 new Taranath Grand Lama, the third in importance in the Bud- 
 dhist world, was, on one occasion, peremptorily disqualified by his 
 majesty on the grounds that his immediate predecessor had been 
 a turbulent and seditious fellow, and that there was no good 
 ground for supposing that he had been reincarnated in any 
 
 210 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 211 
 
 human being. Against this the good people of MongoHa entered 
 a violent protest. They said that such a contention cut at the 
 root of their religion, and so much trouble did they give that 
 eventually the Emperor compromised ; he said that as the monks 
 of Urga had chosen a Mongolian to be their chief he would 
 allow the election to stand, but that on no account thencefor- 
 ward was a reincarnation to take place in the body of a Tibetan. 
 The descent of the spirit is thus regulated to-day. Again it is 
 necessary to remind the European reader with a sense of hu- 
 mor that these apparent absurdities are the source of very real 
 and often very bitter political feeling in the Far East, and that 
 the application of European habits of thought to these circum- 
 stances can only result in a total misapprehension of the whole 
 situation. The Tibetans see no absurdity in situations thus cre- 
 ated at a time when in other ways their national aspirations were 
 shaping a shrewd and Occidental policy. 
 
 The leader of the party died indeed before achieving success, 
 but it is worth notice that in the election of the present Dalai 
 Lama, in 1874, a change directly attributable to the dead re- 
 former's personality was made in the devolution of the spirit 
 of Avalokiteswara. In the old days the names of all babies born 
 at the time of the assassination of the previous Dalai Lama were 
 written on slips and put into a golden urn, which, it is reported, 
 levitated itself and thrice cast forth the slip of paper bearing 
 the name of the chosen child. This miracle is supposed to have 
 been somewhat assisted by the writing of the same name upon 
 every slip, and it was to guard against any such political manipu- 
 lation of this all-important choice that a new plan of selection 
 was then adopted. Acting upon the counsels of the chief ma- 
 gician of Nachung choskyong, the discovery of the new Dalai 
 Lama was intrusted to the pious clairvoyance of the Shar-tse 
 Abbot of Gaden. This man, acting upon instructions, went to 
 the Chos-kor Plain, to the east of Lhasa, and there on the surface 
 
212 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of the Muli-ding-ki lake the new reincarnation was seen in his 
 mother's lap upon a lotus flower. After a brief search for 
 mother and child, Tubdan Gyatso, the present pontiff, was 
 c found at Paru-chude in the district of Tag-po. This method 
 of choosing a successor to the divine authority checkmated the 
 ordinary intrigues by which family influence as well as official 
 guardianship secured to the Chinese suzerain no small voice in 
 the acts of the doomed child's government. The last regent, 
 as has been said, was chosen from Gaden, though he also had 
 some connection with the Kun-de-ling in Lhasa.* 
 
 Eighteen years afterward, when, under other circumstances, 
 his life would have been brought to a sudden conclusion, Tub- 
 dan Gyatso was spared. This has been attributed by some to 
 the unrest prevailing during our troubles with India at that time ; 
 the treaty was then actually in process of construction in Cal- 
 cutta, and it is very likely that the recent war with ourselves 
 had suggested to the shrewder Tibetans that the time had come 
 finally to take their affairs into their own hands. China had 
 been of no use to them in their dispute with India, and to have 
 " reincarnated " the Dalai Lama at that moment meant a repe- 
 tition of the usual opportunity for the exertion of Chinese in- 
 fluence which would have been peculiarly inopportune and even 
 disastrous. He was therefore allowed to survive maturity, 
 but only as a religious pontiff, the temporal power remaining 
 in the hands of the regent. But as soon as the treaty was signed 
 the last vestige of Chinese influence in Tibet was thrown off by 
 a coup d'etat, in 1895, strangely resembling that of King Alex- 
 ander of Servia under similar circumstances : Tubdan Gyatso de- 
 clared himself temporal sovereign as well as religious autocrat, 
 cast the regent into prison, and poisoned him almost immediately. 
 
 ^ It is impossible to obtain very accurate information upon a point like this. 
 A Tibetan has his ' ' La-lis ' ' out of his mouth before a name is even men- 
 tioned. 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 213 
 
 Such was the position in 1901. There were at this time three 
 important men in Lhasa : the Dalai Lama, Dorjieff, and the " Pre- 
 mier " — the Shata Shape.* The last of the triumvirate was a 
 man who had been brought into prominence some years ago by 
 an unfortunate incident in Darjeeling, The story is well known : 
 a Tibetan was ducked in the fountain for insolence displayed by 
 him or by one of his countrymen toward an Englishwoman in 
 a rickshaw. The man's rudeness did not, perhaps, justify so 
 drastic a punishment, but it was not altogether unnatural, and 
 it was our misfortune rather than our fault that we thus in- 
 curred the perpetual and bitter hatred of the man, who, in the 
 course of a few years, was destined to become prime minister of 
 Tibet; for the victim was no other than the Shata Shape, then 
 exiled and under a temporary cloud. He never forgot or for- 
 gave, and it is not surprising that when the opportunity pre- 
 sented itself he flung himself heart and soul into the change of 
 policy advocated by Dorjieff. Sufficient reference has already 
 been made to the career of Dorjieff; of the Dalai Lama, we only 
 know from Chinese sources that he is a headstrong and some- 
 what conceited man, not without strength of character, but in- 
 tolerant of restraint in any form. Physically he is a tall and 
 powerfully built man with unusually oblique eyes. 
 
 Opposed to them stood the various representatives and dele- 
 gates of the ruling priestly caste, greatly swayed by the tradi- 
 tional respect and homage which the Grand Lama's position 
 inspires in the least dutiful of his subjects, but stubbornly refus- 
 ing to depart from their ancient principles and the policy of 
 seclusion which had stood Tibet and themselves in good stead 
 for so long. In all else the Dalai Lama was able to have his way, 
 but neither the introduction of a Russian protectorate, nor the 
 presence of Russian representatives in Lhasa, would the Tsong-du 
 tolerate in any form whatever, or for an instant. To neither side 
 * He is also known as Shaffi Phen-tso Dorje. 
 
214 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 were the claims or the opinions of the Chinese of the shghtest 
 moment. The return of Dorjieff in December with the unoffi- 
 cial understanding between Russia and Tibet was, therefore, the 
 inauguration of a difficult period for the Dalai Lama. 
 
 The existence of this understanding was a fact that he could 
 neither openly avow nor, on the other hand, entirely conceal. 
 The solemn anti-foreigner covenant, signed by the Tsong-du, 
 was obstinately pleaded by the opposition and nothing could be 
 done. The Dalai Lama changed his methods. Not for a moment 
 did he abandon the policy which promised to secure for himself 
 and for his country the apparently gratuitous protettion of 
 Russia and freedom from the ever-present dread of the English ; 
 and he did not attempt to conceal his not unnatural dislike for the 
 short-sighted policy of the Tsong-du, by which he now found 
 himself as much thwarted as by any possible interference of 
 China. But in their existing mood it was impossible to coerce 
 the members of the National Council, so for the future he de- 
 termined to use the wide powers he was able to wield without 
 1 reference to it, and he believed that their scope was extensive 
 enough to carry through his matured Russophile policy, not so 
 much by the deliberate choice of the Tsong-du, as of necessity, 
 and he set himself determinedly to bring about that necessity. 
 This was no easy task. There was no trouble then with India, 
 and the self-confident Tibetans attached small value to any in- 
 ducements that Russia could hold out. Tibet had succeeded easily 
 in regaining her independence of China, and could conceive no 
 reason for putting herself again under obligation to any man. 
 But with shrewder foresight the Dalai Lama saw that some such 
 protection from the north or from the south was ultimately in- 
 evitable. He chose to make a truce with Russia. Apart from 
 the practical inducements offered by Dorjieff, it must be remem- 
 bered in his choice of an ally that he was acting upon a principle 
 well known in the East. Long before his days the worn out 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 215 
 
 shoes and moldy bread of the men of Gibeon had persuaded 
 Joshua that it was safe to make a treaty of peace with so distant 
 a tribe. The moral effect of an alliance with either was, as he 
 knew well, a guarantee for the non-interference of the other. 
 Now India is but a fortnight away, while Russia, by the quick- 
 est route, is full four months' journey distant. 
 
 So soon, therefore, as he could make the Tsong-du recognize 
 the necessity for outside support, he knew that the assistance of 
 Russia, as being the more distant friend, would, as a matter of 
 course, be preferred by it to the traditional and imminent men- 
 ace of Indian influence. He set himself to bring this recognition 
 about, and it was clear that if friction could in some way be 
 established in his relations with India, he would have gone far 
 toward obtaining his end. In achieving his purpose, he had 
 neither scruples nor difficulty. Reference has been made before 
 to the policy of aggression he adopted, but the acts may be briefly 
 recapitulated here. The frontier regulations of Sikkim were 
 violated in a flagrant manner ; the grazing rights near Giao-gong 
 were encroached upon in a way which he was well aware we 
 could not much longer suffer. A customs house and a barrier 
 were actually erected and occupied, and British subjects kept 
 out by force from a small portion of the British Empire. Even- 
 tually the arrival of a letter from Lord Curzon, in the middle 
 of 1902, offered him an opportunity he was not slow to use. The 
 letter was returned unopened, without apology or comment of 
 any kind. Such, it will be remembered, was the situation imme- 
 diately before the arrival of the Mission at Kamba-jong. 
 
 Under this new regime the Tsong-du were little consulted. 
 It was Tubdan's intention to use them afterward, but rather 
 for the mere purpose of ratifying an inevitable policy than of 
 asking them their opinion upon its wisdom. No definite infor- 
 mation of their attitude seems to have been sent to Russia. 
 Rifles were from time to time received and stored at Norbu-ling 
 
2i6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 under the Dalai Lama's personal supervision, and Dorjieff con- 
 tinued to distribute small but valuable European-made gifts 
 among the leading men of Lhasa. The action of the Indian 
 government in sending Mr. Claude White to enforce the rights 
 of the Sikkimese over their grazing grounds was interpreted by 
 the Grand Lama as an act of overt hostility, and was used to 
 hasten the catastrophe — all the more readily, perhaps, because 
 of the repeated warnings of the old Amban Yu-kang that the 
 Tibetan policy with regard to the English was both foolish and 
 ultra vires: his protests were, however, consistently and inso- 
 lently ignored. At last, however, it seems that the Shata Shape 
 recoiled before the lengths to which the Dalai Lama, now utterly 
 in the toils of Dorjieff, was prepared to go. The exact circum- 
 stances of their quarrel are not known, but it is clear that in 
 1903 the Shata Shape was deposed from office and thrown into 
 prison; where, I believe, the unfortunate man remains. The 
 story of this incident is not without interest. 
 
 We get glimpses of the internal affairs of Lhasa about this 
 time, which reveal sufficiently clearly the chaos which was then 
 reigning. To any demur on the part of his colleagues in the 
 government, the Dalai Lama opposed ill temper instead of ar- 
 gument, and soon made the unfortunate discovery that the slight- 
 est threat of resignation from temporal affairs — which one might 
 have supposed to be no unwelcome idea to his harassed colleagues 
 — speedily reduced the most insubordinate member of the 
 Tsong-du to submissiveness. 
 
 But the dissatisfaction of Tibet with the Russophile tenden- 
 cies of the Grand Lama could not thus be checked, and the co- 
 operation of England and China in the advance of the Mission 
 to Kamba-jong was a rebuff for the Grand Lama that could not 
 be misinterpreted. The great astrologer of Tibet, the Lama of 
 Re-ting, was asked about this time to interpose the influence of 
 the stars against the encroachment of the British. It is remark- 
 
I 
 
 A TIBETAN POLITICAL AGENT 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 217 
 
 able that in his answer he makes the definite charge that the 
 troubles from which Tibet was suffering were due to the fact 
 that bribes of European money had been unlawfully accepted 
 by Tibetan officials. 
 
 On the 3d or 4th of October, it was asserted that 150 Russian 
 rifles * were brought to the Potala by Dorjieff. At this time the 
 latter's influence reached its highest point, and it was regretfully 
 admitted in Lhasa that even the Shapes themselves were obliged 
 to curry favor with him to get anything done or even listened 
 to by the Dalai Lama. About this time, owing to the direct 
 intervention of Dorjieff, the Dalai Lama took the arbitrary 
 and high-handed step to which we have referred. On the 13th 
 of October he sent for and imprisoned at Norbu-ling the four 
 ministers of state and the representatives of the Three Monas- 
 teries. He accused the Shata Shape of having taken bribes ; the 
 other members were charged with having concealed from the 
 Dalai Lama important facts connected with the boundary dis- 
 pute, with having taken money from Ugyen Kazi ^ on the occa- 
 sion of the presentation of an elephant, with being behindhand 
 in their biennial reports, and, in general, with disobedience to his 
 Holiness, and with attempting to carry on the business of the 
 country contrary to his intentions and orders. In order to carry 
 through this coup-de-main, he once again threatened to resign 
 and adopt the meditative life unless his action were indorsed. 
 
 He was completely successful. 
 
 * It was believed in Lhasa that weapons were continually arriving in camel 
 loads, bnt it is more probable that they were barrels only. The Tip arsenal 
 across the river was working at high pressure, and even during our brief ex- 
 perience of Tibetan munitions of war it was possible to observe a very distinct 
 improvement in the manufactured cartridges; the rifles here made consisted, 
 as a rule, of a local Martini lock adjusted somewhat carelessly to an old Euro- 
 pean-made barrel of some discarded pattern. 
 
 * Ugyen Kazi, horsedealer and diplomatist, is the most conspicuous figure 
 on the Tibetan frontier. He was used by the Indian Government in 1902 as 
 the bearer of the letters to the Dalai Lama which were returned unopened to 
 Lord Curzon. A commanding presence and a quick humor also has this man, 
 who might use Elizabeth's scratching on the Hatfield window for his motto. 
 
2i8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Almost the last act of these unhappy men was a refusal to 
 attend the annual review on the plain between Sera and Lhasa 
 on the day when the Emperor of China is customarily saluted 
 by obeisance made toward the east. It is probable that they 
 refused to attend this yearly ceremony in order to avoid offend- 
 ing either the Emperor or the Dalai Lama, either by abandoning 
 or persisting in the old custom which the latter seems now to 
 have forbidden for the future, and it is not without significance 
 that, in order to save themselves from internal treachery, the 
 four deposed Shapes had bound themselves by an oath to stand 
 or fall together. 
 
 The points were put upon the i's of the situation by a remark 
 of the Amban's about this time that even if ambassadors were 
 sent to meet the British at any point, and even if they succeeded 
 in coming to an agreement, the Tsong-du would refuse to ratify 
 the treaty. Of the four Shapes or Kalons, the monk official 
 Te-kang, the Shata Shape, and Sho-kang were the more respon- 
 sible and respectable officers ; the last, by name Hor-kang, a man 
 of somewhat weak character, who had been in office but four 
 months, committed suicide almost immediately in terror. Their 
 places were taken by the Ta Lama as ecclesiastical member, the 
 head of the house of Yutok, the Tsarong Depen, and the Tse- 
 chung Shape; none of them, with the exception of the Yutok 
 Shape, of any social position or strength of mind. 
 
 The Ta Lama, whom we repeatedly met at one time or an- 
 other, was a gentlemanlike old priest, verging on his second 
 childhood and incapable of keeping his attention fixed on any 
 subject for more than a minute or so at a time. The Yutok 
 Shape was a phlegmatic fatalist who seemed fully aware of the 
 impossibility of doing anything fof his country with the scanty 
 authority he possessed. The other two were negligible quan- 
 tities and were clearly appointed for the sole purpose of allow- 
 ing a freer hand to the Dalai Lama's personal eccentricities. 
 
THE TA LAMA AT TASKI-TSE 
 The chief executive member of the hierarchy under the Dalai Lama 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 219 
 
 With this ramshackle government the affairs of Tibet were car- 
 ried on; every now and then the Amban, who had already re- 
 ceived notice of his dismissal, tried, in a weak manner, to settle 
 the matter by a personal appeal to the Grand Lama or the Tsong- 
 du, but the treatment of the Mission at Kamba-jong is witness 
 enough to the small importance that was attached to Chinese 
 representations at this period. In December, 1903, the Shapes, 
 by instruction of the Dalai Lama, definitely refused transport 
 to the Amban. This, by preventing his approaching Colonel 
 Younghusband, was tantamount to an active refusal to allow 
 China to interfere in any way. It was the last straw ; he angrily 
 demanded that their refusal to obey the orders of the Chinese 
 Emperor should be set down in writing. It was probably some- 
 what to his surprise that the Dalai Lama instantly acquiesced and 
 assumed full responsibility for the action. Tibet had decided 
 to act as an independent kingdom, and as soon as the gauntlet 
 had been thrown down, troops were moved out from Lhasa along 
 the southern road to Phari. Yu-kang then rather weakly offered 
 to pay his own transport expenses, but this was as steadily re- 
 fused as before. For some time now the Amban had been unable 
 to obtain an answer from the Dalai Lama even to questions 
 wholly unconnected with the dispute with ourselves; from this 
 moment he was an insignificant and ultimately a disgraced man. 
 The arrival of the new Amban, Yu-tai, was about this time an- 
 nounced from Chyando, and Yu-kang made his preparations to 
 return. His degradation was no loss to us. He had been acting 
 upon the confidential orders of Yung-lu for many years and un- 
 doubtedly supported the Tibetans in their refusal to negotiate 
 with the English, relying upon assurances received from Yung-lu 
 that Lhasa would be occupied by Russian troops in the spring 
 of 1903. This corroborates Dorjieff's boast, and our minister in 
 Peking obtained from Prince Ching an admission that he had 
 heard the report. Nor when pressed did the Russian minister in 
 
220 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Peking deny that there was a certain rapprochement " on religious 
 grounds " ; but Yung-lu's death shortly afterward and the first 
 rumblings of the Japanese war cloud effectually held the hand of 
 Russia. The Dalai Lama therefore found himself in the posi- 
 tion of having paved the way for advances on Russia's part from 
 which nothing was to be expected, while from our side he could 
 only await that demand for satisfaction and a clearer understand- 
 ing which he had himself deliberately provoked. 
 
 By this time even the pious citizens of Lhasa were grumbling 
 against their divine ruler. They whispered that the Potala Lama, 
 as he is not infrequently called in Lhasa, after having murdered 
 the regent of Tibet and imprisoned the Shapes, was about to con^- 
 summate his folly by losing the country itself as well. The wild- 
 est confusion prevailed in official circles ; no man trusted his near- 
 est friend ; the Amban, trying perhaps to retrieve his credit at the 
 last moment, appears now and then in a whirl of fussy and impo- 
 tent ill temper, making demands that his master must be obeyed, 
 that transport must be provided for him, that the La-chung men 
 must be released at once.^ No one paid him the slightest atten- 
 tion, and at last he seems to have subsided upon receipt of an un- 
 pleasant communication from Peking, intimating that his punish- 
 ment would be decided upon after he had returned ; and this is the 
 end of Yu-kang. 
 
 Meanwhile the new Amban was slowly making his progress 
 toward Lhasa. He had started in November, 1902, and fifteen 
 months seems an inordinate time for even a Chinese official to take 
 in covering the distance which separates Lhasa from Peking. He 
 
 * Two men from Sikkim had been caught by the Tibetans and detained by 
 them during our stay at Kamba-jong. It was almost universally reported that 
 they had been tortured and put to death in Shigatse, but on our arrival in 
 Lhasa they were found to be still in prison there, and on the 17th of August 
 Colonel Younghusband had them released. This incident at one time seemed 
 likely to give rise to serious complications, but thus it ended happily, and the 
 men themselves made no charge of brutality against their Tibetan jailers. 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 221 
 
 had asked for an escort of 2,000 men to accompany him, but 
 as a matter of fact he found it difficult to provide for the needs 
 of the bare hundred whom he was allowed to take. He had been 
 selected for the post because he was the brother of Sheng-tai who 
 had concluded the unfortunate treaty of 1890, and it was re- 
 garded as only fitting and just by the Oriental mind that the 
 harm done by one member of a family should be rectified by an- 
 other. On his way he met Mr. Nicholls, an American, at Ta- 
 chien-lu, the frontier city, where he seems to have spent some 
 time in extracting money from the Chinese prefect and the Tib- 
 etan *' gyalpo " alike. He seems to have asserted his intention 
 of restoring Chinese authority, and he admitted no sympathy with 
 the Tibetan desire for seclusion, arguing that if Sze-chuan was 
 open to foreigners there could be no reason why the pretensions 
 of the Tibetans should ^be permitted for a moment. He moved 
 on to Batang for the same dubious purposes .that had detained 
 him at Ta-chien-lu.^ 
 
 On the 1 2th of February, the belated official reached Lhasa and 
 assumed the reins of government. Later in the same month Dor- 
 jieff's influence began to wane. The intrigues with Russia had 
 been overdone and were the common talk of the town. It was 
 ' known and widely resented that the Dalai Lama had sent back to 
 St. Petersburg a Buriat who had come to Dorjieff, bringing with 
 him a large sum of money. Moreover, the new Amban, whatever 
 his moral deficiencies, had at least some energy at first. He tried 
 to carry things with a high hand, and one of his first actions was 
 severely to censure the inaction of a Chinese representative, who 
 had been ordered south to confer with Younghusband ; he seems 
 also to have given our Kamba-jong acquaintance, Ho, a bad 
 
 * Mr. Nicholls notes that at this place the hair and scraps of the finger-nails 
 of the Dalai Lama were sold at enormous prices in the market, and Mr. Wil- 
 ton tells me that there is a constant demand in Peking for scraps, however 
 dirty, of his Holiness' clothing, and even more repulsive relics of the great 
 Reincarnation 
 
222 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 quarter of an hour on the ground that he had misappropriated 
 Government money. A week after his arrival he made an official 
 visit to the Dalai Lama, and for three hours attempted to bring 
 him to reason ; it was not, however, of much use, and on his return 
 to the Residency the Amban set himself to the re-organization and 
 reform of the military arrangements in Tibet so far as the Chinese 
 soldiery was concerned. On one point at least he failed as com- 
 pletely as his predecessor; he, too, first requested and finally de- 
 manded that he should be allowed transport to go to Tuna to meet 
 Younghusband, or Yun-hai-phun, as they transliterated the name. 
 This the Dalai Lama courteously but firmly refused. At a sub- 
 sequent visit the Amban seems to have moderated his tone, but to 
 no effect ; the Dalai Lama again cheerfully accepted the responsi- 
 bility for every obstacle that was placed in the way of the Am- 
 ban's intended journey, and refused to permit the strengthening 
 of the Chinese garrisons at the frontier and in Lhasa, The mood 
 of the Tibetans at this period was anything but conciliatory. The • 
 Tongsa Penlop, who had written offering his services as mediator 
 once again, was told that only after a retreat to Yatung and pay- 
 ment of damages for our trespass at Phari would the question 
 of negotiation be opened. 
 
 But the display of temper was not confined to officials. About 
 this time levies from the province of Kams were called up, but 
 they refused to come, alleging that no proper rations had been 
 served out to them; a promise of proper supplies (which, by the 
 way, was never performed) induced them to send about a thou- 
 sand men for the defense of Lhasa, but in other parts of the coun- 
 try the demands of the Dalai Lama were met with a blank refusal. 
 Upon the top of this came the news of the disaster at Guru and 
 of our occupation of Gyantse jong. The discontent redoubled. 
 Dorjieff felt that, now or never, the time was come for action if 
 he wished to save his life. He seems to have argued to himself 
 that if a successful attack could be made upon the small British 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 223 
 
 garrison at Chang-lo, time would be gained and his policy justi- 
 fied, for the moment at least. On the other hand, if such an at- 
 tack were unsuccessful his own liberty and even his own life 
 would be in danger ; he therefore planned and ordered the attack 
 on the Mission post on May 5th, and straightway fled the coun- 
 try, posting north along the Sining highway, and ultimately 
 branching off along the Urga road.* 
 
 About this time the Tsarong Depen asked that troops should 
 be sent to Nagartse to oppose the advance of the British troops. 
 He especially objected, it is said, to the English habit of taking 
 photographs. The Paro Penlop in Bhutan was stealthily ap- 
 proached by the Dalai Lama at the same time with the object of 
 inducing the Bhutanese, in the absence of the Tongsa Penlop, to 
 destroy the British lines of communication,^ and a second mes- 
 senger was sent in haste to Russia as the former envoy had not 
 returned. 
 
 High ofilicials now began to talk among themselves almost 
 without concealment of the foolishness of the Dalai Lama, but 
 no one dared to say much to him. The news that Russia was get- 
 ting the worst of it in Korea had reached Tibet. A report of the 
 fight on the Karo la was received with consternation in Lhasa, 
 but the Grand Lama merely observed that it was time to send 
 forward the Golden Army ^ and, if necessary, all the male inhabi- 
 tants of Lhasa also. The rumor that Gyantse jong had been 
 retaken and the British garrison there exterminated to a man 
 helped to restore public confidence a little, and about the same 
 time a letter of sympathy came from Bhutan causing dispropor- 
 tionate satisfaction. It is significant that the Chinese Amban re- 
 
 ^ Rumors of a subsequent meeting between himself and the Dalai Lama have 
 as yet no confirmation, but it is not improbable that at Urga or some similar 
 place the two men have since met. 
 
 ' The Paro Penlop ranks second, and consistently opposed the Anglophile 
 tendencies of the Tongsa Penlop. He is, however, now discredited. 
 
 ' This is the monkish reserve which supplies a personal escort to the Dalai 
 Lama. It is often loosely used to describe the fighting lamas as a whole. 
 
224 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 fused to believe in the killing of even a couple of Chinese at Dzara 
 during the Karo la fight, pointing out that the English had not 
 killed one of his countrymen throughout the expedition, and 
 bluntly declaring his belief that these two had been assassinated 
 there by Tibetans. 
 
 Such, then, was the position until the middle of July, when the 
 Dalai Lama heard that Gyantse Jong had been again recaptured 
 and that the English were on the point of starting for Lhasa. He 
 lost no time. Disguised in the plain dirty crimson of a common 
 monk the mortal body of Tubdan Gyatso fled away from his an- 
 cient residence and hallowed cathedral in Lhasa, carrying within 
 him the incarnate soul of Avalokiteswara. He set his golden 
 feet along the Nakchu-ka road and never looked back till he was 
 eight days' journey from the capital. With him went the Chief 
 Magician, he who many years ago had helped to place Tubdan 
 upon the throne, and in later years had foretold only too truly 
 that the " year of the wood dragon " (i.e., 1904) would spell dis- 
 aster for Tibet. These two men at the present moment are at 
 Urga, where a religious jehad is being organized, and it is quite 
 clear that no finality in our relations with Tibet can be secured 
 until they are persuaded of the foolishness of opposing the rights 
 of India, or until, as is far more likely, they have been quietly 
 put out of the way by the hierarchs whose ancient regime they 
 have so rudely offended. 
 
 As to the negotiations which we had so far vainly endeavored 
 to begin, it should be remembered that the terms which Colonel 
 Younghusband was instructed to demand from the Tibetans were 
 in themselves neither burdensome nor indeed as heavy as we had 
 a right to demand. Briefly stated, they included a demand that 
 the frontier should be rectified, that an indemnity should be paid 
 of an amount and in a manner to be subsequently decided, that 
 foreign political influence should be totally excluded from Tibet, 
 and that no concessions for mines, railways, or telegraphs should 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 225 
 
 be granted without the knowledge and the assent of the Indian 
 Government. Trade markets were to be estabhshed at Gyantse 
 and Gartok, a place far on the road from Shigatse to Leh, and 
 another clause permitted trade from India to pass freely along 
 any existing highway of commerce. A Resident in Gyantse was 
 to be appointed, but no representative of British interests, po- 
 litical or commercial, was to be posted at Lhasa, As a guar- 
 antee for the payment of the indemnity the Chumbi Valley 
 was to be occupied by the British. The suzerainty of the 
 Chinese was frankly recognized throughout the document, and 
 it need hardly be said that Russia was not referred to. Colo- 
 nel Younghusband had frankly expressed his opinion that it 
 would be cheaper and more effectual in the long run to have 
 a Resident in Lhasa, and if the Government had not com- 
 mitted themselves to an opposite policy by their promises to Rus- 
 sia it is possible that this suggestion, which to some extent 
 commended itself to Lord Curzon also, might have been adopted. 
 We shall see later the actual course of negotiations and the form 
 which this treaty eventually assumed. For the moment it is only 
 necessary to remember that Lord Curzon's absence from India on 
 leave from the end of April to the beginning of December placed 
 him somewhat at a disadvantage. He has, however, in the fullest 
 manner, acknowledged his indebtedness to Lord Ampthill, Gov- 
 ernor of Madras and acting Viceroy of India during Lord Cur- 
 zon's furlough, for the steady way in which the policy, which had 
 been begun and shaped by himself, was consistently pressed for- 
 ward by his successor. The latter, who was thus in office during 
 the actual advance to Lhasa and the signing of the treaty, is a 
 man of capacity far beyond his years. Difficult as his position 
 was — and the difficulty was added to by the ultimate uncertainty 
 prevailing as to the length of his tenure of office* — it was uni- 
 
 *Lord Curzon's return to India was indefinitely delayed owing to Lady 
 Curzon's sudden illness. She had been ailing for some time. On the 2ist of 
 
226 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 versally recognized that he had dealt with a new and increasingly 
 difficult situation with firmness and restraint, and the Home Gov- 
 ernment regarded themselves as under a deep obligation to him. 
 
 One advantage of the sending of the expedition has been, as 
 Lord Curzon is probably very well aware, that public attention has 
 now been definitely drawn to a matter which had been allowed to 
 be shelved almost too long. However much some of the less re- 
 sponsible members of the Opposition in England may regret it, 
 it cannot again seriously be contended by them that our position 
 on the northern frontier of India was this time safe. I have re- 
 ferred to the warnings that reached Lord Curzon of the gradual 
 insinuation of Russian influence at Lhasa, and the expedition 
 proved conclusively that those rumors considerably underesti- 
 mated the importance of the occasion. There is no reason in the 
 world why Russia should not obtain a predominating influence in 
 Lhasa except the plain one that it is incompatible with our own 
 clearly recognized interests. If such a consideration is held not 
 to have justified the sending of the Mission, there is little more 
 to be said, but to those who recognize the importance of safe- 
 guarding our Indian frontiers without possibility of mistake, a 
 few more considerations as to the policy to be observed in the fu- 
 ture with regard to Tibet may here be offered. 
 
 To begin with, we have discovered for the first time the true 
 nature of southern Tibet. It is far from resembling the dreary 
 waterless deserts of the north, so well described by Sven Hedin 
 and others, and it must also be admitted that it in no way sub- 
 stantiates the impression left upon the mind by the reports sent 
 in by the secret surveyors. Apart from the fact that the native 
 
 September she developed peritonitis of an aggravated and complicated kind. 
 For three weeks she lay in Walmer Castle between life and death, and few 
 indeed of those who watched the struggle day by day had any hopes that she 
 could ^ultimately throw off the disease. However, to the sincere relief of 
 every one who had at heart the best interests of India, Lord Curzon, on the 24th 
 of November, was able to leave her to continue her convalescence at Highcliflfe, 
 and returned to take up the threads of his work at Calcutta. 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 227 
 
 of India has no eye for the beauties of nature, and would as soon 
 make a day's journey across a desert as a park, it must be remem- 
 bered that the very manner in which these invaluable men were 
 obliged to carry out their work precluded the possibility of much 
 observation. To go on walking from day to day, intent only 
 upon counting every footfall and faithfully registering the hun- 
 dreds and the thousands upon a Tibetan rosary, naturally debars 
 a traveler from such observations as would have suggested to the 
 Indian authorities both the stored-up and the potential wealth 
 of the great alluvial river-flats of southern Tibet. 
 
 I do not know that there are many feats in the world of adven- 
 ture, endurance, and pluck that will compare favorably with that 
 of the Indian native intrusted with the work of secret exploration 
 in Tibet. In the first place it must be remembered that to secure 
 the brains necessary for the work a class of native has to be em- 
 ployed which, by tradition at least, is not the pluckiest in the 
 peninsula. The wonder therefore is doubled when one remembers 
 the splendid work of such men as Krishna (better known as 
 A.K.) or Kintup (K.P.), for the moral courage needed to persist 
 in an enterprise like this can hardly be overestimated. The men 
 employed are of necessity entirely without companions and with- 
 out resources ; they are engaged upon one of the most hazardous 
 occupations that remain in the world, that of a spy in a barbarous 
 country, and should they fail for one minute in all those months 
 and years of exile, they know that no mercy will be extended to 
 them ; and I think it but fair to add that not one of them would 
 in any emergency betray the Government whose servant he is. 
 There is a known case of a man who actually consented to be be- 
 trayed by his colleague as a spy in order that one at least of the 
 two might be able to escape and bring back to India the priceless 
 notes and calculations collected during a year of travel. For 
 three years Kintup was sold into slavery and endured it without 
 complaining. 
 
228 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 But this is not all ; a life of exploration, apart from the dangers 
 and hardships of it, is one of unremitting toil ; the mere physical 
 endurance needed to travel in this brain-benumbing way, count- 
 ing each step, hardly daring to raise the eyes from the track at 
 one's feet lest a number should be missed, or lest suspicion should 
 be aroused, is incredible. One man measured the length of the 
 Ling-kor, the road round Lhasa, by counting the prostrations 
 necessary, afterward solemnly repeating the whole process over a 
 measured mile. Another man is known to have traveled 2,500 
 miles, counting every footstep over mountain ranges. Atma Ram 
 did the same thing in one of Captain Bower's expeditions for a 
 distance of 2,080 miles. Nain Singh counted his steps from Leh 
 to Assam — look at it on the map. When the story of Asian explo- 
 ration is finally and worthily written, the work of these lonely 
 spies, twirling incessantly within their wheels rolls of blank paper 
 instead of prayers, which are laboriously and minutely filled up 
 night after night with the day's observation, must receive a place 
 of honor second to none. Hurree Chunder Mookerjee in " Kim '* 
 is a character drawn, I believe, immediately from the record of 
 Krishna's work. 
 
 To return to the question of protecting the northern frontier 
 of India. It seems a fair estimate that, so far as supplies are 
 concerned, a force of a hundred thousand men could without diffi- 
 culty rely upon the produce of the luxuriant valleys of the Tsang- 
 po and the Nyang chu. It was no friend of England's who 
 remarked that the natural frontiers of India were less the Hima- 
 layas than the impenetrable deserts which lie a hundred miles 
 north of Lhasa, and it is a serious consideration for us that if 
 Russia's influence should ever predominate in Lhasa, the actual 
 ground to be fought for, diplomatically or otherwise, is that which 
 lies across the barrier formed by the Himalayas. The advanced 
 base, whether of the defending or of the encroaching force, must 
 lie in these valleys. If the fertile fields of southern Tibet cannot 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 229 
 
 enter into the calculations of an invading nation, that nation will 
 have to rely upon the trans-Siberian railway as its base, and I 
 need hardly say that this is tantamount to ridiculing the whole 
 danger of invasion through Tibet. Such, baldly stated, is the 
 situation. 
 
 To secure immediate access to this glacis of granaries is the ob- 
 vious policy for the British Government to pursue, and it cannot 
 be said too insistently that the recognition of this necessity in no 
 way whatever involves interference with the internal affairs of 
 Tibet. As to a protectorate, the very idea of undertaking respon- 
 sibility for an additional eighteen hundred miles of frontier is 
 ridiculous. This, however, is a different matter. To secure this 
 advantage there is little constructive work needed. An alterna- 
 tive route to the prohibitive hardships of the Natu la is now being 
 surveyed along the valleys of the Di chu and the Ammo chu. It 
 ll is proposed to push rail-head from some point on the line in the 
 neighborhood of Dam dim as far up the lower slopes of the Hima- 
 layas as is feasible without a rack; and then to construct a cart- 
 road, with an easy gradient, along the valley to the head waters 
 of the Di chu, crossing into Bhutanese territory near Jong-sa, and 
 at a height of 9,000 feet, overpassing at its lowest point the great 
 mountain wall which here hems in the right bank of the Ammo 
 chu. From this height there is almost a level run into Rinchen- 
 gong. Once in the Chumbi Valley the difficulties of a second ex- 
 pedition will have been largely overcome, for even as this work 
 is published the road from Rinchen-gong to Kamparab is re- 
 ceiving the last touches from the engineers who have worked on 
 it so long. From Kamparab there is a level natural road which 
 has been steadily used throughout the present expedition for 
 wheeled traffic as far as Kang-ma. The road is practicable for 
 carts for a few miles further still, and the construction of the road 
 I have mentioned over the Jong-sa la would enable stores, un- 
 loaded at rail-head, to be carried, without bulk broken, on wheeled 
 
230 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 carts to within thirty miles of Gyantse itself. It is hardly neces- 
 sary to comment upon this. We have, I repeat, no wish in the 
 world to interfere with Tibet so long as Tibet does not imperil 
 our tranquillity in Bengal. While we ourselves seek no exclusive 
 rights in the country, we have at the same time no intention of 
 allowing any other power to secure them. So long as the Tibe- 
 tans cordially co-operate with ourselves in excluding foreign po- 
 litical influence, so long will we assist them to the best of our 
 power by doubling the existing barriers along the common fron- 
 tier. But it must be patent to the shallowest that the simple lay- 
 ing of this road will in future put us in a position to insist, should 
 our friendliness be insufficient to win the loyalty and good faith 
 of the hierarchy of Lhasa. It is but bare justice to credit Captain 
 O'Connor with the original suggestion of its construction in any 
 practicable form. 
 
 Inseparable from this cart-road is the question of trade. Else- 
 where I have referred to the staple products of the country. On 
 our side it seems clear that tea is beyond all competition the chief 
 export from India which the Tibetans would buy profusely and 
 with gratitude should the opportunity be fairly presented to them. 
 But a curious and unfortunately not an extraordinary thing is 
 the unwillingness of the Darjeeling tea-planters to recognize the 
 real necessities of the case. They are ready to supply their ordi- 
 nary tea in its ordinary form to any extent, but they seem quite 
 unwilling to manufacture the tea in that shape in which alone the 
 Tibetans recognize the article. I believe that after some pressure 
 the institute of planters in the Darjeeling district have sent two 
 men to the Chinese tea fields to learn the method of making bricks 
 of tea, such as the Tibetans require, but it seems strange that it 
 should have required an expedition to teach them such an obvious 
 act of commercial prudence. 
 
 This, then, is in brief the truth about our future relations with 
 Tibet, and in whatever terms the treaty now signed may eventu- 
 
INTERNAL HISTORY OF LHASA 1902-4 231 
 
 ally be ratified, the fact remains unalterable, that by the simple 
 construction of a road the northern frontier of India can now be 
 safeguarded at an expense which is ridiculously small in compari- 
 son with the millions lavished on the north-west, and one which 
 by sheer encouragement of trade will be recouped within ten 
 years. Roads are the great pioneers of peace, and those who 
 know their north-west frontier best will be the first to admit the 
 almost instant result of their construction even in the most hos- 
 tile districts. But the matter may safely be left in the hands of 
 Lord Curzon. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LAMAISM 
 
 NO account of an expedition to Lhasa would be complete 
 without some reference to the technical side of the religion 
 of the country. I have before referred to its application to the 
 people and the effect it produces upon their life, but a certain 
 amount of information as to the ecclesiastical aspect of Lamaism 
 is necessary to a full understanding of the real position which 
 Buddhism occupies in Central Asia. I have no intention of 
 wearying the reader with minute formulae, but the spirit which 
 underlies this Buddhism is worthy of some study. 
 
 The origin of Buddhism in Tibet is explained by the Tibetans 
 themselves in a somewhat amusing way. It is said that in old 
 days Tibet was a country of ravines and mountain tops and tor- 
 rents, varied by huge lakes. Buddha in person then visited the 
 land, and found that the inhabitants were monkeys. He ques- 
 tioned the monkeys and asked them why they were not men and 
 good Buddhists. They answered, not without reason, that with 
 the country in its existing state there was no opportunity for the 
 development of their own bodies, let alone their religious im- 
 pulses. To this Buddha replied : " If you will promise to become 
 men and good Buddhists I will give you a good and fertile land 
 to live in." The agreement having been struck, Buddha there 
 and then drained off the waters from the land which is now 
 known as the plain of Gyantse by an underground channel 
 through the Himalayas into the Ganges near Gaya. The Tibetans 
 
 232 
 
LAMAISM 22,z 
 
 on their side kept their promise, and though of course they knew 
 not Darwin, became both men and, as they assert, good Buddhists. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the moment at which Buddhism became the 
 established religion of Tibet can be ascertained with some ap- 
 proach to certainty. The Tibetan King Srong-tsan-gambo, to 
 whom reference has been made in the first chapter, must have 
 been a man of considerable foresight. It is not in the least likely 
 that it was the influence of his two wives, one of whom was a 
 Chinese, and the other a Nepalese princess, which decided him to 
 adopt Buddhism as the religion of his country, though both of 
 them may have helped to strengthen him in his intention. The 
 truth is that he recognized the enormous value which would at- 
 tach to the identification of Buddhism with his new capital. In 
 India, as he saw clearly enough. Buddhism was being driven 
 headlong before the re-encroaching tides of Hinduism. Had 
 Buddhism remained a living force in India, no other place in Asia 
 could have attempted to compete in local religious importance 
 with, say, Gaya. But when Buddhism became an exile from the 
 land of its birth, Srong-tsan-gambo made use of his opportunity. 
 He recognized both the importance of having its central authority 
 located in Lhasa, and the peculiar suitability of that place to his 
 aims. In the seventh century, therefore, the official metropolis of 
 Buddhism was transferred from the plains of Northern India to 
 the mountain fastnesses of Tibet, and here in a couple of centuries 
 the new religion established itself in the mystic and fascinating 
 seclusion which veils it to this day. 
 
 This King of Tibet sent to India for learned Buddhist fathers, 
 and, with the unquestioned autocracy of an Oriental tyrant, he 
 imposed the new faith upon his people. There are few relics, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, in the cathedral of Lhasa itself, of this primeval 
 state of Lamaism, but that it underlies and was the founda- 
 tion of all that we now see is beyond doubt. The Buddhism 
 which was first introduced into Tibet was of the ampler form 
 
234 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 taught by the school of Asanga. It was in its original state the 
 " greater vehicle," without any other accretions than those which 
 Asanga's opportunism compelled him to adopt from the Hindu 
 ritual and mythology. But, as I have said before, the present con- 
 dition of Lamaism is such that Buddha himself would hardly 
 recognize a phase or a phrase of it. The interesting part of this 
 development is that it has been going on without any outside In- 
 terference whatever. Secured by their geographical position, 
 securer still by their overweening pride in the sacro-sanctity of 
 their capital and the learning of their doctors, the Tibetans devel- 
 oped Lamaism along lines which betray no foreign influence. But 
 this does not imply that the new religion was not severely tested 
 and tried. There were molding forces enough in the religious 
 party strife to distribute countless lines of cleavage through the 
 fibers of the parent Buddhist stock. From the first the difficulty 
 of communications in this country and the laxity which neces- 
 sarily followed when the strong hand of an autocratic monarchy 
 slackened, produced a large number of special and local develop- 
 ments of the Buddhist faith. It would be tedious to do more than 
 note again that the first universal supremacy of any church in 
 Tibet was that created by Kublai Khan in the middle of the thir- 
 teenth century, when he recognized the spiritual autocracy of 
 the Grand Lama of the Sakya Monastery. 
 
 Sakya lies well to the south of Tashi-lhunpo, far from the influ- 
 ences of Lhasa, and here the Red Cap faction flourished exceed- 
 ingly. There is a legend in connection with Kublai Khan's action 
 which is credible enough. In wide sympathy with all forms of 
 religious endeavor, Kublai Khan determined to put the claims of 
 the various creeds to ^ practical test ; none was excluded. A cer- 
 tain miracle — it was the levitation of a wine cup from the table 
 to the Emperor's lips— was to be performed if possible by the 
 representatives of the different creeds. Those championing the 
 Christian faith were perhaps unwise in accepting this challenge 
 
CO 
 
 O 
 in 
 
 I 
 
 Di 
 
 > 
 <! 
 
 CO 
 
 W 
 
 m 
 
 w 
 
 < 
 Pi 
 Pi 
 w 
 
 H 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 I— i 
 
 o 
 
LAMAISM 235 
 
 to make a public advertisement of supernatural powers. The 
 lamas, on their side, no doubt, took private and material means 
 to secure the success of their own incantations, and the failure 
 of the Christians to achieve the marvel put the coping-stone to 
 the strength of Buddhism in Central Asia. 
 
 It is not unlikely that the supernatural powers claimed to this 
 day among certain sections of the lamas had their origin in this 
 curious legend. Madame Blavatsky has drawn attention to these 
 claims, and it may be doubted whether much popular enthusiasm 
 would ever have been displayed for the shadowy tenets of The- 
 osophy if it had not been for these attractive suggestions. Per- 
 sonally, I only once came in contact with a lama who made, or 
 had made for him, a definite claim to supernatural power. Nyen- 
 de-kyi-buk is from time to time called upon to produce lamas of 
 unusual sanctity. They are always forthcoming. These men 
 have their spiritual capacity proved by their ability to pass certain 
 tests, of which several were described to me. The first thing to 
 be proved is their capacity to transmit their personality in a visible 
 form to Lhasa, Gyantse, and Tashi-lhunpo within the space of a 
 few seconds. Another and probably a more difficult feat upon 
 which to satisfy their examiners consists in their ability to crawl 
 through the keyhole of their locked cell. The Abbot of Nyen-de- 
 kyi-buk had successfully passed these tests, but one felt that the 
 rules of courtesy forbade one from making any direct request that 
 he should repeat on the spot even the simplest of his miracles. 
 But supernatural powers are, of course, claimed in a very definite 
 manner by all the wizards and magicians of the country, and also 
 by the Dalai Lama and other high officials. 
 
 It is perhaps unfair to class the pretense of the magigian to 
 keep off hail from the crops by his prayers as an illustration of 
 witchcraft, for a not dissimilar claim is implied even in Christian 
 services ; but it would be difficult to find a hard and fast point at 
 which to draw a dividing line between such a pretension as this 
 
236 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 and that which underlies the claims of the austerer members of 
 the Red-cap faction to the supernatural powers to which I have 
 just referred. The earlier teachers of Lamaism are undoubtedly 
 credited with curious non-human capacities, and the manner in 
 which these mighty men of old encountered and defeated the ob- 
 stacles devised by their enemies, or put in their path by the con- 
 ditions of nature, is probably the basis of the Theosophist con- 
 tention. 
 
 I have been at some pains to ascertain the origin of this belief, 
 which Madame Blavatsky has been perhaps chiefly responsible 
 for spreading. The following most learned teachers may be 
 quoted here as having been the source of much of her doctrine : 
 
 1. Nub-chen-nam-kar-ning-po.—A Red-cap Lama, who trans- 
 ported himself at will through the air. 
 
 2. Niih-chen-sang-gyi-ye-she. — This man had even dared to 
 see Shin-je himself, the god of Hell. He was also able to split 
 rocks with a stroke of his purbu. 
 
 3. Nal-jor-gyal-wa-chok-yung. — A mighty teacher of the 
 Red-cap school. 
 
 4. Khan-dro-ye-she-tso-gyal. — A woman disciple of the Guru 
 Rinpoche. She exercised supernatural powers. 
 
 5. Dog-mi-pal-gi-ye-she. — He meditated on a snow-field with 
 such success that the welfare and the misery of the world alike 
 were visible to him, and he was obeyed by the goddesses them- 
 selves. 
 
 6. Nyak-chen-ye-she-scheun-nu.—A Lama of the Red-cap 
 sect, who obtained water from a rock in the desert by touching 
 it with his finger. 
 
 7. Tub-chen-pal-gyi-sing-ge. — A Bhutanese, whom the gods 
 and goddesses were compelled to obey. 
 
 8. N ga-dag-cho-gyal. — This Lama lived at Samye. He lived 
 without eating and made himself invisible at will. 
 
LAMAISM 237 
 
 9. Nal-jor-wang-chuk-chempo. — A pupil of the Guru Rin- 
 poche, of great but unspecified supernatural powers. 
 
 10. Na-nam-dor-je-dud-jom. — A pupil of the Guru Rinpoche, 
 who could project himself through the air. 
 
 11. Ba-mi-ye-she.—A pupil of the Guru Rinpoche. This 
 man, like Enoch, passed into Nirvana without going through 
 the pains of death. 
 
 12. Sok-po-lha-pal. — This man, the fourth of the Guru's 
 great disciples, had the power of killing a tiger by touching 
 its neck with his hands. 
 
 13. Na-nang-ye-she. — This Lama was learned enough to be 
 able to fly through the air like a bird, 
 
 14. Khar-chen-pal-gyi-wong-chuk, — This great interpreter of 
 Khar-chen wrought wonders with his purbu. 
 
 15. Shu-po-pal-ki-sing-ge. — A Tibetan "doctor," who con- 
 trolled the sea. 
 
 16. Ko-wa-pal-tse. — A Hindu. His supernatural gifts are not 
 specified. 
 
 17. Na-jal-den-ma-tse-mang.—K Hindu magician of the Red- 
 cap school. 
 
 18. Gyal-wo-lo-deu.—A Hindu pundit (who brought brass 
 images to life!). 
 
 19. Kyu-chung.—A youthful Hindu interpreter, who spoke 
 the language of birds. 
 
 20. Kun-chok-jang-ne.—A Hindu pundit who controlled the 
 elements. 
 
 21. Nal-joy-pal-gyi-dor-je. — This man was able to walk as 
 easily over precipices as over the ground. 
 
 22. Lo-che-ma-thog-rin-chen.— With his magical powers he 
 was able to tear off great boulders from the mountain side and 
 crush them to powder in his hands. 
 
 23. Wo-den-pal-gyi-wang-chuk.— This teacher could swim 
 through water as quickly and as easily as a fish. 
 
238 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 24. Nal-jor-den-pa-nam-khe. — This great Lama was so 
 skilled in magic lore that he could catch by the ear even the 
 "flesh-licking" bison. (This is the repeated statement of a 
 Tibetan lama, but if the yak is intended, it neither " licks flesh " 
 nor much minds being held by the ear.) 
 
 25. Dub-chen-gyal-wo-chang-chub.— While meditating he 
 was levitated into the air and so remained. 
 
 I have given these uncouth names in ordef to place upon a 
 proper footing the supernatural claims of theosophists for Tibe- 
 tan Lamaism. I have myself no doubt that, in these traditions 
 lies the origin of many of their beliefs, and I am glad to provide 
 such material for acquiescence or argument as these supply.^ 
 
 The word Mahatma is not known in Tibet, and, though he 
 must know little of the East who will definitely say that any 
 apparent variation therein of the ordinary course of nature, 
 whether due to hypnotism or not, is incredible, I do not think, 
 on the whole, that any particular occult knowledge will come to 
 us from Tibet. Formulae and details of ritual we did indeed 
 find in overwhelming numbers, and the credulity and superstition 
 of the common people may once have suggested that there really 
 is something in these claims to theurgy, but the success with 
 which a monotoned imprecation impresses a crowd of worship- 
 ers in a Tibetan gompa is, we found, due merely to the policy 
 of extinguishing knowledge which the lamas have adopted. 
 
 To return to the history of the Church, Buddhism, in its 
 earliest shape, was an agnostic rather than an atheistic form of 
 religion. Buddha's scheme of retribution implies a belief in a 
 First Cause, but when on a certain occasion he was asked to ex- 
 press an opinion upon the validity or otherwise of the traditional 
 
 * This list is, I believe, a complete one of all the "red letter" doctors of 
 the Lamaic Church who wrought miracles. It is included in the full " ong 
 kur-wa" or " power-sendingj" equipment of a Lamaic wizard. 
 
LAMAISM 239 
 
 deities known to Asia, he declined to admit the necessity of a 
 categorical answer. He may have thought that it was convenient 
 for common people of low intelligence, whose minds could only 
 grasp a truth objectively, to have some external and tangible 
 crystallization of truths, however far they might be from that 
 which he saw. More than that cannot, I think, be found in the 
 earliest form of Buddhism. There were, however, few even 
 among the earliest Buddhists who were strong enough to drink 
 this pure milk of the Word, and we find that even before Asanga 
 had fused the two creeds. Buddhism was peopled with many 
 semi-deities. 
 
 After the " Buddhas " and the Bodisats — a large class, consist- 
 ing of those who have, so to speak, qualified themselves to be 
 Buddhas, but whose self-denial has not yet and may never be 
 called upon — there is a class of divinity which is very strikingly 
 prominent in Tibet. These are the tutelary or guardian deities, 
 chiefly of the " Towo " or " terrible " aspect. These were the 
 original gods of the country, and after Buddha, who is always 
 conceived as having made a personal mission tour through the 
 land, had converted these hideous human monsters to his own 
 austerer faith, he permitted them to retain their aspect and even 
 their powers of doing harm, in order, as he said, that they might 
 defend the faith and the chosen people from outside rattack. This 
 retention has had a natural result. There is no .doubt that the 
 inclusion of these " terrible " guardians in the Lamaic Pantheon 
 has been the chief cause of the people remaining at heart devil- 
 worshipers. We can imagine that at first the apostles of Bud- 
 dhism found their work considerably smoothed for them by ac- 
 cepting the devil-gods of the aboriginal inhabitants. In this they 
 after all only carried out Asanga's own policy in India, but the 
 result, which they might have foreseen, has been that, except for 
 the external veneer of Buddhism, devil-worship has absorbed its 
 conqueror. 
 
240 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 These terrible deities are the gods of the common people of 
 Tibet. The mild-eyed Buddha is to them only a vague means 
 of escape from the tyranny of these loathsome and misshapen 
 monsters, aureoled with the fire of hell, who with dripping fangs 
 and beastly deformities are far more present and practical than 
 the master. They are placed, naturally enough, at the gates and 
 in the forecourts of temples, either in actual carved shape, or, 
 as is far more common, painted upon the walls. Upon these the 
 eye of the passer-by rests, and it is probable that he rarely asks 
 for any higher sanction for his religious duties than that which 
 they afford. They terrify him into obedience to his lama, and 
 that is all that the lama requires. For an adequate conception 
 of the real effect of Lamaism upon the Tibetans, it is hardly 
 necessary to go higher up in the scale than these tutelary deities. 
 
 Vaguely known to the common Tibetans by their colored fig- 
 ures upon wayside rocks are such semi-deities as Dolma, in her 
 three hues of green, red, and white, and in the same class may 
 perhaps be placed the eight ladies in whom Colonel Waddell 
 recognizes aboriginal deities adopted en bloc by the incoming 
 Buddhists. They are of comely complexion, and certainly do 
 -not look as if butter would melt in their mouths. This, however, 
 is not the case if the fearsome tales which were told to me by 
 one of our interpreter lamas have any foundation in fact. They 
 are probably merely the spouses of the male tutelary deities, and 
 •derive any importance they may possess from the reflection of 
 their consorts' terrors. A very common figure in wall paintings 
 is the god of wealth. He is represented with a red face, and 
 down his left forearm runs the mongoose by which jewels * are 
 fetched from the center of the earth. Conventionally there is 
 a rank and degree for every member of this supernatural com- 
 pany; but even the educated Tibetan is quite willing to allow 
 
 * Jewels are conventionally represented in Tibetan art 
 like turnips of different colors. 
 
LAMAISM 241 
 
 these complications of mythology to be understanded of the 
 priests alone, and it is practically sufficient for the traveler to 
 recognize at sight the four terrible guardian deities of the four 
 quarters of Heaven, Tamdin, so called because of the horse's 
 head and neck which are always to be found in the flames with 
 which his head is crowned, Shin-je, the god of Hell, and Pal- 
 den-lhamo. 
 
 Besides these are the mischievous gods which the lamas use 
 to subjugate the common folk — gods of lesser and local influ- 
 ence. They are malignant sprites with strictly limited powers. 
 They have a thousand different shapes. Some are gnomes or 
 hobgoblins, creeping and peeping among the rocks. Some are 
 gigantic brutes a mile in height, with tiny mouths which pre- 
 vent them swallowing even the smallest crumb; naturally they 
 suffer from hunger, and in their agonized writhings they are the 
 immediate cause of earthquakes. Others again confine them- 
 selves to peaks and passes — the noi-jins ^ are of this class. They 
 do not, however, do much harm to mankind except that of course 
 avalanches are their work, and they seem also to be responsible 
 for breathing out what the Tibetans call la-druk—" the poison 
 of the pass." This, of course, is merely the attenuated air which 
 even in the hardiest Tibetan will bring on mountain sickness and 
 nausea. Then there are imps who hide themselves during the 
 -day and come out and hold high revels all the night. They 
 ride over the hills and plains on foxback, and if you hear one of 
 these animals yelping in the distance, you may be sure that it 
 is being over-driven and beaten sorely by one of these " lan-de." 
 However, as the only whip which they are allowed to use is 
 the hemlock stalk, the wounds cannot be very severe. 
 
 Every village and every district has its own particular god, 
 and it is part of the duties and the emoluments of the lamas to 
 
 ^ The first word in Nichi-kang-sang is really Noi-jin, 
 but it is never so pronounced. 
 
242 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 instruct travelers (for a moderate fee) as to the deity proper to 
 be invoked at the entrance of each commune. Fevers and dis- 
 eases of all kinds are caused by minute but malignant sprites. 
 Thus, when you see a rainbow, you may know that these in- 
 finitely small folk are sliding down it Iris-like to the water at its 
 foot, and then beware of that place, for ague lies thereby. If 
 one wished to put into a fanciful form the last theories at home 
 about malaria, this would be as pretty a way of telling them as 
 any. They amuse themselves (here, perhaps, we have the miss- 
 ing anopheles) by playing on guitars. Some of these spirits 
 live solely on odors. They inhabit the air, and flit like fairies to 
 and fro. They feed upon any kind of scent or stench, good or bad, 
 and butchers burn oflfal round their shops in order that by a more 
 overpowering smell than that of their own wares, these spirits 
 may be attracted away. Finally, there are the shri, the com- 
 monest and perhaps the most dreaded spirits of them all. It is 
 to be noticed that they are chiefly dangerous because they attack 
 children.* 
 
 These spirits really represent to the common Tibetan peasant 
 all the religious influences that he knows, and for him the 
 elaborate structure of Lamaism is only a shield and defense 
 against a very real terror which waits for him a hundred times 
 a day beside his path and about his bed. For the lamas, on the 
 other hand, there is much in the ritual of their church, and if 
 they do not actually disbelieve in the existence of these malig- 
 nant spirits, they feel perfectly secure behind the protection af- 
 
 * Children are very well treated in Tibet. Of course they are left unwashed, 
 and if they have any kind of disease they are left to grow out of it if it is so 
 ordained. The result of these two customs is that skin disease among the 
 children is unpleasantly common. But they are well-fed, never ill-treated, 
 and have, on the whole, a very good time. From the very beginning they 
 were never afraid of our troops, and the first word of Hindustani that was 
 learned by the Tibetans as a whole was the " salaam " which the three-year- 
 old mites ran beside us and squeaked continually. Afterward " salaam " was 
 a well-recognized form for exchanging salutations among their seniors. 
 
LAMAISM 243 
 
 forded by their rites and ceremonies. But for them an entirely 
 different set of emotions and motives comes into play. The 
 attitude of the lamas is in its way not less credulous and un- 
 taught than is that of the poorer people, but the spur which 
 drives them to religious observances is not the fear of earthly 
 mischief, by whomsoever caused ; it is a very different and a very 
 interesting goad of their own making — a blind horror of the 
 consequences of that reincarnation upon which the whole fabric 
 of Lamaism is built. This is a most interesting question. 
 
 It is difificult for a Christian to realize how terrible a weapon 
 this article of faith can become. For him this world, good or 
 bad, is at least the last world in which things earthly will affect 
 him. Of the next he knows only by the eye of faith, and the 
 terror inspired by the most material conception of hell is un- 
 questionably mitigated by the fact that the most earnest Chris- 
 tian believer cannot really know what it is that awaits the wicked 
 after death.* Indeed, if it were not so, if there were no such 
 modifying circumstance attached to the formulae of Christianity, 
 life for a devout man could hardly fail to be— if on his own 
 behalf perhaps, certainly on that of his friends— an agony of 
 pain. This, I fancy, it rarely is— at least, on this account. 
 There is another distinction to be remembered. The human 
 mind is notoriously incapable of conceiving the notion of eter- 
 nity. But the Oriental can throw his conceptions forward in 
 a vastly greater degree than the European. Whether we deny 
 it or not, our conception of time is dominated by our habitual 
 method of measurement. For us a year is not merely a conve- 
 nient form of expression, it is a hampering unit from which we 
 cannot shake ourselves free. For a Tibetan the life is the unit 
 of repetition, and it must be remembered that a lifetime is an 
 
 * I am aware of the Roman article " Ignis Inferni est corporeus et ejusdem 
 speciei cum hoc nostro elementari." But this statement is so much qualified 
 by the many supernatural properties claimed for the flame that even a Roman 
 Catholic cannot clearly fix his conception of the means of punishment. 
 
244 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 infinitely longer time for a man than are his seventy years. A 
 lama's conception of eternity is, therefore, of a terrible depth 
 compared with ours, and, what is far more, he believes from 
 his earliest days that failure on his part to acquire merit in this 
 world will result not in an instantaneous and irrevocable judg- 
 ment, after which at least no action of his own can do him good, 
 but in a never-ending repetition in some form of life in this world 
 of the very same struggle that he is now enduring. And the 
 ingenuity with which the lamas have conceived the lowest, filthi- 
 est and most obscene envelopes in which the sentient and in- 
 telligent human mind and soul may, after death, be re-impris- 
 oned, would do credit to a monkish theologian anticipating 
 cases for the canon law. Herein lies the rub of it all. 
 
 The means of punishment is ever under his eye. Here is 
 an example. The ordinary man in the country will slip his outer 
 garment down over his shoulders and spend a lazy hour, in the 
 heat of the sun, in detecting and exterminating the almost in- 
 visible vermin which inhabit his robe. But to the lama this is 
 forbidden, for there can never be an hour in his skin-tormented 
 life in which he does not remember that his loathsome parasites 
 may have deserved their present fate by carelessness in some 
 point of ritual during their life on earth — nay, that he may even 
 himself be then awaiting the imminent moment in which he 
 shall join their creeping company. 
 
 If the reader can seriously understand that this is not a mere 
 theoretical truth, but an actual daily terror to the educated 
 classes in Tibet, he may go some way toward understanding 
 one at least of the myriad terrors which a belief in the theory 
 of reincarnation necessitates. If, then, it is clear that the men- 
 tal terrors of the Tibetans, whether they are called by the name 
 of superstition or of religion, have provided for the profess- 
 ing Buddhists, high and low alike, an ample sanction for the 
 due observance of the rules of life, it remains to be seen what 
 
LAMAISM 245 
 
 general effect these rules have upon the life and morals of the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 One thing at least is clear in the case of nearly every religion 
 of importance. The influence of religion has in almost every case 
 been used to inculcate not only such virtues as tended to secure 
 the material prosperity of the nation, but such also as make 
 for the permanence of society and the sanitary benefit of the 
 members of the faith. As an example, it is sufficient to point 
 to Islam. Mahomet, whatever his spiritual deficiencies, had a 
 keen and certain eye for the necessities of a nation living in the 
 tropics, surrounded by hostile tribes in every direction. The 
 trend of his regulations is obvious enough. Every line of the 
 Koran breathes of sanitation on earth, and, after death on the 
 field of battle, of the hope of an eternity of pleasure. It is 
 easy to understand why the devotees of so straight a creed have 
 never ebbed from their widest flow. But in Tibet, after a sanc- 
 tion had been obtained, which for strength has been surpassed 
 by nothing elsewhere held out for the admiration or terror of 
 men, we find that the religion thereby enforced is not merely 
 neglectful of the development or even of the continued existence 
 of its professing members, but is even detrimental to it. 
 
 Buddhists are, of course, confronted with the same difficulty 
 by which Christians also are faced. Nothing is more charac- 
 teristic of the two faiths than the repeated injunction to suffer 
 injuries meekly and take no life. I do not propose to discuss 
 so difficult a theological compromise as that at which the Chris- 
 tian nations of the world have arrived in this matter, but it may 
 be pointed out that Buddhists must again and again have found 
 it difficult to adopt even an approximation to this rule of life, 
 surrounded as they are by races to whom such laws were patent 
 foolishness. Christianity in Europe, strong within itself and 
 its friendly co-religionists, is in a different case. In Tibet the sac- 
 rosanct character of the country has saved the inhabitants again 
 
246 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 and again from hostile attack ; and this, combined with the neces- 
 sity of keeping a serf people in an unarmed condition, has made 
 of the Tibetans a quiet race unused to war. I do not for a mo- 
 ment wish to say that the Tibetan was found by us wanting in 
 individual pluck, but it is a long step from the innate courage 
 of an untutored and misled barbarian to the effective self-confi- 
 dence of the same man properly officered and buoyed up with 
 all the confidence that religion and discipline can instil. Herein 
 lies a characteristic of Buddhism which, from a- political point of 
 view, cannot be classed otherwise than as a serious fault. So 
 long as the earth remains divided into races whose first duty 
 is self-preservation, so long, deplorable as it may be from an 
 ideal point of view, a religion which does not also help to pro- 
 tect the nation as well as defend the family, stands little chance 
 of propagating its own good influences. Now, Lamaism has 
 no such tendencies. It does not make of the man a good fighter, 
 and it certainly does not make of him either an intelligent citizen 
 or a good father of a family. I suppose that under these three 
 heads almost every human virtue can be classed. That it does 
 not help him in his civic life is obvious enough, for absolute 
 servitude, mental and physical, is the political result of Lama- 
 ism upon its flock. So far as concerns his domestic relations, 
 it seems clear that the polyandry practised in Tibet is not likely 
 to lead to a high standard of morals. The results of the 
 large proportion of women who, in consequence, have no chance 
 of becoming wives, and the complication in family relationships 
 that results from these strange marital customs, might be less 
 harmful if, as happens in Sumatra and on the coasts of Malabar, 
 the women undertook also the government of the country. But 
 they do not ; far from it ; they have no voice whatever in the gov- 
 ernment of the country ; they still remain merely the toys or the 
 beasts of burden of their male acquaintances. It need not be 
 said that, in the conventional sense of the word, morals are 
 unknown in Tibet. 
 
LAMAISM 247 
 
 But it must not be supposed that Tibetans are therefore de- 
 void of characteristics which, after all, may rank as high as the 
 virtues of sterner moralists. They are courteous and hospitable, 
 and so long as they do not feel that their wits are being chal- 
 lenged, their word may be relied upon and their kindliness taken 
 for granted. They are industrious and, as we have seen, capable 
 of extraordinary physical activity. It is true that this activity 
 finds its vent rather in the muscles of the legs than in those of 
 the fingers, but this is only to be expected. They remain dirty, 
 but dirtiness is a merely relative expression. If you must have 
 your daily tub you will not travel far, except on the high roads 
 of this world — I had almost said of England. But far more 
 than this fact, which must be known to a traveler within even 
 a limited radius, there remains the fact that dirt — so far, I mean, 
 as affects the human being — is far less offensive in high and cold 
 altitudes than it would be in London, and it is hardly too much 
 to say that there was no one in the expedition who did not, after 
 a comparatively short time, come to look upon the dirtiness of 
 those who surrounded him with a mere mental shrug of the shoul- 
 ders.^ It has been before suggested that the cold of Phari was one 
 of the reasons of its supreme filth, and this is borne out by every 
 experience of Tibet. ^ I do not think that many of even those 
 stalwarts who bathe in the Serpentine on Christmas morning 
 would cut a valiant figure on the Tang la, where the thermometer 
 is sometimes fifty-nine degrees lower than the freezing-point 
 they defy in Hyde Park. 
 
 But in other ways than those of ablution, the religion of 
 
 * It is not uninteresting to remember that for days at a time on the plain of 
 Phari in January and February it was foolhardiness to attempt to wash one's 
 hands before midday. I remember once reaching out, in the early hours of 
 the morning, for an aluminium cup which had had some water in it over-night 
 and thoughtlessly trying to drink from it. My lips stuck to the aluminium, 
 and the skin came away with it. The water was, of course, a block of ice, 
 and the temperature was — 15°. 
 
 * Andrada politely remarks " e se bene nelle proprie persone non hanno 
 molto riguardo alia delicatura." 
 
248 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Tibet makes no attempt to enforce healthiness. It is beyond 
 question that the ophthalmia of Tibet is due directly and the prev- 
 alence of hare-lip ^ indirectly to the physical inadequacy of the 
 Tibetan race. Pyramidal cataract is another very common dis- 
 ease; this is mainly caused by neglect of ophthalmia, of which 
 the origin is again neglect of cleanliness. These physical defi- 
 ciencies or deformities might easily be supplemented by a refer- 
 ence to the prevalence of smallpox and similar dirt diseases ; but 
 at the moment I wish simply to emphasize the fact that a religion 
 which neither directly nor indirectly encourages cleanliness, is 
 one which requires artificial fostering if it is to remain a power 
 among mankind. That artificial fostering Lamaism has always 
 received. Partly from its inaccessibility, partly from the su- 
 perstitious veneration with which the country and its god-king 
 have always been regarded, and partly because of the stubborn 
 exclusion of foreign influences, Lamaism has been allowed, if 
 I may use a common phrase, to stew in its own juice until the 
 goodness has entirely departed from it and from the people 
 who are its official ministers. It is difficult at this moment to 
 point to a single recognized and observed ordinance peculiar to 
 Lamaism which is of the slightest use or virtue. 
 
 It is odd to remember that an early explorer in this country 
 found, as he thought, every sign of Christianity except the es- 
 sence of it. In the first half of the seventeenth century Father 
 Andrada, in the following words, reported what he believed to 
 be the truth in this connection : 
 
 " L'immagini sono d'oro, & una, che vedemmo in Chaparan- 
 gue, stana a sedere con le mani alzate e rappresentana una donna, 
 la quale dicono che e Madre di Dio : riconoscono il misterio deir 
 incarnatione dicendo, che il figlio di Dio si e fatto huomo : ten- 
 gono di piu il Misterio della Santissima Trinita molto distincto, 
 
 * Hare-lip is a symptom of a physically under-developed human being. 
 
LAMAISM 249 
 
 e dicono, che Dio e trino & uno. Usano di confessarsi, ma sola- 
 mente in certi casi col suo Lamba Maggiore. Hanno vasi d'ac- 
 qua benedetta molto politi, da quali pigliano i particolari per 
 tenerla in casa." 
 
 There is without doubt a curious resemblance between the 
 ritual of the two great autocratic churches. The arrangements 
 inside the gompa might well be regarded as owing their origin 
 to Christian usages. The sanctuary, especially at night, bears 
 a curious resemblance to that of a Roman Catholic shrine. And 
 the antiphonal chant of the singing men and boys, ranged just 
 as with ourselves in lines, decani and cantoris, the monotoned 
 voice and the rare tinkle of the Sanctus, combined with the genu- 
 flexions before the altar, carry on inside the church a merely 
 ritualistic resemblance which adds color to the fanciful imagin- 
 ings in deeper matters of Father Andrada of the Society of Jesus. 
 Nor does the similarity stop here. The orders within the 
 Church, the relative positions of pope and cardinal, abbot and 
 parish priest, all have their equivalent in Lamaism, and the use 
 of the cross gammadion as the badge of the faith cannot but 
 strike as curious the most careless observer. Indulgences also 
 are freely used, though it must be admitted that in Lamaism 
 these approximate more nearly to the erroneous view of their 
 intention taken by Protestant communities than to their real 
 function in the Roman Church. The Dalai Lama on one occa- 
 sion somewhat overstepped prudence in this matter. To induce 
 the men of Kams to come down and fight us, he offered them 
 plenary indulgences which should not only absolve them from 
 sins past, but safeguard them against the penalties for sins to 
 come for the next six months. The men of Kams, furnished 
 with this spiritual armor, did not fail to make use of it, and 
 on their return from the Karo la ran riot among the Grand 
 Lama's own temples, looting and sacking everywhere they went. 
 
250 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 The practice of blessing small articles distributed among 
 pious pilgrims is, of course, common to all religions in the world. 
 The spiritual brigandage of the lamas finds its counterpart in 
 many other creeds, for the purse of superstition lies at the 
 mercy of the first comer; but it would be unjust not to record 
 in the strongest terms the great radical difference that exists be- 
 tween Lamaism at its best and Christianity at its worst. There 
 has never been absent from the lowest profession of our faith 
 a full recognition of the half-divine character- of self-sacrifice 
 for another. Of this Tibetans know nothing. The exact per- 
 formance of their duties, the daily practice of conventional of- 
 fices and continual obedience to their Lamaic superiors is for them 
 a means of escape from personal damnation in a form which is 
 more terrible perhaps than any monk-conjured Inferno. For 
 others they do not profess to have even a passing thought. 
 
 Now this is a distinction which goes to the very root of the 
 matter. The fact is rarely stated in so many words, but it is the 
 truth that Christianity is daily judged by one standard and by 
 one standard only — its altruism, and this complete absence of 
 carefulness for others, this insistent and fierce desire to save one's 
 own soul, regardless of a brother's, is in itself something that 
 makes foreign to one the best that Lamaism has to offer. Kim's 
 lama may exist to-day; that is, there may be, and indeed I have 
 no hesitation in saying that there are, in Tibet at the present mo- 
 ment members of this priestly caste of whose sanctity and austere 
 detachedness from mundane pleasures there is no doubt, men of 
 kindly heart, unsullied by the world, struggling so far as in them 
 lies to reach back to the great Example beneath the quivering 
 leaves of the pipul tree of Gaya. But apart from the fact that 
 these men are rare indeed, and were they commoner could exert 
 little or no influence upon others, it is to be remembered that there 
 is only one way in which the pious Buddhist can hope to help his 
 fellow-man, and that the very structure of Lamaism decides for 
 
LAMAISM 251 
 
 him whether or not he Is destined to be one of the helpers before 
 a conscious thought moves through his baby brain. 
 
 The doctrine of the reincarnation of Bodisats is perhaps a the- 
 ory which in conception is not unworthy to rank close behind even 
 that great sacrifice upon which Christianity is based. For the 
 Bodisat has earned the right to eternal rest; for him, and he 
 knows it well, there need be no more " whips and scorns of time " ; 
 everlasting quietude, so peaceful that the soul does not know even 
 that it is at peace, the Paradise to which all Buddhism stretches 
 out and, as it may, creeps from point to point, all this he has most 
 fully and most fairly won. But having reached the goal of all 
 desire, the Bodisat turns again, with deliberate purpose, to de- 
 scend into the arena of the world and the flesh, there to help on- 
 ward along the thorny road some few at least of his fellow-men. 
 And this is not a single choice. He elects so to continue in an 
 eternal cycle, bound down by the cares and pleasures of the flesh, 
 generation after generation, in order that some of his fellow men 
 may have their feet set straighter on the road that leads to the 
 blissful abyss. 
 
 But, as I have said, this is no goal for the ordinary man. If he 
 is not born one of the reincarnate saints of Buddhism, he has no 
 further interest in his fellow kind, and even the best of them have 
 no other incentive to action or piety than that of saving them- 
 selves, bodily as well as spiritually, from that life which to a 
 Buddhist is the truest eternal punishment. This is the underlying 
 flaw that vitiates the spiritual value of Buddhism, just as it viti- 
 ates that of every other religion of the world, except Christianity.* 
 
 * If there is one result of this doctrine of reincarnation more unfortunate 
 than another it is the theory that a man who is physically deficient has de- 
 served his punishment by his behavior in another world. Browning's remark 
 in " Childe Roland," 
 
 " He must be wicked to deserve such pain," 
 
 might have been written — and perhaps should only have been written — ^by a 
 Buddhist of Tibet. 
 
252 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 It cuts at the root of human sympathy. It isolates the indi- 
 vidual in his life and in his death, and it says a great deal for the 
 innate beauty of the character we found, among the simple Tibe- 
 tan peasants that they remain kindly, hospitable, and courteous 
 in spite of the debasing influences of the only religion they can 
 know. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 
 
 THE relief of the Mission at Gyantse was the beginning of 
 the last movement in our operations in Tibet. For seven 
 weeks, day after day, the bombardment of the post had continued. 
 It was an ignominious position for the King's Commissioner to be 
 placed in, and there is no doubt that our prestige suffered consid- 
 erably during this period ; still, our own absolute confidence in the 
 successful termination of our operations was perhaps somewhat 
 reflected in Lhasa, for as soon as news came of the advance of 
 the troops from the Chumbi Valley, representatives were actually 
 deputed by the Tsong-du to negotiate in Gyantse. Colonel 
 Younghusband had been ordered to send in to the Tibetan Gov- 
 •ernment a polite ultimatum, the terms of which were simply that 
 unless negotiations were opened with an accredited representative 
 of high standing at Gyantse before the 25th of June, he would be 
 compelled to proceed to Lhasa and there conduct the necessary 
 pourparlers. It was generally felt in the post that the India Office 
 had failed to understand that, from an Oriental point of view, it 
 was a display of weakness even to mention the word " negotia- 
 tion " before the jong, from which we were daily fired upon, had 
 been completely evacuated and full apologies and reparation of- 
 fered for the insults we had suffered so long. But the orders 
 that Colonel Younghusband received were explicit. Even while 
 the lumps of lead were viciously tearing through the trees of his 
 compound, the British Commissioner despatched the invitation 
 to negotiate which he had been instructed to forward. It was car- 
 ried into Gyantse, most unwillingly, by a prisoner on the ist of 
 
 253 
 
254 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 June.^ The Tibetans merely waited till daylight on the following 
 morning and returned it unopened. This action on the part of 
 the Tibetans cleared the issue considerably. It is true that the 
 Colonel took care that the Amban should be informed of the con- 
 tents of his letter and of the action of the Tibetans in the matter, 
 but the responsibility for renewed hostilities on our own side was 
 at an end. It is possible that the abrupt discourtesy of the Tibe- 
 tans saved us from a serious dilemma; for had they been more 
 polite the situation, as it then presented itself, still would have 
 demanded a different and a stronger handling than that which 
 might have been suitable in the early days of our dispute 
 with Tibet. Younghusband, however, as was made abundantly 
 clear by the reiterated assurances of Lord Lansdowne, would 
 not have been allowed to depart one iota from the policy as 
 laid down in November. That policy, in fact, the Government 
 adhered to till the end, and we have not yet fully reaped the con- 
 sequences. 
 
 The real answer to the demands of the Commissioner was given 
 in a redoubled bombardment that afternoon. There was nothing 
 more to be done until the arrival of Brigadier-General Macdonald. 
 Covered ways extending out across the plain to Pala, or zigzag- 
 ging up toward the Gurkha Post or to the bridge across the river 
 at the end of the plantation, made communication between all 
 parts of our lines easy and secure. During these last few days 
 the Tibetans began firing into our position jingal bullets made 
 of pure red-gold copper. The use of this metal seemed an ex- 
 travagance and probably indicated that the supply of lead was 
 running low. They were pretty little things about as big as a 
 large Tangerine orange, and possibly present an unique use of 
 this metal for such a purpose. 
 
 ^ Nothing terrified the prisoners in Chang-Io more effectually or got better 
 work out of them than a threat of release. This man asked that, if he carried 
 out this commission, he might be given a safe conduct to return to cap- 
 tivity in Pala. 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 255 
 
 On the 6th of June, Colonel Younghusband started from Chang- 
 lo with a strong escort of mounted infantry on a return journey 
 to Chumbi, in order to be within easier communication with the 
 Indian Government; he arrived at Kang-ma in the afternoon of 
 the day, and on the following morning, before light, found the 
 post half surrounded by a party of about 1,000 Tibetans, who had 
 come down overnight from Nyeru by the short cut to Ra-lung. 
 They made a bold attack in the mist of the early dawn, and suc- 
 ceeded in killing one Gurkha who refused to take refuge on their 
 approach. They stampeded the yaks and even managed to come 
 to a hand-to-hand struggle with some of their drivers. But after 
 a moment's delay in rousing the garrison, they were easily beaten 
 off and lost over 100 men; their retreat was turned into a rout 
 by the pursuit of the mounted infantry. Most of them made their 
 escape by the mountain nullahs in all directions, but though they 
 remained in the neighborhood, no further attempt was made to 
 oppose the Commissioner's return journey. 
 
 At this time the Tibetans, so far as could be ascertained, had 
 a force of about 10,000 men in or round Gyantse; of these, 6,000 
 were holding the points of vantage in the immediate neighbor- 
 hood of Chang-lo. There were 1,500 on the jong itself, a similar 
 number at Tse-chen monastery, 500 at Dong^se, and the remainder 
 were either in the Palkhor choide or in the town and villages 
 hard by. A rumor reached us of a large camp just hidden from 
 us by the curving spur which forms the amphitheater within the 
 sides of which the monastery is built ; these men, however, must 
 have abandoned their encampment soon afterward, certainly be- 
 fore the arrival of our troops. Perhaps another 3,000 men may 
 have been distributed along the road between Gyantse plain and 
 the Tsang-po. There was also a report of an additional 2,000 
 men from Kamba-jong who had been awaiting our advance near 
 the Kala tso. However, in spite of frequent alarms, these last re- 
 mained a spectral body to the end. The Tibetans were com- 
 
256 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 manded by a Depen of the name of Chag-pa ; associated with him 
 in supreme political autlwrity was an old friend of Kamba-jong 
 days, the Teling Kusho. 
 
 The relieving force arrived on the 26th of June, having had an 
 uneventful march from Chumbi. There was, indeed, a rumor that 
 the Tibetans Itad concentrated not far from Nyeru and a halt was 
 made at Kang-ma, while a small party went out to test the truth 
 of the story. Evidently, however, the Tibetans had got wind of 
 this reconnaissance, for they abandoned their position overnight ; 
 all that the reconnoitering party found was the still warm embers 
 of many fires and a few cooking-pots beside them. The march 
 was continued through Red Idol Gorge without incident, but 
 shortly after leaving Sau-gang on the morning of the 26th, Cap- 
 tain O'Connor brought them the news that Ne-nyeng, between 
 them and Gyantse, was strongly held. He and I had come out 
 of Gyantse and passed Ne-nyeng by a circuitous course; it had 
 been re-fortified and partially rebuilt where necessary. Colonel 
 Brander had demolished its defenses about a month before, as a 
 : punishment for an attack upon the mail runners. But he could 
 not, of course, occupy a place so large and so remote from our 
 small garrison, and with a nation skilled in building like the Tibe- 
 tans, the amount of harm which we could do by the chary use of 
 our small stock of gun-cotton had easily been made good by 
 them.^ The walls of the monastery here are thirty feet sheer, and 
 the Tibetans had strengthened them by the erection of sangars; 
 Ne-nyeng would have been a strong little post had it not been 
 commanded by the hills which half encircled the little plain in 
 which it lies. Colonel Brander on this morning co-operated with 
 Macdonald by leading a small force from Chang-lo up the hills in 
 rear of the town ; he had with him two guns and a Maxim. He 
 
 *It was discovered that for our engineering and military requirements the 
 whole stock of explosives in Calcutta had by this time been exhausted. From 
 Karachi and elsewhere a little could still be obtained. 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 257 
 
 reached his destination without being detected, and then awaited 
 the action of the General in the plain below, outside the walls. 
 The latter, after reconnoitering the position, sent up a detachment 
 of the 40th Pathans under Colonel Burne; in the face of a heavy 
 but badly aimed fire, these, men, supported by a contingent from 
 the 23d Pioneers, succeeded in effecting an entrance by scaling 
 an almost perpendicular buttress of adobe and mud. Forcing 
 their way on, they found the monastery inside to be, as usual, a 
 human rabbit warren. The recesses and underground chambers 
 were innumerable, and it was impossible finally to clear the post 
 of its inhabitants. Many, however, were killed, and a lesson was 
 taught the survivors which the people of Ne-nyeng respected till 
 the end of the campaign. After the monastery had been taken 
 a few shots were fired from a stubbornly held house just outside 
 the walls ; there were in it about six men, and they, with indomi- 
 table pluck, kept up a steady reply to the volleys of rifle bullets 
 which must have penetrated clean through and through the thin 
 adobe walls. Brigadier-General Macdonald then ordered up the 
 ten-pounders and the improved seven-pounders, and 60 or 70 
 shells were fired into this house ; the men, however, escaped, and 
 were seen making their way through the bushes and inclosures to 
 the north of the village. The column then started again, and 
 about ten o'clock that evening the last stragglers arrived in camp 
 near Chang-lo. There was a day's halt and then the clearing of 
 the Gyantse neighborhood began. 
 
 On the 28th Macdonald sent a strong force down the valley. 
 The 32d Pioneers were on the right bank of the Nyang chu, the 
 7th Royal Fusiliers and the 23d Pioneers were on the left bank, 
 and they moved down the wide open space, clearing it from end 
 to end as they advanced. There was no great resistance, and at 
 last the valley of Gobshi, where the carpet factory is, was taken 
 and occupied. Here there was a long pause, and the battalions 
 forming the left wing of the attacking force found themselves 
 
258 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 unable to proceed to the capture of the most important position of 
 the day. This was the fort-like monastery of Tse-chen, crowning 
 the sharp knife-edged spur which here runs out from the west, 
 separated from the hills only by the narrow strait in which Gobshi . 
 lies. The importance of this operation was obvious, for by se- 
 curing Tse-chen we cut off the main and, indeed, the only remain- 
 ing road to Gyantse which the Tibetans had in their possession. 
 
 It fell to the lot of the Gurkhas and Pathans to capture, by one 
 of the most picturesque actions that is possible to imagine, this 
 western barrier which had for so long screened from our sight the 
 movements of the enemy along the Shigatse road. The mise en 
 scene of the fight it would be hard to parallel ; the key to the posi- 
 tion was a squat, strongly built stone keep, astride the crest be- 
 tween two fortified peaks. Immediately below it, the ascending 
 tiers of white monastery buildings, all well occupied, prevented 
 direct approach. On the other side of the crest, toward Dongtse, 
 the rock descended headlong. By the time the movement began,, 
 the sun was low and heavy indigo clouds were coming up from 
 Shigatse. The jagged outline of the spur was clearly silhouetted 
 against the lemon-yellow of the sky, and, after a long wait, one 
 could see very clearly the little figures of the Gurkhas moving 
 along the sky-line from the west. 
 
 It was a difficult task; they could only advance in single file 
 along the very teeth of this rocky jaw; again and again they 
 halted ; once they signaled down to ask for the guns' help to clear 
 a strongly held sangar across the road; it was instantly given, 
 beautifully timed, and thoroughly effective. Then the little dots 
 crawled forward once more over the evacuated wall. At last, just 
 as the leaders reached the left-hand peak overlooking the jong, a 
 stubborn and somewhat unexpected resistance was encountered. 
 The defenses of the peak were still held, and the curious vision of 
 men hurling down enormous rocks over the steep sides of the 
 peak was etched sharply against the glow of the western sky. It 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 259 
 
 could not, however, last long, and the Gurkhas forced their way- 
 through to the main position only to find it empty. Meanwhile, 
 the Pathans had been sent zigzagging up the slope to the north, 
 passing through the houses of the monastery almost unscathed. 
 To the great regret of all his colleagues. Captain Cr'aster was 
 here killed by a matchlock ball fired at point-blank range. The 
 Pathans reached the top almost at the same moment that the 
 Gurkhas descended upon the jong, and the mingled figures of the 
 lanky Pathans and the small Gurkhas were clearly distinguishable 
 one from the other against the red glow of the dying sunset. It 
 was a beautifully executed manoeuver, and from first to last it was 
 thrown into prominence in a way which rarely indeed occurs in 
 military operations in these khaki days when gallantry and ca- 
 pacity in the field are rarely to be detected at the distance of a 
 mile. 
 
 On the 29th a white flag approached Chang-lo. An armistice 
 was demanded for the purpose of negotiations. Colonel Young- 
 husband consented to a cessation of hostilities until sunset upon 
 the following day, in order to allow time for the arrival of the 
 Tibetan representatives in Gyantse. It was agreed that every- 
 thing should stand in statu quo during this armistice, but Colonel 
 Younghusband made it abundantly clear that no negotiations 
 would be entered upon by the British until the Tibetans had 
 evacuated the jong and had retired from the neighborhood of 
 Gyantse. 
 
 It was obvious that General Macdonald's action in clearing the 
 valley was the immediate cause of these overtures. Subsequent 
 events seem to suggest that the whole scheme was a device to 
 gain time; certainly the evacuation of the jong was never con- 
 templated, and the only practical use which the Tibetans made of 
 the armistice was to increase the strength of their fortifications in 
 direct contravention of the terms under which it had been granted. 
 Just before the expiration of this armistice a messenger arrived 
 
26o THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 asking for an extension of time, because the Ta Lama, the chief, 
 monk official and one of the four members of the Tibetan Cabinet, 
 could not press on beyond Dongtse till the following day. The 
 armistice, therefore, was extended by Colonel Younghusband till 
 noon on the following day, the ist of July. 
 
 On that day ceremonial visits were paid to Colonel Young- 
 husband, both by the Ta Lama and. by the Tongsa Penlop,^ who 
 had now joined us with a large retinue from Bhutan. 
 
 The Tongsa Penlop is the actual ruler of his country, and is a 
 man of considerable capacity. At the present moment the posi- 
 tion of Deb Raja or King of Bhutan remains unfilled. It would 
 be the easiest thing in the world for the Tongsa Penlop to have 
 himself elected to the vacant post, but he is of that masterful race 
 of men which prefers to have the power rather than seem to have 
 it. He sees no particular advantage in being nominal as well as 
 actual sovereign of his country, especially as there is a certain 
 penalty of exclusion imposed upon the position of Deb Raja. He 
 is obliged to live the life of a recluse, he is separated from his 
 wife and family, and he rarely has the chance of seeing either 
 them or any other of his acquaintances. The Tongsa Penlop is 
 distinctly of a jovial type, and demurs to these penalties, though 
 at the same time he is not entirely willing to sanction the election 
 of any other Bhutanese chief to the kirfgship. He is a small man 
 with a powerful but plebeian cast of countenance, and his habit of 
 perpetually wearing a gray uncloven Homburg hat pressed down 
 all round his head to his eyebrows, instead of his official crown, 
 does not increase his dignity. That crown is a very handsome or- 
 nament. It is composed of a circle of gold, bearing in four places 
 the representation of a skull, and, Cleopatra-wise, it is arched 
 over the top by a peacock's head in gold and enamel. In theory, 
 he came to act as mediator between ourselves and the Tibetans, 
 but his unblushing and openly admitted preference for the Eng- 
 * The " p " is barely sounded in this name. 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 261 
 
 lish was not entirely satisfactory even to us. It suggested a bi- 
 ased mind that was likely to interfere with the discharge of his 
 delicate and impartial duties, and it almost became too much when 
 we found that his men, with his full sanction, took advantage of 
 the presence of our troops to harry the land far and wide, and do 
 what looting they could on their own account. On the whole, he 
 was a cheerful, but not a particularly dignified adjunct to the 
 Mission.* 
 
 He appeared soon after two o'clock, and in the course of a long 
 conversation explained to Colonel Younghusband that the Dalai 
 Lama agreed that further war and bloodshed must be stopped, 
 and had, in a letter written to himself, nominated the delegates 
 for the purpose of negotiating with the invaders. These dele- 
 gates were the Ta Lama and the Yutok Shape, both " Kalons " 
 or members of the Cabinet, the Tungyig Chempo, one of the Dalai 
 Lama's personal secretaries, and, with them, representatives of 
 the three great monasteries outside Lhasa. Of these, however, 
 we saw the full number only after a long interval, during which 
 the advance to Lhasa was in progress. In the middle of the dis- 
 cussion the news arrived that the Ta Lama was actually ap- 
 proaching under a flag of truce. He was given a formal recep- 
 tion, and the following day was appointed for the first audience 
 for the purpose of negotiating. 
 
 The proceedings of the 2d of July were picturesque enough, but 
 on our side Colonel Younghusband, Mr. White, and Mr. Wilton, 
 in their official dark-blue and gold and silver, made a barely re- 
 spectable show beside the dazzling brocades of the Tibetan visi- 
 tors. The room in which the Durbar was held is decorated from 
 end to end, and the rich oil paintings which cover the walls 
 
 * Looting by his attendants in the Nagartse district caused such widespread 
 distress that the inhabitants came in to us for food. We had been careful to 
 leave enough food in the houses to supply their needs through the winter, and 
 to pay for all we took . The Bhutanese came after and deprived the wretched 
 peasants of grain and money alike. 
 
262 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 formed a splendid background for the vivid silks of the delegates, 
 chrome, copper, and scarlet. The Ta Lama himself was arrayed 
 entirely in figured gold silk, except that he wore a golden Chinese 
 silk hat turned up with black velvet. The Tungyig Chempo was 
 similarly dressed ; the Tongsa Penlop's attire was a closely woven 
 Bhutanese stripe, gay enough in itself, but sober beside his splen- 
 did companions'. He had bare legs and the Homburg hat. He 
 was deferred to by the Tibetans with the utmost respect, and, 
 though the Tungyig Chempo, probably the bitterest hater of Eng- 
 land that lives in the world, did most of the talking, the Tongsa 
 Penlop was always consulted before the Ta Lama assented to his 
 young companion's eloquence, or answered a direct question of 
 the Colonel's. Very little was done in the way of business ; official 
 compliments were exchanged, a formal re-statement of the Tibe- 
 tan case was once again elaborately made, and then Colonel 
 Younghusband announced the conditions under which alone ne- 
 gotiations could proceed. The only feature of any importance 
 was that the Tibetans appeared anxious to settle the affair with 
 the English themselves, and no reference of any kind whatever 
 was made to the Chinese. 
 
 The visitors went away, and the question immediately became 
 acute, whether or not the first and primary condition laid down 
 by Colonel Younghusband would be conceded. Was the jong 
 going to be evacuated or not? On the 3d of July, the Durbar 
 arranged for twelve o'clock fell through, because of the non- 
 appearance of the Ta Lama. He appeared later on in the day 
 and with old-fashioned courtesy apologized for his lateness, 
 urging as his excuse the infirmities of his advanced age. The 
 Tungyig Chempo made no comments or apologies. This Dur- 
 bar also ended without any definite assurances on the part of 
 the Tibetans as to the evacuation. They made every attempt 
 to gain time and to postpone the moment when they would have 
 to decide this all-important question. Colonel Younghusband 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 263 
 
 finally gave them till the 5th of July, at twelve o'clock, to come 
 to a decision; if they had not surrendered the fort by that hour, 
 he assured them that the bombardment would instantly be begun, 
 and a state of war would again be declared. 
 
 Thus deprived of any chance of further delay, the delegates 
 adopted the fatally easy course of abstention altogether. The 
 time, of course, lapsed, and on the 5th of July, at twelve o'clock, 
 no sign whatever had been made. General Macdonald was slow 
 to begin the work of assault, and, in spite of Colonel Young- 
 husband's warning to the Tibetans, it was not till two o'clock 
 that the first gun was actually fired. Little was done that day, 
 and the Tibetans were allowed ample opportunity to get the 
 women and non-combatants away from the jong. A small party 
 of Pior^eers reconnoitered to the west of Gyantse town and came 
 in contact with the enemy who were defending the encircling 
 wall of the monastery, but only a few shots were exchanged. 
 The day passed almost quietly, but there was the bustle of 
 preparation overnight. 
 
 There had been rain for some days before, but the night of 
 the 5th was clear and cloudless. The moon did not rise till 
 iDCtween two and three in the morning, and as the three columns 
 advanced eastward across the plain to Pala, they had her light 
 low in their eyes, over the jagged outline of the distant hills. 
 They started from the encampment, about two miles west of 
 Chang-lo, at about one o'clock, and making a wide detour, con- 
 centrated at the village about three o'clock in the morning. By 
 this time the moon was in strength, and as the men turned again 
 westward to their objective, the masonry of the high, steep 
 rock showed up clearly in its light. The dark masses of gar- 
 dens and trees at the foot of the jong were to be occupied first 
 hy our men. 
 
 No time was lost, and twenty minutes' silent march brought 
 the first attacking parties to their positions a few minutes before 
 
264 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 four. The alarm was given, and a few shots were fired, but it was 
 a wild and badly aimed salvo, and no casualties resulted. Two 
 gardens are thrust forward on either side of the eastern or 
 Lhasan road as it curves round the rock and strikes out into 
 the plain. In the darkness there was some confusion, and an 
 unfortunate incident occurred which resulted in the re-organiza- 
 tion of the storming-column into two parties instead of three, 
 as had been originally intended. That under Colonel Campbell 
 and Captain Sheppard occupied the garden to the right, where 
 they were for some time held in check by a spirited fusillade 
 from the housetops before them. At the earliest streak of dawn 
 use was made of " Bubble," who had been brought along with 
 the column and was now used with terrific effect at point-blank 
 range. On the left. Lieutenants Gurdon and Burney, of Major 
 Murray's party, gallantly and successfully carried out their 
 storming work, and four or five explosions cleared the way for 
 a general assault, which rapidly gave us possession of all the 
 houses along the southern foot of the rock. While carrying 
 out this all-important duty. Lieutenant Gurdon, to the deep sor- 
 row of all, met his death. The loss of a man of his caliber was, 
 in itself, a severe blow to the force, and the regret was doubled 
 by the friendly intimacy which acquaintance during two months 
 of investment had necessarily strengthened. He was struck on 
 the head by a piece of stone dislodged by his own charge of gun- 
 cotton, and death was instantaneous. 
 
 By this time the entire jong was alarmed, and the defenders 
 joined, as well as they could, in the fray that was raging at 
 the base of the hill, but the steep sides of the rock, and the san- 
 gars with which they were crowned, made it difficult for them 
 to bring their full armament to bear. From a distance our guns 
 and Maxims kept a keen look-out for any parties of Tibetans 
 who exposed themselves along the upper slopes or defenses of 
 the rock, and their fire, though persistent, was almost unaimed. 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 265 
 
 When the sun was fully up, the earlier part of the day's work 
 was done. Resistance had been crushed out along the eastern 
 and southern bases of the rock, and the Gurkhas had succeeded 
 in establishing themselves at a point some fifty feet above the 
 houses just where the direct approach to the main gateway, 
 now barricaded heavily, turns the last corner. They there came 
 in full sight of the Tibetans swarming upon it, and found the 
 cul de sac in front of them to be an almost impassable barrier 
 even if undefended. 
 
 At this point the day's operations languished ; indeed, as much 
 had already been done as the General had intended for the first 
 day. He had effected a lodgment in the houses which com- 
 manded the south and east of the rock, and on the west the 32d 
 Pioneers had pushed forward and were holding two or three 
 of the houses to the west of the main street of Gyantse. The 
 jong itself remained untouched, and that it was strongly held 
 a continued fusillade from the upper works still proved clearly 
 enough. These shots were fired chiefly at the two ten-pounders 
 and the new seven-pounder guns, under Easton and Marin- 
 din, fifty yards in front of the Gurkha post. Except for these, 
 all sounds of fighting ceased, and the sun blazed down with 
 oppressive heat. The men had been now at work since one in the 
 morning, and were tired out. After a while, the enemy them- 
 selves realized that they were only wasting their ammunition, 
 and silence reigned over the entire position. The Tibetans, just 
 before this lull began, concentrated the fire of two small jingals 
 upon our right, where the ten-pounders were placed, on the 
 north of Pala— between that village and the spur of the hills 
 girdling the plain. 
 
 About two o'clock Colonel Campbell, to whom had been 
 committed the command of the attacking force, sent across to 
 Pala village, where the General was watching operations with 
 his staff, urgently recommending that an attack should be made 
 
266 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 at once upon the extreme east of the upper works of the jong. 
 The rock of Gyantse is so steep that it seemed accessible no- 
 where except along the main approach, which, as has been said, 
 was well defended. Any direct attack here would have been 
 made not only in the teeth of the gun-fire of the Tibetans hold- 
 ing the gate, but also at great danger from the stones rolled down 
 by the enemy from the high bastion which flanked the road. 
 The postern gate descending to the town on the northern side 
 we were not in a position to attack, and we had not, at the mo- 
 ment, sufficient men to press round on that side and hold the 
 houses which commanded this avenue. 
 
 But at the point which Colonel Campbell chose there was 
 just a bare possibility of scaling the rock. It was a fearful 
 climb, and the top of it was crowned by a well-made wall flanked 
 by two projecting bastions. At first the General was unwilling 
 to press forward any farther that day, and was in some doubt 
 whether to accede to this request. He determined, however, 
 to be guided by the advice of Colonel Campbell on the spot. At 
 a little past three, a concentrated fire from all points was or- 
 dered to be directed upon the wall at the head of this steep 
 climb. The common shell used by the ten-pounders was now 
 employed with terrific effect, and one could see, second by second, 
 a larger ragged hole being torn open in the wall at this point. 
 Clouds of dust rose and slowly drifted away to the west in the 
 slight breeze, and whenever a lull in the cannonade allowed a 
 clear sight, the breach was wider by a yard or two. A constant 
 cataract of dislodged masses of stone and brick fell down the 
 face of the rock below, which here was almost sheer for forty 
 feet. It was not shell only that did this work. Magazine fire 
 was concentrated at the same point, and under this whistling 
 canopy of ball and shell, the Gurkhas were soon seen moving 
 upward and onward from the houses at the base of the rock. 
 It was a moment tense with excitement. Lieutenant Grant was 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 267 
 
 in charge of the storming-party, and soon the first figures ap- 
 peared over the belt of houses and trees which hem in the rock 
 on this side. Instantly the fire redoubled, and from three points 
 a converging fire hammered and bit upon the wall above their 
 heads. 
 
 Absolutely confident in the skill of the gunners, the Gurkhas 
 climbed on. Not a Tibetan was seen on the wall above, but 
 through the loopholes of the bastions a few shots were fired 
 which, at what was becoming almost point-blank range, caused 
 one or two casualties among the little figures clambering up- 
 ward on their hands and knees. To those who watched from a 
 distance, it seemed as if more loss was being inflicted when again 
 and again one of the escalading force was knocked backward 
 by the masses of stone and brick dislodged by our shells. The 
 steepness was so great that a man who slipped almost necessarily 
 carried away the man below him also. But little by little the 
 advance was made, and conspicuous in front of the small com- 
 pany was Grant, with one Sepoy, who was clearly determined 
 to rival his officer in one of the pluckiest pieces of work ever 
 known on the Indian frontier. The men had now reached a 
 point fifteen or twenty feet below the level of the breach, and it 
 was no longer safe to allow the cannonade to continue. The 
 guns had been tested with a success which almost surpasses be- 
 lief. The chief danger lay in striking too low and exploding 
 the shells on the outside, but not a single,missile had struck the 
 rock at the base of the wall. The marksmanship displayed was 
 astonishing; inferiority in the gun itself was the only real dan- 
 ger to be feared, but these new screw ten-pounders seem to have 
 reached mechanical perfection for all practical purposes. 
 
 Just at this moment, when the General himself was issuing 
 orders that the fire should cease, the thin, high pipe of the Gur- 
 kha bugler cried again and again from the distant rocks in the 
 four shrill consecutive notes which call for silence, and silence 
 
268 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 reigned. Then, uncovered by our guns, the last desperate climb 
 was made, and up the higher ridges of an ascent so sheer that 
 it was almost impossible for our men to protect themselves, 
 one or two of these little figures scrambled. They reached at 
 last the crumbling wreckage of the Tibetan wall. Lieutenant 
 Grant and his faithful follower were the first two men over, 
 and the great semi-circle of the watching British force held 
 their breath for a second to see if they would be at once shot 
 down. For the moment it was two men against all the enemy 
 that were in the jong — for the third man slipped and carried 
 away in his fall his immediate successor — and it was patent 
 enough to all of us that if the Tibetans had but reserved their fire 
 and waited in the bastions, they might well have picked off, one 
 by one, each man as his head appeared above the breach. 
 
 But hardly a shot was fired. The Tibetans had apparently 
 seen in the cessation of the cannonade only a lucky opportunity 
 for their own escape, and forty or fifty of them were seen 
 crawling and clambering back up and across the rock face to 
 the sangars near the barrack and the postern gate. Here, for a 
 moment, they did indeed turn and use their matchlocks, but 
 these were their last shots. Dividing in a panic into two 
 streams, part made for the postern gate, part for the extreme 
 western cliff of the rock, where a way had been beaten through 
 the wall of the citadel, and two long ropes were hanging down 
 over the precipice below, their ends resting on the shelf a hun- 
 dred feet beneath. From this coign the Tibetans could, with 
 danger and difficulty, scramble down to the shelter of the houses 
 at the foot of the rock. 
 
 Meanwhile, Gurkhas, to the number of some twenty or thirty, 
 had collected at the breach on the east, and slowly moved for- 
 ward, carefully testing the absence of the enemy from each 
 building and sangar as they went. Some of the Tibetans fled 
 into hiding among the cellars of the rock. The jong, like most 
 
o 
 a. 
 
 o 
 
 •J 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 o 
 
 <: 
 
 J 
 
 a 
 
 ■Si 
 
 ■A 
 Z 
 
 X 
 
 ft 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 269 
 
 other Tibetan buildings, is, underground, a labyrinth of dark 
 rooms, tortuous passages, and low storehouses. Into them the 
 remnant of the enemy fled, hidden in the impenetrable obscurity 
 or concealed beneath stacks of dry grass or heaps of rubbish. 
 It was dangerous work getting them out, as most of them still 
 retained their arms. One small party pushed on straight ahead 
 into the citadel, and at last, after meeting with a few spasmodic 
 attempts at resistance, climbed from story to story up the rick- 
 ety, slippery ladders, to the topmost roof of all, where, attached 
 to a prayer-pole which the Tibetans had but recently put up, the 
 Union Jack was again seen rippling in the strengthening breeze. 
 
 It was a gallant and successful finale. The climax was a 
 dramatic scene which those who saw it will never forget. And 
 though it may be invidious to mention them, the names of Lieu- 
 tenant Grant, Colonel Campbell, and Captain Sheppard should 
 not be forgotten in connection with the exploit. The recapture 
 of the jong in this absolute and final manner had a practical 
 importance which was even greater in a political than in a mili- 
 tary sense. The confidence of the Tibetans in the impregnability 
 of their newly strengthened position was perhaps the prime 
 cause of their obstinate refusal to negotiate on equal terms with 
 us. And there is no doubt that if they had been allowed to retain 
 their fort during the negotiations at Chang-lo, it would after- 
 ward have been interpreted as evidence of our inferiority. To 
 have defended it successfully for some days, or even to have 
 inflicted heavy loss upon the expedition during its capture, 
 would have encouraged the Tibetans to defend to the utmost 
 every other post of vantage along the route to Lhasa, but, as 
 it was, a lesson of the first importance was taught the Tibetans, 
 and the absence of all opposition henceforward is unquestionably 
 due to the exploits of the gunners and the Gurkhas on this day. 
 
 This recapture closed the Gyantse episode of the expedition. 
 It was now imperative that an advance should be made to 
 
270 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Lhasa. Mr. Brodrick cabled from home to that effect, and 
 after twelve days' preparation the General was able to continue 
 the advance. During that time reconnoitering parties were sent 
 out in all directions, Dongtse was occupied, and a small force 
 pushed on down the valley till Penam jong was reached. This 
 is an imposing structure, but, from a modern point of view, is 
 open to every objection to which the apparent impregnability 
 of Gyantse had been proved to be liable. Enormous stores of 
 grain and tsampa were found in Dongtse. Penam, too, was 
 found to contain about twelve thousand pounds of butter^ — a 
 fact which cast some doubt upon the bona Udes of the monks of 
 the Palkhor Choide in having asked thaf the fine of twenty-five 
 maunds might be remitted. 
 
 G)ntradictory reports about the Karo la, about the willingness 
 of the monks to fight, about the attitude of the Dalai Lama, and, 
 indeed, about everything connected with the Tibetans and their 
 policy, were now rife. In the course of these days I made a 
 careful inspection of the jong. The scene of the breach itself 
 is a striking illustration of the effect of rapid sustained fire. 
 Hardly a square yard was left untorn by bullet or fragment of 
 shell. The jong itself had not been greatly altered, except by the 
 low sangars and the other improvements introduced by the 
 Tibetans during the days of armistice. Very few of the bigger 
 jingals were found in place, and an explosion which took place 
 during our assault had set fire to, and destroyed, some part of 
 the timbering of the casemates in which they were placed. Two 
 or three of the larger ones were afterward found where the 
 Tibetans had buried them. One of the most extraordinary fea- 
 tures of the fight was the amount of casualties suffered by the 
 enemy on the postern descent of the jong. This was regarded 
 
 *Thi3 Tibetan butter is kept in tight cornered leather sacks firmly stitched 
 down. It is strengthened with fat and lard and seems to keep indefinitely, 
 though from the first the smell of it is somewhat rancid. 
 
THE RELIEF OF THE MISSION 271 
 
 by us as almost completely protected by the walls which had been 
 built during the investment of Chang-lo, but I counted nearly 
 forty dead men down this descent, fifteen of them lying together 
 in such a way as suggested that one exploding shrapnel shell 
 had accounted for all of them. Our casualties during this week 
 were low indeed. Cr'aster and Gurdon had been killed and, in 
 all, six officers had been wounded slightly, one more seriously. 
 Of the men, we had lost but three killed and twenty-six wounded, 
 of whom, however, two died of their wounds within twenty-four 
 hours. 
 
 A rapid interchange of communications ensued between 
 Younghusband and the authorities at Simla and in London, and 
 at last, on the morning of the 14th, the advance to Lhasa was 
 definitely begun. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 •0 
 
 THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 
 
 THE force moved out from Gyantse for the march to Lhasa 
 on the morning of the 14th of July; rain had fallen for two 
 or three days, and the road, especially where it crossed the fertile 
 valley of the Nyang chu, was bad; later on the sharp cut trang 
 by the side of the Nyeru chu afforded a good enough passage. 
 In spite of the drizzling rain, which delayed the march for 
 one hour, and lasted well on into the later hours of the morn- 
 ing, the outlook of the great Gyantse plain was changed for the 
 better indeed since we had seen it last. For more than two 
 months we had been shut up at Chang-lo, and during that time 
 the vegetation and the cultivation of the valley had advanced 
 by leaps and bounds. 
 
 Nothing is more vivid in Tibet than the glaring patches of 
 chrome yellow mustard flower at this period. Square cut, and 
 always level, they light up the dark gorges and the river flats, 
 in a way of which it is difficult to give any idea. For the rest, 
 clematis and larkspur are the most noticeable varieties of plants. 
 The rain, which had kept off during the middle of the day, fell 
 again during the evening, and tents were pitched at Ma-lang, 
 in a dull and depressing downpour. The exact position of the 
 camp could be ascertained by a traveler who noticed a curious 
 series of horizontal flaws of vivid pink-stained limestone, cross- 
 ing through the cliffs on the northern side of the valley, just 
 where the valley flats open out in a sandy, stone-strewn stretch. 
 There are a few ragged and neglected adobe walls here, evi- 
 
 272 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 273 
 
 dences of a long-abandoned village, and across the stream there 
 is a small group of houses, perhaps four in number. Nothing 
 of any importance occurred, except that the rain, which held 
 off during the night, descended again at six o'clock on the 
 following morning. 
 
 To some readers, rain may seem a small matter in these alti- 
 tudes, and so long at any rate as the march is conducted over 
 hard rock floors, there does not seem much danger of its causing 
 either ill-health or delay. But where speed is of the utmost 
 possible importance, and where the transport has therefore been 
 cut down to its utmost necessary compass, rain is one of the most 
 dangerous accidents which can befall a flying column. Sleeping 
 in wet clothes, night after night, is not after all as dangerous 
 an occupation as dwellers in cities are apt to think. But the real 
 crux is, that where tents must of necessity be used by troops 
 on the march, the difference in sheer weight caused by the satu- 
 ration of canvas is almost incredible, and where every beast 
 of burden is already loaded with the last additional pound which 
 common sense permits, a steady rain-storm daily will of itself 
 ruin an expedition's mobility, and almost its chances of success. 
 Still there was a sufficient margin, for Bretherton and Mac- 
 donald had allowed in their calculations for the extra strain 
 of a long forced march, and therefore had seen to it that com- 
 paratively light loads were originally distributed among the 
 beasts. They had also carefully weeded out the weaker animals 
 trom the various corps, and had, in consequence, a thoroughly 
 well-equipped transport service for this 150-mile dash. Thus 
 it was that the rain proved no worse than an inconvenience, 
 though only those who have experienced it can know the in- 
 tolerable dreariness of sitting down on wet earth in pouring rain, 
 waiting hour after hour for the arrival and the pitching of the 
 already soaked tents. My own servants were, perhaps, for this 
 particular work, the best in the Mission camp, and though in 
 
274 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 all human probability neither of them will ever read this book, 
 I should like to render them a moment's tribute for the constant 
 cheerfulness and alacrity with which they generally managed 
 to set up my tent among the first.* After tents had been 
 pitched, and beds screwed together, or valises unrolled, the 
 native servants set to work to prepare the evening meal. This 
 is a business in which the Indian servant stands unrivaled; at 
 a time when there was absolutely no dry thing within a quarter 
 of a mile, except the interior of one's boxes and one's bed — 
 and not always those — these servants will somehow manage to 
 obtain a fire from wood that is demonstrably wet, and when an 
 Indian cook has been given a fire and a couple of stew-pans, 
 there is very little that he cannot perform, within the conven- 
 tional limits of camp cookery. 
 
 There is not very much to report about this second passage 
 by the side of the river to Ra-lung. On the next day, we 
 passed Gobshi, and- encamped a quarter of a mile west of Long- 
 ma in a pitiless downpour. On the third day from Gyantse, 
 we reached Ra-lung, and encamped a little way farther along 
 the same plateau upon which Colonel Brander had pitched his 
 tents in the first week in May. The short vegetation was rank, 
 and surprisingly bright, but no trees, of course, were to be seen 
 after we had left behind the willows of Kamo and Long-ma. 
 The mounted infantry, of course, preceded us day after day, 
 and by their reports the length of the next day's journey was 
 decided. On the evening of the i6th, news was brought in 
 
 ^Really good servants are rare indeed on the Eastern Himalayan frontier. 
 One of mine, the syce Tsering, has been taken into the service at the Resi- 
 dency of Sikkim. The other, my bearer, is, I believe, still attached to the 
 Rockville Hotel at Darjeeling. His name is Singh Bir, and if this slight men- 
 tion of his services to me during this expedition may recommend him to others 
 who wish to obtain a thoroughly capable personal and camp servant, I shall be 
 glad. At a time when other servants were deserting daily in sheer terror, 
 Singh Bir remained steady, though when pressed he admitted his conviction 
 that we were as good as dead men already if we tried to reach Lhasa. 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 275 
 
 that the wall on the Karo la had been lengthened and reinforced 
 by a parallel wall 200 yards behind it. Great activity on the 
 enemy's part was reported, and the small column prepared for a 
 sharp engagement on the i8th. The composition of the little 
 force may as well be set down here; it consisted of six guns of 
 the 7th Mountain Battery (ten pounders), and two guns of the 
 30th Mountain Battery (seven pounders), with the Maxim of 
 the Norfolk Regiment. There were also half a company of the 
 3d Sappers, and the first and second companies of mounted in- 
 fantry — 200 men in all. Of infantry, there were the head- 
 quarters and four companies of the Royal Fusiliers; one com- 
 pany of the 23d Pioneers; headquarters and four companies of 
 the 32d Pioneers, headquarters and six companies of the 40th 
 Pathans, and headquarters and six companies of the 8th Gur- 
 khas. There was one section of a British Field Hospital and 
 two and a half sections of a Native Field Hospital, while about 
 3,000 mules drawn from the 7th, 9th, ipth, and 12th Mule Corps 
 acted as transport. Besides these beasts, there were also about 
 250 yaks, and two Coolie Corps. 
 
 This was a well-equipped and self-contained little force, and 
 there was no doubt whatever, that what Colonel Brander had 
 been able to do with less than 350 men in May, this column 
 could easily achieve in the middle of July. But the peculiar 
 difficulty of forcing the Karo la lies, it will be remembered, in 
 the fact that the wall built by the Tibetans crossed the gorge 
 just where two ice-fields 2,000 feet above the floor of the valley 
 render a turning movement impossible on either side. The 
 wall itself was, as we know, of magnificent proportions, and 
 as we were, from the reason mentioned, almost committed to a 
 direct attack, if full use had been made by the Tibetans of 
 their unique position, we naturally expected that some severe 
 loss on our side was inevitable. We moved on from Ra-lung, 
 on the 17th, to the Plain of Milk. 
 
276 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Over the Gom-tang plain foxes and gazelles moved away as 
 we approached. Fine grass covered the quagmires vv^ith which 
 the plain is carpeted, and in between the tussocks, where the clear 
 brown water straggled, tiny pink primulas lay out in the sun ; 
 through the gorge below the glaciers of Nichi-kang-sang, we 
 passed young tender nettles and purple flowers, which looked 
 like drooping cowslips ; saxifrage was there, with white blossoms, 
 and vetches, both purple and blue. Almost on the same spot 
 as that on which Colonel Brander's force encamped a halt was 
 made for the night. Macdonald himself went out, and from 
 a distance reconnoitered the position. He found that the reports 
 were true, and that a second wall had been built almost across 
 the valley ; but this was not all, for the Tibetans had learned the 
 use, for the purpose of defense, of advanced sangars, and these 
 had been built on both sides of the gorge, right up to the crown- 
 ing cornice from which the Pioneers two months before had, 
 after a terrible climb, dislodged the defenders of the single san- 
 gar down below. 
 
 But the Tibetans' courage was oozing away. They have since 
 admitted that the fame of our guns was widely spread in all 
 parts of the country, and the fact that the cornice above referred 
 to was held may, perhaps, have been the reason why our oppo- 
 nents did not stay to defend the position they had chosen with 
 such care. For from that cornice they could see over the Karo 
 la itself on to the Plain of Milk, and there they could see with 
 unpleasant plainness the slow accumulations of men, munitions, 
 beasts, and tents which accompanied our march. It is difficult 
 to say when the bulk of the enemy deserted their defenses, but 
 on the following morning, when the first line, composed of four 
 companies of the Fusiliers, flanked on either side by Gurkhas, 
 moved out of camp to the attack, the only position that was 
 still found held by the enemy in any way was the high cliff to 
 which we have repeatedly drawn attention. They indeed fired 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 277 
 
 but one or two shots, but they could no longer be allowed to 
 remain in their position to threaten our advance or our com- 
 munications, and the Gurkhas were sent up to clear them out. 
 On this occasion, actual fighting took place at a height of nearly 
 19,000 feet above sea-level. One of the officers engaged on this 
 day told me that the physical strain thereby involved was almost 
 intolerable. On one occasion he had succeeded in hauling him- 
 self up to a small plateau, defended at its farther end by a 
 Tibetan sangar; he had with him five men: there was no cover 
 available, so he at once gave the word to charge. The space 
 was not more than thirty yards long, but before they had gone 
 fifteen, the little force of six men, careless of the Tibetan fire, 
 had flung themselves on the ground almost fainting, and in some 
 cases positively sick. But in spite of these obstacles the work was 
 done, and very well done, and slowly the remaining Tibetans, who 
 were for the most part men from Kams, were driven out from 
 their rocky eyries, from which they had kept up an ineffectual fire 
 upon our men, to seek refuge across the bitter white slopes, or in 
 the aquamarine crevasses of the snow-fields behind them. After 
 a long delay the General moved on down the valley, beyond the 
 wall, which was totally undefended, only to find that some of the 
 enemy were still escaping by the steep shale slope, immediately 
 to the east of it. The Pathans were sent up this height, which 
 overlooks the ice-bound tarn to which I have before referred; 
 here, also, many of the Tibetans escaped by plunging boldly 
 across the ice-fields of the glaciers to the south, where none 
 of our men were able to follow them. But the position they 
 had held was cleared, and the column moved on in safety, two 
 miles down the valley beyond Dzara, to the night's halting 
 ground. 
 
 Below the Karo la, the aspect of the valley undergoes a 
 marked change ; of trees there are still none, and only the appear- 
 ance of the vivid sky-blue Tibetan poppy distinguishes the flora 
 
278 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of this pass. This is beyond question the most striking flower 
 that we saw throughout the entire journey. It was found ex- 
 panding its crinkling crepe-de-chine silk petals in the sand among 
 the rocks at the Karo la, and it remained with us until we de- 
 scended to the valley of the Tsang-po. The height varies from 
 five inches to fifteen, the leaves and stalks are covered with sharp, 
 stiff spines, and the color is the most vivid blue t have seen in 
 a plant, far exceeding in strength and purity the forget-me-not, 
 or the germander speedwell.* Aconite or, as we know it in Eng- 
 land, monkshood, is unfortunately common, and the utmost 
 care was needed to prevent the beasts of the transport from crop- 
 ping the tall pyramids of gray-purple and gray-green flowers 
 which spring beside the roads and dot the damper levels of the 
 plain. Blue five-inch gentians grow in profusion here, and stout 
 patches of the little sunflower gardeners know as Gerbera Jame- 
 sonii. 
 
 But the Alpine flora was not yet fully out; the rocks which 
 hem in the valley of the Karo chu dominated the scene. They 
 deserve special mention, for the high bastions and curtains of 
 these thousand-feet precipices run for miles. The little cones of 
 rufous debris which reach upward from the ground to every 
 chimney and channel of the cliff do not detract from the extra- 
 ordinary abruptness with which these red barriers leap up- 
 ward to the sky, towering aloft sheer from the stream on either 
 side. The river, too, is worth a note. All morning, after the 
 bitter frost has bound up the leaks of the encircling but invisible 
 glaciers overhead, the stream runs clearly enough, but toward 
 evening the main flow from the eastern side of the ice-fields of 
 Nichi-kang-sang hurls itself into the river like a flood of anti- 
 mony, so black and leaden are the waters. 
 
 In these scenes we pitched our camp for the night, and con- 
 sidered the advance we had made. 
 
 ^ I sent roots home to Madresfield and Burwash, but I am afraid nothing 
 
 has survived. 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 279 
 
 The official estimate of the importance of this operation seems 
 misleading ; it is probable that not more than 200 Tibetans were 
 holding the southern cornice west of the wall, and about the 
 same number tried to escape by the slope of shale to the east.* 
 On the next day, the 19th of July, I went down the stream on 
 the right bank with Mr. Claude White, who was taking a series 
 of photographs. The long line of the column crept along under 
 the high scarp to the north. As we rode beside it all day long 
 we saw partridges, foxes, hares, and marmots of a larger kind 
 than those which honeycomb the Phari plain. The flora of the 
 valley itself remains inconspicuous here, for the high cliffs 
 which bind it in prevent the growth of plants ; only jagged slate 
 edges and grasses moving in the wind decorated the trang along 
 which the column moved. On the other side of the river we 
 found much dwarf edelweiss and some stumpy reeds. But the 
 rocky formation of the ground was still the most important fea- 
 ture of the scene. At last the Yam-dok tso appeared in the far 
 distance, a blue, quivering line, which one could swear was but 
 a mirage. Soon after that, on turning the corner, Nagartse 
 jong was seen, three miles away across the plain. We moved 
 slowly upon it, and thereupon heard that the Tibetan delegates, 
 who had fled from Gyantse, were ready to meet us, and requested 
 an audience. We went on, and camped a quarter of a mile from 
 the jong on a rising patch of dried ground. The Yam-dok tso 
 and its little sister, the Dumu tso, were glittering in the sun 
 below the unfolding hills. 
 
 Twenty years have passed since Ugyen Gyatso, one of the best 
 of our native explorers, corrected, inadequately enough, but to 
 the best of his ability, the traditional delusion as to the shape 
 of the Sacred Lake of Tibet. Traveling in disguise and almost 
 by stealth, his opportunities were limited, but his map of the 
 
 * This latter number alone was, however, reckoned as 800 by the headquar- 
 ters staff. I have throughout this book given numbers and facts that seem 
 to me to accord with observations taken during the day, and generally accepted 
 by impartial eye-witnesses. 
 
28o THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Yam-dok tso was the first improvement upon D'Anville's 1735 
 design, and it is probable that to this day the common concep- 
 tion of this strange sheet of water is that originated by the 
 Jesuit-taught Lamas of 17 17, and repeated without any great 
 variation by every atlas down to 1884. But the Yam-dok tso 
 is by no means a symmetrical ring of water surrounding a similar 
 ring of land.* Lieutenant-Colonel Waddell uses the happy ex- 
 pression " scorpionoid " to describe its real shape. 
 
 It is not, perhaps, surprising that our ignorance of what is 
 undoubtedly the most interesting inland sea of Asia should have 
 been so profound. Its claim to sacred isolation has been re- 
 spected far more than that of Lhasa itself. For every one who 
 has ever set eyes on the Yam-dok tso, four or five foreigners have 
 seen Lhasa. Indeed, we do not certainly know that before this 
 expedition any Europeans except Manning and della Penna's 
 company had ever passed along the margin of the long, narrow 
 waters which mean so much to the superstitious Tibetan peas- 
 ant, and from Manning, the incurious, we learn little indeed, 
 except that the water is bad— a wholly misleading statement, 
 for though the taste is somewhat alkaline, neither salt nor entirely 
 fresh, it is wholesome and clean. 
 
 The Tibetans themselves, besides the name Yam-dok tso, or 
 "High Grazing Lake," use another, "Yu-tso," or the "Turquoise 
 Lake," and it is impossible to describe more exactly the exquisite 
 shade of blue-green which colors the waters under even the most 
 brilliant azure skies. Near inshore the innumerable ripples are, 
 indeed, blown in over the white-sanded floor as colorlessly as 
 wavelets on a South Pacific strand of white coral, but twenty 
 yards out the bottom drops suddenly, and the lake glows deeply 
 with the color from which it takes its name. 
 
 On shore, dotted severally over the wide, clean shelf of sand 
 and grit and pebble, a white drift into which one sinks to the 
 ^ Some maps recognized that this " island " incloses an inner lake. 
 
THE ADVA]Hi:E TO LHASA 281 
 
 ankles, great nettles grow rudely, only yielding place to the 
 waving hoof-track— there are no wheels in Tibet— which follows 
 the curve of the beach. Above it, feathery green plants of worm- 
 wood, transfixed by the dead brown bents of last year, crowd 
 downward from the steep banks, on which sturdy bushes of bar- 
 berry and wholesome English dog-rose flourish as well as the 
 crowding weight of " traveler's joy " allows. Over that again, 
 in the clefts of the flawed rocks or between the tussocks of the 
 grassy hill slopes, where the yaks and goats graze, spring prickly 
 poppies, sky-blue and purple, spikes of lemon-yellow foxgloves, 
 and primulas and oxlips of half a dozen shades. Here and 
 there is cultivation, and wherever the stunted barley crop is sown 
 comes, too, a sweeping carpet of forget-me-not, eighteen inches 
 in height, and blue with a virility and strength unknown to the 
 pale myosotis of English ditches. In the grass flats of fine 
 closely cropped turf, which here and there join the foreshore to 
 the hills, is a jetsam of green, low-growing lilies, as yet only star- 
 ring the ground with their flat leaves, but bearing aloft on their 
 stalks a promise of sturdy flowers to come. Opposite, across 
 the mile-wide strip of water, the steep, green-velveted hills of 
 the " island " rise out of their own reflections, checkered here and 
 there by the vivider green of cultivation or the dull moving con- 
 trast of cloud shadows. 
 
 There is, perhaps, much excuse for the old belief that the 
 Yam-dok tso is indeed a ring of water, for in the two wide 
 places where the great circle is broken the shaking stretch of 
 black mud is even now more kin to water than to land. It is 
 fair enough to see, with its wastes of green reeds and hummocks 
 of primula-strewn grass, but it is merely a quagmire, across 
 which it is dangerous to walk, and impossible to lead a horse. 
 A hundred years ago it must have been shallows— a thou- 
 sand years ago, perhaps, the old level betrayed on the hillsides 
 to this day was awash. Forty feet added to the present height 
 
282 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of the water would change the shape of the lake curiously 
 indeed. 
 
 As it is, perhaps to Tibetan eyes the quagmires that repre- 
 sent the retreating lake have their special value too, for three 
 miles of bog separated the orderly tents of our camp at Nagartse 
 from the thrice-holy buildings of Samding convent, where the 
 reincarnated Dorje Phagmo, or pig-goddess, bears rule over 
 one of the most venerated foundations in the land. While we 
 were in the neighborhood the buildings were deserted, but the 
 occupants will return to find them untouched. Not a turquoise 
 has been taken from their shrines, not a dainty little brass image 
 will be found missing from their inventories; hardly a foot has 
 been allowed to cross the threshold, because unconsciously the 
 lady abbess once nursed in sickness a subject of Queen Victoria. 
 They will never know the reason, and beyond doubt a special 
 miracle will soon be credited to account for the stern prohibi- 
 tion which saved the monastery from violation of any kind. 
 
 It may be a vain piece of advice, for there is no doubt that 
 even now as I write Tibet has again been trebly barred against 
 the foreigner; but if by force or fraud another traveler shall 
 find himself at Nagartse, let him go ten miles to the southeast 
 and climb the saddle of the Ta la. 
 
 There are few sights in the world like that which is seen 
 from the peak in which the saddle ends to the east. Below 
 lie both the outer and the inner lakes, this following with counter- 
 indentations the in-and-out windings of the other's shore-line. 
 The mass and color of the purple distance is Scotland at her best 
 — Scotland, too, in the slow drift of a slant- woofed raincloud 
 in among the hills. At one's feet the water is like that of the 
 Lake of Geneva. But the tattered outline of the beach, with its 
 projecting lines of needle-rocks, its wide, white, curving sand- 
 pits, its jagged islets, its precipitous spurs, and, above all, the 
 mysterious tarns strung one beyond another into the heart of 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 283 
 
 the hills, all these are the Yam-dok's own, and not another's. If 
 .you are lucky, you may see the snowy slopes of To-nang gar- 
 tered by the waters, and always on the horizon are the everlasting 
 ice-fields of the Himalayas, bitterly ringing with argent the sun 
 and color of the still blue lake. You will not ask for the added 
 glories of a Tibetan sunset; the gray spin and scatter of a rain- 
 threaded after-glow, or the tangled sweep of a thunder-cloud's 
 edge against the blue, will give you all you wish, and you will 
 have seen the finest view in all this strange land. 
 
 Here and there along the shore to north and south rise half- 
 ruined castles as harmonious, as inevitable, as everything else in 
 this high enchanted valley. There they stand, foursquare, red- 
 dish-brown bulks of native quarrying, crumbling everywhere and 
 sometimes fallen, now laying bare the long abandoned economy 
 of an upper story through a shattered corner, now, lower down, 
 betraying the emptiness of a bastioned courtyard at the base of 
 the tower. The rock-cresses and the saxifrages have long estab- 
 lished themselves between the crevices of the stones, and on their 
 old, worn surfaces the somber mosses and vivid orange and black 
 lichens spread themselves in the pure air and sunlight. Overhead, 
 among the beflagged sheaves at the corners of the keep, the ravens 
 hop heavily and cry, and along the shore the seagulls dip and 
 squeal. 
 
 Hidden behind Pe-di or Nagartse jong, against the slope of 
 a hill, are a few white, straitened hovels in tiers, banded myste- 
 riously with red and crowned with brown cornices and broken 
 parapets. On the door of each is a kicking swastika in white, and 
 over it a rude daub of ball and crescent. 
 
 At the street corners the women stand, one behind another, 
 peeping and curious. Men, too, are there, who stare with eyes 
 that cannot understand. Nowhere in Tibet has our incursion 
 meant less to the people than here, up at the Yam-dok tso, and 
 one feels that in years to come the passing and repassing beside 
 
284 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 the holy waters of the unending Hne of our quick-stepping, even- 
 loaded mules and tramping, dust-laden men with light-catching 
 rifle barrels, will only take its proper place among the myriad 
 other and equally mysterious legends that wrap with sanctity the 
 waters of this loveliest of all lakes. 
 
 Nagartse is the best-known town between Gyantse and Lhasa ; 
 it is placed upon a neck of land, which joins the jong to the hills 
 behind. The rock on which the jong stands must at one time have 
 been lapped by the waters of the lake, but at the present time the 
 Yam-dok tso has retreated so far, that a quashy stretch of vivid 
 green quagmire spreads between the road and the shore. The 
 jong itself is of no great interest. It is the usual ramshackle con- 
 geries of unsteady walls and uneven floors, and, except the rooms 
 which were at this time occupied by the Ta Lama, and afterward 
 tenanted by Lieutenant Moody, who was left in command of the 
 post, two small chapels are the only rooms which are still rain- 
 tight. As I have said, Samding lies five miles across the plain — 
 five miles of quaking bog, intersected by the deep-cut channel, 
 whereby part of the waters of the Karo chu are led into the lake. 
 As an illustration of the mistake made by other surveyors in as- 
 serting that the lake in the center of the so-called " island " is 
 500 feet higher than that of the Yam-dok tso itself, it may be 
 mentioned that the Karo chu divides itself just where it debouches 
 into the plain, and one section glides placidly into the waters of 
 each lake. There is, as a matter of fact, not a difference of six 
 feet in the level of the two waters. 
 
 One has to go some way to convince oneself that the Dumu tso 
 and the Yam-dok tso are indeed distinct pieces of water. Only 
 a narrow neck of land, a hundred yards in width, divides them, 
 and this obstacle cannot be seen until you approach very near. On 
 the top of a promontory hard by, Mr. Claude White and I took 
 a series of photographs, including a panoramic view of the lakes. 
 These photographic excursions had a special interest of their own. 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 285 
 
 At the wise discretion of the Indian authorities, the transport of 
 the column was burdened to the extent of three mules' loads, 
 with the large 13 by 10 camera and innumerable plates. Mr. 
 White's servants have become experts in the art of carrying and 
 setting up this cumbersome instrument, and Mr. White himself 
 is a first-rate photographer. Sending the plates back to India was 
 a tedious and uncertain process, but I am glad to hear that from 
 this cause very few plates were broken or lost. 
 
 As I have said, the Ta Lama again met us at Nagartse jong, 
 and with him were the Tungyig Chempo and the Chi-kyap Kenpo. 
 Their position had now become desperate; their instructions had 
 been from the beginning to stop our advance to Lhasa. They 
 were given no powers to carry on final negotiations. The views 
 of the Dalai Lama were repeated to them in one unvarying order : 
 " Get these English out of my country again at once." How this 
 was to be done they neither knew nor cared in Lhasa; the un- 
 happy delegates were given no authority to make a concession of 
 any kind, and they knew better than to act in this matter on their 
 own initiative. One would have thought that a man like the Dalai 
 Lama would at last have realized that he was dealing with an op- 
 ponent who was not in the least impressed by his religious pre- 
 tensions. He should have realized that at last we were in earnest, 
 and whether he was willing or not to come to any definite arrange- 
 ment with us at the time, he should at least have sent men armed 
 with sufficient authority for them to open up a discussion, which 
 would soon have shown whether it was wiser or not for the La- 
 maic hierarchy to make a total surrender of their claims. As it 
 was, these unhappy men, the Ta Lama, the Chi-kyap Kenpo— 
 and here the Yu-tok Shape also— were reduced to the useless ex- 
 pedient of repeating a parrot-cry without arguments or authority 
 of any kind. It is significant that at one moment during these 
 negotiations of the 19th of July the Ta Lama, poor old man, 
 burst out with an unveiled threat. He said, " If you will make an 
 
286 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 agreement elsewhere we will observe it ; if you will go to Lhasa, 
 and make an agreement there, you may get it signed, but we will 
 not observe it." 
 
 During one of these meetings a skirmish took place between 
 Captain Souter and his mounted infantry and the armed retinue 
 of the delegates, who, in defiance of an agreement, were attempt- 
 ing to escape and give information of our numbers and composi- 
 tion. The Tibetan officials were much mortified at the detection 
 of this scheme. 
 
 It was increasingly apparent that Nature had come to the as- 
 sistance of the Tibetans' determination to keep their country iso- 
 lated in more ways than by mere physical obstacles. How could 
 one carry on negotiations with such men as these ; and, in the cir- 
 cumstances in which we found ourselves, how could we insure 
 that relations, even of the friendliest sort, would continue for even 
 a year after our departure ? General Macdonald made no secret 
 of his personal opinion that the political ends of the expedi- 
 tion could be better arrived at by instant negotiation, than 
 by carrying out the letter of the orders which had been re- 
 ceived by Colonel Younghusband. To this the Colonel could 
 only reply, again and again, that even were he of Macdonald's 
 opinion, which he most emphatically was not, he was still com- 
 pelled to carry out the definite orders of the Government ; he was 
 to go to Lhasa, and make a treaty there. Simla was somewhat 
 amused at this spectacle. As a rule, it is with the utmost diffi- 
 culty that a political Commissioner can restrain the military aspi- 
 rations of his escort, and generally has to fall back upon the dis- 
 tinct orders of the Government, to compel his acquiescence in a 
 non-military solution of the difficulties. Here the roles were re- 
 versed with a vengeance. 
 
 At Nagartse jong we stayed one day, and on the 21st we 
 moved on by the side of the lake, past the little fishing villages of 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 287 
 
 Gya, Tu, and Badi,^ to the Bridge of Good Luck, or Kal-sang 
 Sampa. This bridge has been referred to by Chandra Das, but 
 his description of it as an embankment more than 100 yards long 
 is wholly inaccurate. There is here a small pond of a level some- 
 what higher than the lake, and divided from it by a neck of land, 
 with one sluice gate cut through it, over which a roughly piled 
 stone causeway, twenty yards long, is carried. It is often believed 
 that the Rong chu runs through from the lake into the Tsang-po. 
 This is not true, for there Is a rising fold of ground, about three 
 miles above this pond, which makes a watershed between the 
 two. Yarsig lies a mile west-north-west of the Kal-sang Sampa, 
 but it was not visited except by a few mounted infantry. It is a 
 squalid collection of huts and houses. At the Bridge of Good 
 Luck we encamped after a march of twelve miles from Nagartse. 
 On the next day, the 22d, a short march of five miles brought us 
 to Pe-di jong, which stands prominently on the very edge of the 
 lake, just where the mountainous " island " ^ approaches most 
 nearly to the northern shore, Pe-di jong is not one of the official 
 fortresses belonging to the Tibetan Government, but we did not 
 discover the name of its private owner. Like so many other Tibe- 
 tan buildings, this one is fast falling to pieces, and one or two 
 small demolitions, necessitated by our subsequent use of the place 
 as a fortified post, will probably hurry on the inevitable ruin of 
 the whole. One threads one's way past slippery stones, through 
 which the nettles rise rankly, skirting a pool of liquid filth by get- 
 ting close under the wall, then up some slimy, broken steps into 
 the darkness of a passage, wherein you stumble along till a gray- 
 ish square of light at the farther end shows you where the stairs 
 
 *The names of these villages as they appear on maps are entirely inaccu- 
 rate. On my return journey at Nagartse I took pains to find out the real 
 names from Lieutenant Moody (in whose district they all lie), as he had 
 made it his business to find them out from their headmen. 
 
 * The native name for this peninsula is " Do-rang," or " stony house." 
 
288 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 are placed. Tibetan staircases are no ordinary things. The angle 
 at which the stairs are placed is somewhat steeper than that at 
 which an English ladder is ordinarily used; the treads are long 
 and very narrow pieces of poplar wood, either worn into a slant, 
 at which no foothold is possible, or tipped with iron, upon which 
 the nails in one's boots slide mercilessly. The only handrail is a 
 highly polished wooden willow-pole, which slants from the lowest 
 step at an angle more perpendicular than that of the steps. They 
 are more difficult to come down than to go up, and this is saying 
 a good deal. On the third story of Pe-di jong are the living 
 rooms, the only really habitable ones in the place ; the rest of the 
 building keeps the rain out, and that is about all. Here, however. 
 Lieutenant Dalmahoy, with a company of Pathans, was left in 
 charge, while on the 23d the force moved to their camping- 
 ground, a mile short of the little village of Trama-lung. From 
 this point the road over the Kamba la rises abruptly to the north ; 
 the road beside the lake presents no very interesting features, and 
 two things alone arrested our attention. The first was a curious 
 example of the cup marks which indented an artificially smoothed 
 surface at shoulder height above the road, just where it doubled 
 a rocky spur. These cup marks are referred to later as a char- 
 acteristic of Lhasa also. A mile and a half further on we found 
 that the Tibetans had built a wall across the road, choosing its po- 
 sition with some skill. The sharp-cut fresh turfs with which 
 they had crowned the wall and a little house, just where it ter- 
 minated over the lake, proved that it had not been built for long. 
 We arrived at our camping-ground before twelve o'clock, and I 
 went up to the summit of the hills which divide the Yam-dok tso 
 from the basin of the Tsang-po in order that I might, if possible, 
 catch the first glimpse of the Potala. 
 
 Kawa-guchi, the Japanese traveler, reported that from the 
 Kamba la he had seen the palace, and the villagers of Trama-lung 
 proudly claim for this spot the first sight of the Forbidden City. 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 289 
 
 There can be no question of the direction in which, if at all, this 
 first glimpse of Lhasa is to be obtained. Looking carefully 
 through glasses, I saw a minute, symmetrically shaped dot of 
 gray, just visible over one of the intervening spurs. I do not 
 know to this day whether that were really Lhasa or not. It was 
 certainly in the exact position, but it was entirely impossible from 
 that distance for a stranger to be sure, even had the day remained 
 clear. Afterward, nothing was certainly distinguishable. There 
 were so many subsequent misstatements made as to the identity 
 of Potala, that I would not do more than suggest to another trav- 
 eler, following upon our track upon a clearer day, that it may be 
 worth while to substantiate or refute the claims of the villagers 
 of Trama-lung. 
 
 The remainder of the day was spent by a good many officers 
 in fishing. At Yarsig, on the evening of the 21st, the waters of 
 the lake were found to be full of fish, which had rashly crowded 
 into the shallows by the shore, and were easily captured by the 
 hand. Major Iggulden and Mr. Vernon Magniac were the most 
 industrious fishermen of the force, and it may be news to some of 
 the disciples of Izaak Walton that in Lhasa these two men habitu- 
 ally caught from 60 to 70 fish in an afternoon. These fish were 
 generally called trout, but this was merely a convenient mis- 
 nomer. The essential feature of a member of the family of 
 Salmonidse is the presence of dorsal fins, which were wanting 
 in these trout-like fish. The presence of minute barbels also dis- 
 proved their claim to belong to the salmon tribe. In color they 
 varied. Some were of glittering silver, heavily mottled with 
 splashes of rich blue-black; others were of a quieter pattern of 
 greenish and yellowish gray. Their bones are bifurcated and 
 innumerable, and the flesh was consequently hardly worth the 
 trouble of eating. 
 
 On the 24th, we crossed the Kamba la, and descended 3,000 
 feet into the valley of the Tsang-po. There are two passes over 
 
290 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 this cup edge of the Yam-dok tso. The other, the Nabso la, was 
 used by the troops on their return journey. There is not much to 
 choose between them, but the ascent of the Kamba la from the 
 Tsang-po is terribly severe, the entire rise of 3,000 feet being 
 accomplished in about five miles. From a halting place about 200 
 feet before the pass is reached from the Yam-dok tso, a wide view 
 can be had of the lake from east to west, and I suppose that few 
 travelers, even the most unobservant, have ever reached this last 
 point without halting to look at the magnificent scene at their 
 feet. Trama-lung lies below one in a deep, short valley of which 
 the head rests against the barrier of the Kamba la itself. It is 
 a plainly built little cluster of flat roofs, bearing every sign of 
 poverty and insignificance. To right and left of it sweeps the blue 
 of the lake, which had deepened in intensity with every step up- 
 ward that we took. Once on the other side of the pass, the culti- 
 vated fields of the Tsang-po valley stretch out beneath the trav- 
 eler on either side of the sandy river-bed, intersected with its 
 innumerable channels. The ferry by which we had to cross at 
 Chak-sam was not now visible, but we could see a hide boat being 
 slowly manoeuvered across the yellow waters of the great river. 
 The road to Shigatse branches off at the very level of the pass, and 
 , curves by a very slight gradient to the west ; its course is invisible 
 in a quarter of a mile behind a projecting spur. 
 
 The track to the Tsang-po descends abruptly to the little vil- 
 lage of Kamba-partsi, where, compared with those we had left 
 behind, the greater prosperity and comfort of the buildings on the 
 shores of the Tsang-po and its tributaries were at once apparent. 
 Poplars, willows, and large thorn trees dotted the lower slopes of 
 the valley, and there were several cultivated fields, lying imme- 
 diately round the hamlet. 
 
 As we came down the slope of the valley we could see more 
 closely the body of the great river which barred our passage. It 
 was a fast-running yellow stream, swirling even then with deep- 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 291 
 
 toned irritation round the jutting rocky promontories of the shore, 
 and tearing away at the crumbHng cliffs of sand within which it 
 was confined. The volume of water, even at this date, was con- 
 siderable, for though narrow the main channel is very deep. But 
 it was not so much the existing state of the river that gave us 
 some prospect of anxiety, as its obvious liability to an enormous 
 expansion ; the sand islets and eyots that parceled out the waters 
 of the Tsang-po were bare of vegetation, and it was easy to see 
 that in a few weeks' time they would be swept a foot deep by the 
 swollen waters, which even then were gathering strength, far to 
 the west, beside Lake Mansarowar. 
 
 Kamba-partsi is a prettily placed little village under trees of 
 considerable age; the sentinel is a double-willow of great anti- 
 quity, writhen into the shape of an 8, keeping guard at the en- 
 trance of the hamlet. Lower down, divided from the water's 
 edge by a level strip of sand, was a rectangular plantation of wil- 
 low-trees with a low wall running round it. Here the camps of 
 the Mission and of the headquarters of the escort were pitched; 
 outside there is a more than usually elaborate camping-ground for 
 their Holinesses when traveling. The altar and reredos are of 
 adobe, set up facing the ravine down which the Kamba la descent 
 drops, with its sanctuary in front, carpeted with a neat cobble of 
 white quartzite, edged with raw splinters of basalt. Inside the 
 inclosure the most striking things were the cockchafers; I have 
 never seen so many cockchafers in my life ; they lay in thousands, 
 either dying on the ground beneath the trees, or clinging, like dis- 
 eased growths of pink and gray, to the branches of the pollarded 
 willows above. When they flew there was a flash of pink under- 
 wing, and the sudden extinction of the color when they alighted 
 on the self-tinted ground made their disappearance almost un- 
 canny. They buzz round and round the trees during the sunset, 
 with the note of a thrashing machine, and make a clumsy little 
 holocaust of themselves in the cooking fires and, alas! in the 
 
292 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 cooking pots as well. Here General Macdonald, who had been 
 sick for a long time, was taken seriously ill during the afternoon, 
 but he pulled himself together for an advance on the following 
 day. 
 
 Sunset over the Tsang-po from Kamba-partsi was a magnifi- 
 cent sight. The valley was closed in to the west by two snow- 
 capped mountains, the last northern promontories of the Nichi- 
 kang-sang range. Below them, as the orange of the sky deepened, 
 the conformation of the rock was lost in a veil of purple gloom, 
 and the river ran from beneath their feet, a perfect mirror of the 
 deepening colors of the west. Muddy water will always give you 
 a truer reflected color than a clear running stream, for the same 
 reason, no doubt, which enables a black-backed piece of glass to be 
 used as a mirror. Anyhow, it is so, and the brilliancy of the 
 Tsang-po might almost have been taken for a gash clean through 
 the earth, meeting the sunset again beneath the distant barriers of 
 rock, for this vivid light on the face of the water ceased with a 
 sharp line at a sudden rapid half a mile away, and became just a 
 swirling river. Here the water became indistinguishable from the 
 land until it was almost at our feet, and then it had lost almost all 
 the charm of water, except its sound and motion. The snow on 
 the hills turned complementary colors in contrast to the deepening 
 carmine behind them. Clouds, touched with orange-fire, ranked 
 themselves a mile above the earth, forming a glowing canopy all 
 the way to where the sun was setting. In England the effect of a 
 sunset is generally of two dimensions only ; at its best it does but 
 rear itself up against the sky, a blazing curtain of dissolving color. 
 But in these intensely clear altitudes, the fact can be well per- 
 ceived that the sunset effect is really created by serried ranks of 
 the lower edges of illuminated clouds, each hanging motionless 
 by an immutable barometric law, at the same appointed height. 
 They are, in fact, like the flies and floats of a theater sky. J. W. 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 293 
 
 M. Turner, probably as a result of his travels, was the first painter 
 to recognize this atmospheric truth. At last, as one watched, the 
 crimson footlights of the west were turned down, and one found 
 that half a hundred stars were already blinking whitely in the 
 gray-blue depths. 
 
 On the next day we went on to Chak-sam ferry, a distance 
 of about six miles. The valley of the Tsang-po is different 
 indeed from what one had been given to expect. Instead of a 
 full and racing sweep of water, cutting its way, like the southern 
 Himalayan streams, through a densely forested gorge, the yellow 
 volume, almost without a ripple, swerves and divides itself 
 across and between a mile-wide stretch of sand, bordered on 
 either side by a broad strip of well-cultivated fields of barley, 
 wheat, and peas. Here and there are openings between the hills 
 dotted with the white and blue of the surrounding houses, and 
 encroached upon by the wastes of billowy sand, which the tide 
 at first, and the wind afterward, have banked and shelved against 
 the base of the hills.^ Beside the cool lush greenery of the 
 road, the whitening barley fields were edged with rank growths 
 of thistles and burdock, and " black-veined whites " and 
 " orange-tips " fluttered over the opened dog-roses. Where the 
 vegetation ceased, the arid waste of triturated granite running 
 up to the mountain buttresses is dotted with a kind of mimosa 
 which seems rarely to obtain a height of more than two or three 
 feet, but is useful in binding together the shifting sands of the 
 river bank. 
 
 Chak-sam is so called because of the iron bridge which was 
 made many years ago to span the deepest and narrowest chan- 
 nel of the river; the chains are all that now remain, but these 
 are magnificent enough to deserve a moment's notice. Prince 
 
 * Mr. Hayden, the geologist of the Mission, is of opinion that these enormous 
 blankets of sand are due to the local disintegration of the hillsides, and that 
 they remain in situ till they fall or are blown away. 
 
294 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Tang-tong * put up this bridge in the fifteenth century. It con- 
 sists of four heavy chains of links, which at a guess, I should 
 say, were each eight inches in length; the span of the bridge 
 is, approximately, 200 feet, and in mid-stream it descends upon 
 an island rock, covered with thick willows, which in the dry 
 season stands on the edge of the permanent river-bed ; from this 
 rock to the northern shore a stone causeway funs slant-wise, 
 which for more than half the year is free of water, but now the 
 river made a weir of it, pouring over it in a dirty, clouded 
 stream, and you might hear the roar of it at the ferry half a 
 mile up the river. At the shore end the abutments and anchor- 
 ages rise at the foot of a tidy-looking monastery, set among 
 the steep rocks of the basalt hill, here cut and painted with raw 
 images in white and blue, daubed with raddle, crested with 
 chortens, and flagged sheaves of carving innumerable with the 
 inevitable om mani padme hum. The bridge itself is gone, only 
 the chains remain; slings and footway alike have disappeared, 
 but there is scarcely a sign of rust or clogging to be seen on the 
 iron. 
 
 The Tibetans themselves have long been accustomed to rely 
 upon the ferry. In their retreat from their southern and western 
 positions, they had neglected to destroy the two ferry-boats, 
 to our great advantage. It is difficult to imagine what we should 
 have done without them. Each of these great arks is an ob- 
 long lighter, forty feet by twelve, with a four-foot freeboard, 
 and a quaintly carved horse's head at the bows. The transport 
 of the troops across the river was enormously hastened by the 
 device used by Captain Sheppard. He turned these two boats 
 into swinging bridges, by the aid of stout ropes running on a 
 
 * This learned pillar of the Church was long averse to encountering the pit- 
 falls and delusions of the flesh. He therefore remained for sixty years in 
 gremio matris cogitating upon the vanity of worldly things. Eventually it 
 occurred to him that his inaction was causing serious inconvenience to 
 another, and he consented to be born. The whole story is a bitter but un- 
 conscious satire upon the selfishness of Lamaism. 
 
THE ADVANCE TO LHASA 295 
 
 carrier backward and forward along a steel wire hawser, which 
 he here threw across the 120 yards of whirling and swollen 
 brown water. In this way the interminable waste of time, caused 
 by the necessary drift down stream of the big boats in their 
 passages across, was prevented, and what had previously taken 
 an hour — with occasional intervals of three hours, during which 
 the boat had lumbered two miles down stream, and had to be 
 painfully retrieved and towed back— now took but twenty min- 
 utes for the return journey. The mules were swum across 
 under Captain Moore's charge, half a mile higher up stream. 
 
 On the second day the force suffered the greatest loss which 
 overtook them throughout the entire expedition. General Mac- 
 donald, remembering his Central African experiences, had pro- 
 vided rafts, supported at either end by Berthon boats ; these car- 
 ried ten men and their kits at a time, but owing to the velocity 
 of the current, which caused a series of whirlpools, gyrating 
 in a curve from the corner of the bluff under cover of which 
 the ferry-boats came to rest, more freeboard was here needed 
 than in still water, and after the sixth or seventh passage had 
 been hazardously but safely performed, the nose of one of the 
 boats was caught in the stream, and before one could have 
 believed it possible, the whole raft, water-logged, with its oc- 
 cupants clinging to it, was floating helplessly down stream. 
 All except two men caught hold of the raft and were ultimately 
 saved ; but one of these two was no less important an officer than 
 Major Bretherton; he was a good swimmer, and made one or 
 two desperate efforts to keep from going under : he was seen to 
 go down twice, and from that moment he was never seen again. 
 It is a difficult thing adequately to assess the loss caused by his 
 death. The department of which he was the brilliant chief was 
 that upon which the success of this expedition almost wholly 
 depended, for supply and transport were as necessary to the force 
 as the very air they breathed. Cool, capable, and untiring, a 
 
296 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 thorough believer in the necessity for personal superintendence 
 of the smallest detail, Major Bretherton's thorough grasp of 
 every department of supply, and his unfailing willingness to 
 help the individual, had long before earned for him the admira- 
 tion of every one and the personal gratitude of most men. Only 
 a few minutes before I had met him walking up to the landing- 
 stage. I asked him where he was going, and he told me that 
 he was going to make a search for food-stuffs in the little house 
 which could be seen a mile away on the other side of the river. 
 It seemed to me, under the circumstances, a needless exertion for 
 the chief of so large and so well-managed a department. He 
 only answered, with that curious half-stammer with which he 
 often began a sentence, " They always miss a few maunds if one 
 is not there oneself; I had better go over." This was the last 
 I saw of him, and I should like to record here my deep personal 
 regret at the death of one whom I had come to admire and like 
 most unfeignedly. In him was lost the most brilliant of the 
 younger service-corps chiefs in the Indian army. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE LAST STAGE 
 
 ON the third day after our arrival at Chak-sam Colonel 
 Younghusband and the Mission crossed the river, and 
 took up their abode in the garden of a little house of which the 
 local name is Pome-tse. The work of transporting the entire 
 force across the river occupied a week, and during that time I 
 made one or two expeditions to interesting points beside the 
 river. On the 28th of July, O'Connor and I rode out to Ta-ka-re, 
 about two and a half miles along the north bank of the river 
 to the west; the road ran through barley fields dotted with for- 
 get-me-nots and plantations of willows and poplars until we 
 came in sight of the large pyramidal chorten which stands just 
 outside the village of Tse-gang-tse. This is a curious structure 
 built up of receding tiers and crowned with a large drum. No 
 one was able to tell us anything about its origin, but it is in- 
 teresting because of a slight resemblance to the Pyramid of 
 Saqqara.^ It is called a Pum-ba locally, and I noticed that in 
 the innumerable reiterations of om mani padme hum round the 
 structure the conventional order of colors was varied in one par- 
 ticular, the second syllable being a dull apricot instead of green. 
 Otherwise it was normal. 
 
 We rode on under the white wall of the village, passing a 
 splendid walnut-tree standing just where a ravine flawed with 
 
 * One of the interesting things in Tibet is the frequency with which one may- 
 see in almost, if not entirely, contemporary history the existence and de- 
 velopment of processes and ideas which in other parts of the world are almost 
 prehistoric. 
 
 297 
 
298 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 slowly trickling water afforded shelter to a rich profusion of 
 flowers and ferns. A mile on we mounted a short-cut over a 
 little spar of quartzite, which here deflects the road, and came 
 down within sight of two extensive monasteries built up against 
 the rock. At their feet was a walled-in inclosure, half-swampy, 
 half-firm grass, in which were growing some of the most enor- 
 mous willow trunks I have ever seen. These trees must be ' 
 of immense age. Without seeing them, it is difficult to form an 
 idea of the unusual size which these writhing and gnarled mon- 
 sters attain. We visited the Ta-ka-re gompa, the entrance of 
 which immediately faces the willow grove, and were well re- 
 ceived by the little company of monks. It is the smaller of the 
 two monasteries, and does not perhaps differ very much in 
 construction or in ornamentation from the • usual Tibetan 
 lamasery. The Umzi, or manager, took us over the build- 
 ings. They are not of very great interest, the place being 
 somewhat overshadowed by the reincarnate divinity of Jang- 
 kor-yang-tse next door, but there was one particularly interest- 
 ing room, in which were collected some of the older or disused 
 objects of ritual in the monastery. These they were perfectly 
 willing to sell, and we both secured two or three objects. In 
 front of the seat of the Kenpo or Abbot was a very handsome 
 skull bowl set in turquoise-ornamented silver, the finest, I think, 
 that I ever saw in Tibet; near by was a European looking-glass 
 which the Tibetans regarded with especial pride; and there was 
 also one of the cinerary chortens in which the mortal remains 
 of only reincarnate lamas are allowed to be preserved. This was 
 of silver. 
 
 It is never entirely satisfactory, as no doubt the reader will 
 have discovered by this time, to ask a Tibetan too closely as 
 to the meaning of some of the stranger sights in a gompa; our 
 own lama confessed himself beaten when he was asked what was 
 the meaning of some objects arranged in the innermost sanctuary 
 
THE LAST STAGE 299 
 
 here behind a pane of glass of considerable size. In this, the 
 most sacred position in the temple, it was certainly surprising 
 to find, after pulling aside the dirty and greasy katags which 
 hung over the front of the shrine, three irregularly shaped pieces 
 of common rock and a wasps' nest. All four were crowned with 
 gold and turquoise, and from the interior of each crown rose a 
 torma, a marvel of dexterity and patience. We had tea with 
 the Umzi, the Abbot being absent in Lhasa, and came back in 
 the company of two cheerful lamas, who were carrying our pur- 
 chases. We arrived back at Pome-tse, or North Camp as it is 
 called on the military maps, in time to join the Mission mess 
 at dinner out in the open air under the trees. I doubt whether 
 very many people have ever before deliberately chosen to dine 
 out of doors at an altitude of 12,600 feet. 
 
 On the 30th of July, as the passage of the river was still delay- 
 ing us, O'Connor and I went out again on the same road to pay 
 a visit to the larger monastery next door, Jang-kor-yang-tse. 
 This is a far more pretentious establishment than its neighbor; 
 as I have said, it boasts the proud distinction of having an in- 
 carnation of its own, and we were lucky enough to find his 
 Saintship at home. We went up to an open courtyard in front 
 of the main entrance of the gompa. Immediately facing this 
 was the usual frescoed arcade and overhead a great siris tree, 
 a species of acacia, which the Tibetans call yom-hor} Inlaid 
 in the courtyard in front of the temple was a boldly designed 
 swastika. The bosses and ring-plates of the doors of the gompa 
 were of the finest filigree work, and the design and finish of the 
 great key of iron and inlaid silver was remarkably good; it was 
 
 *The last syllable of this name contains an unusual sound in Tibetan 
 speech ; it is a deep and prolonged note, and is found again in such words as 
 Jo, the great golden idol of Lhasa, and in towo, meaning " terrible." I have, 
 perhaps, been inconsistent in rendering the sound in the former word by a 
 single letter and doubling it in the latter, but " towo " is so constantly used 
 by writers upon Tibetan ecclesiology that I have preferred not to alter it. 
 
300 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 about 1 8 inches in length. Inside the temple one noticed par- 
 ticularly the profusion of hanging katags and gyan-tsen. The 
 place resembled an alley in a Chinese market, so obscured was 
 it with hanging cloths. Among them I noticed a singularly fine 
 tang-ka, the finest in workmanship that I had seen.^ In a wide 
 and high dark court behind it, divided in two by a half-floor, 
 was sitting a gigantic Buddha. He was probably made of 
 clay, but the surface was finely finished and gilded as successfully 
 as if it had been made of copper. Over the huge shoulders 
 costly silks were thrown, and it was singularly effective to en- 
 counter the impassive gaze of those inscrutable eyes gleaming 
 out in sharp relief against the surrounding darkness; the entire 
 image was, perhaps, thirty feet in height; in some respects it 
 resembled the inclosed Buddhas of Japan, and, perhaps, by sheer 
 contrast, reminded one of that most effective image in the world, 
 the great bronze Buddha in the sun among the pine-trees of 
 Kama-kura. After making a thorough inspection of all the 
 buildings, we leaned over the parapet of the flat roof beneath 
 a gilded cupola and let our eyes run up and down the river, 
 which here is seen more splendidly than from any other 
 place. 
 
 We had tea with the Lama. He told us the story of his life, 
 and it is not without interest. He said that it was a long time 
 before his sanctity was recognized. He spoke in a low, sweet 
 voice, and I am not certain that there was not a tinkle of humor 
 to be detected now and then. His earliest remembrances were 
 unfortunate; he was then as a child attached to Penam monas- 
 tery, twenty miles west of Gyantse, and his life was made so mis- 
 erable there by the brutality of the lamas that, while still a 
 
 * The size of these tang-kas varies greatly, but few are more than eight 
 feet in length; they are generally protected by one, two, or even three cur- 
 tains of thin tussore silk, the outer one being of curious but characteristic 
 coloring. In rainbow tints, merging imperceptibly one into another, some of 
 the " eight sacred emblems " are mistily indicated. 
 
THE MOUNTAINS THAT SURROUND LHASA 
 
 Viewed from the Jong-kor-yangtse 
 
 CHAK-SAM MONASTERY 
 
 Showing the cable for the ferryboat to the opposite bank of the river 
 
THE LAST STAGE 301 
 
 boy, he ran away and went to Lhasa. He must have been a boy 
 of character and audacity, for such insubordination as that is 
 almost inconceivable in a lamaic acolyte. Arrived in Lhasa, 
 he attached himself to a doctor, and after some years of appren- 
 ticeship he came to practise in this village of Jang-kor-yang-tse. 
 Three years ago, tired of the small scope which this little village 
 afforded him in his profession, he had intended to return to 
 Lhasa. The lamas, with whom he was on the friendliest terms, 
 were in despair at the thought of losing his services. In Tibet 
 there are ways and means unknown to western nations, and as 
 the succession of incarnations in this gompa happened then to 
 be in abeyance, a hurried despatch was sent to Lhasa, with the 
 result that our friend was, to his own intense amazement, hailed, 
 in his twenty-fourth year, as the long-lost successor of the Bo- 
 disats of Jang-kor-yang-tse. Sitting cross-legged on his little 
 dais in front of the square latticed windows which kept the 
 bright heads of hollyhocks from falling into the room, he told 
 us his story, and I confess I wondered at the time whether he 
 were not, even then, yearning for his old life of less sanctity and 
 greater freedom. He explained that he had intended to pay a 
 visit of courtesy to Colonel Younghusband, but had been re- 
 strained through fear of the Lhasan Government. Turning to 
 O'Connor, he asked, with unaffected simplicity, " Tell me, un- 
 der which government am I? Are the English or the Tibetans 
 lords of this valley? " 
 
 During the interview a dozen of the senior lamas crowded 
 the end of the room, and two of the younger ones busied them- 
 selves hospitably by filling our tea-cups after every draught. 
 O'Connor assured them they had nothing to fear from our 
 troops so long as they attended to their religious duties ; he ex- 
 plained to them exactly what we needed and were ready to pay 
 for in the matter of provisions, and to each succeeding sentence 
 the listening crowd of monks bent forward with hands upon 
 
302 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 their knees, and chorused the one cry of obedience and respect 
 in Tibet, " La-lis, la-lis." 
 
 We returned to Pome-tse, watching the blue smoke drifting 
 across the river from the now dwindling encampment by Chak- 
 sam. There was but one more day of waiting, and that I spent 
 in reading lazily under the shadow of the trees in a plantation 
 two hundred yards up the river-flat from the house. The place 
 was like an English wood, except that big water-worn boulders 
 emerged here and there through the grass. Forget-me-not and 
 hemlock bloomed carelessly under the tall poplars, and homely 
 " meadow-browns " spread their wings upon the dark-blue dead 
 nettles; all round, outside the walls containing this little wood, 
 the wheat fields rustled silkily in the breeze, and the hum of bees 
 murmured drowsily in the pauses of the ringdoves' urgent sug- 
 gestions that two cows might as well be taken as one. It was 
 strangely English, and from that time till I once more regained 
 the high grazing-grounds of the Lake, I became more and more 
 used to finding the least expected sights and sounds of England 
 among these lonely uplands. Wild carrots grew in rank pro- 
 fusion, looking up to the white undersides of the leaves of the 
 poplars, and round a raw country altar — Pan's very own, all 
 sods and turf — Michaelmas daisies starred the grass. The roofs 
 of a white farm-house a quarter of a mile away rose en echelon 
 through the foliage. The house was made of the usual sun- 
 dried brick, for it is not possible to use the round alluvial pebbles 
 of the spot for more responsible work than a field boundary; 
 their shape denies them stability and cement is unknown. 
 Patches of golden light checkered the turf under the willows, 
 and here and there a tiny five-starred blue passion-flower climbed 
 the stouter plants, and a common "blue" chased his dowdy 
 spouse, zigzagging a foot above the grass. 
 
 This quiet little elysium was owned by the Jong-pen of Na- 
 gartse, a man of great importance and brutality. Upon our ar- 
 
THE LAST STAGE 303 
 
 rival all his servants and serfs implored us as one man to take 
 this opportunity of cutting off his head. 
 
 We set off again on the 31st, and welcome indeed were the 
 cheery war-cries of the Sikhs and Gurkhas as they set their feet 
 upon the road again.* We moved on to the east along the north- 
 ern bank of the Tsang-po, threading through fields of grain and 
 sometimes through villages nestling among trees. Far across the 
 river in the long distances there were heaped up sand-drifts, 
 nine hundred feet high, against the mountain precipices, and now 
 and then a slow dust rose from them toward a white silver 
 slant of threaded rain, caught like a skein of spun silk in front 
 of the heavy indigo clouds. Ten minutes later the storm would 
 come to us also, but passed as suddenly as it came. 
 
 Here the signs which befit the last stages of a pilgrim's road 
 were beginning to increase in number and in beauty. It was 
 not merely that, as always in Tibet, one found beside a village, 
 at a cleft in the rock-side, at the crossing of a stream, on every 
 place which looks a likely home of devils, a rain-washed string 
 of flags, or a gaily decked brush of ten-foot willow sprigs, but 
 from here until its end, besides the great Buddhas cut deep into 
 the point of each spur, round or over which it drives its stony 
 course, innumerable mantras are cut in light relief upon every 
 offering-stone along the road. " Om mani padme hum " ; the 
 monotonous ejaculation seemed to cry out from rock to rock— 
 "This is the way of salvation; by this alone shall you escape 
 from earth.* 
 
 * The Sikhs' war-cry, raised in chorus by the entire company as the first 
 foot is advanced, is as follows:— Wa guru ji ka khalsa! Seri wa guru ji ki 
 futti! Sut seri akhal ! {Hail, God of the liberated! Victory to the holy ones! 
 My body is to thee, O God!) 
 
 The Gurkhas' adjuration is :— Seri Ghurkh' Nath baba ki jai. {In the name 
 of our holy father Ghurkh' Nath, victory!) 
 
 * An occasional sequence of colors for the six syllables of this mantra at 
 Chusul, and later on also at Ne-tang, is white, blue, yellow, green, red, and 
 black; but from continuous notes I am able to say that white, green, yellow,. 
 
304 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Before we reached the point which hides Chusul, Gonkar 
 <^'ong, where the Sinchen Lama was done to death, was conspicu- 
 ous on a little bluff five or six miles down stream, and the sight 
 of it brought tears to the eyes of the Shebdung Lama. However, 
 we came no nearer to it. Our course turned off to the left here, 
 and we soon passed through the little green-clad village of Chu- 
 sul. Here the Ta Lama awaited the arrival of Colonel Young- 
 husband, who, with ever-ready patience, granted him another, 
 but, of course, a fruitless interview. 
 
 Chusul is dominated by two peaks on which the ruins of two 
 strong forts may be still seen. In a cavern of the mountain-side 
 beyond the inner peak it is said that the Tibetans condemned to 
 death were walled in until such time as the scorpions which infest 
 the spot had done their deadly work. This is probably wholly 
 untrue, though we did, indeed, notice scorpions more than once 
 in this part of our route. Thence we moved on up the valley of 
 the Kyi chu, leaving behind us the Tsang-po sliding heavily to the 
 south toward the defile where its waters vanished from our sight. 
 The point of land which runs out between the two rivers was ex- 
 plored by Mr. Magniac, and found to be an impassable morass. 
 The road keeps on at the foot of the hills, but before these are 
 reached a wide plain is crossed through which a deeply cut canal 
 carries off the snow waters from the mountains on the left. A 
 monastery stands near the mouth of a dry and unfertile valley. 
 At Tashi-tse, a mile or two short of Tse-pe-nang, we halted for the 
 night, just underneath a detached fort-crowned pinnacle of rock 
 thrust out from the mountain-side. The ground swarmed with 
 little black beetles, spotted with white and red like a Tibetan dom- 
 ino. On the 1st of August, the eight-mile-long line set out be- 
 times for the last stretch of the journey which was to be still 
 uncheered by the sight of Potala's golden roofs ; the distance to be 
 
 blue, red, and indigo (rarely black or purplish blue) is beyond comparison 
 the commonest sequence of color throughout the country. 
 
K -5 
 
 ►J u 
 
 ^ .-2 
 
 w^ Hi 
 
 
 >. 
 
 !" 
 
THE LAST STAGE 305 
 
 marched was about eleven miles. The road lies at first over flat 
 and marshy ground, but in view of the subsequent narrow and 
 difficult trang, it was impossible to make use of this advantage 
 by advancing otherwise than in Indian file all day. 
 
 The expeditionary force upon the march must have been an im- 
 pressive thing for the natives who peeped toward it from the 
 distant rocks. One is so apt to think of an army from one's remem- 
 brance of a parade ground or a review, that it is difficult to con- 
 vey an impression of the enormous length to which even so small 
 a force as that with which we were now advancing stretches out 
 upon the road. The first result of this is that the greatest danger to 
 be guarded against, apart, of course, from hostile demonstrations 
 from the enemy, is that of irregularity on the march; for a sec- 
 ond's delay, caused, say, by a deep water-cut, multiplied, as it must 
 be, by the number of files in an eight-mile column, becomes, at the 
 end of the line, a delay of twenty minutes. It was a striking sight, 
 this long filament of men and beasts stretching and shrinking 
 themselves forward — for all the world like a worm upon a path — 
 as the gaps were lengthened and made up, between the high cliff 
 and the tumbling water below. You would, in the morning, find 
 the Pioneers striding with long legs until the Gurkhas' officers 
 had to protest against the pace ; but later on, in the same day, you 
 would find a Pioneer or two sitting exhausted beside the road, but 
 rarely would you find a Gurkha in distress. The dust crawls out 
 slowly from under the changing feet, hanging in the air for a mile 
 behind the last files of the rearguard. In front will go the 
 mounted infantry, inquisitive and at wary intervals, and then a 
 detachment of Sikhs, long drawn out— interminably, one thinks, 
 as one waits beside the path to let the men go by. Then with a 
 brisk clank of new trappings, up steps nearly a mile of moun- 
 tain battery, composed of great upstanding mules specially 
 chosen for their work. Some, those carrying the heavier pieces, 
 are necessarily "top-loaded." This is the most trying of 
 
3o6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 all ways of porterage, because there is no natural balance of the 
 loads and the breastplate and breechings press heavily indeed 
 against the animal's steadiness unless the road be flat. Still, to 
 those good beasts, this was but a little matter. One mule carries 
 one half of the gun and the breechpiece follows behind, racketing 
 backward and forward with the jerky mule step, but secured in- 
 exorably ; then comes the trail, and then the wheels, two and two, 
 all separated by a man or two on foot. After these, the endless 
 ammunition train, each train of leather shell-boxes close up beside 
 its own gun, and you would think that there were twenty guns 
 instead of six in the battery by the time you had waited for a quar- 
 ter of an hour only to find the disjecta membra of these all-impor- 
 tant weapons still slowly trailing by. Behind them, the Commis- 
 sioner might be found. Of him one could never say positively 
 his position or his pace, for he would sometimes remain in camp 
 working with a dak orderly in attendance until \he rearguard 
 were on the point of starting, and then he would manage some- 
 how to climb up the slow-moving force of which the vanguard was 
 as he started within sight of their evening's camping-ground. 
 Not far away from the battery you would always find the General, 
 jogging along with bent shoulders — a mile away you could tell 
 that he was a sick man.^ Bignell you would find near him, 
 mounted on a horse that looked fitter for a circus than a campaign, 
 but was useful enough at a rough-and-tumble scurry up and down 
 rocks, down the face of any nullah of any angle, through brakes 
 of sallow thorn or across the stony bottom of a tumbling river. 
 " Hippo " and his rider did yeoman service, and though, by his 
 own confession, Bignell is not a Ritz, before the campaign ended 
 the Headquarters' mess had been brought to a state of almost un- 
 natural excellence — so at least Bignell claimed, and he should 
 
 ^ For three or four days Macdonald, during his advance from Chumbi to 
 the relief of Gyantse, was so ill with gastritis that he had to be carried in a 
 dandy, and repeatedly afterward he was compelled to take to his bed by 
 attack after attack of this weakening and lowering sickness. 
 
THE LAST STAGE 307 
 
 know. Major Iggulden might be there too, but more probably he 
 would be found well in front, watching the road. Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Waddell, with his strangely laden attendants, would be 
 hard by, and not far away O'Connor on his strawberry and cream 
 mount. After the latter's exploits at Pala, Colonel Younghus- 
 band set a grim foot down on the aspirations to any further 
 military glory of the most irreplaceable man in all that force. 
 Here you are to imagine a well, but somewhat slightly, built man 
 of more than the average height, with an offhand courtesy which 
 masks an attractively unselfish nature and a quick and observant 
 eye. I think, like every one else who is worth knowing, he needs 
 to be known, for it is truer of few people in the world than of 
 O'Connor, that he attends strictly and exclusively to his own busi- 
 ness; a touch of the recluse — shown in a disinclination to attend 
 meals — he is still a man with whom no other man, except by his 
 own fault, could fail to be on the best of terms. A steady judge of 
 most things is this young gunner, and I know that the Commis- 
 sioner rated his opinion very highly. I must have written badly 
 indeed in these pages if they do not already confess the great and 
 continued debt which they owe to O'Connor for any interest they 
 may possess. 
 
 Still the column stretches on; after the fighting men come the 
 interminable trains of laden mules, linked together four by four, 
 tail to nose, and swerving aside for no man and no thing. I have 
 had my pony swept off a bridge into a river because I foolishly 
 attempted to make one of these mule-trains see that there was 
 ample room for both of us ; their instinct, which, no doubt, has 
 been developed by generations of pack-carrying along dangerous 
 trangs, is not to give way when they meet an obstacle ; they seem 
 then to put their heads down and make a determined rush inward 
 in order to put an extra foot or two between themselves and the 
 edge of the path. There is no greater fallacy than that of sup- 
 posing that a mule prefers to walk on the edge of a precipice. He 
 
3o8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 is no fool, and if he gets his load entangled with a passing rider 
 he will simply shove straight through the obstacle. The only oc- 
 casion on which he becomes reasonable and docile is when his 
 pack slips, when he will stand perfectly still and refuse to be 
 hauled forward, however much his companions in front pull at 
 him; it need not be said that this they immediately do with all 
 their strength. 
 
 One conceives a very genuine liking for these uncomplaining 
 half-breeds ; the work they do is something which no other beast 
 could attempt, and they remain well and fit for work long after 
 every other animal known to man as a baggage-carrier has given 
 way. We tried on this expedition most of the world's beasts of 
 burden ; the ponies were, perhaps, hardly given a fair chance be- 
 cause the larger part of their drivers bolted the night before we 
 crossed into the Chumbi Valley. Of the rest, the story of the yaks 
 is one of the dreariest histories of a waste of animal life in military 
 records ; but it is difficult to apportion the blame for this.^ 
 
 * The original corps of yaks were three in number, under Wigram, Tillard, 
 and Twiss respectively ; they came from the Nepalese frontier, where they 
 were taken over to Chumbi by the highest possible route that could be found 
 across Sikkim. About 3,500 started in November, but as their numbers 
 melted away under stress of every disease known to the veterinary surgeon, 
 the scanty remnants of these herds were united into one under Wigram. I do 
 not think that any record of the expedition would be complete without at 
 least some reference to the work done by this officer. Exiled from speech 
 with his own kin for many months on end, with only the half-savage yak- 
 drivers of Nepal to talk to, he tended his miserable beasts with a care that de- 
 serves recognition. He was not allowed by the exigencies of the case to draw 
 upon the commissariat for any fodder, and when it was eventually necessary 
 to find some other sustenance for his charges than that which bare snow and 
 rock provided, he paid for it out of his own pocket. In spite of all he could 
 do himself, his beasts dwindled away, dying in tens and twenties at a time, 
 and I well remember seeing the last remnants, 150 in number, of these 3,500 
 yaks slowly wending their way into Chumbi, with the drivers themselves 
 actually carrying the little loads which the yaks were no longer able to sup- 
 port. Subsequently another corps was made up of 600 beasts from Phari, 150 
 from Tuna, and 500 from other places. At the end of June, of this new 
 corps of 1,250, 209 alone were alive in Gyantse ; about 170 were picked up after- 
 ward, and with greater success than had ever been achieved before, they 
 ■were divided into two corps, one of about 240 at the ferry, the remainder being 
 
THE LAST STAGE 309 
 
 We had in the column two curious beasts— zebrules. They 
 were not a success ; pleasant and docile animals, a cross between a 
 zebra and a Clydesdale mare, they were physically unable to stand 
 the pack work because they were longer in the back than any 
 horse, or any zebra, or any mule has ever been before, so, as a 
 rule, they were allowed to accompany the battery more as curi- 
 osities than as workers. Camels were even at one time proposed, 
 and, I believe, actually used, but their immediate failure was pre- 
 destined. Donkey corps were used successfully ; but in these cases 
 the contracts were given out locally to Tibetans in the habit 
 of transporting goods on these little animals. The Supply and 
 Transport Department, indefatigable in their researches, offered 
 100 rupees for any kyang which could be brought in. This can 
 hardly have been seriously meant, though it certainly was seri- 
 ously taken by the native troops. A kyang is a tortoiseshell-col- 
 ored wild ass confined to this part of the world's surface; it has 
 never been tamed, and the Tibetans, who should know, say that 
 it is untamable ; herds of them are found on the Tuna plateau ; and 
 again, outside Lhasa, there are some which are regarded as the 
 peculiar and semi-sacred property of the Dalai Lama. 
 
 Excepting of course coolies, the only other means of transport 
 employed during the expedition was the ekka, a brilliant inspira- 
 tion of Major Bretherton's. These light two-wheeled carts, a 
 mere platform upon wheels, were laboriously hoisted up over the 
 Natu la in detached pieces and toward the end of the thne were 
 running regularly and without undue mishaps on the level plain 
 between Kamparab and Kang-ma, a distance of 90 miles. There 
 was some difficulty at first in harnessing the ponies of Tibet to a 
 thing they had never seen before; the yaks, on the other hand, 
 took to it at once, and four or five of these beasts could be seen 
 
 stabled at Pe-di jong. This, in bald outline, is the fate of the yak corps, and 
 the S. and T. Department have learned never again to place their reliance 
 upon these burly and delicate beasts. 
 
3IO THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 any day solemnly trudging along with the weary persecuted look 
 on their face which entirely belies the innate contentment that a 
 yak feels when he has succeeded in inducing his master to believe 
 that he cannot go more than a mile and a half an hour.* 
 
 So the far-stretching column creeps along, leaving behind it a 
 trampled highway and a low hanging canopy of dust. 
 
 Three times in the march to Nam the road creeps painfully be- 
 tween the rock and the river, three times it stretches across a wide 
 and cultivated plain; one passes Jang-ma, where a stagnant and 
 picturesque reed-swamp separates the village from the mantra- 
 adorned rock. The village is pretty enough in its fields of deep 
 barley. At last we turned the steepest spur of all, to double which 
 the road runs lOO feet up the high projecting shoulder of granite. 
 Here there was to be seen a gleam of gold in the far distance, and 
 we thought that Lhasa was at last in sight; but it was in reality 
 only the gilded roof of the Chief Magician's temple, two miles dis- 
 tant from the Ling-kor. Descending to a plain, we made our en- 
 campment for the night just where the curving river, here a mile 
 wide, was eating into the alluvial flats so fast that, as we watched, 
 another and yet another piece of fresh green turf fell helplessly 
 into the muddy stream. The view from Nam to the north-east — 
 and no one would look in any other direction — is shut in by two 
 
 * The language of the yaks is a thing in itself : it must be heard to be 
 believed. These yak-drivers, almost as well qualified for stuffing as curiosities 
 of natural history as their charges, carry on a conversation with their beasts 
 which astounds an outsider. I here append two or three of these sounds. 
 The command to quicken their pace is indicated to the yaks by the same sound 
 as that produced by a small boy in London whistling through his teeth with 
 the fullest power of his lungs ; the signal to stop is a triple " ugh " thrust 
 from the lowest recesses of the chest. More interesting are two other com- 
 mands. If you are approaching a yak from behind, and you do not wish him 
 either to get alarmed or quicken his pace, all you have to do (and he will 
 recognize it at once) is three or four times to make that sound with the 
 tongue and teeth with which a nicely brought up lady will express the tire- 
 someness of a trifle. I do not know much more about the language, but I 
 doubt if in their vocabulary they have a more surprising word than "yea- 
 milly." At this order the yaks will actually return again to the path if they 
 have strayed too far from it up the mountain-side. 
 
THE LAST STAGE 311 
 
 converging spurs from north and south, in the middle of which 
 an islet of rock rises, nearly joining the two. Between this and 
 the southern spur the river ran ; our road was to take us on the 
 northern side of the islet. These barriers shut off all sight of the 
 plain of Lhasa, and in spite of the repeated claims of those who 
 went forward with the mounted infantry, the fact remains that 
 Captain Peterson or Captain Souter must have been actually the 
 first man to see the Potala, long after the force had been persuaded 
 that the credit belonged to Captain Ottley, who had a race up a 
 height with Major Iggulden, and beat him by a head in obtaining 
 the first glimpse of — Sera Monastery! They returned to camp 
 vowing they had seen Lhasa, in spite of the steady assurances of 
 a Tibetan interpreter.^ 
 
 On the next day, the 2d of August, we still followed the dif- 
 ficult track along the indentations of the hills and emerged at 
 last into a wide, well-cultivated plain. There, moving along a 
 sunken road between wide fields of peas and wheat, we soon 
 reached the well-wooded village of Nethang, which boasts the 
 distinction of having been the residence of the great reformer, 
 Atisha. The road runs straight through the town, making two 
 sharp turns at right angles as it does so; a few lamas gathered 
 at the door or on the roof-tops to watch us, a few children stood 
 in the doorways with their fingers in their mouths and their 
 ■eyes wide open. There was no other sign of life. 
 
 We made a short halt beyond the village to enable the proper 
 intervals to be made up, but it was with impatience that we 
 waited the order to continue our march. Before us the two spurs 
 of intervening rock still closed the view of the Plain of Milk 
 completely, and there was a mile to be traversed before we could 
 make our way between these forbidding barriers. Once set 
 moving again, the column crawled forward under the rocky 
 
 * If it is of any interest to record these details, the town of Lhasa itself was first 
 seen by Captain Ottley from the spur joining Potala and Chagpo-ri. 
 
312 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 sides of the northern spur and at last threaded through the 
 defile. 
 
 Another disappointment was in store for us. Once inside the 
 gate of the plain, even from that point of view not a stone nor 
 a pinnacle of Lhasa is to be seen. We had to possess our souls 
 in patience still. But that we were near our journey's end was 
 clear enough. Here at our left elbows, hacked out on the inner 
 surface of the rock, was the famous Buddha of which we had 
 so often heard; this great monster, thirty feet in height, and 
 cut in thirty-six-inch relief in the natural flattened surface of the 
 raw rock, gazed over our heads toward the Holy City. It has 
 had built over it a roof supported on two jutting walls of granite, 
 and it is undoubtedly of a very early, even possibly of a pre- 
 historic, type; it marks the entrance to the plain in which Lhasa 
 lies, though, as I have said, a projecting spur from the south 
 still conceals the Potala from one's eyes. It is for this reason 
 of great religious interest and veneration, and in front of it 
 stands a twenty-foot heap of pebbles raised by pious pilgrims 
 in thanksgiving for the nearness of their long-expected goal. ' 
 It is bedaubed coarsely with yellow and blue and red, and, it 
 must be confessed, is one of the ugliest things we saw in the 
 country. 
 
 Close as we thought ourselves to be, it was nearly two miles 
 yet, two long miles impatiently covered — past strange strata 
 of gneiss jutting out perpendicularly from the hillsides like 
 huge armor-plates — past an interesting example of the strange 
 " cup marks " which are found all the world over in the Eastern 
 and Western hemispheres alike, which no living man can even 
 attempt to explain, and at which no one just then even wished 
 to look — past treacherous swamps of vivid green grass growing 
 on soil more water than earth— two miles that seem like ten, 
 before that interminable southern spur is outridden, before the 
 place of our desire was reached. 
 
THE LAST STAGE 313 
 
 You may see from afar the spot at which the first glance of 
 the Potala may be obtained. Beside a barley field is a low mud- 
 colored chorten, and beside the shorten is a heap of stones larger 
 even than that before the great Buddha behind us. There is not 
 much else to mark the place, but assuredly nothing more was 
 needed on that day. 
 
 It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and a light-blue 
 haze was settling down in between the ravines of the far-distant 
 mountains that to the east ringed in the plain, and nearer to hand 
 on either side threw their spurs forward like giant buttresses 
 from north to south. There was a smell of fresh spring earth 
 and the little rustle of a faint wind in the heads of barley; the 
 sun was merciless in a whitened sky wherein from horizon to 
 horizon there was never a flush of blue. It was all common, 
 and yet the hour teemed with a fierce interest of a kind that no 
 man will perhaps ever feel again. I took off my smoked-glass 
 spectacles to see the clearer, and it was bright indeed. 
 
 Then, as we rode on, it came. In the far, far distance, across 
 and beyond those flat fields of barley, marked here and there 
 by the darker line of low-wooded plantations, a gray pyramid 
 painfully disengaged itself from behind the outer point of the 
 gray concealing spur — Lhasa. 
 
 • «•••• 
 
 Here at last it was, the never-reached goal of so many weary 
 wanderers, the home of all the occult mysticism that still re- 
 mains on earth. The light waves of mirage dissolving impal- 
 pably just shook the far outlines of the golden roofs and dimly 
 seen white terraces. I do not think any one of us said much. 
 
 The mounted infantry were, of course, ahead of us, but we had 
 outridden the main column by some distance, and we stood a 
 moment on the road just where a sudden flight of dragon-flies 
 pierced the air with lines of quick blue ; then we rode on. Even 
 supposing we had found Lhasa to be a handful of hovels scat- 
 
314 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 tered on a dusty plain with just such distinction of palace and 
 temple as one had time after time seen in Tibet before, one side 
 of our natural curiosity would, no doubt, have been slaked suffi- 
 ciently, but we were to find a different thing indeed. Here, in 
 these uttermost parts of the earth, uplifted high above humanity, 
 guarded by impenetrable passes of rock and ice, by cliffs of sheer 
 granite, by the hostility of man and by the want of food and 
 fuel, here was no poor Oriental town arrogating to itself the 
 dignity which mystery in itself confers. Judged by the stan- 
 dards of the East and West alike, Lhasa is a city which can 
 hold its own with most ; we were to find it unique, dowered with 
 a mingled magnificence and green luxuriance for which no step 
 of our journey had g^ven us warning. 
 
 There at last it was, and for the next half mile O'Connor and 
 I allowed our beasts to find their own way over the pebble-strewn 
 road while little by little we devoured with our eyes the outlines 
 of the twin rocks which stand as sentinels to hide from the 
 traveler the sight of the Cathedral which lies low on the plain 
 to the east. For the city of Lhasa is not visible until you shall 
 have climbed up the neck of land which almost joins Chagpo-ri 
 to Potala. But there the great palace of the god-king was, 
 and a shaft or two of light from the golden canopies burned 
 whitely upon us for a few yards as we went. 
 
 The remainder of that day's march was simple enough; we 
 made our way past whitened houses lurking here and there under 
 the shade of Lombardy poplars and begirt with the green and 
 rustling ranks of barley, until at last To-lung was reached, 
 
 T6-lung is but a house or two by the western approach to 
 the bridge over the T6-lung-chu. This bridge is one of the most 
 creditable pieces of Tibetan labor, for not only is the bridge itself 
 well constructed of granite with its piers protected by long 
 sterlings up stream, but for more than a mile on either side 
 the very course of that stream is guided beneath it from the hills 
 
THE LAST STAGE 315 
 
 where its springs are. Two well built containing walls ten feet 
 in height curb the snow waters coming from the long valley to 
 the north. 
 
 It is, perhaps, as well to describe at once the unusual conforma- 
 tion and consistency of the plain in the middle of which Lhasa 
 lies. The Tibetans themselves will assure you that there is an 
 underground lake, and that unless these waters are annually 
 propitiated, not only by services and obeisances rendered to the 
 serpent who lives in the island sanctuary of Lu-kang, but also 
 by ceremonies calculated to mollify the vague personality who 
 dwells beneath the very shrine of the Jo itself, Lhasa would be 
 inundated by its unseen waters. There is this nluch to be said 
 in justification of this theory, that, from end to end, the plain 
 round the capital is almost without exception a water-sodden 
 morass on which it is almost impossible to travel for a hundred 
 yards without encountering a quagmire. The road by which 
 one approaches the capital is a causeway built four or five feet 
 up from the surface of the marsh and pierced a dozen times 
 by culverts through which brown peaty water flows apace. Only 
 in two places are these waters confined within their proper 
 channels. The To-lung revetments make it possible on the 
 west to build a bridge across the collected waters that would 
 otherwise undermine the firm earth for half a mile on either side, 
 and farther on, under the western gate of Lhasa itself, another 
 great work of sand binds in the spasmodic floods which oppress 
 the Kaling chu. These two works drain the Plain of Milk, so 
 far at least as T6-lung and Lhasa are concerned; for the rest, 
 the waving rushes of the plain conceal a treacherous depth of 
 slime. 
 
 In length the Plain of Milk is about 15 miles, in width it varies 
 from two to five, and in upon it from all sides strike the spurs 
 of vast mountains which even then, in July, were snow-capped 
 in the morning hours. In the recesses between these spurs lurk 
 
3i6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 the villages and the monasteries of which we had heard so much. 
 Lhasa itself lies out in mid-plain under the eastern lee of the two 
 hills I have described. Through the plain, immediately to the 
 south of the capital, the Kyi chu meanders vaguely through its 
 wide and sandy course, and, thanks to this luxuriance of water 
 and to the shelter which is provided by the mountains round 
 from every wind that blows, the unpollarded vegetation of the 
 plain grows rank and free. A little road crieeps along the north- 
 ern mountain-side, following the ins and outs of the mountain 
 contours from T6-lung to Sera, but this is only a side track — 
 the main road strikes fairly and straightly across the center of 
 the marsh from Shing-donkar to the Pargo Kaling, or western 
 gate of the Sacred City. 
 
 At T6-lung we halted for the night, but long before the camp 
 was settled a great deputation arrived from out of the capital. 
 An audience was granted, and for two hours and a half the 
 Mission camp was thronged with the bright silken habits and 
 hats of the more important dignitaries. There were the usual 
 arguments, the usual prayers; in their recommendations that the 
 force should advance no further toward the city of which the 
 guardian hills were now clearly visible to the east, the Tibetan 
 envoys enjoyed what must have been to them unexpected support 
 from the General. But it was the same old game on the part 
 of the Tibetans, and I do not think that anything throughout 
 the campaign reflected so much credit upon the Secretary of 
 State for India as that when he at last realized at all the necessity 
 of this advance he recognized also its imperative nature. Ac- 
 cepting the representations of Colonel Younghusband, he did 
 not hesitate a moment; the treaty, he ordered, was to be signed 
 in Lhasa itself, and signed not even one mile short of it. As 
 the afternoon wore on, the fruitless durbar slowly dissolved, 
 but not until the leading men had thoroughly satisfied the curi- 
 osity which almost every article of dress or mechanism excited. 
 
THE LAST STAGE 317 
 
 Personally, I amused myself by showing to them several illus- 
 trated weekly papers; it was curious to notice that they thor- 
 oughly understood the course which the Russo-Japanese war 
 was taking, and they looked with great eagerness at the plates 
 in which the incidents of the struggle were depicted. But other 
 things in the papers puzzled them extremely. They did not seem 
 at all impressed by the large portraits of well-known beautiful 
 and partially unclad ladies which constituted no small part of 
 the attractions of most of the periodicals we had with us, but a 
 representation of Dan Leno, seated, if I remember rightly, on 
 a pillar with a guitar in his hands, a crown of flowers round 
 his head and a skirt round his legs, was something they would 
 not allow me to pass by. I confess I found it difficult to explain 
 to them exactly all that Dan Leno but two months ago repre- 
 sented to the Londoner. Another picture about which they 
 wished to know the whole truth was that of His Majesty the 
 King walking down a quay-side in Germany. I explained to 
 them that the figure to the right was that of the " Pi-ling 
 Gyal-po Chempo," and in a moment the attention of twenty 
 of them was called from all sides to it; they crowded round 
 with their chins on one another's shoulders. After they had 
 sated their curiosity about the Emperor of India — that unknown 
 majesty in whose omnipotence they were slowly coming to be- 
 lieve — I was abruptly asked who his companion might be. It 
 was the Kaiser. I tried to explain the family and the politi- 
 cal relationship between the two Emperors, but found that I was 
 not entirely understood, so I summoned an interpreter and told 
 him to explain to the Tibetans that the German Emperor was 
 a very great sovereign in Europe and that he was the King's 
 nephew.^ 
 
 * My intentions were, however, somewhat misunderstood, for some time 
 afterward, when I asked the interpreter what he had actually said, his answer 
 was to this effect:— "Sir, I told them that this was a nephew of the Em- 
 peror, and a great and mighty monarch possessing wide territories. And I 
 
3i8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 So, in a drizzling rain ended the last day of our weary march 
 from India, for there remained but seven miles to cross and 
 every yard of them was lightened by the distant view of the 
 palace and roofs of our long-sought goal. 
 
 said that because of the especial love with which our Emperor regarded him, 
 he had of his goodness granted unto his nephew all the wide territories which 
 he possessed." This was not exactly what I had meant,' but it was too late 
 to correct the impression. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 LHASA, I 
 
 THERE was a light rain in the early hours of the morning- 
 of the 3d of August. All round the amphitheater of hills 
 a light-gray Scotch mist was draining itself imperceptibly into 
 the plain, and it was not until just before the start that the 
 rain stopped, and the lower edge of these clouds became a clean- 
 cut white line slowly receding up the mountain-side as the morn- 
 ing passed. Our course was almost due east. We crossed the 
 bridge and made our way by the well-defined though somewhat 
 weed-grown road between high fields of peas and barley to the 
 spur which ran out from the north and hid from our sight the 
 monastery of De-bung. It was to be in all a march of about 
 seven miles, and after the first three had been passed without 
 incident a halt was called just on the western side of the town 
 and ruined fort of Shing-donkar. This is a picturesque little 
 place nestling at the foot of a high precipitous spur, of which 
 the almost horizontal and razor-like summit is supported on a 
 roughly columnar edge of granite. Even from Lhasa itself 
 it stands out boldly against the sunset, and its jagged edge is a 
 small feature in the scenery of which I am somewhat sorry to 
 have taken no photograph. The road passes between Shing- 
 donkar and the first of the many " lings," or thickly planted in- 
 closures, which are characteristic of the plain in which Lhasa 
 lies. Immediately afterward the road ascends the stony spur, 
 and dropping quickly on the other side follows the contour of 
 
 319 
 
320 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 a recess in the hills before the last point is reached and De-bung 
 Monastery is clearly seen. 
 
 De-bung, the home of all the misplaced political intrigfue of 
 Tibet, lies in tightly packed tiers of houses far up into the stony 
 amphitheater made by a recess in 'the hills. From a distance 
 it is a somewhat imposing object; the very compactness with 
 which it has gathered into itself, without a straggler far or near, 
 the dormitories and chapels needed for nearly 8,000 monks is, 
 in itself, a striking thing. In the middle the golden Chinese 
 roofs of the great gompa shine above the friezes of maroon and 
 brown yak hair curtains, whereby the golden badges hang. For 
 the rest. De-bung presents but few features of interest. It is like 
 every other monastery in Tibet. Once inside it there is nothing 
 to see which differentiates it from the Palkhor choide, from 
 the Potala, from Tse-chen, from Dong^se, from a dozen more. 
 But all the same, in this monastery of De-bung there has been 
 for some years, and there still is, hatched all the trouble which 
 the present Dalai Lama has brought upon his country and his 
 faith. 
 
 Not far from it on the eastern side of the amphitheater, and 
 so hidden from the sight of Lhasa, in a small tree-clad ravine 
 through which a fresh stream tumbles among its boulders, lie 
 the house and temple of the chief wizard of Tibet — the Na-chung 
 Chos-kyong. This building is finished with more beauty and 
 luxury than any other in Tibet, and a full description of it is 
 reserved for a later chapter. 
 
 At Cheri the column halted upon the road a mile across the 
 debris-littered plain from De-bung. Here Mahommedan butch- 
 ers carry on their work, and the first signs of habitations made 
 of the horns of slaughtered beasts are to be seen. Soon, how- 
 ever, we stretched on again across the causeway between the 
 marshes from which teal and wild duck flew up now and then. 
 Slowly the two western hills of Lhasa raised and extended them- 
 
LHASA, I 321 
 
 selves along the horizon, and when at last, after some delibera- 
 tion and reconnoitering, a dry patch of ground was found about 
 a mile from the still invisible gate of Lhasa and a camp was 
 pitched there, the sharp outline of the great palace towered over 
 us against the gauzy whiteness of the noonday sky.^ 
 
 Looking eastward from the camp, Lhasa was still completely 
 hidden by the twin hills and the neck between them. On the left 
 Potala raised its great bulk, though the full size of this gigantic 
 building is nowhere less to be seen than from the spot on which 
 our camp was pitched. One had a view of it on end which failed 
 to give any suggestion of its real length and importance, but what 
 we did see even so was huge enough. A white round-tower 
 crowned the serrated wall of bald white masonry which divides 
 off the palace from the almost perpendicular scarp of the rock on 
 which it stands. Behind that rose another great white bulk of 
 square grim masonry pierced with a row of stiff small windows ; 
 above that rose yet a higher rim of white roof ; over that again the 
 square red outline of the central palace of the Dalai Lama himself; 
 and, above all, the great golden roofs glittering in the sun. Im- 
 mediately below it the slanting way up the rock passed between 
 the dark green foliage of trees and the sienna and ocher of the 
 Red Hill,^ relieved by spaces of wild grass. Toward us to the 
 south and south-west the hillside sheers down steeply before it 
 again rises with almost the same abruptness to form the lion- 
 
 ^ For sheer inaccuracy the following description by Chandra Das of the ap- 
 proach to Lhasa can hardly be paralleled in serious literature. " At this point 
 the road nears the river, and the whole city stood displayed before us at the 
 end of an avenue of gnarled trees, the rays of the setting sun falling on its 
 gilded domes. It was a superb sight, the like of which I have never seen. 
 On our left was Potala, with its lofty buildings and gilt roofs ; before us, sur- 
 rounded by a green meadow, lay the Town with its tower-like white-washed 
 houses and Chinese buildings with roofs of blue glazed tiles." One would 
 think that the middle sentence was literally true. 
 
 ^ The original name of this hill was simply Marpo-ri, and the palace built 
 on the site in 1032 was evidently constructed of blocks quarried on the hill 
 itself, for it was known as the Phodang Marpo. 
 
322 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 shaped mass of Chagpo-ri.* Chagpo-ri is crowned with a small 
 square yellow Jong, and immediately hidden from view by the top- 
 most pinnacle on which the jong is placed is a medical college rest- 
 ing, as it were, on the lion's withers. Immediately on the south 
 again runs the stream of the Kyi chu. So much could be seen or 
 gtiessed from the halting-ground, whence the high road leads 
 straight into the western gate between the two high rocky citadels. 
 The first thing that the traveler notices is the embankment of sand 
 constructed by a Depen of the name of Karpi in 1 72 1 . This man, 
 by order of the Chinese conquerors, had immediately before pulled 
 down the walls which defended Lhasa more from the assaults of 
 nature than of man, and he found it necessary to undertake the 
 construction of these enormous retaining walls — to which I have 
 referred in the last chapter — to save Lhasa from the encroachment 
 of the water-sodden plain around. The Kaling chu is an artifi- 
 cially constructed waterway which diverts from the town itself all 
 the water coming down toward it from the two valleys lying im- 
 mediately north of Lhasa, in one of which Sera Monastery, two 
 miles away, is clearly to be seen, a small nest of white houses but- 
 tressing the foot of the rock and ensigned with a gilded roof or 
 two. This double embankment is a striking feature; the road runs 
 paralkl along the northern side of it for 500 yards, and one can 
 see the tops of the trees which fillthe square *' ling " or plantation 
 abutting on to it to the south. At last the embankment turns 
 northward, and we cross it by a primitive bridge under the wide 
 branches of a poplar tree. After crossing it the plantation on our 
 right is seen to be a tangled jungle of thorn and willow and pop- 
 lar, over all of which the thick-petaled orange clematis grows in 
 rank profusion. A hundred yards on a road sweeps into our route 
 from the right. As we approached, two monks, one of them of 
 extreme age, came slowly along it twirling their prayer-wheels 
 
 * It will be remembered that at the first view of Lhasa, Potala and Chagpo-ri 
 stood out like two pyramids across the plain. 
 
2 
 
 O 
 
 t/3 
 
 ■A 
 
LHASA, I 323 
 
 and muttering incessantly the one phrase of Lamaism as they 
 went. This is nothing less than the famous Ling-kor, the ribbon 
 of road which separates as with a knife the sacred from the pro- 
 fane. In all the world there is, perhaps, but the Via Dolorosa its 
 equal in tradition. For miraculous renown the Ling-kor stands 
 alone, for even an infidel who dies while making the sacred cir- 
 cuit is saved from the penalties of his sins. 
 
 To the left, after crossing the highway, it runs beside the sandy 
 embankment of the Kaling chu to the north, and then, sharply 
 turning, it is hidden behind the trees outside the garden wall of 
 the Lu-kang seven or eight hundred yards away. On its surface, 
 immediately to our left, are a few beggars' huts, mere patched 
 rags of dirty cloth supported on sticks. We crossed the road and 
 were in the sacred territory at last. Immediately on the farther 
 side we passed the gate of the Kun-de-ling Monastery with its 
 woods and gardens and a long rocky eminence crowned with a 
 Chinese temple; at its foot a hundred cocks were scratching up 
 the sacred dust awaiting a purchaser. The mass of Potala now ', 
 hung above our heads, and between us and the western gate there 
 was only a straight stretch of road bordered on the one side by a 
 little patch of barley and a small orchard of willows, and on the 
 right by the still waters of a stagnant willow-edged pool. Over 
 the willows rose the mass of Chagpo-ri. Another two hundred 
 yards, and after a half-turn to the right round the end of the 
 water, we find facing us the western gate of Lhasa, or Pargo Ka- 
 ling. We left the gate on our left and at once began the ascent 
 of the neck of rock which joins the two hills. There is a steep 
 climb of about two hundred feet, and then, with breath-taking 
 suddenness, the panorama of Lhasa burst upon the gaze. 
 
 As I have said, Lhasa would remain Lhasa were it but a cluster 
 of hovels on the sand. But the sheer magnificence of the unex- 
 pected sight which met our unprepared eyes was to us almost a 
 thing incredible. There is nothing missing from this splendid 
 
324 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 spectacle — architecture, forest trees, wide green places, rivers, 
 streams, and mountains all lie before one as one looks down from 
 the height upon Lhasa stretching out at our feet. The dark for- 
 bidding spurs and ravines of the valley of the Kyi chu, up which 
 we had come, interlock one with another and had promised no- 
 thing of all this ; the beauty of Lhasa is doubled by its utter unex- 
 pectedness. It is true that we had only yesterday and that very 
 day passed through green fields and marshes cloaked shoulder 
 high with rushes ; it is true that here and there a densely matted 
 plantation had swung slowly beside our road to meet jis as we 
 moved along ; but there was nothing— less perhaps in such maps 
 and descriptions of Lhasa as we had than anywhere else — to 
 promise us this city of gigantic palace and golden roof, these wild 
 stretches of woodland, these acres of close-cropped grazing land 
 and marshy grass, ringed and delimited by high trees or lazy 
 streamlets of brown transparent water over which the branches 
 almost met. 
 
 Between the palace on our left and the town a mile away in 
 front of us there is this arcadian luxuriance interposing a mile- 
 wide belt of green. Round the outlying fringes of the town itself 
 and creeping up between the houses of the village at the foot of 
 the Total a there are trees — trees sufficiently numerous in them- 
 selves to give Lhasa a reputation as a garden city. But in this 
 stretch of green, unspoiled by house or temple, and roadless save 
 for. one diverging highway, Lhasa has a feature which no other 
 town on earth can rival. 
 
 It; is all a part of that splendid religious pride which has been 
 the making, and may yet prove the undoing, of Tibet. It was 
 right that there should be a belt of nature undefiled encircling the 
 palace of the incarnate god and king, and there the belt is, invest- 
 ing the Potala even inside the loop of the Ling-kor with some- 
 thing of the isolation which guards from the outer world the 
 whole of this strange and lovely town. Between and over the 
 
./j: 
 
 ^"^ 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 _; J 
 
 -^ 5 
 
 o 
 
 
 o 
 
 X 
 
LHASA, I 325 
 
 glades and woodlands the city of Lhasa itself peeps, an adobe 
 stretch of narrow streets and flat-topped houses crowned here and 
 there with a blaze of golden roofs or gilded cupolas ; but there is 
 no time to look at this ; a man can have no eye for anything but 
 the huge upstanding mass of the Potala palace to his left; 
 it drags the eye of the mind like a loadstone, for indeed 
 sheer bulk and magnificent audacity could do no more in archi- 
 tecture than they have done in this huge palace-temple of the 
 Grand Lama. Simplicity has wrought a marvel in stone, nine 
 hundred feet in length and towering seventy feet higher than 
 the golden cross of St. Paul's Cathedral. The Potala would 
 dominate London, — Lhasa it simply eclipses. By European 
 standards it is impossible to judge this building; there is nothing 
 there to which comparison can be made. Perhaps in the austerity 
 of its huge curtains of blank, unveiled, unornamented wall, and 
 in the flat, unabashed slants of its tremendous south-eastern face 
 there is a suggestion of the massive grandeur of Egyptian work ; 
 but the contrast of color and surroundings, to which no small 
 part of the magnificence of the sight is due, Egypt cannot boast. 
 
 The vivid white stretches of the buttressing curtains of stone, 
 each a wilderness of close-ranked windows and the home of the 
 hundreds of crimson-clad dwarfs who sun themselves at the dis- 
 tant stairheads, strike a clean and harmonious note in the sea of 
 green which washes up to their base. Once a year the walls of the 
 Potala are washed with white, and no one can gainsay the effect ; 
 but there is yet the full chord of color to be sounded. The central 
 building of the palace, the Phodang Marpo, the private home of 
 the incarnate divinity himself, stands out four-square upon and 
 between the wide supporting bulks of masonry a rich red-crimson, 
 and, most perfect touch of all, over it against the sky the glittering 
 golden roofs— a note of glory added with the infinite taste and the 
 sparing hand of the old illuminator— recompose the color scheme 
 from end to end, a sequence of green in three shades, of white, of 
 
3^6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 maroon, of gold, and of pale blue. The brown yak-hair curtain, 
 eighty feet in height and twenty-five across, hangs like a tress of 
 hair down the very center of the central sanctuary hiding the cen- 
 tral recess. Such is the Potala. In a way it recalls the dominion 
 of the Shwe Dagon over Rangoon, though in every aspect of con- 
 struction, ornamentation, and surrounding it would be hard to 
 imagine two buildings more entirely different in every detail than 
 these two greatest erections of modern Buddhism. 
 
 The utter disproportion between the palace and the town re- 
 mains a wonder, but a wonder devoid of a trace of falsity or os- 
 tentation, rather a wonder full of a deeper meaning. The petty 
 town which lies a mile away beyond the trees helps, by its very 
 insignificance, to emphasize the tremendous gulf that in Tibet 
 yawns between the people and their priests. In that town there 
 was indeed the true sanctuary of the faith ; in that town there was 
 the idol which the largest faith of all the world holds sacred be- 
 yond all earthly things, and underneath those far distant golden 
 roofs of the Jo-kang the wealth and tradition of the whole creed 
 lay enshrined. Moreover, there is nothing inside the Potala par- 
 ticularly sacred, particularly rich, or particularly beautiful. But 
 unconsciously it thus symbolizes all the more the vast erection of 
 power and pride which separates the priestly caste of Tibet from 
 the real truths of the religion they have prostituted. The fearful 
 sanctity which hedges about the person of their divine ruler is 
 here in Lhasa demonstrated in a manner that must impress the 
 dullest pilgrim. That double-edged weapon seclusion, which the 
 Pope, in magnificent retirement in the Vatican, is now using with 
 doubtful success at Rome, has long been in the armory of the 
 Grand Lama of Tibet. The Tibetan* policy of isolation receives 
 here its only possible justification by a success that is startling in 
 its sufficiency, and one can well understand that a visit to Lhasa 
 " satisfies the soul " of the most recalcitrant subject of His Holi- 
 ness. I have said much in these volumes to the discredit of La- 
 
lV*:-i ■ 4fejjp«J§(^|!JV(J^: 
 
LHASA, I 327 
 
 maism, and I have said it with deHberation and conviction; but 
 this panorama of Lhasa batters down helplessly the prejudices of 
 a quieter hour. Lamaism may be an engine of oppression, but its 
 victims do not protest; and there before one's eyes at last is 
 Lhasa, It may be a barrier to all human improvement ; it may be 
 a living type of all that we in the West have fought against and 
 at last overcome, of bigotry, cruelty, and slavery ; but under the 
 fierce sun of that day and the white gauze of the almost unclouded 
 sky of Lhasa, it was not easy to find fault with the creed, how- 
 ever narrow and merciless, which built the Potala palace and laid 
 out the green spaces at its foot. In this paradise of cool water and 
 green leaves, hidden away among the encircling snows of the 
 highest mountain ranges of the world, Lamaism has upraised the 
 stones and gold of Lhasa, and nothing but Lamaism could have 
 done this thing. To Lamaism alone we owe it that when at last 
 the sight of the farthest goal of all travel burst upon our eyes, it 
 was worthy, full worthy, of all the rumor and glamour and ro- 
 mance with which in the imaginings of man it has been invested 
 for so many years. 
 
 If you will tear your gaze away from the Potala you may see the 
 Ling-kor lying below you like a thread, betrayed here and there 
 by a gap in the leafage of the gardens. Before you in the distance 
 the turquoise Kyi chu, " river of delight," moves lazily between 
 its wide white dunes, here elbowed out of its course by a spur of 
 the hills, there shorn and parceled by a heavy outcrop of water- 
 worn stones and the miniature cliffs of a dazzling sand-bank. 
 Across the mile-wide bed of the river cultivation begins again, 
 and you may see plantations, fields, and houses all the way up to * 
 where the wind-blown buttresses of sand blanket the hollow scarp 
 of the southern hills. Far away in the distance beyond the town 
 the plain still stretches, always the same marshy expanse jagged 
 and indented by the spurs of the encircling hills ; six miles away 
 
328 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 it closes in to the east at the point to which the curving thread of 
 the high road to China makes its uncertain way, banked high 
 across the morass. 
 
 Just where the dun town encroaches upon the greenery you 
 may see clearly the famous Yutok Sampa or Turquoise-roofed 
 Bridge. To the right is the Amban's house, almost completely 
 hidden in its trees, and on the other side of the Jo-kang's gilded 
 canopies, far away to the left, rise the steep, unbeautiful walls of 
 the Meru gompa, the last house in Lhasa to the north-east ; to the 
 west of it, amid the greenery of its plantations, flash the golden 
 ridge-poles of Ramo-che, after the Jo-kang itself the most sacred 
 of all temples in Tibet. But, believe me, when you have marked 
 these historic points the eye will helplessly revert again to the Po- 
 tala; it is a new glory added to the known architecture of the 
 world. 
 
 Nothing in Lhasa, excepting always the interior of the Jo- 
 kang, comes up to this magnificent prelude. If a traveler knows 
 that the cathedral doors are hopelessly shut to him, his wisest 
 course would be to sit a day or two upon this spur of Chagpo-ri 
 and then depart, making no further trial of the town ; for he will 
 never catch again that spell of almost awed thanksgiving that 
 there should be so beautiful a sight hidden among these icy and 
 inaccessible mountain crests, and that it should have been given 
 to him to be one of the few to see it. 
 
 The camp was by this time pitched, and the Amban paid 
 Colonel Younghusband a formal visit. He and the Dalai Lama 
 are the only two in Tibet who are allowed to use the sedan-chair, 
 and the sight of the Amban making a formal visit is not un- 
 ' interesting. He is preceded by ten unarmed servants clad in 
 lavender-blue, edged and patterned with black velvet. Immedi- 
 ately behind them come forty men-at-arms similarly dressed in 
 cardinal and black, bearing lances, scythe-headed poles, tridents, 
 and banners ; after them come the secretaries and their servants, 
 
THE CHINESE REPRESENTATIVES IN LHASA MEETING 
 COLONEL YOUNGHUSBAND FOR THE FIRST TIME 
 
LHASA, I 329 
 
 and then, borne by ten men, his Excellency In his chair.* There 
 was no great importance in this first visit of ceremony. But it 
 was returned by Colonel Younghusband on the following day, 
 and, if you please, we will ride behind the Colonel as he passes 
 through the streets of Lhasa on his way to and from the Resi- 
 dency. Now instead of passing to the south of the Pargo Ka- 
 ling, we go underneath the gilt-ribbed and celestially crowned 
 chorten which tops the western gate between the two guardian 
 hills. ^ There is a protective railing of timber along both sides 
 of the interior of the gate and a blue deity in his most " terrible " 
 aspect is painted on the left-hand wall. 
 
 Immediately inside the gate the road turns to the left, and a 
 good view is to be had of the Potala palace rising above the 
 walled square of houses and stables and prisons at the foot of 
 the rock. Between the gate and this inclosure is a small village 
 tucked up under the rock, not more than thirty houses in all, 
 dirty, squalid, and stinking, although it is under the very thresh- 
 old of the Grand Lama's magnificent residence. Five hundred 
 yards on an obelisk rises in the middle of the road; this, which 
 is almost opposite the center of the palace, was set up to record 
 the pacification of Tibet and the domination of the Chinese in 
 1720. The inscription was carved three years later, and it is 
 noticeable that in it the name of the Tashi Lama precedes that of 
 his brother of Lhasa. The road continues for a little space and 
 then divides abruptly into two tracks, that to the left keeping 
 straight on toward the palace of the Yabshi family and the 
 northern part of the city, that on the right continuing between 
 
 * It is interesting to note that the Chinese have such a contempt for Tibet 
 that the viceroy never takes full official dress with him to Lhasa ; negotiations 
 were, therefore, carried on with the Amban with less formal ceremony than 
 would have been considered necessary under other circumstances, though the 
 Commissioner and his staff, to their great discomfort, always wore correct 
 diplomatic uniform in their intercourse , with both Chinese and Tibetans. 
 
 * This is in shape a typical " stupa," with the exception that the road passes 
 through it, making a clear tunnel in the center. 
 
330 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 fields and green swamps, acres of barley, and willow plantations 
 to the Yutok Sampa. 
 
 This bridge is reckoned by the Tibetans and the Chinese to be 
 one of the five beauties of Lhasa.^ It is a plain structure, and 
 its general character is excellently shown by Countess Helena 
 Gleichen's picture. The tiles must have been brought from 
 China, and in the course of many centuries the blue glaze, which 
 has given the bridge its name, has been worn off from projecting 
 edges and points, and the rich Indian red of the clay mingles most 
 beautifully with the prevailing color. Inside it is painted with 
 the same dull greenish blue as that with which the Pargo Kaling 
 is decorated. There are small sacred images under the project- 
 ing roof at either end of the bridge, and inside there is a deco- 
 rative design on the lintel of the gates. It stretches across a 
 swampy marsh through which at that season the water was cut- 
 ting small channels, gay with vivid grass and primulas. Through 
 the Yutok Sampa the road turned sharply to the left and the 
 gate of Lhasa proper was before us ; it is a plain hole in the wall 
 without decoration, and without even a door. 
 
 Immediately in front as one penetrates through the wall is 
 a wide open space with a stream of water running down between 
 weeds and bushes from the left ; following up this direction with 
 the eye, the street is seen to turn into a small square, and at one 
 end of it a gigantic willow-tree towers high above the flat, low- 
 lying roofs. This is the famous tree that grows opposite the 
 western front of the Jo-kang, of which one can from the gate 
 see but the tops of its golden roofs towering above the dull, flat 
 buildings with which the cathedral is surrounded. In front, and 
 indeed in all other directions, are the squat, uninteresting mud 
 houses of Lhasa. The Chinese quarter, immediately to our right, 
 
 * These five sights are believed by the Chinese to be, with the exception of 
 the Jo-kang, or, as they call it, the Ta-chao, itself, the most ancient renaains in 
 the capital. 
 
2; 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 H 
 H 
 W 
 
 O 
 H 
 
 >< 
 
 K 
 
 I? 
 O 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 X 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 o 
 u 
 
 :?: 
 
 < 
 
 w 
 X 
 H 
 
LHASA, I 331 
 
 which in general is far better kept than other parts of a Tibetan 
 community, is as bad as the others. We turned off in this di- 
 rection through the quarter and emerged immediately into another 
 wide space of which the unevennesses were indicated by great 
 pools of black-scummed water. Under some squalid willows divid- 
 ing this open space from the gate, the main drain of the town runs 
 fetidly between black banks, passing beneath the very walls of 
 the Residency. On these stinking eminences herds of black pigs 
 were grouting about among rubbish heaps more than usually re- 
 pulsive in their composition. Across the square rose the timber 
 gate of the Amban's reserve, and we cavalcaded across to it, 
 splashing through the water-pools and jostling from their filthy 
 meal the privileged scavengers of the town. 
 
 The Residency deserves no long description: you enter and 
 turn to the right between the two usual Chinese " lions," and 
 after passing through a couple of courts overhung with poplars 
 you arrive in the durbar hall, with its red and green hangings and 
 . green and gold-flecked doors. It is a poor little room and the ceil- 
 ■ ing is adorned with irregularly shaped pieces of paper with a red 
 all-overish pattern. Here we had a durbar, and some excellent 
 little cigars were handed round alternately with tea — made, we 
 were glad to find, after the Chinese habit — and Huntley and 
 Palmer's biscuits. Colonel Younghusband intimated to the Ara- 
 ban that it would be as well for all concerned if immediate atten- 
 tion were paid to the reasonable and proper demands of the 
 English. The Amban, as usual, deprecated the foolishness of his 
 Tibetan flock, but seemed more preoccupied with the precarious- 
 ness of his own position than anything else. His memory dwelt 
 somewhat persistently upon the assassinations which had over- 
 taken two of his predecessors in office ; and there could be no doubt 
 about it that he was honestly relieved when our force encamped 
 outside Lhasa. 
 
 The concealed band was playing when we arrived, and this 
 
332 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 again struck up the Oriental melody as we left the place, but the 
 bombs which had been exploded in the Commissioner's honor 
 on our arrival were not repeated, greatly, I think, to every one's 
 relief, for as the first went off we all feared that Macdonald in the 
 camp outside would take it as a sign of treachery, and we knew 
 that he had his guns laid on the Potala as we sat in durbar in the 
 city. 
 
 We returned by another route, again crossing the black swamp 
 which, it will be remembered, constitutes one of the " five 
 beauties " of Lhasa. We passed into the other open space, which 
 we crossed diagonally toward the sacred willow. We turned 
 up the street I have referred to and passed to the left of the tree 
 in its walled inclosure. This diverted the course of the small 
 column — 300 rifles had come in with the Commissioner, and we 
 had as well forty of the comic-opera guard of the Chinese Resi- 
 dency — from passing the actual front of \he Jo-kang. I was, 
 however, able to inspect the Do-ring, and get the first glimpse 
 of the Cathedral from inside the small paved inclosure bounded 
 to the east by the timbered and painted portico and hang- 
 ing draperies of the Jo-kang. A crowd of villainous-looking 
 monks were gathered sullenly before the great barred doors. 
 A description of the Do-ring will be found later on in the chapter 
 dealing with the Jo-kang. I rejoined the column which was mak- 
 ing its way up toward the Yabshi house, and thence struck off 
 sharply to the left along the wide road, or rather the continual 
 puddle, which, running between the adobe walls of monasteries 
 or well-wooded gardens, brings you back to the foot of the Potala 
 and thence to the Pargo Kaling gate. It must be confessed that 
 to judge from this itinerary the town itself of Lhasa would com- 
 pare but badly with the capital of even a third rate petty chief in 
 India. The buildings lack distinction, though on a closer exami- 
 nation it must be confessed that the walls of the better houses 
 were often soundly built and of strong material. Granite is 
 
< 
 
 O 
 Z 
 
 r. 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 ■A 
 
 z 
 
 U 
 ■■J 
 75 
 
 'A 
 U 
 
 x 
 
 < 
 
LHASA, I 333 
 
 used in large splintered blocks for nearly every one of the bigger 
 houses of the town; but if the original description of the place 
 by Father Andrada had any real foundation, the capital of Tibet 
 has changed sadly for the worse, for not even the kindliest 
 advocate could find in the slosh and filth of every street, or in 
 the ramshackle structures which cumber every available inch of 
 ground beside the heavier houses, the well-paved thoroughfares 
 and dignified architecture which he describes. 
 
 About three hundred yards north of the Jo-kang, before reach- 
 ing the Yabshi turning where the chorten stands, the street 
 edges along a wide open space, chiefly swamp and ruin, across 
 which the Meru gompa can easily be seen. The only interest 
 attaching to this gompa is that, so far as can be ascertained, it 
 has been built over the site of the old Christian chapel. If the 
 actual site of the chapel is not covered by the monastery build- 
 ings, it can safely be asserted that the chapel and the surrounding 
 buildings of the mission have been totally destroyed, for a space, 
 clear of all but a few trees, exists on every side of the present 
 Lamasery. The bell of the mission is still in existence in Lhasa. 
 
 The story of this mission has been well told in a recent volume 
 by the Rev. Graham Sandberg. Briefly stated, its somewhat in- 
 glorious history is this. In 1708 the Propaganda sent four 
 Capuchin friars from India through Katmandu and Gyantse to 
 Lhasa to found a mission. Three years later the adult conver- 
 sions claimed by the whole chain of outposts of the " Tibetan 
 mission " were two in number, and as the report from which 
 this is taken included the results of proselytization in Bengal 
 and in Nepal as well as Tibet, it is perhaps possible that no 
 Tibetan had seen reason to change his faith. In 171 3, after a gap 
 of two years, missionary effort was again attempted, and in 171 5 
 we find the mission once more established in Lhasa. But these 
 were troublous times, and the active hostility between the Dalai 
 Lama and the Chinese Emperor prevented that tranquillity in 
 
334 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 which alone lay any hopes of successful work for the worthy 
 friars. They were in continual danger, and even the valiant 
 claim of Father della Penna to have half converted the Dalai 
 Lama himself does not convince the student that any serious 
 ground had been gained. Mr. Sandberg gives in full the terms 
 of a document granting permission to build a Christian chapel 
 to the Capuchins. Unfortunately a flood in Lhasa in the follow- 
 ing year, 1725, was attributed by the people to the desecration 
 of the sacred soil of the city by the erection of a heretical place 
 of w6rship. Things became so serious that the regent of Tibet 
 himself issued a proclamation affirming that the cause of the 
 late floods had been declared by the head of the Sam-ye mon- 
 astery to be not the erection of this chapel, but the sins and 
 wickedness of the Tibetans themselves. The little church was 
 finished and eleven Christians were present at its consecration; 
 of this number four or five were, of course, accounted for by the 
 monks themselves, and by the admission of della Penna himself, 
 the majority of the eleven were N^waris — that is, half-caste 
 Nepalese, whose previous religion was almost certainly Mahom- 
 medanism. It is even said that the Grand Lama himself visited 
 the chapel. 
 
 Some years before, the Jesuits in Rome, with their proverbial 
 jealousy, had prevailed upon the Propaganda to send two of their 
 number, for no other purpose than that of spying upon the 
 work of the mission in Lhasa. It can be imagined what effect 
 Was caused by the presence together in Lhasa of rival representa- 
 tives of two Christian communities, who could not carry on the 
 sacred work with which they were intrusted without betraying 
 to the inhabitants the unfortunate dissensions of their Christian 
 visitors. Ippolito Desideri, with a Eurasian companion, Manuel 
 Freyre, arrived in Lhasa for this purpose on March i8th, 17 16, 
 and although a kind of armed neutrality subsisted between the 
 two factions, it was probably a relief to all concerned when Pope 
 
•J*l^'" 
 
 ■:^^^^-r:^-^-y 
 
LHASA, I 535 
 
 Clement sent a peremptory order in 1721 that Desideri and his 
 companion should leave the country. After a long stay in India 
 he returned to Rome and set forth the case for the prosecution. 
 The Propaganda, however, after four years' deliberation, decided 
 in favor of the Capuchins, but this was only twelve months be- 
 fore the flame of Christianity again flickered out in Lhasa in the 
 year 1733. 
 
 In 1740, as the result of a direct appeal to Rome by Father 
 della Penna, this worthy man again set out with one Cassiano 
 Beligatti, of Macerata, and reached Lhasa on the 5th of Jan- 
 uary, 1 74 1. The old buildings were re-occupied, but the op- 
 position of the lamas was destined to achieve its end, and on 
 April 20th, 1745, after four years of dispiriting ill-success, 
 that fine old warrior, della Penna, with tears in his eyes, turned 
 his back for the last time upon Lhasa and the darling pro- 
 ject of his life. It was the death of the poor old man, who 
 three months later was laid to rest in the little cemetery of 
 Pathan. 
 
 By any one who has seen the place there can hardly be con- 
 ceived a more despairing and disheartening field for missionary 
 effort than that provided by Lhasa. 
 
 Lhasa, it has been said, must be conceived as a town of low 
 uninteresting houses herded together in an aimless confusion, 
 but beyond question the most ragged and disreputable quarter 
 of all is that occupied by the famous tribe of Ragyabas, or beg- 
 gar-scavengers. These men are also the breakers up of the 
 dead. It is difficult to imagine a more repulsive occupation, 
 a more brutalized type of humanity, and, above all, a more 
 abominable and foul sort of hovel than those which are char- 
 acteristic of these men. Filthy in appearance, half-naked, half- 
 clothed in obscene rags, these nasty folk live in houses which a 
 respectable pig would refuse to occupy. The characteristic type 
 of hut is about four feet in height, compounded of filth and the 
 
336 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 horns of cattle.^ These men exact high fees for disposing cere- 
 monially of dead bodies. The limbs and trunk of the de- 
 ceased person are hacked apart and exposed on low flat stones 
 until they are consumed by the dogs, pigs, and vultures with 
 which. Lhasa swarms. The flesh of the pigs is highly esteemed 
 in Lhasa, and indeed to the taste it is as good as most pork; 
 but after you have seen the Ragyaba quarter and heard the 
 story of the manner in which the Tibetans dispose of their dead, 
 you will be little inclined to eat it again. 
 
 Chandra Das reports that these Ragyabas are recognized by 
 the authorities as a tribe of refuge for all the rascals in the 
 country, whose place of origin cannot be ascertained; he also 
 mentions a curious legend that if a day passes without a burial, 
 if the word may be used, ill-fortune is certain to overtake Lhasa.' 
 Recruited from such sources, accustomed to live among sur- 
 roundings more disgusting by far than those of the Australian 
 aborigines, this guild presents a study which cannot fail to be 
 
 * This horn masonry is one of the best-known characteristics of Lhasa. So 
 far as I know it is found nowhere else in the world, and therefore deserves a 
 passing mention. It is of two kinds. One sort shows the exquisite regular- 
 ity and care with which these horns are at times inserted into the mortared 
 surface of a wall, which internally is also strengthened by a rubble also com- 
 posed of the same material. In other cases no outside covering is attempted, 
 and the horns are simply thrust into a mass of mud wall which probably does 
 not survive the year. Of this latter class are the Ragyaba huts. 
 
 * Three other incidents are said to portend disaster to the country: — (i) 
 It has long been a proverb that when the snow ceased to fall the English 
 would arrive in Lhasa. This, of course, was tantamount to never, but it was 
 so far justified on the present occasion that never within the memory of the 
 oldest Tibetan had so little snow fallen upon the passes to the south. (2) 
 Disaster shall overtake Tibet when rice grows at Phari. If it were true that 
 disaster could only come in this way the Tibetans might indeed feel them- 
 selves secure, though I believe Mr. Walsh made an amusing but entirely un- 
 successful attempt to make use of the short Tibetan summer at Phari for the 
 purpose of planting a miniature and carefully tended paddy-field. (3) The 
 lowness of the waters in the great lakes is a further sign of impending 
 trouble. By common consent the waters of the Bam tso and of the Kala tso 
 had never been lower. 
 
D 
 
 X 
 
 O 
 
 3 
 
 ^ 
 
 ri 
 
 *^ 
 
 > 
 o 
 
 Pi 
 < 
 
 
 o 
 z 
 
 Z 
 O 
 
LHASA, I 337 
 
 of interest to the ethnologist : the more ordinary traveler will 
 soon have seen sufficient of this loathsome tribe.* 
 
 These men compose the only community peculiar to Lhasa. 
 For the rest, lay and cleric alike, the inhabitants are similar 
 to those of the rest of Tibet. There is indeed but one difference 
 even in the dress. In the province of Tsang, as will be remem- 
 bered, the women use a turquoise studded halo as a head-dress; 
 in Lhasa a fillet ornamented in the same way is bound close down 
 over their Madonna-parted hair. The two braids are then fluffed 
 out on either side and fall down over the shoulders. It. is one 
 of the most becoming ways of doing the hair that I have ever 
 seen, and for a certain type the entire dress of a woman of 
 Lhasa would be a not unbecoming costume for a fancy-dress 
 ball at home. 
 
 The dress of both men and women is very similar; there is 
 a single undergarment and one heavy native cloth robe, dun 
 or crimson in color and usually patched, which both sexes pull 
 in round the waist with a girdle — the men pouching it at the 
 waist to form the only pocket that they use. Into this fold 
 of the over-garment the Tibetan slips everything which he will 
 need throughout the day, the little wooden bowls in which he 
 eats his meals, a brass pot with which to do his cooking, a pair 
 of shoes perhaps, and certainly one or two gau-os or charm boxes. 
 These last are at Lhasa larger than elsewhere, and are often 
 finished with extreme delicacy ; the silver front of the better class 
 of gau-o is often beautifully chased in a design which strongly 
 resembles good Italian work of the seventeenth century. A 
 good specimen will sometimes measure five inches by four by 
 two, and it will contain a heterogeneous mass of paper prayers 
 
 'They are, as a rule, considered outcast from every profession or circle 
 except their own, but on one occasion the Dalai Lama enlisted the Ragyabas 
 into the Lhasa regiment to replace the losses which that corps had sustained 
 at Guru. 
 
338 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 and charms and objects specially blessed, such as grain, or pills 
 containing the remains of the body of deceased lamas, just as 
 in other parts of Tibet. The high officials of state add gold and 
 brocade to their dress in an increasing amount until the position 
 of sha-pe is reached, when the entire robe is of vivid orange 
 yellow brocaded silk, lined with blue; the hat of the sha-pe is a 
 Chinese cap of yellow silk turned up with black velvet, and the 
 coral or second-class Chinese button is almost invariably worn 
 upon it.* 
 
 The. variety of hats at Lhasa is extraordinary. Almost every 
 conceivable form of headgear is to be found there, from a yel- 
 low woolen Britannia's helmet to a varnished and gilded wooden 
 pot with a wide circular brim. One shape suggests an inverted 
 flower-pot bearing upon the top a much larger flower-pot the 
 right way ujp; others are high Welsh hats of yellow silk with 
 a "-cap of maintenance" turn-up of black or yellow, while one 
 most remarkable of air is nothing else than a circular pleated 
 crimson lamp-shade with a four-inch valance or flounce of the 
 same material. The most ai*.tistic headgear in Lhasa is that 
 of the servants of the Nepalese Resident. These men wear 
 tightly fitting black leather caps with a plain band running 
 round them, bearing a flame-shaped ornament of gold or 
 silver, held in its place in. front by a plain twisted claw of the 
 same material running back on both sides to just above the ears. 
 
 * In China itself the use of these buttons is carefully regulated, though 
 every man is permitted by custom to wear the button of one higher class than 
 his own ; this, however, does not apply to the use of the first-class button, a 
 transparent red color, which is used by the royal family alone. The second- 
 class is of opaque pink, the third of transparent blue, the fourth opaque blue, 
 the fifth of transparent crystal, the sixth opaque white. Below this comes 
 the gold button, which may be worn by any one, and is, therefore, hardly worn 
 at all. The use of these buttons in Tibet by officials of different classes is 
 very clearly laid down, but.no attention whatever is paid to the rules. The 
 coral button, which is the highest permitted to any one in the land, is appar- 
 ently used by any and every one who cares to buy it. These remarks do not, 
 of course, apply to the Chinese Viceroy and his staff, who naturally keep to 
 the stricter rules of their own country. 
 
o 
 
 J3 
 
 Q 
 Pi 
 < 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 "A 
 < 
 
 >-) 
 ac 
 
 13 
 
 C 
 
 J3 
 CD 
 
 o 
 o. 
 
LHASA, I 339 
 
 The Tongsa Penlop himself still went abroad with bare feet 
 and his uncloven Homburg hat. 
 
 The Nepalese Resident met us when we reached Lhasa. One 
 is reminded of him at this moment because his overcoat was one 
 of the most gorgeous pieces of Oriental embroidery I had ever 
 seen; quietly dressed in all other respects and personally an 
 unassuming man, his outer garment made him recognizable at 
 a distance of a mile. It was of delicate pink satin sewn all 
 over with silver and gold lace and imitation pearls, latticing down 
 some really very fine flower embroidery in myrtle green and rose. 
 He is a shrewd man, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for the 
 common-sense advice he always gave the Tibetans. 
 
 To return to the features of Lhasa. The Ling-kor, or sacred 
 way, incloses the city and Potala palace, as has been described, 
 with a loop of road, sometimes twenty feet wide, sometimes 
 hardly three. It is now a wide sandy expanse from which the 
 noonday sun is fiercely beaten back; now a cool firm path under 
 the shade of the poplars of the Lu-kang; now an up-and-down 
 bridle-track worn smooth and slippery by millions of naked 
 footfalls along the limestone cliffs overhanging the Kyi chu it- 
 self; now a part of the filthy swine-infested street which skirts 
 the dirty Ragyaba quarter, three inches deep in black iridescent 
 mud. 
 
 From dawn to dusk along this road moves a procession, men 
 and women, monks and laymen. They shufile along slowly, 
 not unwilling now and then to exchange a word with a com- 
 panion overtaken— they all go round the same way and therefore 
 they meet no one— but, as a rule, with a vacant look of abstrac- 
 tion from all earthly things they swing their prayer-wheels and 
 mutter ceaselessly beneath their breath the sacred formula which 
 shuts for them the doors of their six hells. Let us go round 
 with them. 
 
 Coming in from the west, one turns off into the road just 
 
340 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 by the patch of cocks, passing the grimy and squalid yak-hair 
 tents of the beggars, where dogs crawl in and out, and in the in- 
 tervals give themselves up to the same necessary and Oriental 
 occupation as do their masters and mistresses. A field of barley 
 and peas is on the right hand, and on the left the sand revetments 
 of the Kaling chu. Four hundred yards on, the Ling-kor takes 
 a sharp turn to the right after passing a green swamp in which 
 the pollard willows stand ankle-deep in clear brown pools; on 
 the left the sand-bank which we here leave still hides from 
 the pilgrim all sight of the valley to the west. Hard by there 
 is a group of tall poplars standing sentinel at the corner of a 
 plantation of lower trees, and the glaucous willow-thorn at their 
 foot is weighed down with yellow clematis, partly in flower, 
 partly in silver-threaded fluff. Over all towers up the wide back 
 of the Potala. The turn of the Ling-kor here incloses the Lu- 
 kang, which lies at the foot of the Marpo-ri. This is beyond 
 question the most beautiful thing in Lhasa, and the Chinese, 
 as we have seen, have recognized it by putting it first among 
 the five beauties of the place. It is a still lake of clear brown 
 water, fringed with reeds and overhung with willows and other 
 trees of great age, and it lies low in green-wooded glades, where 
 overhead the branches meet. Under foot the turf is fine and 
 springy, and in every direction the wealth of undergrowth hides 
 from one the fact that it is after all a comparatively small gar- 
 den. In the center of the lake is an island entirely covered with 
 trees and margined all round with huge rushes. An old flight 
 of stone steps betrays in the foliage a scarcely visible pavilion 
 with a blue-tiled and gilded roof; here a teal rises from the reeds 
 as one approaches, and over them the " thin blue needle of the 
 dragon-fly " is poised in myriads. Scarlet, green, dun, light- 
 blue and dark-blue, barred, ribbed, transparent, or mailed, the 
 dragon-flies vibrate motionless over every piece of water in 
 this water-logged city, but the Lu-kang and Lha-lu are their 
 
THE SACRED ELEPHANT IN THE LUKANG GARDENS IN LHASA 
 
 The one elephant in Tibet 
 
LHASA, I 341 
 
 favorite haunts. The Lu-kang, or serpent-house, is so named 
 because of the common belief that in the central island lives 
 a serpent devil who needs an annual propitiation to keep flood 
 waters from the town; the tradition re-appears also in a part 
 of the Jo-kang itself, where the underground waters can be 
 reached through a narrow and dark channel, and at the Lha-lu 
 house a quarter of a mile away from the Lu-kang across the 
 swamps. In each of these places there is approximately the 
 same tradition connected with the supposed underground lake, 
 which is ever ready to engulf the sacred city.^ Immediately 
 to the left as one enters the Lu-kang is the courtyard, in which 
 the solitary elephant of Tibet is kept. He had a companion 
 on the journey up from India destined for the Grand Lama of 
 Tashi-lhunpo, but that one died— it would naturally have been 
 that one. 
 
 The Ling-kor runs on through barley-fields to the east until 
 it reaches the green trees overhanging the wall of the Royal 
 Pastures at Re-ting, where the late regent, put to death in prison 
 by the present Grand Lama ten years ago, had his residence. 
 The temporary regent, whom we found in occupation in Lhasa, 
 did not take up his residence here, as he had been appointed 
 for a special emergency only. Soon after this Ramo-che is 
 passed on the right hand. This somewhat uninteresting temple 
 is reckoned in Tibetan eyes as inferior to the Jo-kang alone, 
 and claims a clearly impossible antiquity; it is a medieval build- 
 ing of an undistinguished type, and the gilded roof is the pretti- 
 est thing about it. It contains, according to Chandra Das, only 
 a collection of military relics, shields, spears, drums, and swords, 
 
 *It is not unlikely that this bogy has been created, or, at any rate, per- 
 petuated, at the Lu-kang to scare away trespassers from the favorite picnick- 
 ing ground of the Dalai Lama. His windows look out from the back 
 directly down upon the Lu-kang. No well in Lhasa need be more than six 
 feet deep, a fact which undoubtedly lies at the root of the subterranean lake 
 theory. 
 
342 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 and the image of King Srong-tsan-gambo's Nepalese wife. 
 Nothing is more remarkable in Lhasa than the interior destitu- 
 tion of every temple except the Jo-kang itself. Nothing has 
 been allowed to compete in even the most timid way with this 
 august repository of the faith. The only other temple which 
 is of peculiar interest besides the Jo-kang is the temple of the 
 Chief Magician outside the walls, of which a full description 
 will be given elsewhere. 
 
 Still going onward, the Ling-kor, now a pebbly length of 
 banked-up causeway, curves round to inclose the Meru gompa 
 on the extreme north-east of the town; here it touches the deep 
 irrigation channels which drain off the water from the swamps 
 in this direction, flat, treacherous, and wickedly green. This 
 water-course is bridged by the Min-duk Sampa, or bridge of 
 the Pleiades, over which the Chinese trade route runs into the 
 city. The Ling-kor here becomes acquainted with strange sur- 
 roundings, and it becomes but a dirty and befouled track run- 
 ning between houses of increasing squalor and disrepute. Thrust 
 out on the eastern side are the shambles of Lhasa, for life may 
 not be taken within the sacred precincts of the city, as was noted 
 by Friar Oderic more than five hundred years ago. But this 
 respect does not prevent the via sacra of the faith from being 
 used as a refuse heap for the raw scraps of bone and skin and 
 ugly red flesh from the butchers' shops which are thrown here 
 to be mouthed and quarreled over by mangy dogs and the out- 
 lying scouts of the pig battalion. 
 
 The Ling-kor, now curving round the eastern side of the city, 
 skirts the quarter where, as everywhere else in the world, the 
 poor are congregated, and there are on all sides broken-down 
 hovels with unrepaired holes, and empty window-holes grimy 
 with the continual fog of smoke inside. On our left hand as 
 we go round beside the swampy flats of Pala, which stretch out 
 westward toward the distant river, the treacherous quagmire 
 
LHASA, I 343 
 
 comes right up to the causeway on which the Ling-kor is now 
 raised, though here and there a square plot of ground has been 
 reclaimed from the morass and nourishes good barley, or a small 
 plantation is set about a tiny poor house. But bad as this quarter 
 is, it is respectability itself compared with the Ragyaba quarter, 
 which we shall reach the moment we turn the corner to the right 
 and begin to retrace our steps westward to Chagpo-ri and the 
 Pargo Kaling. But before we reach the corner we notice the 
 great heap of stones, another relic of the piety of pilgrims, who 
 here lose or catch their first sight of the Potala palace.* As we 
 retraverse the Ragyaba quarter the remembrance of a previous 
 day is outrun by the reality of the moment ; the foulness of these 
 homes is equal to but, I think, more repulsive than that of Phari. 
 It is true it is confined to a small quarter in Lhasa, but there 
 is not here the saving grace of bitter cold to excuse, and possibly 
 mitigate, the dirt and stench, and as one rode through them 
 one could hardly imagine that one's own brothers and sisters 
 of the human race were actually content to live in these low 
 piggeries scattered here and there over the reeking black mud, 
 which had long been churned into a greasy soup by the picking 
 feet of the black swine that swarm throughout the quarter. Yet, 
 
 * I have said that pilgrims on the sacred way move always the way of the 
 sun. But if the explanation of the heap of stones, which was given me by a 
 lama, is true, it is clear that a certain number must go in the opposite direc- 
 tion, for the heap of stones to which I refer is placed exactly where the sight 
 of the Potala is lost, not gained, by one going round the sacred way in the 
 usual mannen. On this whole question of the rotation of Lamaism I have 
 throughout given the conventionally held view rather than a personal one. It 
 is perfectly true that chortens and such things are passed on the road, as a 
 rule, by the wayfarer keeping to his left. It is true that prayer-wheels are 
 generally swung in the same direction, but on two occasions I have noticed on 
 the sacred way itself an intelligent-looking monk briskly wheeling his prayer 
 instrument in the opposite direction, and the ready explanation of some that 
 this was a monk of the Beun-pa will not hold good, for the men were cer- 
 tainly following the usual circuit. The question of the swastika I have al- 
 ready alluded to, and I am inclined to think that although what I have said 
 is, without doubt, the general rule of the faith, yet less importance is attached 
 to it than is generally supposed. 
 
344 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 strangely enough, here are the flowers of Lhasa. In these foul 
 surroundings tl^ey bloom better than elsewhere— clean, upstand- 
 ing hollyhocks, radiant of gentility; old-world stocks, with 
 dainty crimson flowers and fine gray-green leaves; nasturtiums 
 trailing their torn trumpets of fire, opal and gold, over the 
 carrion filth of these decaying walls. It reminded one of the 
 jeweled butterflies wheeling over the dirt of the Riang road. 
 
 On the left is a row of willows hedging about a water meadow, 
 across which are two of the " lings," or gardens, which surround 
 Lhasa.* Soon after this the wide black pools which mark the 
 clearing in front of the Amban's house appear to the right, but 
 the Ling-kor runs on below the willow-trees on the left, to the 
 green plantations which have now taken the place of the houses ; 
 for now Lhasa proper has been left behind and we are moving 
 along the southern side of the woodland waste between it and 
 the Potala palace. The town has given place to the woodland, 
 and the woodland will soon give place to the rock. Seven hun- 
 dred yards on through this green avenue with a stream beside 
 us moistening the roots of the willows brings the pilgrim to a 
 sharp upstanding spur of stone. 
 
 It is not one of the least extraordinary things connected with 
 Lhasa that no visitor, traveler, or spy seems to have made the 
 complete circuit of the Ling-kor. Not only are the maps we 
 possess consistently wrong in a matter about which no mistake 
 can possibly be made by any one who has seen the place, but no 
 account or description has hitherto been given of one of the 
 rnost remarkable features of Lhasa. The steep limestone cliffs 
 fall sharply down beside the running stream which here is 
 merged into the wide flood of the Kyi chu. One of the chan- 
 nels of this river actually washes the base of this limestone 
 
 * It was in one of these that the Commissioner was invited to take up his 
 residence on his arrival in the city, but the place was inconvenient for many 
 reasons and the Lha-lu house was chosen instead. 
 
LHASA, I 345 
 
 outcrop, and the path has been cut out of the rock three feet 
 wide in the manner of the ordinary mountain trang. It slowly 
 rises to a height of nearly a hundred feet, almost every yard of 
 the way being marked by images, chortens, or deep-cut mantras 
 on the rock. Flat stones in innumerable quantities, bearing the 
 unvarying formula, are carefully set up on end; tens of thou- 
 sands of little clay medals, bearing some religious impress, are 
 strewn on every ledge. On the top of this ascent one looks 
 away over the wide waste of the Kyi chu river, and there are Qmm- -z. 'V^^*^ 
 few sights in the world more beautiful than that which here 
 meets the eye. Far and wide the sunlit river stretches its shal- • 
 lows; one could almost believe that Lhasa was an island in 
 a lake, and the picturesque foliage of the trees and flowers that 
 rise at the foot of the long slaty cliffs, just where the southern 
 sunshine washes them all day and the rock gives out its warmth 
 to them all night, are more luxuriant than anywhere else beside 
 the sacred way. The Ling-kor descends here somewhat abruptly, 
 finding a foothold at the base of the rocks by which you may 
 climb from here to Cha^po-ri — it is as it were the sprawled near 
 hind-leg of the couching lion of stone. 
 
 Now the most impressive sight of all the Ling-kor is in front 
 of us. It is a gigantic rock, flat and facing the stream squarely ; 
 the whole surface is a close-set gallery of Buddhas of all sizes and 
 colors, jostling each other's knees in their profusion ; at a distance 
 in the sunlight it looks as if a vast carpet of vivid color has been 
 thrown over the face of the rock. There can hardly be less than 
 twenty thousand of these figures, the majority being small image;^ 
 but two inches high, cut in symmetrical rows by hundreds upon 
 a convenient surface of the rock itself, or propped up on detached 
 slabs against the cliff side. Others, from nine inches to two feet 
 in height, cover the entire surface of the great rock disposed round 
 the big Buddha in the center. He is twenty feet in height, and 
 below him in enormous gaudy letters of the deepest relief is the 
 
346 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 parent mantra of all the '"'' om mani padme hums " of Tibet. Each 
 letter is cut six feet in height out of the living rock, and the total 
 length of the text must be thirty feet at least; the colors of the 
 letters follow each other in this order — white, green, yellow, slate, 
 blue, red, and dark indigo.^ 
 
 Twenty yards on there are two small flat housei in a garden of 
 their own, where the road turns inward a little, and the path 
 passes away into a wide and well-kept road, fringed on either side 
 by green plantations overhanging adobe walls. A hundred yards 
 later a common is reached, which the Ling-kor incloses by making 
 a sharp right-angled turn at the opposite side of it. Strictly 
 speaking, the pilgrim should throughout his circumambulation 
 keep to the actual track, but the slant across the common which 
 cuts the corner is suspiciously well worn. Another point at which 
 a deviation is apparently made is in the omission of that part of 
 the Ling-kor which goes outside the Lu-kang. Here my syce met 
 an old friend whom he had known in Gangtok in former days, 
 and though she was obviously off the main route, she still assured 
 Tsering that she was performing the ceremonial circuit. After 
 all, your Tibetan is a very human person. 
 
 A quarter of a mile further on the road, still running north, 
 meets our starting-point underneath the rock on which the Chi- 
 
 ^This is the sacred sequence, and I was glad to find in this classical ex- 
 ample in Lhasa corroboration of the frequent notes that I had made on the 
 way up. It is to be noted that the coloring of the last symbol but one care- 
 fully distinguishes between the D and the M of which it is composed, the 
 upper symbol D belonging strictly to the previous syllable pa; the coloring of 
 the vowel sound above it indicates the relationship of the vowel to the under- 
 written M. The Lamaic tradition attaches considerable importance to the 
 proper distinction of the vowels of this great formula. 
 
 This difference in color between the D and the vowel mark above it is in 
 this case almost the only remaining proof that there ever was an M at all, 
 for the whole of the rock at this most holy point has been worn into the most 
 gigantic "cup-mark" in the world. There is a smooth, worn hole three or 
 four feet in depth and height and five feet in length, from or into which the 
 pious either throw, or take, a pebble, for the dust of it is accounted miracu- 
 lous in its efficacy for diseases of both soul and body. 
 
LHASA, I 347 
 
 nese temple stands. At this point, it will be remembered that the 
 buildings and gardens of the Kun-de-ling press upon the road 
 itself. These " lings "—the word literally means a garden— are 
 four in number ; they represent four lamaic colleges from among 
 whose members the regent of the Dalai Lama was in old days in- 
 variably chosen. From this rule an apparent exception was made 
 in the middle of last century, and if the sudden demise of the 
 Dalai Lama should make it necessary for the hierarchy to elect a 
 new regent, it is more than probable that they would select some 
 one from De-bung or another of the great monasteries outside the 
 walls in whose hands the political power is now wholly vested. 
 The tradition, however, has in the past been a useful check upon 
 intrigue. Of the other lings, Tengye-ling is a large but uninter- 
 esting building which one passes on the right, if, instead of 
 branching down to the Yutok road from the Potala palace, one 
 keeps straight along by the road which, as I have noticed on the 
 occasion of our first entrance into Lhasa, is as a rule one continu- 
 ous puddle. Here the Tongsa Penlop took up his abode, with 
 unerring judgment, for Tengye-ling is quite the most comfortable 
 of the four. If, however, his followers adopted the same methods 
 in Lhasa as had marked their progress to the city, it is more than 
 likely that the sacred treasures of Tengye-ling have been seriously 
 reduced in number by this lime. Chomo-ling is an insignificant 
 structure, almost concealed in trees, not far from Ramo che, and 
 the fourth and last is Tsecho-ling, which is outside the city alto- 
 gether, across the river to the south. 
 
 With this brief survey of the course taken by the I<ing-kor this 
 chapter must end, though we shall have to return across its sacred 
 ribbon when the gem of all that lies within it is to be described, 
 and the reader will be asked to penetrate with me into that holiest 
 of all holies, the Jo-kang, or the very " place of God " itself. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after his arrival in Lhasa, Colonel Young- 
 husband had asked that a proper residence should be provided 
 for him. To this request there was, of course, the usual Tibetan 
 demur, more the result of habit than intention, whereupon the 
 Colonel announced his willingness, and, if some action were not 
 at once taken by the Lhasan officials, his intention to occupy 
 Norbu-ling, the summer residence of the Grand Lama just out- 
 side the Ling-kor and within a few hundred yards of the point on 
 which our camp had been pitched. This veiled threat brought 
 the Tibetans to some sense of the respect that must be paid to the 
 English representative, and they even went so far as to say that 
 any one of the houses of the Sha-pes was at his disposal if only 
 he would leave Norbu-ling alone. In the end Lha-lu house, the 
 finest private residence in Tibet, was placed at the Commission- 
 er's disposal, and the Mission moved into it on August 12th. The 
 reason of this perturbation on the part of the Tibetans was simply 
 that Norbu-ling is the summer residence of the Dalai Lama. 
 It has a perfectly square garden or plantation, surrounded by a 
 well-built wall, each side being a quarter of a mile in length, and 
 to secure greater seclusion — though it is difficult to imagine what 
 trespassing can be possible over this stout barrier — a second wall 
 has been built inside the outer barrier for nearly its whole extent. 
 Inside this again is a house and a temple of no pretensions what- 
 ever, save that, from the distance, a small gilded roof and half-a- 
 dozen golden " gyan-tsens " distinguish it somewhat. The only 
 
 348 
 
< 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 M 
 Z 
 
 O 
 Q 
 < 
 
 S 
 
 Q 
 Z 
 < 
 
 Q 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 z 
 < 
 
 fcd 
 n 
 
I 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA . 349 
 
 acquaintance we ever had with the interior of Norbu-ling was 
 that obtained by looking down upon the whole plain of Lhasa 
 from the high crest of the hill across the river. No member of 
 the force penetrated into the inclosed garden, and therefore the 
 vague stories we were told about it by the natives are all that there 
 is to report. They really seemed to know as little of the interior 
 as ourselves. It was built in its present form only eight years 
 ago, and as a residence for the Dalai Lama does not claim a 
 greater antiquity than 1870. The trees bear out this statement, 
 for they are nearly all of small dimensions. The Dalai Lama 
 lives here for two months in the summer, observing the same 
 state as before, and hedged about with an even greater seclusion 
 than that which marks him at his palace on the rock a mile away. 
 There was a rumor during our stay in Lhasa that the Dalai Lama 
 was actually in hiding in Norbu-ling, and it is beyond question 
 that a large number of European rifles were stored in this pleasure 
 house. The Dalai Lama, however, when once he had turned his 
 back upon the people committed to his charge, never looked back, 
 and if the latest reports, at the time of writing, be true, the soon- 
 to-be-deposed pontiff must have made his way hot-foot to Urga, 
 in Mongolia, where he remains the unwelcome guest of his spir- 
 itual brother, the Taranath Lama. 
 
 The outer walls of Norbu-ling are, as I have said, of splendid 
 workmanship, and they offer a good example of the peculiar 
 stone-laying of Lhasa. Divided by lines, three "stretchers" 
 deep, of stone almost as thin as a tile, the greater blocks are 
 ranged in courses separated from each other by splinters of gran- 
 ite set horizontally and symmetrically between the bigger lumps. 
 This is the universal method of laying the masonry of Lhasa; it 
 will be found throughout the province of U and in rare cases in 
 Tsang also, but we found it is specially characteristic of Lhasa, 
 though I do not know how far the custom has extended to the 
 East. The upper part of this wall is f riezed above a string course 
 
350 . THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 with maroon red and at the south-east corner there is a curious 
 and unexpected symbol of a religion with which Lamaism should 
 have nothing in common. Half-way along the southern side, 
 where there is but fifteen yards between the water of the Kyi chu 
 and the wall, is a latticed projection containing about 430 small, 
 well-designed images of the Master, and one strangely inconse- 
 quent white china figure of a lady on a beast, which might have 
 come from Germany. Here there was good fishing, and beside 
 this little shrine the " Nightmare " ^ put off his panoply of war 
 and deftly drew the mud-barbel from the waters of the Kyi chu. 
 
 As we have said, this haunt was left inviolate, and the Mission 
 established itself at the Lha-lu house. This is a large and sub- 
 stantial building, seven or eight hundred yards away from the 
 Lu-kang ford of the Kaling chu, twelve hundred yards north-west 
 from Potala. There is a road across the marsh to it so that one 
 may arrive there dry-shod, but, like most other places on the Plain 
 of Milk, the luxuriance of its gardens and plantations is greatly 
 due to the fact that the soil is saturated with water. This, it will 
 be remembered, is one of the five beautiful things, and well it de- 
 serves the name. Always excepting the Lu-kang, there is nothing 
 in Lhasa, not even the vegetation near the Sacred Rock, that 
 equals the luxuriance of this spot. 
 
 The house itself is built round a large, open quadrangle with 
 galleries on three sides of it in the usual way; the northern side 
 of this quadrangle is the southern wall of the main house, and 
 here Colonel Younghusband took up his quarters. Some descrip- 
 tion of a typical Tibetan house should be given in these pages, and 
 a better example than Lha-lu cannot, as I have said, be found. 
 
 ^This we fpund to our amusement was Captain Ottley's recognized name 
 among the Tibetans. There is a good deal to be said for the appHcability 
 and picturesqueness of the title, and its universal adoption by the Tibetans 
 betrays the terror with which the ubiquitous mounted infantry inspired the 
 people along the road. The work done by Captain Peterson and Lieutenant 
 Bailey in the same corps was invaluable. 
 

 a 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 351 
 
 Over a small stream in front of the house one passes by a bridge 
 obliquely into the courtyard. The outer walls of the house are 
 of no importance, and the quadrangle itself, though paved, is 
 muddy and generally heaped with odds and ends; all round the 
 base under the first balcony the horses and mules of the owners 
 are as a rule ranged, but on our arrival in the place our beasts 
 were banished to more convenient quarters outside. Hence, im- 
 mediately in front of one rose the considerable mass of the main 
 residence ; on the left, a door led into an inclosed garden and to- 
 ward the summer-house and temple, beautifully set about with 
 foliage. On the right a similar doorway led to the menials' build- 
 ings and lesser stablings. Crossing the courtyard, one enters the 
 house by a small and insignificant door in the center of its south- 
 ern side. The mud, through and over which one has gingerly ta 
 pick one's way, stepping from stone to stone, enters the house as 
 freely as ourselves, and in the sudden dark one can only just dis- 
 tinguish the corner down which a precipitous ladder slants. It is 
 impossible here to choose one's steps, so one plunges through the 
 mud and stones to reach the base of the ladder, which, it must be 
 remembered, is the only way in which a visitor or resident, high 
 or low, can reach the house itself. Up the slippery iron-sheathed 
 treads one goes, clinging desperately to the polished willow hand- 
 rail, and at the top one is confronted across the passage by the 
 durbar room of the house. 
 
 This is also the chapel, and three seated figures of gilt bronze,, 
 properly draped with katags, are ranged in recesses along the op- 
 posite wall. On either side of them the wall is pigeon-holed for 
 books. No photograph can even suggest the decoration of this 
 room. Color covers every single square inch of wall space or 
 pillar from end to end. Scarlet and emerald green, gold and 
 Reckitt's blue predominate to the exclusion of half-tones, harmo- 
 nizing, however, more than would be thought possible. Above 
 this room, which is lighted by a vertical opening in the roof, is- 
 
352 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 the floor on which the family lives, and it is curious to emerge 
 from the mud and untidiness of the ground level to the dainty 
 finish of this beautiful series of rooms. There were seventeen 
 living rooms, and of these ten were decorated in the same lavish 
 manner as below. Ornament was not confined to the walls ; lat- 
 ticed Screens of paper, silk, and even glass separated one part of 
 a room from the other, and all and everything were figured with 
 richly tinted specimens of local or Chinese draftsmanship. 
 Colonel Younghusband took up his abode in the central room 
 overlooking the courtyard. From immediately above his window 
 ran many ropes on which huge sun-blinds should have rested. 
 But these, with all the other furniture of the house, had been taken 
 away by the young representative of the Lha-lu family before 
 wife came to occupy the family mansion. This clearance was done 
 at our request, as we had, or could obtain, sufficient furniture for 
 our own needs, and we did not wish to run the risk of damaging 
 our host's property. 
 
 Alinost the only thing left in the house was a cheap pendulum 
 clock made by the Ansonia clock company. These very rare re- 
 currences of Western civilization never influenced the intensely 
 Oriental seclusion of Lhasa. One noticed them from time to time 
 with a shock— a shock of regret, it must be said — for if Lhasa be 
 not free from the cheapness of machine-made manufactures, what 
 place on earth can be ? One remarkable exception to this rule of 
 exclusion must be mentioned. Umbrellas with the touching guar- 
 antee " waterproof " pasted inside the peak are fairly common at 
 Lhasa, whither they must have come from India, where their use 
 is widely spread. But except for these occasional adoptions, the 
 race of men who dwell in Lhasa remains in thought and word 
 and deed unchanged and, perhaps, unchangeable from that which 
 listened to Tsong-kapa's passionate appeal for reform, or, before 
 his day, to the deep learning of Atisha, or, earlier still, to the 
 blasphemies of the apostate Lang-darma in the dawn of Tibetan 
 history. Lhasa never changes. 
 
< 
 
 in 
 < 
 
 X 
 
 (/5 
 
 X 
 
 H 
 
 a 
 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 Q 
 < 
 a 
 X 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 X 
 
 Q 
 
 z 
 
 o 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 353 
 
 The gardens of Lha-lu are, as I have said, almost a swamp. 
 On the only really dry portion of them two buildings have been 
 erected, one half summer-house, half temple, the other a glazed 
 greenhouse ; these are not of any great interest, though the former 
 is of considerable age, and underneath the dirt collected on the 
 frescoes the exquisite finish of the painting can still be distin- 
 guished. To make a circuit of these beautiful grounds one leaves 
 the summer-house and strikes across to the west, picking one's 
 way along the higher and drier " bunds " beneath the willow trees 
 and among swarms of dragon-flies, as fearless and as thick as 
 midges in England. Mr. White and I went for a photographic 
 excursion one morning, and he made some excellent plates. Few, 
 I think, will prove as beautiful as those of the water-meadows of 
 Lha-lu. You can roam about among them at the back of the 
 house for half a mile, and then you will strike a little wooded 
 track, for all the world like a hazel-canopied lane in Devonshire. 
 Kitchen gardens adjoin Lha-lu house to the east, and the little 
 hovels in which the gardeners live are pressed up against the walls 
 of the lane which divides the house from these grounds, but in 
 every other direction there is a water-sodden stretch of plain or 
 plantation across which artificial roads alone give one a dry-shod 
 passage. 
 
 Sera Monastery lies due north of the town and De-bung, not 
 three miles distant, lies west-north-west. There was an interest- 
 ing morning spent outside the latter place. The monks who had 
 undertaken to supply us with tsamba failed utterly to keep their 
 promise within the given time, and it became necessary to enforce 
 our demands. The little column therefore moved out of camp one 
 day with the guns and made ready to occupy the wide-stretching 
 waste of white monastery. After waiting for two or three hours, 
 however, the monks thought it wiser to comply, and, in the Gen- 
 eral's opinion, enough was given on the spot as earnest of a future 
 delivery to justify him in abandoning his intentions. On this oc- 
 casion I made first acquaintance with a temple to which I had pre- 
 
354 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 viously referred as, of all the buildings of Lhasa, second only in 
 interest to the Jo-kang. This is the exquisite temple and house 
 belonging to the Chief Magician of the country. Half a mile 
 short of De-bung, it lies almost concealed in the lower trees of a 
 deep ravine running up into the hills, the only part of it which is 
 visible from a distance being the golden roof. 
 
 Returning on the following day, Mr. Claude White and I made 
 a careful tour of inspection through all the buildings of the place, 
 being received by the monks with the utmost hospitality. In 
 many ways this temple stands on a plane of its own, and is not 
 entirely typical of other similar structures in the country, but it 
 was more interesting therefore to make such close acquaintance 
 with an institution unique in the world. Going among the white- 
 washed houses at the foot of the monastery, I took a photograph 
 which shows the essential difference which distinguishes this little 
 community from that of almost every other district in Tibet. It 
 might almost be part of an Italian town in those very Marches 
 of Ancona from which the Capuchin community of Lhasa was 
 drawn. In the early days of the eighteenth century, some fleeting 
 memory of far-distant Macerata may well have home-sickened 
 for a moment Costantino or Beligatti as the pair turned in from 
 the wide, flat Plain of Milk toward the wooded little temple of 
 the chief wizard. 
 
 The temple itself may be reached either from the left, or more 
 directly up the sharp flight of steps which faces the reader in the 
 picture here. To the main entrance, that to the left, the visitor 
 makes his way circuitously, passing beside a luxuriant little plan- 
 tation of deep grass, where rambling shrubs and trees grow so 
 thickly that they almost make a twilight round their stems. As I 
 was passing this on one occasion there was a sound from the hid- 
 den depths of the wood which was like nothing in the world so 
 much as the subterranean roar which heralds Fafnir's unwieldy 
 entrance. I suppose that really some of the younger monks were 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 355 
 
 being taught to blow a sixteen-foot trumpet, but the sound was 
 one which added the last note of mystery to the scene. Fifty 
 yards further, we arrive opposite the main entrance on the right. 
 I am not sure that this temple is not, the Cathedral always 
 apart, the most interesting thing in Tibet. It is small, entirely 
 complete in itself, finished ad unguem, daintily clean, and had evi- 
 dently received more money and attention than any other gompa 
 on our road. The well-wooded ascending track of the valley be- 
 side which it is built continues upward after it has debouched 
 into the courtyard, which here, as everywhere, divides the main 
 gateways of the temple from the usual row of cloistered frescoes 
 opposite. The scene herens of unusual beauty and interest; it is 
 very seldom in Tibet that the contrast of luxuriant foliage and 
 vivid temple color is obtained. There is a peculiar color har- 
 mony which distinguishes the Na-chung Chos-kyong. Green 
 there is in the background, green of more shades than a camera 
 can detect, and the deep, claret brown of the temple buildings is 
 handsomely accentuated above by golden roofs, and harmonizes 
 well below with the plain gray ocher of the courtyard stones, and 
 the interminable strings of gauzy fluttering prayer-flags of every 
 tint between the two. To his left are the vivid colors of an ap- 
 palling fresco of flayed human bodies, skulls full of blood, and in 
 general those gory heaps of human vitals which seem peculiarly 
 attractive to the pious Tibetan mind. On his right the flight of 
 steps will take him into the temple itself. He enters at the side 
 of the great cloistered courtyard and passes through a double- 
 pillared corridor ornamented with armor and weapons of strange 
 make, out and again into the sunlight of the quadrangle. In the 
 middle of the court, in front of him now, as he turns to the left, 
 are the main entrances of the temple behind the many-pillared ar- 
 cade ; they are screened by heavy yak-hair curtains through which 
 one can catch a glimpse of a gaudy wealth of color on wall and 
 pillar and ceiling, and of the five or six great doors, scarlet and 
 
356 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 cardinal and flesh color. In the middle of the courtyard, imme- 
 diately in front of him, is a little tree growing in a perforated 
 square-stone lattice, within which, all around its stem, is a proud 
 bank of English hollyhocks and a few vivid nasturtiums tumbling 
 carelessly through the lower interstices of the trellis. Beside it is 
 a pillar about eight feet high, with a tiny roof of gold atop. 
 Just over the edge of the temple entrance appears, high up against 
 the blue, the great golden roof, and standing guard by it many 
 gyan-tsen, gilded and fluttering with overlapping flounces of 
 silk, salmon and olive and rose-madder. 
 
 The presiding deity of this temple has long fled away with his 
 master, the Dalai Lama, but the services go on and the temple 
 is lovingly cared for in his absence. So far as one may make 
 a guess at the character of a man from his house, it is easy to see 
 that the Chief Magician of Lhasa is of an unusually refined and 
 dainty taste ; the care which is visible in every corner of this tem- 
 ple we had not found even suggested in any other building in the 
 country. It looked as though a housemaid had been round with 
 a duster an hour before our arrival. The abbot of the monastery 
 received us very courteously and was interested and amused by 
 Mr. White's large camera.^ While he was taking a series of 
 views in the pillared arcade outside the doors of the shrine, I sat 
 down and hastily recorded a suggestion of the coloring of this 
 arcade. I can claim with pride that the attractions of Mr. White 
 paled in a second beside the interest which a four or five deep ring 
 of monks took, not so much in my painting as in my paint-box. 
 Some one — he presumably was the artist of the community— was 
 hurriedly sent for, and when he came, must have severely taxed 
 
 ^It was an unfailing source of mystification to the Tibetans to be allowed 
 to look at the reversed picture in the ground glass under the black velvet. 
 The curious thing is that, so far as we could find out from their exclamations, 
 they did not often recognize the reversed picture as that of the scene in front 
 of the lens. It was for them merely a beautiful pattern of varying colors 
 seen in a singularly effective mariner. 
 
A STREET SCENE IN THE WIZARD COMMUNITY OF THE NA-CHUNG 
 
 CHOS-KYONG AT LHASA 
 The roofs of the houses are made of golden plates 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 357 
 
 his own ingenuity in his gesticulating and fluent account of such 
 mysteries as a block of Whatman's " hot pressed " and a type- 
 writer eraser. No one in Tibet ever draws anything in front of 
 him, so it was, perhaps, a lenient crowd of critics that watched my 
 rapid daubs of color as I sketched the temple. The colors were 
 blinding in their vividness and juxtaposition, and the whole of 
 this arcaded temple-front was painted from end to end in the 
 same gorgeous manner. Not a corner of the roof has escaped the 
 brush of the painter or the hand of the gilder ; the pillars, reported 
 more nobly tinted still, were wound round and round from top to 
 bottom with crimson cloth, so carefully sewn that we had not the 
 face to ask the monks to uncover one; nothing, however, could 
 have added much to the incredible play of gaudy hues. 
 
 Soon afterward the great doors, each bearing a monstrous rep- 
 resentation of a flayed human skin, were opened for us and we 
 went inside into the temple itself. This, too, was clean and as 
 bright in color as the portico, though the mellowed light which 
 filtered through awnings and screens from above took off some- 
 what from the painful edge of contrast and crudity. 
 
 The ornamentation throughout this temple was of its own 
 kind. It differed in many ways from that which is usually in 
 vogue in Tibet ; every doorway has a beading of human skulls or 
 decapitated heads cut roughly out of wood and painted minutely ; 
 long hangings of black satin, from the lower edge of which the 
 same heads, with long black tresses of silk, hang helplessly, frieze 
 the walls, and a curious and ghastly pot-pourri of skulls, entrails, 
 eyeballs, brains, torn-out tongues, and human beings suffering 
 every conceivable mutilation and torture which man has ever de- 
 vised, adorn the walls below. Underneath this again was a dado 
 of souls burning in hell-fire. But it says much for the ability of 
 man to adapt himself to his surroundings that, after a moment, 
 even these sights were not entirely disagreeable, and one could 
 soon see beneath these horrible representations the same spirit of 
 
358 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 devotion which moved the pen of a Dante or the brush of a four- 
 teenth-century Benedictine. 
 
 At the far end of the temple, opposite the doors, is the sanctu- 
 ary, a wide and deep inner chapel. Here a striking departure 
 from the customary arrangement is to be seen; in the central 
 and advanced position, elsewhere invariably occupied by the 
 largest image of Buddha that the foundation possesses, was the 
 empty seat of the Magician himself; on it were heaped his cere- 
 monial robes, his sword of office, and a small, circular shield 
 of exquisite workmanship, ornamented with a golden " Hum " 
 in the center. Into the top of the shield was inlet an irregular 
 lump which may have been merely colored glass, but which 
 looked extraordinarily like one of those guava- jelly-like lumps 
 of polished but uncut spinel ruby which are not infrequently 
 found among the treasures of Indian rajahs. Behind this silver- 
 gilt throne was an embossed silver proscenium, framing in the 
 dispossessed Buddha. To the right of it hung the state crown 
 of the Magician, which is a beautiful piece of work, charmingly 
 finished ivory skulls alternating with florets of silver heavily 
 powdered with imitation diamonds; round the circlet itself were 
 several large imitation sapphires, relieved here and there by 
 some really good turquoise lumps.* All round this chapel were 
 cupboards and recesses of which the orifice was in every case 
 entirely concealed by knotted katags. Pushing them aside, 
 one could discover dimly in the darkness beautifully finished 
 brass images, half life-size, either of some repulsive god-mon- 
 ster, or of some one of those groups which, go where you will 
 in Tibet, are accepted as necessary and inevitable symbols of a 
 worship which, in its essence, is purity itself. In one place or 
 another were lying about here the Oracle's gorget, mask, bow, 
 
 ^It was a little difficult to examine this crown, from the darkness of the 
 chapel; but this is, so far as I can remember it, a fair description of the 
 jewel. 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 359 
 
 and divining-glass, and though he had been gone for four weeks 
 or more, he might have stepped back that evening and found 
 his shrine ready and to the last detail arranged for service. 
 Mr. Claude White was lucky enough to persuade the monks to 
 sell to him the little circular shield I have described. They said 
 they could easily replace it, and I am inclined to think that they 
 made more than a trifle out of the transaction. 
 
 We descended the two or three steps of this dais, down on to 
 the chunam floor of the outer temple.* On either side of the 
 main aisle were twelve huge drums, and thick heavy cushions lay 
 out in an avenue toward the great doors. On the right, as one 
 came down the sanctuary steps, was a very large silver chorten 
 against the far wall, studded in profusion with lumps of raw 
 amber, as big as, and not much unlike, golden pippins. We 
 came out again into the sunshine of the court and the shade of 
 the portico. Our kindly hosts had provided us with tea and 
 boiled eggs and we sat down on piled-up cushions for luncheon. 
 It did not take us long to realize that it was as well that we 
 had brought some sandwiches with us, for we made the distress- 
 ing discovery, egg after egg, that Tibetan tastes in this matter 
 are a mean, but not a happy one, between those of Europe and 
 of China. An egg absolutely black with age is not unpleasant 
 to the taste, but these eggs which were only just beginning to 
 qualify for a Chinese menu were something terrible, and we 
 felt confused at having to seem unappreciative of the kindness 
 of our friendly wizards. 
 
 A crow had built its nest over the big blue board which sur- 
 mounts the main door and craked apprehensively from time to 
 time. The orange and blue swallows dipped and wheeled in 
 the sun outside, and the just-seen tree tops beyond the cloister 
 
 *This chunam floor is a fine banket of minute pebbles and cement which 
 receives a high polish, and though it is nowhere here brought to such per- 
 fection as at Agra or Delhi, it makes a very permanent and even handsome 
 flooring and is much used in Tibet. 
 
360 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 ^tooi helped to make snugger still the brilliant little home of 
 meditation and of magic. Immediately beyond the trees the 
 dull, unclad rock half inclosed this jewel of a temple, and the 
 faint rustle of the little stream was hushed. We finished our 
 meal and went down again into the courtyard between the two 
 painted lions which guard the five steps. That on the dexter 
 is blue, his sinister companion is green. Nothing seems to 
 have escaped the brush gf the painter here. A tour of in- 
 spection round the galleries of the cloisters revealed a little plate 
 armor — which is a somewhat remarkable thing — and a large 
 number of shao horns heavily whitewashed, in some cases tro- 
 phied with dorje-handled swords. Then we were invited to 
 look at the other rooms of the gompa, and we went up the usual 
 slippery ladders to an upper portico as beautifully painted as 
 every other part of the building, and so up again on to the top- 
 most story protected by the great golden roof. 
 
 This was the first golden Lhasan roof I had an opportunity 
 of studying carefully. It is always claimed that one at least 
 of the golden canopies of the Jo-kang is really made of plates 
 of gold — and after a close examination I am half inclined to 
 think that the central one is actually made throughout of the 
 precious metal, extraordinary though it seems — but in general 
 the gold is coated heavily upon sheets of copper, after the copper 
 has been embossed or cast, or repousseed, as the fancy of the 
 artist suggests. It is, I believe, laid on in an amalgam of mer- 
 cury, but of this I could not get any very certain information. 
 These golden roofs are unquestionably the most striking orna- 
 ments of Lhasa. One can see them for miles, for, in this light 
 clean air, no distance will dim the burning tongue of white flame 
 that stabs like a heliograph from the upper line of a far misty 
 outline of palace or temple, and there is no doubt that the last 
 and greatest impression of Lhasa, still vivid when nearly all else 
 has been forgotten with age, will be that of the first sight of 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 361 
 
 "the Golden Roofs of Potala." All that that romantic phrase 
 suggested beforehand was realized to the full, and just as to 
 the opium-sodden imagination of De Quincey the words " Con- 
 sul Romanus" summed up the grandeur of Rome, so perhaps 
 these five words will longest recall to those who saw them the 
 image of that ancient and mysterious faith which has found 
 its last and fullest expression beneath the golden canopies of 
 Lhasa. 
 
 Returning to the ground, we passed again through the court- 
 yard and out down the steps. Thence we turned up toward the 
 trees which, from the upper slope, overhang Na-chung Chos- 
 kyong. It was a pretty little spot, cool and sequestered, and 
 if we had not been specially invited to do so, we should never 
 have dreamed of going farther to where a few plain whitewashed 
 walls seemed to indicate one of the monks' dormitories. Some- 
 what uninterested, we allowed ourselves, however, to be taken 
 forward by a monk, and after avoiding the teeth of a particu- 
 larly large watchdog, we turned to the left into one of the pretti- 
 est and best-protected little gardens I have ever seen. I leave it 
 to botanists to explain how it is that we found here, 13,000 feet 
 above the sea, a tall, flourishing hedge of bamboos, twenty-five 
 feet high, shielding from the only exposed quarter the little 
 garden and the little house of the Magician himself. Even from 
 the little green shaded garden we could see clearly enough that 
 this was no ordinary residence; a tiny stream of running water 
 passed underneath the plain sloping walls of the wizard's abode, 
 separating from its clean and well sun-blinded architecture the 
 mallows and nasturtiums, the trailing roses and the potted stocks 
 which might almost have been collected into that little space 
 together to give the same twinge of memory to an English visi- 
 tor that the whitened houses three hundred yards away must 
 have conveyed to men of Italy. A large maple tree overhangs 
 the entrance to the house. 
 
362 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 The interior of this little residence is of a dainty perfection 
 that you could hardly match in Japan, and instinctively one felt 
 that one should take off one's boots before treading on these ex- 
 quisite inlaid wooden floors. Every part of the surface of the 
 walls is covered with minute miniature-like frescoes ; the private 
 chapel, though stripped of every ornament, remained a gem, and 
 in the wizard's own private room the perforated screens of gilt 
 and painted wood were marvels of intricate and delicate design. 
 We remained here no long time, and soon after made our way 
 back to Lhasa, well pleased indeed with our day's entertainment. 
 
 I do not know whether I have been successful in conveying, 
 in even one particular, the aspect of Lhasa in its plain. Perhaps 
 it is impossible to do more than to set out a string of descriptive 
 facts with all the fullness that is possible, and then let the reader 
 reconstruct, with photographs and his imagination, what after 
 all is more essential than anything else, the atmosphere which 
 enshrouds the least interesting thing upon the Plain of Milk. 
 
 Every traveler will know at once what I mean when I say 
 that the character of the country is as distinct and peculiar to 
 itself as is that of every other Eastern land, and that the very 
 smell of incense and burning butter, f rowziness and never-washed 
 humanity, which is inseparable from the smallest object inside 
 a Tibetan temple, is as different from the clean perfume of Japan, 
 or from the heavy, almost visibly dirty air and stinks of a Chi- 
 nese temple, as both of these differ from the tawdry gorgeousness 
 and cold make-believe of an Indian shrine. There is only one 
 place that I know in the world which at all recalls the scent 
 of Tibet, and that is the inner chambers of the underground 
 temple in the fort of Allahabad, places which ladies are rarely 
 invited to inspect. Here the undecaying Akshai Bar, sacred to 
 Buddha under the name of Breguman, is probably the only 
 center of Buddhist worship where there has been no break in 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 363 
 
 the continuity of worship from the days of Huien Tsang, the 
 Chinese traveler of the seventh century, to our own. I do not 
 suppose that in this original identity of creed there is anything 
 more than a coincidence— certainly the Hindus have no intention 
 of honoring Gautama here— but in the dark underground cham- 
 ber of this temple there is the taste of a gompa. There, and 
 there alone, so far as I know, is that greasy warm stench of 
 mingled sweetness and putridity which one comes very soon to 
 associate with the very sound of the letters which spell Tibet. 
 
 The Sen-de-gye-sum or Three Great Monasteries lie round 
 Lhasa, north, west, and east. De-bung lies two and a half to 
 three miles west-north-west; Sera is two miles due north, and 
 Gaden is about twenty-two miles east as the crow flies, but is 
 nearly thirty by road. There is a strong similarity between these 
 three foundations; they are in every case built in closely con- 
 nected tiers of white houses, rising one above another at the foot 
 of a mountain spur. From a distance they look clean, prosper- 
 ous, and not unpicturesque ; one ribald member of the Mission 
 suggested that they looked like glorified Riviera hotels. The 
 simile is not altogether unfair, though even the wildest dreams 
 of M. Ritz can hardly include a caravansary for eight thousand 
 guests. All three were founded by Tsong-kapa, who is re- 
 ported, on almost worthless evidence, to have been born in 1357 
 and to have died in 14 19. It seems clear, however, that these 
 foundations date from the extreme end of the fourteenth century 
 to the end of the first quarter of the fifteenth. The central gompa 
 may in each case still be, or at least include, the original work 
 of Tsong-kapa, but the endless series of whitewashed tenements 
 built of mud which surround them in closely packed crowds 
 must often have been replaced since his day. Few indeed are 
 made of granite. De-bung is the senior monastery of the three 
 in point of importance ; its name means the " rice heap," and it 
 is spelled in the Tibetan language " abras-spungs." Here nearly 
 
364 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 8,000 monks occupy themselves daily in saying their offices, 
 basking in the sun, and intriguing in political affairs. Dor- 
 jieff, it will be remembered, was one of this body, and it was 
 commonly reported to us in Lhasa that the influence of De-bung 
 had for a long time been paramount in the Tsong-du. Luckily, 
 perhaps, for others, the hostility between Sera and De-bung 
 is very marked, and it is even asserted by some that the name 
 Sera, which lies just out of sight of De-bung, round a pro- 
 jecting spur of the northern hills, was chosen in order to sym- 
 bolize the harm which " ser " hail does to rice heaps. But it 
 seems likely that the original name was derived from " ser " 
 gold. Sera ^ is the community in closest religious connection 
 with the Dalai Lama, and it must be remembered that anything 
 which belongs to his Holiness is never mentioned without the 
 prefix " ser." If it were necessary to set on record the fact, 
 the chronicler of great Potala would have to describe an opera- 
 tion uncommon in Tibet, as the blowing of his Holiness' golden 
 nose with his golden handkerchief, or more probably, if strict 
 truth had to be maintained, with his golden fingers. Everything 
 about him is golden in the eye of the Tibetan, his clothes, his 
 food, his chair, his decrees, his prayers, all are golden, and it 
 is more than likely that the derivation from hail was a happy 
 thought of some quick-witted monk who wished to crystallize 
 into a phrase the permanent hostility that exists between these 
 two monasteries. 
 
 The distinguishing characteristic of this monastery of De- 
 bung lies in its supernatural and oracular attainments. Sera, 
 on the other hand, is chiefly famous for its relics, and Gaden, 
 which is far removed from the immediate strife and intrigues 
 of Lhasa, retains its reputation for mere piety. At Sera is kept 
 the original dorje of Buddha. I do not know that any European 
 visitor, even Desideri, has ever been permitted to see the imple- 
 * The traditional date of Sera is 1417. 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 365 
 
 ment, but there is no doubt that its possession, or perhaps its re- 
 puted possession, is a source of great superstitious strength to 
 this community. Here there are 5,500 monks, and its nearness 
 and visibility to Lhasa is no doubt a source of considerable 
 strength. The internal jurisdiction of all these monasteries is 
 not unlike that enjoyed by an Oxford college, though more 
 serious offenses have to be submitted to the council of state. 
 " The idols here," reports Nain Singh, " differ in size and hide- 
 ousness, but the lower parts of the figures are generally those 
 of men." The Abbe Hue allows himself some liberty of descrip- 
 tion; he records the presence of hollies and cypresses and notes 
 that the monastery buildings stand out upon the green base 
 of the hill. It is necessary to record the fact that Sera is less 
 wooded than any other part of the Lhasa plain, as it stands 
 back against a rocky mountain clif¥ bare of all vegetation until 
 a small shelf, 800 feet above the monastery, affords root hold 
 for a plantation of hardy poplars only. Beside it, on the plain, 
 are a few more trees of the same species, but the golden roof 
 of Sera must still be counted its chief external attraction. The 
 General pitched the camp of the escort about a mile away from 
 this monastery, and the continual friendliness shown by the good 
 monks of Sera may be attributable partly to this fact, but even 
 more perhaps to the delight with which they saw their hated 
 sister of De-bung compelled to disgorge many hundreds of 
 thousands of pounds of flour and grain. 
 
 Gaden is chiefly famous because it contains the tomb of Tsong- 
 kapa himself. The following account of the monastery is taken 
 from the Survey Reports of the Government of India by Sand- 
 berg: 
 
 "It (the tomb of Tsong-kapa) is a lofty mausoleum-like 
 structure of marble and malachite with a gilded roof ; inside this 
 outer shell is to be seen a beautiful chorten shrine of cube, pyra- 
 
366 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 mid, and surmounting cone, all said to be of solid gold. Within 
 this golden casket, wrapped in fine cloths, inscribed in sacred 
 Dharani syllables, are the embalmed remains of the great re- 
 former, disposed in a sitting attitude. Another notable object 
 here is a magnificent representation of Champo, the Buddha to 
 come, seated European fashion on a throne. Beside him stands 
 a life-size image of Tsong-kapa in his character of Jan-pal 
 Nin-po, which is supposed to be his name in the Gaden heavens. 
 A rock-hewn wall with impress of hands and feet is also shown 
 as Tsong-kapa's. A very old statue of Shinje, the lord of death, 
 is much reverenced here, every visitor presenting gifts and doing 
 it infinite obeisance. The floor of the large central chamber 
 appears to be covered with brilliant enameled tiles, whilst another 
 shrine holds an effigy of Tsong-kapa with images of his five 
 disciples standing round him. The library contains manuscript 
 copies of the saint's work in his own handwriting." 
 
 The last regent of Tibet was Abbot of Gaden, a fact which 
 did not save him from, and perhaps even accelerated, his assas- 
 sination. 
 
 While we were making these investigations and using every 
 moment of our time in the forbidden precincts, negotiations 
 were faring but ill. The Tibetans were trying their usual tac- 
 tics; they were only anxious to delay negotiations on every pos- 
 sible excuse. It must be remembered that ever since the present 
 Dalai Lama ousted, imprisoned and ultimately put to death 
 the regent in whose hands the entire political control of Tibetan 
 affairs had rested. His Holiness has ruled his ministers with 
 a rod of iron. The state, in a sense far more exact than that in 
 which Louis XIV used the phrase, was himself, and we found 
 a terrified unwillingness on the part of any other official, however 
 high his rank, to accept the responsibility of making any ar- 
 rangement whatever. It may be suggested that the Tsong-du 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 367 
 
 remained, and that it, as the power behind the throne, was quali- 
 fied to carry on negotiations; but it must be remembered that 
 the Tsong-du is essentially a deliberative, not an executive body ; 
 it is as impossible to make a treaty with the Tsong-du as to make 
 one with the House of Commons, and this disability was one 
 which was readily perceived and turned to use by the Tibetans 
 themselves. Secure by their anomalous composition and acepha- 
 lous nature, the Tsong-du, which now sat in continual session 
 from morning to night, only rendered the action of the remain- 
 ing dignitaries of Lhasa the more difficult. The Dalai Lama, 
 whose presence in Lhasa would have simplified matters for us 
 exceedingly, had gone away, ostensibly on a pilgrimage con- 
 nected with the religious meditation in which he had now been 
 immersed since the first mention of the approach of an English 
 Mission. It is true that, as we have seen, his seclusion was 
 one which His Holiness was ready to suspend at any moment 
 at which he thought that he could deliver an effective stroke in 
 the political arena, but in the eyes of Tibetans it perhaps justi- 
 fied his flight from his capital— an act of prudence which 
 strangely resembled Mr. Kruger's in 1900. It may be that, as 
 in this other case of a people bigotedly superstitious, sensitive 
 to foreign intrusion in any form, and in their origin formed by 
 a distinctly religious exodus, the head of the state may have felt 
 that his absence, by interposing even a few months' delay, al- 
 lowed time for the operations of Providence. More probably 
 the flight of the Dalai Lama was also commended to him by 
 the fact that in the future he would be able, at his leisure, to deal 
 with the situation which had been created in his absence. That 
 the Chinese would ever actively interfere must have been the 
 last thing he expected, and knowing the climate of his country 
 well, he must have realized a cogent reason for our early with- 
 drawal. 
 
 Perhaps he builded better than he knew, but the coping-stone 
 
368 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 has still to be set upon his policy; we do not even now, in Janu- 
 ary, 1905, know the real results in Lhasa itself of the expedition, 
 and, though the matter will be touched upon in greater detail 
 hereafter, it may be said that upon the action of this unknown 
 factor in Central Asian politics the future almost entirely de- 
 pends. When he fled from Lhasa he left the great seal in the 
 charge of the Tipa (or Ti) Rimpoche, but, as the latter plain- 
 tively remarked, he had been given no specific authority to use it. 
 Immediately before our arrival in Lhasa we made the impor- 
 tant discovery that the 1890-93 Convention, which was de- 
 nounced by the Dalai Lama as having been made without the 
 co-operation or consent of Tibet, had, as a matter of fact, been 
 duly discussed and formally approved by the Tsong-du in special 
 session, and this information did not suggest any considerable 
 trustworthiness in any promises the Tibetans might now make. 
 I remember writing to the Times a letter dealing with the po- 
 litical situation in which optimism struggled with a recognition 
 of the obvious disadvantages under which the Commissioner la- 
 bored; on the following day, the 12th of August, the disheart- 
 ening news arrived that the Tsong-du had actually drafted a 
 letter in answer to our demands of an impertinent and almost 
 defiant nature. The communication was not sent directly to us. 
 The Amban, to whom it had been intrusted, consulted Mr. 
 Wilton privately before officially sending it on. Mr. Wilton's 
 advice was that, unless the Tibetans were looking out for serious 
 trouble, the letter had better be withdrawn at once. This was 
 done, but it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the 
 Amban himself would have been perfectly willing to deliver 
 the letter unless some such vigorous protest had been made. 
 It was, in fact, a ballon d'essai to which he should not have 
 lent the sanction of his position. How far throughout the nego- 
 tiations Yu-tai was playing a double game no one at present 
 knows, but this first suggestion of his double dealing was after- 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 369 
 
 ward unfairly remembered in London when the news that he had 
 ultimately refused to sign the treaty was telegraphed home. 
 He had no authority to sign without the consent of the Wai- 
 wu-pu. To us he presented a never-failing front of sympathy 
 and apparent good-feeling, he never made a speech or wrote a 
 letter without referring to the pig-headed stupidity of the people 
 intrusted to his care, he was enthusiastic in his praise of Colonel 
 Younghusband's moderation in all respects, and to judge from 
 his words one might have thought that by our advance a minia- 
 ture millennium had been inaugurated for the down-trodden 
 people of Tibet. That there was some ground for these state- 
 ments is suggested by the complaint of the Dalai Lama himself 
 that by honest and even excessive payment throughout our march 
 we had seduced the affections of his people. 
 
 There can be no doubt of our popularity with the laity. The 
 market outside the town, which was formed in spite of the pub- 
 licly expressed disapproval of the Council, was from the first 
 crowded by hundreds of eager sellers, and it could have been small 
 satisfaction to the monks looking out from the high walls of Po- 
 tala to see the densely crowded acre of chaffering peddlers and 
 careless or generous purchasers which daily took up a position on 
 some convenient dry patch just outside the camp limits. In this 
 market articles of food naturally predominated; meat and flour 
 were supplied from the De-bung store cellars, so that condiments 
 and other luxuries formed the staple commodities. It was an odd 
 scene. By eight o'clock in the morning a roaring trade was being 
 done in curry powder, turnips, walnuts— they would have been 
 dear in Piccadilly— sugar in yellow and white balls, cigarettes— 
 of the ubiquitous Pedro brand— apples, small russets with a tart 
 flavor, sealing-wax— one of the best products of Lhasa, good 
 transparent brown stuff, of which I secured a large store, chu- 
 pattis, acid green peaches, native candles— looking like short, 
 squat fireworks, and molded upon a piece of bamboo— lengths of 
 
370 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 cloth done up in soundly sewn wrappings, cabbages, red pots full 
 of curds, Tibetan shoes, celery, and condensed milk in tins, car- 
 rots, onions, eggs in thousands, and milk in big unglazed red 
 ware. It was pleasant to watch the big Sikhs and Pathans cheer- 
 ily haggling for some coveted sugar plum, sitting down on their 
 heels for half-an-hour to cheapen it an anna, and then, after they 
 had made their bargain, looking in a bewildered way at the little 
 irregularly shaped scraps of silver which a voluble young Tibe- 
 taness had given them in change. For in Lhasa a " tanka " has 
 a hole gouged in the middle, has its corners filed off, and is then 
 cut across the middle without ceasing to be legal tender. 
 
 The official rate of exchange was three tankas to a rupee, but 
 this, though inevitable for reasons of convenience, represented an 
 enormous profit to the Tibetans, for the intrinsic value of a tanka 
 is about four and a fifth pennies. The first principles of the the- 
 ory of exchange were grasped at once by the inhabitants, who 
 would go up and down the bazaar holding out tankas in threes 
 and badgering every one they met for a Queen's headed rupee ^ 
 in exchange, with the pertinacity and importunity of a stall 
 holder at a fashionable bazaar. By noon the bazaar dwindled 
 away, and after tiffin there was really no one left on the ground. 
 
 To return to the political situation. The assistance and the 
 power of Russia were no longer believed in, and, on the other 
 hand, the capability of the Indian Government to reach Lhasa 
 whenever they might wish to do so had been demonstrated beyond 
 dispute. Other things had no less weight in our favor; the re- 
 sistance of the Tibetans had been blown away before us like leaves 
 in autumn, and there was not a man in the country who did not 
 realize that our care of their wounded afterward was as thorough 
 as the punishment we inflicted at the moment. Trade and credit 
 
 *The new rupee with the King's head was looked upon at first with sus- 
 picion. The old one is called the "Lama" rupee, from a belief that the 
 Queen's veiled head represents a famous teacher. 
 
THE ENVIRONS OF LHASA 371 
 
 are proverbially plants of slow growth, and slower in the East 
 than anywhere else. We may not see much result for years, but 
 the leaven of respect for our strength and confidence in our hon- 
 esty may safely be allowed in Tibet to work upward from the bot- 
 tom to the top. 
 
 In purely political matters, one name separates itself from that 
 of the common crowd, and it was a name we had not heard before 
 we reached the capital. There is in Lhasa a young monk who 
 apparently to some extent organizes the action of the Tsong-du. 
 The " Loseling Kempo " is a man upon whom the eye of the In- 
 dian Government may well be kept. He is strong enough not to 
 desire outward recognition of his strength, and working, as he 
 does, through the Tsong-du, the double intangibility enjoyed by 
 string-pullers and corporations alike makes it ten times more diffi- 
 cult for us to lay our fingers upon this ultimate arbiter whose in- 
 fluence seems likely at no distant date to exceed that of the Dalai 
 Lama himself. That he is actively opposed to us I do not exactly 
 know; he probably represents the sullen and bitter resentment 
 against our intrusion which naturally enough is felt by the official 
 priestly caste, but when the Tibetans have had time quietly to re- 
 view the whole situation it may be found, even by the Lamaic 
 hierarchy itself, that we have been no enemies to their indepen- 
 dence and self-respect, and at that moment, if the good offices of 
 the Loseling Kempo can be unostentatiously secured, our future 
 relations with this hermit kingdom may be facilitated in a manner 
 that ten treaties might fail to achieve. 
 
 Meanwhile, in spite of the successful signing of the treaty and 
 in spite of his exile and formal deposition by the Chinese, the 
 dominating factor in the situation is beyond question the Illus- 
 trious and Most Holy Dalai Lama, Ngak-wang-lo-zang-tub-dan- 
 gya-tso. Defender and Protector of the Buddhist faith. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 
 
 FOR many days the Mission waited for the Tibetans to ar- 
 range their internal affairs and come to the work of nego- 
 tiation. The first camp near Norbu-ling was abandoned by the 
 expeditionary force, and the Mission, with a guard of one bat- 
 talion of Pathans, moved across the swampy plain to Lha-lu, 
 which, as we have seen, had been put at the disposal of Colonel 
 Younghusband by the four Councilors. Formal visits were again 
 and again paid within the precincts of Lhasa ; the country round 
 was visited and surveyed with care, one party going as far as the 
 plain beyond the Pembu la to the north-east. They reported the 
 existence of a plain even more luxuriant in vegetation than that of 
 Lhasa, but it was admitted by the Tibetans that this was nearly 
 the last of their really fertile tracts of land in a northerly direc- 
 tion. General Macdonald moved the remainder of the force to a 
 comparatively dry patch on the plain about a mile nor'-nor'-east 
 of the Potala, and except for the commissariat officers, whose 
 work on an expedition is never done, there was a quiet time for 
 the men composing the Commissioner's escort. For many of the 
 officers, too, there was not very much to do during the day ; fish- 
 ing was the favorite occupation, and an unexpected number of 
 hooks and lines was discovered in the force. Fly-fishing was 
 soon abandoned for minnows and spoons. Some of the natives 
 obtained excellent sport with tsamba paste. Major Iggulden was 
 beyond question the most successful angler of the expedition, and 
 from time to time he reported catches of over 60 and 70 as the 
 
 372 
 
< 
 < 
 
 O 
 
 u 
 K 
 H 
 
 b 
 O 
 
 lUl 
 
 o 
 
 be 
 
 c 
 
 3 
 J2 
 
 O 
 
 •a 
 '2 
 
 M 
 
 bo 
 c 
 
 ■& 
 
 c 
 
 c 
 
 a 
 >> 
 
 6 
 o 
 
 •o 
 
 E 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 373 
 
 result of a short afternoon's sport. A race meeting was organ- 
 ized, and the entries comprised almost every beast of private (and 
 a large number of those of public) ownership in the lines. The 
 view of Lhasa from Lha-lu house is merely that of Chagpo-ri 
 and the back view of the Potala, as the high sand embankments of 
 the Kaling chu * effectually prevent any sight of the city itself 
 from the level of the plain. This is a curious thing, and enters 
 considerably into one's conception of the place. The two hills 
 to the west entirely shut off a view of the town as one comes in 
 from De-bung, and looking from Sera on the north, these high, 
 white sand-banks diverging across the plain still conceal the 
 greenery and gold of the city. Only the Potala stands up majestic 
 and defiant. 
 
 Ma Shao yiin, in his Tibetan itinerary, refers with admiration 
 to the " gorgeous green and dazzling yellow colors which at Po- 
 tala fascinate the eye." Ta Ching-i-tung chih— who asserts that 
 the height above ground of the golden finials is 436 feet 10 inches 
 — describes it with greater fidelity to nature as a " wondrous peak 
 of green with its halls perched on the summit, resplendent with 
 vermilion and combining natural beauty with architectural 
 charm." It is a pity that this magnificent building should have 
 proved to be so disappointing inside. We discovered that the 
 outside of the Potala and the inside of the Jo-kang are by far the 
 most interesting things in Lhasa. But it is curious, also, that 
 while the interior of the Potala is indistinguishable from the in- 
 teriors of a score of other large Tibetan lamaseries, the Jo-kang 
 has actually no outside at all. To this latter building I shall re- 
 turn later. There are passages and halls by miles and scores. 
 Here and there in a chapel burns a grimy butter lamp before a 
 tarnished and dirty image. Here and there the passage widens as 
 
 ' From a note in the Wei Tsang t'u chih by Ma Shao yiin I am inclined to 
 think that these embankments bury the granite blocks which before the days 
 of Karpi formed the city walls of Lhasa. 
 
374 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 a flight of stairs breaks the monotony of grimy walls. The sleep- 
 ing cells of the monks are cold, bare, and dirty. The actual room 
 in which the Treaty was signed was of fair size— six hundred 
 were easily accommodated in it— and hangings and screens made 
 a brave show for the moment, but for the rest, the Potala is a 
 never-ending labyrinth of corridors and courts and walls as un- 
 kempt as those of the Palkhor choide, Jang-kor-yang-tse, or Ta- 
 ka-re. Some of the audience halls are magnificent and well 
 painted, but there is nothing, with one exception, which calls for 
 any particular note from one end of the huge building to the other, 
 so far, at least, as any member of the expedition discovered. For 
 the credit of the Dalai Lama it is to be hoped that the chief orna- 
 ments had been removed or buried. Mr. Claude White and Mr. 
 Wilton, who made the examination of the palace their special 
 care, investigated a very large number of the rooms of the Potala, 
 but eventually retreated in disappointment from a task which 
 seemed to possess neither interest nor end. The gilded tombs of 
 a few previous incarnations form the exception to which I have 
 referred, but even these seemed inadequate and out of proportion 
 to the gigantic casket in which they lie. It must be confessed, 
 though the words are written with considerable reluctance, that 
 cheap and tawdry are the only possible adjectives which can be 
 applied to the interior decoration of this great palace temple. 
 Part of it is fine in design, most of it commonplace, all of it dirty. 
 Madame de Chatelain would have smiled to see the disappoint- 
 ment of the Mission, for — though there are no lovely women in 
 Lhasa who play the fiddle, and one doubts whether much en- 
 chantment would follow if they did — the effect produced by the 
 first sight of this imposing palace, splendid as the figment of the 
 wildest dream, was as overwhelming and attractive as that which 
 Gilbert saw, and our disillusionment was afterward as great as 
 his. 
 
 The first palace on this spot was built by Srong-tsan-gambo, 
 
r. 
 
 < 
 
 O 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 375 
 
 but destroyed by the Chinese after a brief existence in 670. It 
 was known as Yumbu Lagang. Different buildings were subse- 
 quently erected without regard to any consistent scheme. I con- 
 fess that I find it difficult to reconcile the present pile with the de- 
 scription or sketch by Grueber. This traveler was in Lhasa in 
 1 66 1, nineteen years after the reputed completion of the present 
 building, but his picture of it is utterly unlike the reality. There 
 must have been enormous additions in the eighteenth century, and 
 even later, for Manning's note as to the lack of balance and plan 
 in its architecture is surely unjust. 
 
 The zigzag stairs, protected by echelon balustrades, lead down- 
 ward into the great square court at the foot of the Marpo-ri, 
 guarded by seven square bastion-like guard-houses, used as pris- 
 ons. The rest of the court is used for the accommodation of a 
 few soldiers and a great many beasts of burden; outside it is a 
 squalid little hamlet. 
 
 Of the Dalai Lama himself of course we saw nothing. The 
 following description of a reception by the Grand Lama within 
 the Potala palace is taken from the pages of Chandra Das' jour- 
 nal, but it is, I think, only right to point out that in the opinion 
 of many well qualified to judge, to some extent, at least, the 
 writer may have been dependent upon the information of others. 
 
 " Arriving at the eastern gateway of Potala, we dismounted 
 and walked through a long hall, on either side of which were rows 
 of prayer wheels, which every passer-by put in motion. Then, 
 ascending three long flights of stone steps, we left our ponies in 
 care of a bystander— for no one may ride further— and proceeded 
 toward the palace under the guidance of a young monk. We had 
 to climb up five ladders before we reached the ground floor of 
 Phodang-marpo, or ' the Red palace,' thus called from the ex- 
 terior walls being of a dark-red color. Then we had half-a-dozen 
 more ladders to climb up, and we found ourselves at the top of . 
 
376 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Potala (there are nine stories to this building), where we saw a 
 number of monks awaiting an audience. The view from here was 
 beautiful beyond compare; the broad valley of the Kyi chu, in the 
 center of which stands the great city surrounded by green groves ; 
 the gilt spires of the Jo-kang and the other temples of Lhasa, and 
 farther away the great monasteries of Sera and. De-bung,* behind 
 which rose the dark-blue mountains. 
 
 " After a while three lamas appeared, and said that the Dalai 
 Lama would presently conduct a memorial service for the bene- 
 fit of the late Meru Ta Lama (Great Lama of Meru gomba), 
 and that we were allowed to be present at it. Walking very 
 softly, we came to the middle of the reception hall, the roof of 
 which is supported by three rows of pillars, four in each row, 
 and where light is admitted by a skylight. The furniture was 
 that generally seen in lamaseries, but the hangings were of the 
 richest brocades and cloths of gold; the church utensils were 
 of gold, and the frescoing on the walls of exquisite fineness. 
 Behind the throne were beautiful tapestries and satin hangings 
 forming a great gyal-tsan, or canopy. The floor was beautifully 
 smooth and glossy, but the doors and windows, which were 
 painted red, were of the rough description common throughout 
 the country. 
 
 " A Donyer approached, who took our presentation khatag, 
 but I held back, at the suggestion of Chola Kusho, the present 
 I had for the Grand Lama ; and when I approached him I placed 
 in his lap, much to the surprise of all present, a piece of gold 
 weighing a tola. We then took our seats on rugs, of which 
 there were eight rows ; ours were in the third, and about ten feet 
 from the Grand Lama's throne, and a little to his left. 
 
 " The Grand Lama is a child of eight, with a bright and fair 
 complexion and rosy cheeks. His eyes are large and penetrat- 
 ing, the shape of his face remarkably Aryan, though somewhat 
 *As a matter of fact. De-bung cannot be seen from the Potala. 
 
THE POTALA, THE HOME OF THE GRAND LAMA 
 
 One of the wonders of the world 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL lyy 
 
 marred by the obliquity of his eyes. The thinness of his person 
 was probably due to the fatigue of the Court ceremonies and to 
 the religious duties and ascetic observances of his estate. A yel- 
 low mantle draped his person, and he sat cross-legged with joined 
 palms. The throne on which he sat was supported by carved lions, 
 and covered with silk scarfs. It was about four feet high, six 
 feet long, and four feet broad. The State officers moved about 
 with becoming gravity; there was the Kuchar Khanpo, with a 
 bowl of holy water, colored yellow with saffron ; the Censer-car- 
 rier, with a golden censer with three chains; the Solpon chenpo, 
 with a golden tea-pot; and other household officials. Two gold 
 lamps, made in the shape of flower vases, burned on either side 
 of the throne. 
 
 " When all had been blessed and taken seats, the Solpon chenpo 
 poured tea in his Holiness's golden cup, and four assistants 
 served the people present. Then grace was said, beginning with 
 Om, Ah, Hum, thrice repeated, and followed by, * Never losing 
 sight even for a moment of the Three Holies, making reverence 
 even to the Three Precious Ones. Let the blessing of the Three 
 Konchog be upon us,' etc. Then we silently raised our cups and 
 drank the tea, which was most deliciously perfumed. In this 
 manner we drank three cupfuls, and then put our bowls back 
 in the bosoms of our gowns. 
 
 " After this the Solpon chenpo put a golden dish full of rice 
 before the Dalai Lama, and he touched it, and then it was divided 
 among those present; then grace was again said, and his Holi- 
 ness, in a low, indistinct tone, chanted a hymn, which was re- 
 peated by the assembled lamas in deep grave tones. When this 
 was over, a venerable man rose from the first row of seats and 
 made a short address, reciting the many acts of mercy the Dalai 
 Lamas had vouchsafed Tibet, at the conclusion of which he 
 presented to his Holiness a number of valuable things; then he 
 made three prostrations and withdrew, followed by all of us. 
 
378 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 " As I was leaving, one of the Donyer chenpo's (or chamber- 
 lain) assistants gave me two packets of blessed pills, and another 
 tied a scrap of red silk round my neck — these are the usual re- 
 turn presents the Grand Lama makes to pilgrims." 
 
 This is probably the best extant description • of a reception 
 at the Potala, and for that reason I have inserted it. It will 
 probably be many years before a white man has the chance of 
 verifying even an incident described in it. Hue, the last Euro- 
 pean before ourselves to see it, gives an extraordinary descrip- 
 tion of the palace. It is so strangely beside the truth that one 
 is obliged to wonder what pains he took to verify other state- 
 ments he made in his book of travels. Here it is : 
 
 " Le palais du Tale Lama merite a tous egards la celebrite dont 
 il jouit dans le monde entier. Vers la partie septentrionale de la 
 ville et tout au plus a un quart d'heure de distance, il existe une 
 montagne rocheuse, peu elevee, et de forme conique. Elle 
 s'eleve au milieu de cette large vallee, comme un ilot isole au- 
 dessus d'un immense lac. 
 
 " Cette montagne porte le nom de Bouddha-La, c'est-a-dire 
 montagne de Bouddha, montagne divine; c'est sur ce socle gran- 
 diose, prepare par la nature, que les adorateurs du Tale Lama ont 
 edifie un palais magnifique ou reside en chair et en os leur divi- 
 nite vivante. 
 
 " Ce palais est un reunion de plusieurs temples, de grandeur et 
 de beaute differentes; celui qui occupe le centre est eleve de 
 quatre etages, et domine tous les autres; il est termine par un 
 dome entierement reconvert de lames d'or, et entoure d'un grand 
 peristyle dont les colonnes sont egalement dorees." 
 
 Such a description as this is puzzling. Nothing is more char- 
 acteristic and striking at the Potala than the long, almost un- 
 
> 
 Pi 
 
 ►J 
 -«: 
 
 13 
 
 H 
 U 
 
 H 
 
 a 
 u 
 
 OS 
 
 <: 
 z 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 X 
 J 
 
 H 
 
 -J 
 
 <; 
 
 O 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 379 
 
 broken front of granite wall, reaching almost from one end to 
 the other of the hill-crest, supporting a homogeneous and closely 
 welded series of buildings. The truth is that very little used to 
 be accurately noted by Asian travelers before the middle of the 
 last century. It is not unlikely that the possibility of having 
 the lie direct given to a verbal description by a later visitor's 
 camera may have helped to bring this about. 
 
 Of the other great features of Lhasa, the Jo-kang and the 
 Do-ring remain pre-eminent. The latter, as was said at the be- 
 ginning of this book, is the oldest existing document in Tibetan 
 history; it records a treaty made in 783 between King Ral-pa- 
 chan of Tibet and his neighbor, and late enemy, the Chinese 
 Emperor. It is a well quarried slab of granite, about six inches 
 in thickness and eight feet in height, set in a granite frame. 
 It immediately fronts the entrance to the Cathedral, from which 
 it is distant only thirty paces across the yard. Immediately over 
 it is the great willow tree which springs from a hair of Buddha 
 buried among its roots— a splendid tree, and one which, perhaps, 
 has been able to grow to greater perfection from the protection 
 of the wall built round its diverging trunk. This inclosure fills 
 the western side of the little courtyard opposite the west door of 
 the Cathedral. Between it and the projecting wings of the 
 Government offices, which here, as elsewhere, crowd all round 
 upon the walls of the Jo-kang, there is a space on either side, 
 and the Do-ring stands in the direct line between them. The 
 design of the pediment surmounting the stone is strong and 
 undoubtedly of the original date of the monument. It represents 
 two dragons, simply designed in somewhat deep relief, of which 
 the edges have been severely treated by the weather of many 
 centuries. Whether the stone itself is or is not the original 
 granite slab is a matter somewhat more difficult to decide. At. 
 first I was convinced that it must have been renewed once at 
 least. This appeared to me to be probable for more than one 
 
38o THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 reason; the first was the clean-cut surface of the stone where 
 the quarry-man had originally " flatted " it for the inscription, 
 combined with the recent appearance of the lettering, so far as 
 it can now be seen; and, secondly, the rapidity with which the 
 Tibetans have ground into it the cup-marks with which the 
 whole Chinese or eastern face of the stone is now disfigured. 
 Some twenty years ago the writing was, we are assured by Chan- 
 dra Das, still distinctly legible; the merest glance at it shows 
 how far this is from being the case to-day. If all this damage 
 has been done in so short a time, it seems impossible this can be 
 the original stone, for the process of cup-marking is one of the 
 oldest in the world, and at this rate would long ago have de- 
 stroyed the surface of the slab over and over again. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be confessed that the inaccuracy 
 of Chandra Das in many places in his book is notorious; if 
 in his time the inscription was totally illegible, if, in fact, as 
 seems more likely, these cup-marks are really the products of 
 half -centuries instead of years, there is no reason, Mr. Hayden 
 tells me, why the granite slab with its inscription, although ex- 
 posed to the weather of a thousand years and more, should not 
 be the original. He said that the friable appearance of the 
 granite hill slopes we had passed on the way up was deceptive, 
 and that a new piece cut from the living rock was of an ex- 
 ceedingly hard and good character. The western face of the 
 Do-ring, which is turned inward toward the willow, is free from 
 cup-marks, but it is covered with a blackish, mildewed growth 
 which conceals the inscription to a great extent. This is a gritty 
 crust which can be partially removed by the finger-nail, but it 
 seems to have affected the surface of the stone deeply, and this 
 side is scarcely more legible than the other. 
 
 This inscription, taken from a translation in the Asiatic So- 
 ciety's journal of the copy still kept as a record in the Amban's 
 Residency, is as follows: 
 
THE POT ALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 381 
 
 " The learned, warlike, filial and virtuous Emperor of the 
 Great Tang, and the divine and all-wise Tsanpu of the Great 
 Fan, two sovereigns allied as father and son-in-law, having 
 consulted to unite the gods of the land and grain, have concluded 
 a sworn treaty of grand alliance, which shall never be lost nor 
 changed. Gods and men have been called as witnesses, and in 
 order that all ages and generations may resound in praise the 
 sworn text, section by section, has been engraved on a stone 
 monument. 
 
 " The learned, warlike, filial and virtuous Emperor, and the 
 divine and all-wise Tsanpu, Te-chih-li-tsan, their all-wise ma- 
 jesties, with intuitive wisdom reaching far, and knowing both 
 present and future, good and evil, with feelings of benevolent 
 pity and imperial grace overspreading all, without distinction 
 of native and foreign, have negotiated an alliance, and resolved 
 to give to the myriad families peace and prosperity, and with 
 like thought have completed a long, lasting and good deed. They 
 have re-connected the bonds of affectionate kinship, strength- 
 ened anew the right policy of neighbourly friendship, and made 
 this great peace. 
 
 " The two countries Fan and Han keeping the lands and 
 boundaries which they now rule: all to the east shall be within 
 the borders of the great Tang, all to the west shall be the terri- 
 tory of the great Fan. Neither the one nor the other shall 
 slaughter or fight ; they shall not move weapons or armour, nor 
 shall they plot to encroach on each other's territory. Should 
 any men be liable to suspicion, they shall be taken alive and their 
 business enquired into, after which they shall be given clothes 
 and food and sent back to their own country. 
 
 " Now the gods of the land and of grain have been united to 
 make this great peace, yet to keep up the good relationship of 
 the father and son-in-law there must be constant communication. 
 The one shall rely on the other, and constantly send envoys to 
 
382 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 and fro. Both Fan and Han shall change horses at the Chiang- 
 chun Pass, and to the east of the Suiyung Barrier the great 
 Tang shall provide for the mission, while to the west of the 
 City of Chingshui the great Fan shall entertain them. They 
 shall both be treated with due ceremony, according to the near 
 relationship of the Imperial father and son-in-law, so that within 
 the two borders neither smoke nor dust shall rise, no word of 
 invasion or plunder shall be heard, and there shall be no longer 
 anxious fear and trembling. The frontier guards shall be dis- 
 missed, and the land shall have perfect quiet in consequence of 
 this joyful event. Their grace shall be handed down to ten 
 thousand generations, and sounds of grateful praise shall extend 
 to wherever the sun and the moon shine. The Fan shall be at 
 peace in the Fan country; the Han also shall be joyful in 
 the Han country, and this is truly a great deed of good augury. 
 They shall keep their sworn oath, and there shall never be any 
 change. 
 
 " They have looked up to the three Precious ones, to all the 
 holy saints, to the sun, moon, stars and planets, and begged them 
 to be their witnesses. A sworn treaty like this each one has seve- 
 rally written and exposed, having sacrificed the victims for the 
 sworn ceremony and ratified this text. Should they not keep 
 these oaths, and either Fan or Han disregard the treaty and 
 break the sworn agreement, may there come to him misfortune 
 and calamity. Provided only that the work of rebels against 
 the state, or secret plotters, shall not be included as a breach of 
 the sworn ceremony. 
 
 " The Fan and Han sovereigns and ministers have all bowed 
 down and solemnly made oath and carefully drawn up the writ- 
 ten documents. The witnesses of the two sovereigns, the officers 
 who ascended to the altar, have reverently written their names 
 below, and the sworn treaty, of which this is a true copy, has 
 been deposited in the royal treasury." 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 383 
 
 As to other misconceptions, it may be said at once that there 
 are no " old willows whose aged trunks are bent and twisted 
 like writhing dragons on either side," nor can the monument, 
 from any point of view, be called a pillar. There is no flag- 
 pole in this courtyard at all. The Jo itself is not anywhere near 
 the propylon. 
 
 The Do-ring witnessed one of the famous assassinations of 
 the world. King Lang-darma, who reigned at the close of the 
 ninth century, was the Julian of Lamaism. With a ruthless hand 
 he attempted to extirpate Buddhism and restore the earlier and 
 simpler devil worship of the country. A monk, disguised as 
 a Shamanist or Black Hat devil dancer, approached Lang-darma 
 as he was halting outside the western entrance of the Jo-kang 
 one day in the year 900. Gamboling and capering, now ad- 
 vancing, now withdrawing, he eventually approached the mon- 
 arch, whose attention he had gained probably by his disguise, 
 near enough to inflict one terrific blow which smashed in Lang- 
 darma's forehead. The apostate fell dead where he stood. This 
 audacious act, which laid the foundation of Lamaic supremacy, 
 is annually recorded by a mystery play, on the spot of Lang- 
 darma's assassination. But in the description of it, vividly 
 written in his book on Lamaism, Colonel Waddell suggests 
 that neither in its origin nor in its realistic details is the play 
 based upon the facts we have mentioned. It has been slightly 
 adapted so as to record the crime, but as a matter of origin 
 it is of a far greater antiquity. 
 
 There remains yet to be described the sacred heart and center, 
 not of Lhasa alone, but of Central Asia, and I have been asked 
 to reprint as it stands the description of the Jo-kang which ap- 
 peared in the Times of the 24th of September. Though some- 
 what doubtful I have therefore, writing months afterward, not 
 cared to make alterations, even when some inducement, such as 
 
384 • THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 an added detail or the better turn of a sentence, might increase 
 the literary value of the description. Such additions as are 
 necessary I have added as distinct interpolations. There is to 
 me an intense pleasure in looking back over the pages of my note- 
 book to see the scrawled sketches and illegibly jotted notes which 
 I was careful to make during an experience which, for sheer 
 interest, I suppose will rarely, if ever, be repeated. I almost 
 think, if I may say so in no spirit of boasting, that perhaps no 
 traveler will ever have the chance exactly to feel as much again, 
 however far his travels, however dangerous his pilgrimage. 
 Unexpectedly there rose up, through no deliberate effort of my 
 own, an opportunity of seeing that, without which a visit to 
 Lhasa would have been after all but a half-achieved success, 
 without which there would have been left still the crown and 
 key-stone of all the edifice of Buddhism for another and a later 
 traveler to see for the first time. Three of us were to be the first 
 white men to look upon the great golden idol of Lhasa. 
 
 " It is not always realized that it is in the Cathedral of Lhasa, 
 not in the palace outside, that the spiritual life of Tibet and of 
 the countless millions of Northern Buddhism is wholly centred. 
 The policy of isolation which has for so long been the chief 
 characteristic of the faith finds its fullest expression in the fa- 
 natical jealousy with which this temple, the heart and focus 
 of Lamaism, has been safeguarded against the stranger's intru- 
 sion. What Tibet is to the rest of the world, what Lhasa is to 
 Tibet, that the Jo-kang is to Lhasa, and it is not entirely clear, 
 in spite of more than one so-called description of the interior, 
 that any European, or even native spy, has ever before ventured 
 inside. There has, perhaps, been reason enough for this. It 
 is possible that pardon for having visited the city of Lhasa, 
 or the Potala Palace — which is in comparison almost a place of 
 resort— might have been obtained on terms, but there could 
 
THE EXTERIOR OF THE JO-KANG TEMPLE, THE HOLY OF 
 
 HOLIES OF ALL ASIA 
 
 Within is the most sacred shrine in Lhasa 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 385 
 
 hardly have been a reprieve for the luckless intruder once dis- 
 covered inside these darkened and windowless quadrangles. 
 Certainly neither the ground plan published by Giorgi in the 
 1 8th century nor any of the detailed accounts published more 
 recently suggested that their authors had any first-hand ac- 
 quaintance with the place. 
 
 " As I have noticed in a former letter, the exterior is devoid 
 of either beauty or dignity. The interior, on the other hand, 
 is unquestionably the most important and interesting thing in 
 Central Asia. It is the treasure-house and kaabah, not of the 
 country only, but of the faith, and it is curious that, while the 
 magnificent Potala is a casket containing nothing either ancient 
 or specially venerated, the priceless gems of the Jo-kang should 
 be housed in a building which literally has no outside walls at 
 all. All round the Cathedral the dirty and insignificant council 
 chambers and offices, in which the affairs of Tibet are debated 
 and administered, lean like parasites against it for support, hud- 
 dled together and obscuring the sacred structure, to which they 
 owe their stability, in a way that seems mischievously significant 
 of the whole state of Tibet. 
 
 " From Chagpori the five great gilded roofs are indeed to be 
 seen blazing in the sun through the tree-tops hard by the Yutok 
 Bridge, but even this suggestion of importance vanishes as 
 one treads a way through the filth of the narrow streets to the 
 western entrance. So crowded upon is the Jo-kang that this 
 is actually the only part of the structure which is visible from the 
 street which surrounds it. 
 
 " It is not strangers only against whom the great doors of the 
 Jo-kang have been barred. Exclusion from its sacred precincts 
 is officially pronounced against those also who have incurred the 
 suspicion, or displeasure, of the ruling hierarchy of Lhasa, and 
 it is a curious proof of the autocratic power which is exercised 
 with regard to this Cathedral, as well as of the insignificance 
 
386 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of the suzerainty, that on August ii, in this year, the Viceroy 
 himself, going in state to the Jo-kang to offer prayer on the 
 occasion of the Chinese Emperor's birthday, had the doors shut 
 in his face. To this insult the opportunity I have enjoyed of 
 examining the temple with a fulness that would otherwise have 
 been impossible was due. Anxious to retaliate, the Amban — 
 who was on a subsequent day grudgingly permitted to visit the 
 ground floor only of the building — used our presence in Lhasa 
 to teach the keepers of the Cathedral a lesson in manners. At 
 any rate, to our surprise, a definite invitation was one day ex- 
 tended to one or two of the members of the Mission to make 
 a morning visit into Lhasa for the purpose of examining the 
 treasures of the innermost sanctuary of Buddhism. It was ac- 
 cepted. A Chinese guard of the Residency, armed with tridents, 
 halberds, and scythe-headed lances, provided our escort, and im- 
 mediately upon our arrival the great doors, half hidden in the 
 shadow under the many-pillared propylon, were opened and at 
 once barred again behind us. 
 
 " Just in front, seen through a forest of pillars, was an open 
 and verandahed court-yard. Its great age was at once apparent. 
 The paintings on the walls were barely distinguishable through 
 a heavy cloak of dirt and grease, and it was difficult to imagine 
 the colours with which the capitals of the pillars, and the raftered 
 roof overhead, had originally been painted. The court is open 
 to the sky and is surrounded by none of the small chapels which 
 are the chief feature of the inner quadrangles of the Jo-kang. 
 The architecture is of the kind invariable in religious buildings 
 in Tibet— a double row of pillars carry the half-roof overhead, 
 each supporting on a small capital a large bracketed abacus, 
 voluted and curved on both sides and charged in the centre with 
 a panel of archaic carving. The wooden doors which secure 
 both entrances of the first court are of immense size, heavily 
 barred, and embossed with filigree ring plates of great age. 
 
O 
 
 M 
 H 
 X 
 U 
 
 o 
 
 u 
 
 U 
 as 
 
 C/3 
 
 7) 
 
 
 -J 
 
 t/: 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 387 
 
 "At the opposite end of the court an open door communi- 
 cates with the second court, revealing a bright mass of holly- 
 hocks, snapdragon, and stocks, vivid in the sun. The sanctity 
 of the temple obviously increased as we ventured into the inner 
 court. Its sides are honeycombed by small dark chambers, ap- 
 parently built in the thickness of the enormous wall. Each is 
 an idol-crowned sanctuary. Into these obscure shrines one stum- 
 bles, bent almost double to avoid the dirt of the low greasy 
 lintel. Once inside, the eye requires some time to distinguish 
 anything more than the dim outlines of an altar in the middle 
 of the chamber. On it stand one or two copper or brass bowls 
 filled high with butter, each bearing on its half-congealed surface 
 a dimly burning wick in a little pool of self-thawed oil. These 
 dim beads of yellow light provide all the illumination of the cave, 
 and after a little, one can just distinguish the solemn images 
 squatting round the walls, betrayed by points and rims of light, 
 reflected here and there from the projections and edges of golden 
 draperies or features. The smell is abominable. The air is ex- 
 hausted and charged with rancid vapours. Everything one 
 touches drips with grease. The fumes of burning butter have 
 in the course of many generations filmed over the surfaces and 
 clogged the carving of doors and walls alike. The floor under- 
 foot is slippery as glass. Upon this receptive foundation, the 
 grime and reek of centuries have steadily descended with results 
 that may be imagined. Except that the images themselves ap- 
 parently receive from time to time a perfunctory wipe with the 
 greasy rag which is generally to be found in a conspicuous place 
 beside a Tibetan altar, there is not in one of these numerous 
 chapels the slightest sign of consideration, respect, or care. 
 
 " One comes out again into the open air with relief, only to 
 find, three or four yards on, the entrance to another of these cata- 
 comb-like chapels. They entirely surround the walls of this 
 interior court, and to the eye of the stranger hardly differ one 
 
388 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 from another. Indeed, the monks themselves when questioned 
 seem to find some difficulty in distinguishing the identity of the 
 images in the successive chapels. In front of some of these re- 
 cesses hangs a curtain of a curious kind, peculiar, so far as I 
 know, to this temple. Horses' bits, of steel and of a plain pat- 
 tern, are linked together ring to ring by short lengths of twisted 
 iron, the whole forming an original and effective screen. This 
 is secured to the left-hand jamb by a long bolt and staple, and 
 the whole is fastened by one of the gigantic locks which are 
 adopted from China, and are perhaps the most ingenious product 
 of the country. 
 
 " The centre of the court is taken up by an inner sanctuary 
 formed on three sides by low shelves, covered with small brass 
 Buddhas backed by larger images arranged between the pillars 
 supporting the roof of the half-roof, and on the fourth side by 
 a plain trellis or iron pierced by a similar plain gateway. From 
 inside, therefore, none of the chapels or the statues ranged along 
 the walls of the court are visible, and the darkness thereby caused 
 under the portico is greatly increased by the half-drawn awnings, 
 of which the ropes slant downwards across the opening, and form 
 perches for a special colony of orange and purple swallows, whose 
 nests cling up to the overhanging eaves. 
 
 " In this central court two statues sit, one — that to the left — 
 is about life size, the other is of gigantic proportions. Both of 
 them present the same peculiarity — one which cannot fail to 
 arrest the eye at once. Each is seated upon a throne in European 
 fashion, and this identifies them at once. Of all the Bodisats, 
 heroes, or teachers which fill the calendars of Lamaism, only the 
 image of the coming Buddha is thus represented. How this 
 tradition arose the lamas themselves are unable to explain, but 
 it is of great antiquity, and it is to Europe that the eyes of Bud- 
 dhism are turned for the appearance of the next reincarnation 
 of the Great Master. As will be remembered, the Tzar of Russia 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 389 
 
 was recently recognized as a reincarnate Bodisat/ and it is not 
 impossible that this legend paved the way considerably for his ac- 
 ceptance. Crowned with a huge circlet set with innumerable 
 turquoises, Maitreya sits here with one hand raised in benediction, 
 the other resting upon his knee. On his breast lies a tangled 
 mass of jewelled chains and necklaces, and vast * roundles ' of 
 gold, set with concentric rings of turquoises, half hide his huge 
 shoulders. We caught only a hurried glimpse as we passed on; 
 for the order in which the sights of a Buddhist temple may be 
 visited is invariable, and we took care not to offend the sus- 
 ceptibilities of the lamas by deviating from the orthodox left- 
 to-right course which forms part of their religious observances. 
 The * way of the wine ' is a custom which would need no ex- 
 planation to a Buddhist. 
 
 " Once under the eastern end of the Jo-kang, one finds the 
 darkness deepen fast. There is no light but such as can find its 
 way under the wide half-roofs and through the trellises, screens, 
 and awnings which almost entirely close in the central court. In 
 the gloom one passes by ancient chapel after chapel, where the 
 dim half-light barely reveals the existence of the dark recess 
 guarded by its iron screen. The archaic walls share with 
 the smooth worn pillars the burden of the warped rafters 
 overhead. The stone slabs underfoot are worn into a channel, 
 and the grime of a thousand years has utterly hidden the pictures 
 — if there ever were any — on the walls. At last one turns to 
 the right, passing close beneath the uplifted figure of the great 
 Tsong-kapa, the Luther of Central Asia. It is a contemporary 
 likeness, and one could wish that there were more light by which 
 to see it than is afforded by the dim radiance of the butter-lamp 
 before his knees. But his very posture is significant ; for, instead 
 
 *Kawaguchi, the Japanese traveler, says that he has been identified as 
 "Ze Zongawa." This, in O'Connor's opinion, is merely a misreading of 
 Tsong-kapa. , 
 
390 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 of having his back to the wall behind him, Tsong-kapa faces 
 south, and this is the first indication that we are at last drawing 
 near to the Holy of Holies. 
 
 "We have now reached the eastern end of the Cathedral, 
 and are passing behind the trellis-work of the inner court; in 
 the twilight it is difficult to distinguish the half-seen figures which 
 people the recesses and line the sides of the path along which we 
 grope our way. Ten paces more and the Jo itself is before us. 
 
 " The first sight of what is beyond question the most famous 
 idol in the world is uncannily impressive. In the darkness it is 
 at first difficult to follow the lines of the shrine which holds the 
 god. One only realizes a high pillared sanctuary in which the 
 gloom is almost absolute, and therein, thrown into strange re- 
 lief against the obscurity, the soft gleam of the golden idol 
 which sits enthroned in the centre. Before him are rows and 
 rows of great butter-lamps of solid gold, each shaped in curious 
 resemblance to the pre-Reformation chalices of the English 
 Church, Lighted by the tender radiance of these twenty or thirty 
 beads of light, the great glowing mass of the Buddha softly looms 
 out, ghostlike and shadowless, in the murky recess. 
 
 " It is not the magnificence of the statue that is first perceived, 
 and certainly it is not that which makes the deepest and most 
 lasting impression. For this is no ordinary presentation of 
 the Master. The features are smooth and almost childish ; beauti- 
 ful they are not, but there is no need of beauty here. Here is no 
 trace of that inscrutable smile which, from Mukden to Ceylon, 
 is inseparable from our conceptions of the features of the Great 
 Teacher. Here there is nothing of the saddened smile of the 
 Melancholia who has known too much and has renounced it all 
 as vanity. Here, instead, is the quiet happiness and the quick 
 capacity for pleasure of the boy who had never yet known either 
 pain, or disease, or death. It is Gautama as a pure and eager 
 prince, without a thought for the morrow, or a care for to-day. 
 
THE POT ALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 391 
 
 No doubt the surroundings, which are effective almost to the 
 verge of theatricahty, account for much, but this beautiful statue 
 is the sum and climax of Tibet, and as one gazes one knows it 
 and respects the jealousy of its guardians. The legendary his- 
 tory of this idol is worth retelling. It is believed that the like- 
 ness was made from Gautama himself, in the happier days of his 
 innocence and seclusion in Kapali-vastu. It was made by Vis- 
 vakarma — no man, but the constructive force of the universe — 
 and is of gold, alloyed with the four other elemental metals, 
 silver, copper, zinc, and iron, symbolical of this world, and it 
 is adorned with diamonds, rubies, lapis-lazuli, emeralds, and the 
 unidentified Indranila, which modern dictionaries prosaically ex- 
 plain as sapphire. This priceless image was given by the King 
 of Magadha to the Chinese Emperor for his timely assistance 
 when the Yavanas were over-running the plains of India. From 
 Peking it was brought as her dowry by Princess Konjo in the 
 seventh century. The crown was undoubtedly given by Tsong- 
 kapa himself in the early part of the fifteenth century, and the 
 innumerable golden ornaments which heap the khil-kor before 
 the image are the presents of pious Buddhists from the earliest 
 days to the present time. Among them are twenty-two large but- 
 ter-lamps, eight of a somewhat smaller size, twelve bowls, two 
 ' Precious Wheels of the Law,' and a multitude of smaller arti- 
 cles, all of the same metal. 
 
 " These are arranged on the three shelves of the khil-kor, and 
 the taller articles conceal the whole of the image from his shoul- 
 ders downwards. To this fact may perhaps be due the common, 
 but mistaken, description of the Jo as a standing figure. Across 
 and across his breast are innumerable necklaces of gold, set with 
 turquoises, pearls, and coral. The throne on which he sits has 
 overhead a canopy supported by two exquisitely designed dragons 
 of silver-gilt, each about ten feet in height. Behind him is the 
 panel of conventional wooden foliage, and the * Kyung,' or 
 
392 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Garuda Bird, overhead can just be seen in the darkness. Closer 
 examination shows that almost every part of the canopy and seat 
 is gilded, gold, or jewelled. The crown is perhaps the most in- 
 teresting jewel. It is a deep coronet of gold, set round and round 
 with turquoise, and heightened by five conventional leaves, each 
 enclosing a golden image of Buddha, and encrusted with precious 
 stones. In the centre, below the middle leaf, is a flawless tur- 
 quoise six inches long and three inches wide, the largest in the 
 world. Behind the throne are dimly seen in the darkness huge 
 figures standing back against the wall of the shrine all round. 
 Rough-hewn, barbarous, and unadorned they are, but nothing 
 else could have so well supplied the background for this treasure 
 of treasures as the Egyptian solemnity of these dark Atlantides, 
 standing shoulder to shoulder on altar stones, where no lamps are 
 ever lighted and no flowers are ever strewn. Before the entrance, 
 protecting the treasures of the shrine, is the usual curtain of 
 horses' bits. This was unfastened at our request, and we were 
 allowed to make a careful examination of the image. . The gems 
 are not, perhaps, up to the standard of a European market; so 
 far as one could see, the emeralds were large, but flawed, and, 
 as is of course inevitable, the pearls, though of considerable size, 
 were lustreless; but it would be difficult to surpass the exquisite 
 workmanship of everything connected with this amazing image, 
 and a closer inspection did but increase the impression of opu- 
 lence." Nothing was more striking than the persistent use of 
 pearls, and amber and coral. As one looked, there was almost 
 the very sound of the far distant and unknown sea in among these 
 murky caverns of granite darkness and dirt. 
 
 "The altar below the khil-kor is of silver, ornamented with 
 conventional figures of birds in repousse work, and one smiled to 
 see in the most conspicuous place of all, thrown carelessly in a 
 cleft between two of the supports, the usual greasy rag, with 
 which the sacred image was daily rubbed. Two long katags 
 
in 
 < 
 X 
 
 in 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 X 
 
 > 
 
 o 
 
 X 
 
 a 
 X 
 
 ui 
 
 J2 
 
 O 
 
 < -s 
 
 ^ 1 
 
 !-l 5 
 
 < " 
 o 
 
 S3 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 393 
 
 descend from the crown one from either side above the ears. 
 Between the two dragons and the image itself are two square 
 pillars of silver heavily ornamented. The edge of the canopy 
 above is crisped. One could not see in that light how it was 
 finished above. 
 
 " Outside, the maroon-robed monks sat and droned their never- 
 ending chant. We pass by them, and, after a glance at the Mai- 
 treya at nearer range, we were taken upstairs to the first floor, 
 which runs only along the inner court, passing on our way the 
 famous representation of Chagna Dorje. This, in one account 
 of the Jo-kang, is said to be the statue round the neck of which 
 a rope was once tied by order of the apostate. King Langdarma, 
 to drag it from its place ; thereupon the miscreant was, of course, 
 promptly and miraculously destroyed. As a matter of fact it is 
 an image cut in low relief upon the wall itself of the Jo-kang, 
 gilded and coloured, and honoured always with rows of copper 
 lamps. I made a rapid sketch of it. The right hand is raised and 
 holds something which looks like a sword or a sceptre. All of 
 it is crude and rough to the last degree. This is but another 
 example of the inaccuracy which characterizes all the extant de- 
 scriptions of the Cathedral of Lhasa. It would be easy to multi- 
 ply similar cases; in fact, hardly anything has been properly 
 noted. On the first floor there are chapels maintained by the 
 devotion of special races of the Buddhist faith. Among them 
 the Nepalese chapel was pointed out. The story that there is 
 here the image of Buddha brought by the Nepalese wife of 
 Srong-tsan-gambo, is without foundation. This image, or one 
 claiming to be it, is at the monastery of Ki-long or Ki-rong, near 
 the Nepalese frontier. 
 
 " Above, on the second floor, is an image which, after the Jo 
 itself, is the most important treasure that the Jo-kang con- 
 tains. In the south-eastern corner of this storey is the armoury, 
 where the walls and pillars alike are loaded with ancient and 
 
394 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 grotesque instruments of war. From this room a low, narrow 
 passage leads down half-a-dozen stone steps into a small dun- 
 geon, where the statue of the guardian goddess, Palden-Lhamo, 
 is worshipped. This is a most amazing figure. The three-eyed 
 goddess, cro"wned with skulls, grins affably with mother-of-pearl 
 teeth from her altar; upon her head and breast are jewels which 
 the Jo himself might condescend to wear. Eight large, square 
 charm-boxes of gold and gems, two pairs of gold-set turquoise 
 earrings, each half a foot in length, and a diamond-studded fillet 
 on the brow beneath the crown are perhaps the most conspicuous 
 ornaments. Her breast-plate of turquoise and corals is almost 
 hidden by necklaces, and a huge irregular pearl, strongly re- 
 sembling the ' Dudley ' jewel in shape, is at last distinguishable 
 in the centre leaf of her crown. Before her burn butter-lamps, 
 and brown mice swarm fearlessly over walls and floor and altar, 
 so tame that they did not resent being stroked on the lap of the 
 goddess herself. 
 
 " With this famous image of the guardian deity — who, as every 
 Tibetan knows, from the Dalai Lama to the peasant in the field, 
 was reincarnated during the last century as Queen Victoria — the 
 list of treasures in the Jo-kang of a special interest to Europeans 
 is perhaps concluded. But for the Buddhist scholar there is an 
 unexplored wealth which it may be many years before any second 
 visitor will have the privilege of inspecting, or the knowledge to 
 appreciate. The great eleven-faced Shen-re-zig, the * precious ' 
 image of Tsong-kapa, the innumerable figures of divine teachers, 
 each symbolically representing the spiritual powers with which 
 he was endowed, the great series of the disciples of Buddha, the 
 statue of the Guru Rimpoche, the usual * chamber of horrors,' 
 and hundreds of other objects, each worthy of the great Pantheon 
 of Lamaism— all these must for the moment remain unnoticed. 
 But the longer one stays within these strange and sacred courts, 
 the more amazing does the contrast appear between the priceless 
 
THE POTALA AND THE CATHEDRAL 395 
 riches and historic sanctity of their contents and the squaHd ex- 
 terior of the most sacred structure in all the vast domain of Bud- 
 dhism. Yet the face of the Buddha remains the dominant im- 
 pression of the whole." 
 
 As we left the Cathedral a significant thing occurred. I do not 
 suggest for a moment that the Chinese deliberately let us in for 
 the hostile demonstration which we now encountered, but the 
 fact that they had used the presence of our troops outside to inflict 
 upon the Jo-kang what the lamas and perhaps the people of Lhasa 
 also regarded as a slight, may have incensed the people. Our 
 horses had been left outside the western gates, and the fact of our 
 being inside the building was therefore patent to every passer-by. 
 We emerged from the dark inclosures of the Cathedral into the 
 blazing sunlight to find half the population of Lhasa waiting for 
 us in a dense, growling crowd. They were pressing upon our 
 horses and men, and they had filled the entire courtyard right up 
 to the Do-ring. 
 
 I am not perfectly certain who gave the order, but I am in- 
 clined to think that it was the Viceroy's first secretary, who ac- 
 companied us on our tour of inspection round the temple ; imme- 
 diately, a great, powerfully built lama with a weighted eight-foot 
 whip of what looked like rhinoceros hide ran forward and 
 struck out right and left, inflicting appalling blows on the packed 
 crowd. It sullenly gave way before him, and an avenue was left 
 through the courtyard, to the road leading out toward the town 
 door and the Yutok Sampa. I had walked forward a few paces 
 to look again at the Do-ring, not entirely realizing the position, 
 while the others mounted their horses and slowly rode out. The 
 first stone came with a crash against the Do-ring itself, missing 
 Mr. White's head by a few inches. It was the signal for a hun- 
 dred more. Great jagged pieces of granite, weighing two or 
 three pounds, kicked out of the walls or pulled up from the road, 
 
396 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 crashed from the house-tops and the street upon our little party, 
 and it was interesting to notice that the stones were directed ob- 
 viously against our Chinese escort rather than against ourselves. 
 We had, of course, our revolvers in our pockets, but even a single 
 shot over their heads under such circumstances, though it would 
 without question instantly have brought the Tibetans to reason, 
 might, in the long run, have complicated the negotiations, so we 
 rode out slowly, trying to look as dignified as we could. But it 
 was probably a relief to all concerned when we reached the little 
 door in the city wall which leads out to the central park. 
 
 The real significance of this incident must not be mistaken ; in 
 itself it was of no very great moment, but as indicating the utter 
 contempt felt by the Tibetans for the suzerain power of Tibet, it 
 is something which we cannot entirely ignore. The more we 
 acquit the actual guardians of the temple from all complicity in it, 
 the more spontaneous and popular does this outburst of indig- 
 nation against the normal overlords of Tibet become. Even when 
 their suzerainty was supposed to be supported by the presence of 
 our troops outside, it was possible that this could occur in the 
 heart of Lhasa, and it is in itself a convincing proof that no action 
 of the Chinese with regard to Tibet will, in the future, have any 
 real importance, or be regarded by the Tibetans as binding upon 
 themselves in any way. 
 
 This was my last sight of the interior of Lhasa, and I am not 
 sorry that it should have been so — after this, anything and every- 
 thing would have been but an anti-climax. On the following day 
 before dawn I set off on my long ride back to India, carrying de- 
 spatches both to the Viceroy and to the Home Government. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 
 
 I LEFT Lhasa just before the dawn on the morning of the 
 15th of August, passing out toward the western end of the 
 plain, then still enshrouded in darkness, but spanned by the most 
 beautiful rainbow I have ever seen in my life. The Potala, rising 
 straight in front of me as I left the Lha-lu house, was distinct 
 enough against the growing amber of the south-eastern sky. 
 There had been snow in the night, and a white pall came far down 
 the mountain-sides all round. The greenery had not yet begun to 
 detach itself from the darkness, but the road was clear enough, 
 and after gaining the main road by the causeway across the 
 marsh, I turned to the right and set off with the escort. 
 
 It is a curious thing that, on the whole, I have found almost 
 more interest taken in this lonely return journey of mine than in 
 anything else that occurred during the seven months of my stay 
 in Tibet ; yet the story is simple enough. There were two reasons 
 why I went as fast as possible. The first was that I was carrying 
 despatches both to the Viceroy at Simla and to the Home Govern- 
 ment. Another was that there was a certain practical value in 
 knowing exactly how fast mounted men, not unduly pressing 
 their horses, could, with kit, travel from Darjeeling to Lhasa or 
 from Lhasa to Darjeeling. The distance, if a perfectly straight 
 course can be kept, is 390 miles, but, from one reason or another, 
 the total amount that I had to cover was about 400 miles. For 
 example, four miles were lost over the crossing of the Tsang-po 
 alone. The military authorities in India had issued instructions 
 
 397 
 
398 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 that I was to be assisted in every possible way. Had it not been, 
 in fact, for the kindly co-operation and help which I found at 
 every stage, it would have been impossible for me to do the jour- 
 ney in anything like the time I actually took. 
 
 The first stage was a long one. The sun rose about the time 
 that I passed De-bung Monastery, and I was glad of its warmth. 
 Hitherto the road had passed the plantations and thickets, 
 swamps and fields that I had again and again revisited. Hence- 
 forward it was to go over an old track indeed, but throughout 
 from a different point of view, which counted for much, and with 
 a rapidity which afforded one a far better proportional view of 
 the whole road between Lhasa and India than the toilsome daily 
 movement of a force can ever give. 
 
 Near De-bung I passed many little companies of Tibetans, both 
 men and women, going into Lhasa with ponies laden with goods 
 for market. A light rain blew in their faces as we came along, 
 and, head to wind, they were often almost upon me before they 
 knew of my coming. But there was always the same kindly 
 smile and some unintelligible remark smothered in a fold of their 
 robe. After sunrise the rain ceased. I followed the road through 
 the cultivated patches that lead on from one clump of white houses 
 to another, all nameless so far as I could ascertain. Sooner than 
 I had expected the road raised itself a little and by a stone cause- 
 way reached up to Tolung Bridge. The river beneath me was in 
 a different state from that which we had previously known. Sul- 
 len floods of brownish water banked themselves against the re- 
 taining walls, and swooped down with concentrated viciousness 
 upon the long sterlings of the bridge. A Sepoy sentry on either 
 side roused himself as I passed. On the bridge I turned to look 
 at the Potala, just then reflecting the first rays from its golden 
 roofs. It was strangely clear, and I could hardly believe that it 
 had seemed so far away when we had seen it on our arrival at 
 this point. The clouds seemed driven upward along the whole 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 399 
 
 line of mountains which contained the plain. They formed a 
 pearl-gray canopy, of which the lower edge was cut, as before^ 
 with knife-like sharpness. The greenery of the plain ran riot. 
 From Tolung we went on past isolated farmsteads, keeping our 
 right shoulders forward, till at last the tall heap of stones and 
 the chorten, to which I have before referred, crawled slowly up 
 toward us. 
 
 When it came to the point, it was no easy thing to see the last 
 of Lhasa. But I knew that when that heap was reached, the last 
 of Lhasa was just about to fade behind the spur which runs out 
 from the southern hills. It needed no pile of stones to tell me 
 that. I had been watching, with concentration and almost sad- 
 ness, the slowly dwindling palace of the forbidden town. I would 
 have given a good deal then to go back. But the thing was set- 
 tled, and it had to be done. I went on till I reached the stones, 
 and there halted to look at the two small pyramids of gray which 
 rose far away in the distance just beyond the end of the jagged 
 spur. There the great structure stood, careless, impassive, and 
 eternal as the pyramids. The lines of terrace and descent could 
 still be traced. The dark, red mass— red only because one knew 
 that it was red, not red because at that distance any color could be 
 certainly seen— sat enthroned in its white chair. Its whole intent 
 was cast away from me, away too from the tented camping- 
 ground, and the Lha-lu house which I had left ; but every window 
 pre-supposed a greater thing, that thrice-sacred shrine in central 
 Lhasa which is the center of all the life and all the fascination of 
 Buddhism, that golden idol which I should never see again. A 
 spit of gray rain slanted across the hill above Sera. I went on. 
 But I can assure the reader that for twenty yards the Potala is. 
 
 still to be seen. 
 
 The road now humps itself over a little stream by a stone-built 
 curve. As you descend on the western side of this small culvert, 
 and not before, the last vestige of the Potala is hidden from your 
 
400 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 view forever. The road goes on, but for many miles the warmth 
 had gone out of the sun, the light was missing from the distant 
 slopes. 
 
 Still sturdily trotting forward, one saw again the landmarks 
 of our advance, and one halted to look at the gigantic Buddha in 
 his stone recess, not only perhaps in curiosity; perhaps also to 
 stave off for thirty seconds the last sight one will ever have of the 
 plain in which Lhasa lies. But there is a long journey still before 
 us, and I went on, something depressed at heart. 
 
 At Netang the first halt was made. I thought that, as we had 
 done twelve miles, it was but fair to give both men and beasts a 
 rest and food, so we dispnounted on a grassy patch by the road- 
 side, not very far on from where a running stream runs a moat- 
 like course between the white mud-walls of a substantial farm. 
 We went on again in twenty minutes. The road was good 
 enough, but already the coming weariness of this long trek was 
 borne in upon me. There is, perhaps, something suggestive of 
 keen pleasure and quickened appreciation in the idea of traveling 
 fast over mountainous passes and the highest plateau on earth, 
 day after day, day after day. But though I am glad to have done 
 this journey, it was no cheery matter in the doing. I suppose 
 that the knowledge that you may not stop, whatever your need, 
 whatever your weariness, helps, to a cei"tain extent, to tire you in 
 advance. The day's program must be carried through; there 
 is no help for it. To such and such a place you must reach before 
 nightfall ; if you do not, you must go on through the night until 
 you do reach it. Morning after morning you must rise at five 
 o'clock or even before five, and you must press on with your 
 strange escort till the next change of horses gives you ten min- 
 utes' rest. If you stay to rest, if you slacken your pace for two 
 miles to see some specially beautiful view, you pay for it— not 
 then, when you could well afford to pay for it, but at the end of 
 your day, when you are content to drag yourself into the post 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 401 
 
 you have watched slowly increasing through the gloom with eyes 
 so tired that they have ceased to care much whether they see any- 
 thing more or not that day. And the knowledge of what is before 
 you every day helps to take away the poetry of such a ride. If, 
 under these circumstances, you want to see the unrivaled beauty 
 and the exquisite attraction of such a journey you must bring 
 a stout heart with .you. The fourth day sees you an utterly sore 
 and wearied man, already skinned by the bitter wind, wondering 
 quietly whether the next day can really be done or not. It is not 
 the distance that you have to traverse. This first day we did 
 about forty-seven miles; in all, the average stage was hardly 
 more than thirty-five miles, but it was thirty-five miles covered at 
 an altitude which is felt most heavily in this continual work. One 
 could do seventy miles a day more easily in England. 
 
 At 10.37 we reached Nam, where we had another halt. By 
 this time we had caught up the convoy which had left Lhasa on 
 the previous day. It just so happens that the road here winds 
 round by a trang which forbids one to pass a string of laden 
 mules. So there was every excuse for going slowly and resting 
 thereby. The Kyi chu ran sullenly in a swollen flood, and the 
 deep echoes of the water beneath the overhanging cliffs were like 
 the grumblings of the sea at Tintagel. At last the road freed 
 itself from the intruding hills; we set off at a canter across the 
 flat plain and speedily distanced the slowly pacing train. We 
 reached Jang, where the willow trees clog themselves and dam 
 a small lake below the scarp of the granite hill. It is a pretty 
 place, and we had stopped there on our way up. But now there is 
 no time. Chak-sam is a long way ahead, and Chak-sam must be 
 reached that day. So on we go, and at last, after many miles, we 
 reached Chusul. 
 
 The barley fields round Chusul were ripening fast. Otherwise 
 there is little change since we passed up by this road a month ago. 
 Round the corner, however, we reach the Tsang-po, and here is 
 
402 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 a difference indeed. The brown flood water from bank to bank 
 slides by with desperate intention. There is no haste, there is no 
 foam, but there is a long journey to go and the waters of the 
 Tsang-po are losing no time. The road is under water. Again 
 and again I had to climb the cliff-side where the new depth threat- 
 ened to sweep my pony off his feet, or hid the edge of safety un- 
 derneath its tarnished flood. The willow trees, which before 
 stood high and dry above the stream, were now waterlogged, and 
 filtered the flotsam of the surface through their reluctant leaves. 
 Then, when this became too heavy a burden to be borne, branch 
 and all cracked and splintered heavily down the stream, which 
 was nearly a mile wide at this point. Beside it the road, some- 
 times submerged, sometimes not, struck on till the valley opened, 
 and through a picturesque little hamlet where the poplars grew 
 thickly together beneath the level of the road, making a shade in 
 which no grass would grow, the track made onward still toward 
 the low-lying lines of vegetation which mark Pome-tse. Over 
 forty miles from Lhasa our northern picket stood, and one dis- 
 mounts with utter relief. But all was not over thus. The river 
 has yet to be crossed, and for this one has to plod a mile up-stream, 
 then embark in a kwor— a frail yak-skin boat, distended upon 
 bamboos — and go whirling down-stream, making an almost in- 
 visible progress through the brown flood. The land sweeps up- 
 stream with amazing velocity as we go. To cross 700 yards we 
 travel two miles. Part of that 700 yards is still water, a small 
 portion is even a gentle back-flow in the way we wish to go. We 
 lose two clear miles in 400 yards. Soon we are swept round just 
 beyond the spur of rock from which the ferry started. Straight 
 across the whirlpools where poor Bretherton died, our frail craft 
 is carried creaking, twisted, awry, as the strain comes alternately 
 on one side and the other. At last, however, just as it seems 
 that we shall be swept down beneath the chains of Chak-sam 
 gompa, the backwater is reached, and we come gently to rest. 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 403 
 
 nosing the bank exactly to a foot where a Httle ghat had been 
 prepared for us. For sheer skill in watermanship it would be hard 
 to beat the thick-skulled grinning boatmen of Chak-sam ferry. 
 There was never a moment's hesitation, there was never a mo- 
 ment's recovery. The course was as plain to these caramel-eyed 
 barbarians as if we had swung across on an aerial wire. Another 
 mile had to be covered before I reached my camp that night. I 
 dined with Wigram and Davys, good, competent men. The lat- 
 ter, with unheard-of daring, succeeded in saving for Candler the 
 use of his terribly maimed right hand, tying up the tendons with 
 complete and successful disregard of the working drawings of 
 his Creator. The former, after many weary months in un- 
 thanked solitude, still spent his own money to save his company 
 of yaks from dying of starvation by decree of the commissariat. 
 On the next morning I rode on easily to Kamba-partsi, where 
 the road turns abruptly up the high mountain which separates the 
 Yam-dok tso from the waters of the Brahmaputra, 3,000 feet 
 below. We had milk at the house beside which the willow grows 
 which is twisted into a figure of eight. Then we climbed, 
 climbed steadily and wearily, thankful for nothing except that 
 we always kept just ahead of a rainstorm clouding the valley 500 
 feet below us. We rose and rose until at last, after many halts, 
 we saw the side trail which runs along the river bank to Shigatse 
 join us from the western slope. Then there was not much more 
 to do. We passed the chortens which mark the summit of the 
 pass, and, giving my horse to a Sikh, I thankfully went on my 
 own feet down the long descent which, after giving again and 
 again alternate views of the great blue lake, lands one at last be- 
 side its steady unruffled ring of water. Then we went on again 
 round the spurs containing the northern shore still blue with lark- 
 spur, here dipping far into the recesses where some stream de- 
 posited its scanty waters in the lake, there saving half a mile by 
 taking the lake-shore down where the nettles could no longer 
 
404 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 grow. Hour after hour passed, and at last Pe-di jong, which we 
 had had in sight for six or seven miles, began to grow in size. 
 Arrived there, I made the best of my way with Lieutenant Dal- 
 mahoy to his eyrie high above the lake in one of the few rooms 
 in the castle which was still fit for use. Next day was the most 
 merciful of all the eleven days I rode. Owing to the necessity of 
 exchanging mails at Ra-lung, there was no use in going farther 
 that day than Nagartse jong. This was easy indeed* and quite 
 slowly we made our way round the north-western corner of the 
 lake, over the causeway of Good Luck, and round the arm of the 
 lake to the western shore. It was a short day, and I reached 
 Nagartse before one o'clock. 
 
 Here Moody told me that among the duties unexpectedly 
 thrown upon him was that of supplying the bare necessities of 
 life to the neighboring villages which had been mercilessly sacked 
 by the followers of the Tongsa Penlop. In every case we had 
 left in each house sufficient to last it through the winter, but these 
 Bhutanese brigands had swooped down upon the luckless villagers 
 in our rear and had deprived them even of the last pound of grain 
 or meal. 
 
 On the 1 8th I left Nagartse at seven o'clock, and arrived at the 
 scene of the fight on the Karo la four hours later. It was an in- 
 teresting ride. All the way up the valley the flowers thicken. It 
 would have been impossible for any one, as we came down, to 
 guess how carpeted the desolate valley would be in a month's 
 time. Now there were sheets of blue larkspur below, and above 
 it purple and pink blossoms in myriads. Young green brushes of 
 wormwood, the tall cool green pipes of hemlock, the insistent 
 orange of the marigold, and the yellow of dandelions blended in 
 confusion with the long feathery bents of windlestraws. In every 
 crevice up the rock little ferns clung, vetches and strange violet 
 primulas grew on the very face of the rock itself, and the gray- 
 green and gray-purple pyramids of the monkshood stood amongst 
 all this luxuriant beauty like devils in heaven. 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 405 
 
 The road was easy enough. I passed the camping-ground below 
 Dzara in good time, and after crossing the stream which had been 
 so black before, turned the sharp corner which gives one the first 
 sight of the position held by the enemy in May and July. By the 
 side of the road, almost within arm's length, there were two 
 enormous Himalayan eagles fastened upon some piece of carrion. 
 One heavily flapped away; the other held his ground, and I was 
 able to examine him closely. They were huge birds, probably 
 of the condor species, and the general effect is heightened by the 
 very untidiness of their plumage. In color black, shot with deep 
 Prussian blues, toning off here and there into grays, but never 
 enough to lighten the somberness of the whole ; a beak like a pick- 
 ax, eyes, head, crest, and breast all dark alike.^ Pushing on past 
 the place where the walls still lay in confusion, I reached the pass 
 at noon, and descended into the Plain of Milk. This was now a 
 shifting, soaked mass of snow and sleet, and one hugged the path 
 by the cliff. At last the narrow gorge down into Gom-tang was 
 passed, and the wide, rolling plain stretched before me to the en- 
 tering in of Ra-lung. Here I found Lieutenant Arundell, cheer- 
 ful in spite of the long isolation from which he saw no escape for 
 many weeks to come. He had discovered— what the Chinese mail 
 runners had failed to find— wood in the wilderness, and a great 
 heap of firewood taken from a neighboring nullah helped to make 
 Ra-Iung a very different place from what it had been on the three 
 other occasions on which I had passed through it. 
 
 On the next day, the 19th, the road was gay with flowers, but 
 the grim severity of the spurs and clefts of granite was only in- 
 tensified by this thin film of gaiety. At Gobshi, where I arrived 
 shortly before eleven o'clock, crops again appeared— crops, that is, 
 which actually promised ripeness and grain. I made no stay at 
 the village, passing on beside the roughly-piled walls of quartzite, 
 coral pink, sienna, and white through which the feathery nettles 
 
 * I could not find in the Natural History Museum any bird resembling 
 these, so I cannot give them a name. 
 
4o6 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 stabbed, and over which the clematis sprawled behind a rank 
 growth of larkspur and forget-me-not. I halted for half an hour 
 at the end of the cultivation, and then pressed on over the re- 
 maining fifteen miles to Gyantse. There is nothing to record, 
 nothing different, nothing significant; but the weariness of the 
 journey was just then telling heavily upon me, and I was glad, 
 indeed, when at last I made my way in through the Gurkha gate 
 to the post I knew so well. Colonel Hogge received me with the 
 utmost hospitality. Two companies were occupying the jong, and 
 I turned in that night with the comfortable assurance that I 
 should not be disturbed by the raucous war-cry which we had 
 heard so often during our investment. The next day I went on 
 again over the hardest journey of the road. 
 
 I rode out with Shuttleworth in the earliest dawn. We had 
 two mounted infantry men with us, but, by this time, it was al- 
 most unnecessary to take precaution. We went along aimlessly in 
 the clear morning air. He was only going to Sau-gang, and I 
 trusted to putting on speed afterward to make up for a pleasant 
 and lazy march of thirteen miles. At Sau-gang we had break- 
 fast, but our host, the commandant, was in bed nursing his own 
 quinsy. It seemed a strange thing that so important a post should 
 have not even a hospital assistant to look after it. From Sau- 
 gang I moved on by myself with an escort of four men. The 
 scene of the Red Idol fight was very different from what it was 
 when I had last seen it. The vegetation grew rankly in between 
 the boulders, the eyots in the stream were covered with thick, 
 short, vivid grass, and there seemed to be ten times as many trees 
 as one had expected to find. It is a long and wearying journey, 
 and is, as a matter of exact length, understated in the official esti- 
 mates. So at least I was assured by the officers at both ends of 
 the stretch, so I was willing enough to believe. 
 
 At last the blood-stained altar rock on the hill at the entrance 
 to the gorge was passed, and I came out into the more open 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 407 
 
 ground through which the river ran evenly. But there was still 
 a long pull, and it was not till past one o'clock that I reached the 
 Hot Springs. Forty minutes later I rode into the temple which 
 we had fortified and were using as a post on the road. It was this 
 post which had been attacked by the Tibetans when Colonel 
 Younghusband made his hurried descent upon the Chumbi Valley 
 in the early days of June. I had luncheon there, and inspected 
 the great idol-houses down below on the ground floor. The paint- 
 ing on the walls here is different from that in other temples. It is 
 of a much more archaic type, and approximates rather to Indian 
 than to Chinese art. The place had been kept blocked up, and 
 though it was in the usual confusion which marks Tibetan tem- 
 ples at all times, not much had been taken away. After a halt of 
 three quarters of an hour, I set out again for the stage of the day. 
 I had already covered 31 miles and there remained before me 14. 
 This, I think, was on the whole the most wearisome part of all 
 the ride. People at home are rarely very tired, or if they are, 
 they are generally tired in company ; but there is something about 
 the last few miles of a day's journey like that which I was now 
 making, which almost defies description for sheer weariness. One 
 has long ceased to take the slightest interest in the scenery or any- 
 thing else. One barely raises one's eyes : riding or leading one's 
 horse, one has eyes only for the ground immediately at one's feet. 
 Unless an object comes within the ten-foot radius of your gaze, 
 you do not care to lift your head to see it. The most perfect glow 
 of crimson evening upon the distant ice-fields of the Himalayas 
 is not so interesting as a rare level ten-yards' stretch of good road. 
 Slowly, very slowly, the ribbon of the track unwinds itself and 
 crawls beneath you. The shape of the stones, the wetness of the 
 gray sand between them, the tilt of the sharp outcrop, the stability 
 of a pebble, the little casual weeds and plants that sometimes grow 
 beside the bigger boulders, a leaf thrown down here and there, a 
 piece of wood, every now and then the stepping-stones by which. 
 
4o8 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 if you are on your feet, you cross a little angry torrent— all these 
 have a real interest for you. On other days one's attention 
 is chained to the slowly sliding roadway, not from weariness 
 only, but because it is positively dangerous to lift your eyes 
 one moment from the stones on which your next foot was to be 
 placed. 
 
 There is an expression used by Sophocles in his " CEdipus Ty- 
 rannus " which scholars who sit in arm-chairs have sometimes 
 failed to understand: 
 
 7j TTOiKiXoidog ^<j)iy^ rb npog ttooI OKonecv 
 (ledevTag T]fj,dg rd<pavfi npoa^yeTO 
 
 All that Sophocles intended was that the presence of the sphinx 
 made men care little for anything but what lay immediately be- 
 fore them. But only a nation of travelers in a land of mountains 
 could have understood to the full the meaning of the phrase. 
 " What lies at one's feet," that is, indeed, the only thing which 
 chains the attention of wanderers in a land like this. Often one 
 does not lift one's eyes from the road for miles at a time. To 
 look around you perhaps means that you have to halt, and you 
 never forget that you pay for a five minutes' halt in the cool of 
 the afternoon by five minutes' stumbling over sharp and danger- 
 ous rocks after night has fallen. There is not much interest or 
 excitement about this work. You go on, and it seems to you that 
 you have been going on for months. The prospect of arriving 
 at your journey's end becomes something in the future so remote 
 that it is hardly worth while troubling yourself about it ; only you 
 still go on — on — on. ' On — though your beast may be too tired to- 
 trot, on — though you may yourself be so footsore that each step 
 is pain, on — although you may be dropping with fatigue, on you 
 still have to go. Many people I have met have thought that there 
 was some strange romance about this rapid passage over the 
 very ridge-poles of the world. There was none. What you were 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 409 
 
 doing to-day you would have to do to-morrow, and the day after, 
 and you instinctively shrank from the weariness of anticipating 
 day after day of this tedious tramp. It is true that it was only 
 toward the evening that this depression assailed you. The heat 
 of the day was comfortable compared to this. Then you had at 
 least the contented knowledge that you had hours in front of you ; 
 probably, also, you had had, or were going to have, your mid-day 
 meal. It might rain perhaps, or you might have a stinging wind 
 blowing down the funnel of the valley straight into your teeth, 
 but such things make no difference. You may be drenched 
 through, but it is just as easy to go on. One almost ceases to 
 be a free agent on these occasions. If you had had a companion 
 with you, you would not have spoken for five or ten miles — you 
 would have resented his sanest remark as unnecessary and tire- 
 some. And yet the loneliness of my own journey ! 
 
 I got into camp that evening, luckily finding three men from 
 Kala tso who had made it their first halting place on the road 
 to Gyantse. They gave me the best of dinners, and I rolled 
 myself up in my blankets as soon as the last mouthful had been 
 eaten. Next morning I went on to Kala tso, and there changed 
 horses. Every arrangement had been made for me throughout 
 the journey with the greatest care, and after passing by Chalu 
 and coming out once more by the waters of the Bam tso, I found 
 another relay waiting for me. Here I left all the mounted in- 
 fantry behind, except one man to lead the pack-horse. How- 
 ever, he was foolish enough to let his own horse go, and as I 
 could not waste the time to catch it again, I led my own beast 
 all the way into Dochen. Riding on again, I set my head for 
 the first time against the bitter wind of the Tang la, and though 
 an ekka was at my disposal; I preferred to ride up over the slope 
 of the spur behind Tuna rather than prolong the tiresome strug- 
 gle against the ceaseless undeviating cold stress of air against 
 which clothing seemed to be of no use. I came down into the 
 
410 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 post which the Mission had occupied for so long, and was 
 warmly welcomed by Captain Rice. The usual bunch of tele- 
 grams was sent, and I slept on the floor of the little mess-room 
 underneath the pictures cut out from illustrated papers which 
 will remain for a hundred years as a mystery peculiar to the 
 houses along our route. Next morning I reached the Tang la 
 in as good weather as one ever has over this detestable barrier. 
 I dropped down on the farther side to the posting-station, and 
 came on to Phari, where Captain Rawlings met me. 
 
 Phari had suffered severely since I had seen it last. Large 
 gaps had broken away from the wall of the jong, and it had 
 been worth no one's while to repair them. They betrayed the 
 shoddiness of the building. It is only a skin of stone, filled in 
 with rubble, and for purposes of defense, it would be better if 
 the whole of the keep were leveled with the ground. Except 
 for this damage the scene was almost unchanged since the 28th 
 of March. 
 
 Raw blue-gray shafts and terraces of pointed rock rise rarely 
 from among the unclothed curves of treeless and shrubless 
 brown down-land bosoming and sweeping as far as the eye can 
 see. Here and there on a northern slope the white snow for a 
 few hours after dawn streaks the side of the hills in a tangle of 
 lace work crossed horizontally with burhel or yak tracks. For 
 the rest, the snow that falls at night is, as a rule, thawed and 
 gone by ten or eleven on the following morning, and looking 
 south one saw again the dusty hillsides, rounded from end to 
 end, except where a dry watercourse distinguishes with dirty 
 ocher the dirtier drab which clothes the whole visible field of 
 sight. A painter might force himself to call the dun waste of 
 the ringing hills green, but only in so far as distance veils with 
 a bluish haze the buff-soiled earth at his feet. It is all the same. 
 Above these nearer eminences rose the pointed terraces of snowy 
 mountain ranges— Chumiumo and Pahamri to the west and Ma- 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 411 
 
 song Chungdong to the south glittering at midday with jagged 
 bastions of white and gray, and the curtains of rock which are 
 seen connecting the heights one with another, if they are high 
 enough to top the rounded hills, betray their steepness by the 
 scanty snow that can find a resting-place. I saw Chumolhari 
 again with a feeling of reverence. 
 
 Of all the hills which the expedition saw from the Jelep to 
 Phembu-ri, Chumolhari is queen. One cannot wonder at the 
 invention which has clothed this extraordinary peak with a sacred 
 character. 
 
 Phari is at its foot, and one watches it from hour to hour with 
 a touch of the respect which has for the Tibetans filled its wind- 
 swept clefts and ravines with baffled demons and glorified its 
 summit with the presence of the Goddess herself. Like very 
 impressive mountains all the world over, in surroundings and 
 in shape, it somewhat resembles the Matterhorn. The great 
 central pyramid rises from a platform — three miles in length 
 and some 5,000 feet below the summit— of which the western 
 mile is composed of four parallel serrated ridges of gray- 
 toothed peaks, so sharp that little snow can rest on them. Ta 
 the east the main mass rises 2,000 feet, into a great, snowy, 
 right-angled ridge, which makes up with the central pyramid 
 no very fanciful resemblance to the high-peaked, high-cantled 
 Mexican saddle. Twenty-four thousand feet high, the peak it- 
 self is still curiously free from clouds. In the evening a peri- 
 winkle-colored haze may throw a veil of the thinnest gauze be- 
 fore it, and all the afternoon the great bellying argent clouds 
 crawl helplessly inward from the south and west, powerless to 
 resist the gravitational force of this vast upheaval of rock. But 
 all day and all night she stands out cloudless and unveiled. She 
 holds the sunset long after the plain is in darkness at her feet, 
 and at one moment in the dying red light looks not unlike a 
 westward-facing lioness couching proudly, with the hollows of ^ 
 
412 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 her huge thigh-bones emphasized by the shadow cast on the 
 cantle of the rock. Siniol chu and the Matterhorn, Chumolhari 
 and Teneriffe have each something in common, each also their 
 own attraction, but the Peak of the Sacred Goddess makes the 
 deepest impression of them all. 
 
 I went on over the plain toward Kamparab, and I was sorry 
 enough to turn ithe last corner and lose forever the sight of 
 the great Tibetan stronghold.^ At Kamparab the real beauty 
 of the Chumbi Valley begins. It is true that here and there 
 the plain around Phari had been so blue with forget-me-nots that 
 the illusion of still pools of clear water was absolutely irresisti- 
 ble. The barley-fields near the jong were just giving up the 
 attempt to produce a harvest. The weather had been milder 
 than usual, and the bearded ears were all there, but in a whole 
 field there would not have been found an egg-cupful of grain. 
 At Kamparab the converging slopes of the valley were standing 
 thick with colored flowers. I am a poor botanist and I could 
 get very little information from any one during the entire ex- 
 pedition, but I believe that collections were made by native col- 
 lectors sent up by the director of the Botanic Gardens in Calcutta, 
 but these men were, in themselves, of no use at any time for my 
 purpose. But the result of their labors ought to provide as in- 
 teresting an herbarium as could be made in any district in the 
 world, though the best collection of pressed flowers is a mere 
 mockery. The sheets of gold and mauve and red which swathed 
 the steep sides of the valley were doubly welcome after one's 
 remembrance of the bleak barrenness of earlier days. Nothing 
 grows very high here except a curious form of dock with wide 
 
 *The Chinese route-books describe Phari— of which the original name was 
 Namgye Karpo— as a place where neither barley nor rice will grow. It is, 
 they say, the southern frontier of Tibet, and quote the curious Tibetan legend 
 that Phari is protected to the south by a wall of water, and therefore does not 
 need many soldiers. Here the actual numbers of Bhutanese and Sikkimese 
 envoys are counted and recounted when they leave the country again, that no 
 man should remain. 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 413 
 
 green leaves and a cluster of yellow trumpet-shaped flowers. 
 All else is but a span in height, but the flowers seem to have 
 received the glory which has been denied to the foliage. 
 
 At last, after riding steadily for four hours, I dropped down 
 to Dota, where I found the famous frozen waterfall thawed 
 away, and a foolish trickle of water was all that reminded one 
 of what had been there, and what would again begin to form 
 in two months' time. The next day I went on down the rocky 
 and broken path beside the stream, made better, indeed, but still 
 leaving much to be desired, to Gautso, and through the tangled 
 green jungle beside the tumbling waters of the Ammo chu, 
 down, always down, till the waste marsh land of Lingmatang 
 spread out in front of me. I went on till Galin-ka and Chorten- 
 karpo too had been gained and passed, and at last the slowly 
 rising roofs of Bakcham promised a rest. I halted here for 
 luncheon, and set out on the last stage of my travels in Tibet. 
 
 Here, for the first time, I began to realize what the phrase 
 " the rains " means in Sikkim. To an English visitor the rain 
 anywhere in India is a somewhat striking experience when met 
 for the first time; but Assam alone can compete with Sikkim 
 for a sheer deluge of water, daily, consistent, never hurrying, 
 and never slackening in volume or rapidity. Beneath it the road, 
 which was my first consideration, had long gone to pieces ; only 
 the iron-bound stone trail remained, more stairs than track, 
 which heaves itself up to the top of the Natu la, and thence drops 
 like the side of one of the Pyramids to the lower river levels. 
 The corduroy of the road enabled us to get along, slowly and 
 with many slips, to and, on the next day, from the warmth 
 and welcome of Champitangand Captain H. O. Parr. Beyond 
 the corduroy the road was a sucking mass of black mud, steadied 
 only by unexpected slopes and slants of hard rock, upon which, 
 as one's pony's hoof encountered it, one was as likely to slide 
 as stay. There was no help for it. I got off and walked. There 
 
414 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 were ten miles of walking in front of us, and as I have already 
 described the road, it will not be necessary to do more than say 
 that they are about the cruellest ten miles over which man 
 ever dragged his unwilling feet. But the day was bright, and 
 there was one great landmark at least by which to reckon our 
 progress. Crossing the Natu la was the snapping of the last 
 link with all that lay behind me. I had again crossed into Eng- 
 lish territory. 
 
 There was not very much more vegetation here than there 
 had been in the earlier part of the year, but there was enough 
 to mark the distinction of the season. It is not until Changu is 
 reached that one dips suddenly below the lake into the trees 
 and luxury of true Sikkim. Captain Drake Brockman, whom I 
 found at Changu, rowed me over the lake, and I set out over 
 the remaining twenty miles of the day's journey about half-past 
 twelve. 
 
 There is, perhaps, not much to say about the rest of my 
 journey. The road was bad beyond description, and to those 
 who knew it well, nothing could be more descriptive than the 
 simple truth that the road between the tenth mile and the thir- 
 teenth mile was actually the best part of all the journey. Karpo- 
 nang was reached and passed, and then a native Havildar set out 
 with me to lantern me through the dying day to Chumbi. This 
 was the sorest disappointment so far as roads went, for what 
 had, when I went over it first, been a well-metaled good bridle- 
 path developing near Chumbi into a real cart-road, had turned 
 under the downpour into a nubbly sequence of projecting stones, 
 ankle deep in white slush. It was, of course, raining by this 
 time, but that was not of very great account. In any case one 
 would not have been able to do more than about two and a 
 quarter miles an hour. As a matter of fact, it took me four 
 and a half hours to cover the nine and three-quarter miles that 
 lay before me, and long after dark I arrived at the bungalow 
 
THE RIDE FROM LHASA TO INDIA 415 
 
 where dinner was awaiting me. Then I climbed up to the Resi- 
 dency, where I spent the night. 
 
 The next day I continued the descent, dropping down through 
 the sizzing grindstones of the cicadse into the lower valleys of 
 the Tista and the Rang-po, burdened every additional mile with 
 a heavier blanket of air. When I reached Rang-po, the oppres- 
 sion was almost enough to make me faint. My heart was going 
 like a sledge-hammer, my lungs seemed to have no grip upon 
 the air, and I was nearly deaf. These were all the results of 
 coming down too fast from a seven months' residence at an 
 altitude of thirteen thousand feet. In twenty-four hours I de- 
 scended from 14,500 to 600 feet. Going up was nothing in 
 comparison, and, though the movements of the returning force 
 were far more leisurely, I fancy the descent tried the hearts of 
 sopie of the men far more than the climb. From Rang-po I still 
 went on down the river to the Tista Bridge, where Mr. Lister's 
 relays were waiting for me, and I climbed up again, to my in- 
 tense relief, nearly five thousand feet to the welcome shelter of 
 his bungalow among the tea-fields, through the great cactus 
 hedges, skeined with the gossamer of " Mary's hair." Next day 
 I went on early, and reached Ghoom Station, the end of my long 
 ride, at a quarter to nine, having come from Lhasa in eleven 
 days and three hours. 
 
 I have done. If it shall seem to some reader that I have 
 brought into the course of the narrative even a flash from that 
 aurora of fascination which haloed every step we took in this 
 strange country, which danced will-o'-the-wisp like along our 
 road before us, which at the end sat like St. Elmo's fire within 
 the shrine of the great golden idol in the heart of Lhasa— then 
 I shall have done more than now seems possible to me as I make 
 an end of writing, and turn back the pages of this volume. 
 
 The wide field which the exploration— I had almost said in 
 this case the discovery— of a new country always offers, I have 
 
mystery. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTHERN 
 
 TIBET 
 
 By Captain H. J. Walton 
 
 Indian Medical Service, lately Medical Officer and Naturalist to 
 the Tibet Frontier Commission, 1903-4 
 
 The following sketch of the Natural History of Southern Tibet is 
 not intended to be, in any sense, an exhaustive list of the fauna of 
 that area; it is merely a brief account of some of the more striking 
 animals that were met with in the districts visited by the Tibet Fron- 
 tier Commission, While I do not think that much of popular interest 
 is omitted, I would point out that, during the months when Natural 
 History observations would have been of the greatest interest, in- 
 dulgence in such pursuits for those members of the Commission 
 who were at Gyantse— amongst them myself — was strictly discour- 
 aged by the Tibetans, who emphasized their disapproval of the 
 wandering naturalist by forcible protests from the famous " jingals 
 from the Jong." 
 
 MAMMALS 
 
 Of the larger mammals, that with which we became most familiar 
 was the kiang (Equus hemionus). Both at Kamba-jong and at 
 Tuna there were large numbers of these wild asses. They went 
 about, as a rule, in troops of ten to thirty, though, if alarmed, sev- 
 eral herds would unite temporarily. There is nothing horse-like 
 about the kiang, but from his size and fine carriage he resembles a 
 large mule, rather than an ass. The reddish chestnut color of the 
 upper parts is well shown off by the white belly and legs. The mane 
 is of a darker color, and this color is continued as a narrow stripe 
 along the middle of the back, and for some distance down the tail. 
 
 419 
 
420 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 As the kiang is not harassed by the Tibetans, those we saw were 
 fairly tame, and would allow one to approach to within about sixty 
 yards of them. Then the herd would show signs of uneasiness, and 
 would move off for a hundred yards or so. On several occasions I 
 tried to get at closer quarters with them. I rode slowly toward a 
 herd and the moment the animals became in the least alarmed, I gal- 
 loped toward them as fast as possible; but the kiangs outdistanced 
 me without an effort; indeed, I never succeeded in getting them to 
 do more than make off at an easy canter. It is true that my Tibetan 
 pony was not particularly speedy, but a greyhound that belonged to 
 one of the officers of the Commission escort was almost equally un- 
 successful in the chase of these fleet-footed animals. At Lhasa 
 there were three semi-tame kiangs ; all were mares-. Even these, 
 however, although one could approach to within twenty yards of 
 them, resented attempts at closer intimacy. The kiang must be a 
 very hardy animal. Those at Tuna seemed none the worse for the 
 very low temperatures experienced there, though their only food con- 
 sisted of coarse grasses, to reach which they often had to scratch 
 away the snow. 
 
 According to Blanford and other authorities, the kiang is merely 
 a variety of the Asiatic wild ass, another variety of which {E. onager, 
 V. indicus) occurs in Western India and Baluchistan. It is strange 
 that an animal should be found in the bare desert tracts, west of the 
 Indus, exposed to quite the other extreme of temperature to that to 
 which its near ally is subjected in Tibet. 
 
 A few specimens of the Great Tibetan sheep {Ovis hodgsoni) 
 were obtained at high elevations, on the slopes of the mountains near 
 Kamba-jong. A fine male is said to measure four feet at the 
 shoulder and bears a pair of massive horns, which differ from those 
 of Ovis poli by their curve not forming a complete circle. The 
 Tibetan sheep is closely allied to Ovis amnion. 
 
 Bharal {Ovis nahnra) were very common on all the lower 
 mountain ranges. The females and young, which keep together, 
 were cpnstantly seen and were surprisingly tame, but the old males 
 with good heads required careful stalking. The Tibetans used to 
 - shoot a good many about Kamba-jong. The bharal is a wonderful 
 climber ; even quite young ones negotiate the most formidable-look- 
 ing precipices with apparent ease. Bharal mutton, except that of old 
 males, is very well flavored, though it is not to be compared, as an 
 article of food, with the Tibetan gazelle. 
 
 This Tibetan gazelle or goa {Gazella picticaudata) was one of the 
 
APPENDIX A 421 
 
 commonest animals that we encountered. It occurred in large herds 
 on all the open plains and downs. The horns of the male are closely 
 ringed and much curved back, being commonly from twelve to 
 fourteen inches in length. The female is without horns. Gazelle 
 shooting is about the easiest sport to be obtained in South Tibet. 
 The meat is excellent for the table. Except in places where they 
 had been much worried by us, the gazelles were, as a rule, by no 
 means shy. During the day they scatter about grazing over the 
 plains. When alarmed, the individuals generally unite into a herd 
 and make off at a rapid pace at first, but by using ordinary caution 
 one could generally approach within range of them again. 
 
 I have been much puzzled by a statement made by Sir Joseph 
 Hooker, in his " Himalayan Journals." He mentions antelopes 
 (" Chiru," Pantholops hodgsoni) occurring near the Cholamu Lake. 
 Whatever may have been the case in Hooker's time, I am almost 
 certain that there are no antelopes in this part of Tibet at the present 
 day. The furriers at Lhasa had no skins, nor did I see any horns 
 offered for sale. I made inquiries of several educated Tibetans, and 
 they all asserted that the animal occurred considerably to the west 
 of the country visited by the Tibet Frontier Commission. 
 
 Of the carnivora of South Tibet, the snow leopard (Felis uncia) 
 is the largest. Though rarely seen by us — I myself only saw one 
 during the fourteen months that I spent in Tibet — it appears to be 
 fairly common, judging by the numerous skins that were offered for 
 sale by the Tibetans. 
 
 The lynx (F. lynx) also is tolerably common. This animal is by 
 some authors considered to be a distinct species (F. isabellina) from 
 the European lynx, but the distinction appears to rest mainly on the 
 fact that the Tibean lynx is paler in color than the other. 
 
 On two occasions, near Gyantse, I saw a small light-colored cat. 
 This was probably Pallas's cat (F. manul) ; but as I did not suc- 
 ceed in shooting one, and as the Lhasa furriers had no skins that I 
 recognized as belonging to this species, I am uncertain about their 
 identification. 
 
 Wolves (Canis laniger) were shot occasionally during the winter. 
 The ordinary Tibetan wolf appears to be considerably paler in color 
 than the European animal, but Dr. Blanford considers that the two 
 belong to the same species. A black variety of the wolf is said to 
 occur in Tibet, but I saw none. 
 
 Otters were seen on several occasions in the vicinity of Phari 
 jong. It is much to be regretted that no specimens were obtained. 
 
422 . THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 We shot examples of two species of foxes. At Kamba-jong, 
 Vulpes alopex, var. Havescens, is common. It closely resembles the 
 common fox of Europe, of which it is considered a variety, differing, 
 like so many Tibetan animals, in being paler in color. It carries a 
 magnificent brush. The length from nose to tip of tail of one that I 
 procured— an adult male— was 443^ inches, and the height at the 
 shoulder 14^ inches. 
 
 The other fox (F. ferrilatus) is a smaller animal, with a relatively 
 much shorter tail. It occurs from the neighborhood of Gyantse to 
 Lhasa. A fine male, shot near the Karo la Pass, measured thirty- 
 six inches in length. 
 
 A light-colored weasel (Putorius alpinus) was tolerably common 
 at Gyantse. Its habits are very similar to those of- the European 
 weasel, and it feeds largely on birds. 
 
 The woolly hare (Lepus oiostohis) is universally distributed. 
 The most obvious distinction from the British hare is afforded by 
 the large patch of gray fur over the rump of the Tibetan species. 
 This characteristic patch is well marked even in quite young leverets. 
 The woolly hare is singular in its custom of habitually squatting 
 among bare stones on the hillsides in preference to the grassy plains. 
 It was particularly numerous at Kamba-jong, where on one occasion 
 three guns shot fifty-four in about three hours. 
 
 The Tibetan marmot (Arctomys himalayanus) occurred very 
 locally throughout the country. It was nowhere very numerous, 
 and its whistling call was heard more often than the animal itself 
 was seen. The places affected by this beast were all at very high 
 elevations. The burrows, the entrances to which resemble those 
 of the common rabbit, are frequently made under rocks. The mar- 
 mots appear to hibernate from about the middle of October to the 
 beginning of April. This is quite a large animal, the body being as 
 much as two feet in length. 
 
 A much smaller marmot than the preceding species, specimens 
 of which I saw but did not shoot near Phari jong, in the Chumbi 
 Valley, was probably Arctomys hodgsoni. If so, this species would 
 appear not to hibernate as strictly as its larger relative, as it was in 
 January that I saw it. 
 
 One of the commonest rodents in South Tibet is Hodgson's mouse- 
 hare (Lagomys cursonice). Wherever the country is tolerably level 
 the ground is tunneled in all directions by its burrows. This species 
 is highly gregarious, and does not hibernate at all. Even during the 
 severest cold of the winter the little mouse-hares could be seen 
 
APPENDIX A 423 
 
 sitting at the mouths of their runs, sunning themselves. Although 
 they are essentially social animals, large numbers living in close prox- 
 imity to one another, as a rule their burrows are quite distinct one 
 from another ; and although in case of a sudden alarm a mouse-hare 
 will take refuge temporarily in the nearest burrow, I noticed on 
 several occasions the presumably rightful owner of the burrow driv- 
 ing the intruder away. The mouse-hare is a little, tailless beast with 
 small rounded ears. It is in shape rather like a guinea-pig, and is 
 of about the size of a large rat. The friendly terms on which it 
 lives with a small bird — the brown ground-chough (Podoces humilis) 
 — recall the somewhat similar association between the " prairie- 
 dog" (Cynomys sp.) and the ground-owl {Speotyto cunicularis), 
 though in the latter case a rattlesnake is said to form a third member 
 of the " happy family." 
 
 Both field-mice and house-mice occur in South Tibet, but the 
 species have not yet been identified. A newspaper correspondent, 
 in an account he gave of a visit to the Jo-kang in Lhasa, speaks of 
 white mice living in one of the shrines of this cathedral. This is an 
 error. The mice in this shrine, which are surprisingly tame, belong 
 to the species of the ordinary house-mouse of Tibet. This is larger 
 than Mus musculus, and considerably paler in color. 
 
 Although I was constantly on the lookout for them, I did not 
 see a single bat in Tibet. I was informed by an officer of the escort 
 that he had seen some very small bats flying round the jong at 
 Gyantse. I went to the place mentioned on many evenings, but no 
 bats appeared, and I think it probable that the officer mistook for 
 small bats the crag-martins which abounded about the rocks. 
 
 At all low elevations musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus) were 
 common, and nowhere more so than at Lhasa. Considering its 
 abundance, I was amused at the impudence of some Tibetans who 
 wished to sell me a live specimen for thirty-five pounds ! The musk, 
 which is obtained from a gland on the belly of the male, is, as usual, 
 much in demand among the Tibetans for medicinal purposes. The 
 chief characteristics of the animal are the large movable lateral hoofs, 
 the long canine teeth, and the peculiar brittleness and wiry texture 
 of the fur. 
 
 I was much disappointed at having no opportunity of becoming 
 acquainted with the shao {Cervus affinis). This somewhat mysteri- 
 ous stag— mysterious, at least, as far as its geographical distribution 
 is concerned— must be, to judge from its antlers, one of the finest of 
 the Asiatic Cervidce. I took a great deal of trouble in endeavoring 
 
424 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 to ascertain from the Tibetans something definite about the area it 
 inhabited. The antlers were common in many monasteries through- 
 out the country we visited, and in the shops at Lhasa, but beyond say- 
 ing that the shao inhabited a tract of country to the south of Lhasa, 
 my informants were all exceedingly vague in their statements. Two 
 specimens (one of which, a female, was captured alive, but which 
 unfortunately died) were obtained by officers in the Chumbi Valley.' 
 These evidently came into the valley from Bhutan, but I obtained no 
 reliable evidence as to how far to the East this species ranges. I was 
 told that the reason so many shao antlers are for sale at Lhasa, is 
 that they are in great demand by Chinese merchants, who export 
 them to China to be used medicinally. It is a great pity that the 
 antlers are considered to be most valuable when " in .velvet," as this 
 naturally necessitates kiUing the animal. 
 
 The wild yak (Bos grunniens) does not inhabit the parts of Tibet 
 visited by the Tibet Frontier Commission, but domesticated animals 
 are used everywhere for purposes of transport. All tame cattle are 
 phlegmatic creatures, but the palm must certainly be awarded to the 
 yak for the highest form of philosophical imperturbability. It ap- 
 pears to be perfectly indifferent to the weather, provided only that 
 it is cold enough; it forages for itself, and requires no grooming, 
 stabling, or other attention. At night the Tibetans secure their yaks 
 in a row by tying thin yak-hair cords to the beasts' horns and to a 
 thicker pegged-out rope. One would think that the yaks had only 
 to shake their heads in order to free themselves, but it never seems 
 to occur to them how easy it would be to escape. Yak drivers, on the 
 march, encourage the yaks to step out by shrill whistles; if more 
 drastic measures are required they hurl rocks, with unerring aim, 
 or sling stones, with equal skill, at the unfortunate animals. For 
 agricultural work, especially for plowing, the Tibetans generally 
 use hybrids between the yak and ordinary cattle, as these are more 
 docile and easier to manage than the pure-bred yak. A peculiarity 
 of the yak, that I have not seen referred to anywhere, is the color of 
 the tongue. In some yaks this is quite black, while in others it is of 
 the usual red color. In connection with this fact it is interesting to 
 remember that several of the domestic dogs of Eastern Asia (for in- 
 stance, the chow-chow) have black tongues; but if, as I believe is 
 the case, the Polar bear and occasionally the Newfoundland dog also 
 have tongues of this color, it seems impossible to imagine any rea- 
 
 * Another small and immature specimen was bought by Brigadier-General 
 Macdonald at Lhasa, but this also died.— P. L. 
 
APPENDIX A 425 
 
 son for this peculiarity. Possibly it is confined to animals living in 
 cold countries, but this suggestion does not explain why only about 
 half the yaks are black-tongued. More information is required on 
 this subject. 
 
 With the exception of the dogs, there is nothing of special interest 
 about the other domestic animals of South Tibet. Excellent wool 
 and well-flavored mutton are provided by the sheep, and the common 
 goat of the country is a small long-haired animal, resembling the 
 goat of Kashmir. 
 
 Although, as a rule, not much trouble is taken by the Tibetans 
 in breeding their dogs, these animals are much prized by the people. 
 Apart from the swarms of cross-bred mongrels, it is possible to 
 recognize at least four well-characterized breeds. Of these, the 
 finest is the so-called Tibetan mastiff. This is a great shaggy crea- 
 ture, with a very massive head. It is usually black-and-tan in color, 
 and has a very thick, rough coat. Its eyes show some " haw " like a 
 bloodhound, and it has the pendulous lips of that breed. No monas- 
 tery of any pretensions in Southern Tibet is without at least a pair 
 of these fierce dogs chained up on either side of the entrance. 
 
 The commonest dog is very like a badly bred collie, but lacks the 
 magnificent frill and brush of the latter. 
 
 The Lhasa terrier is an entirely distinct breed. It is very sim- 
 ilar to a drop-eared Skye terrier, but carries its tail, which is densely 
 feathered, tucked up tightly over its back. It is extremely common 
 at Lhasa, but most of the dogs there are too long in the leg, and I 
 had much trouble in procuring a really good specimen. 
 
 The other distinctive breed is the Tibetan spaniel. This is a 
 small black dog — sometimes black-and-white — rather like a Pekinese 
 spaniel. Good specimens of this dog are even more scarce than 
 Lhasa terriers. The dogs that are prized most by the better-class 
 Tibetans are small Chinese lap-dogs, of various kinds, that are 
 brought as presents from Peking by the merchants. 
 
 The Dalai Lama has an elephant at Lhasa. This was sent to him, 
 I believe, either from Nepal or Bhutan. It is a small male with 
 slender tusks, and has lived in perfect health at Lhasa for some years. 
 
 BIRDS 
 
 Among the resident Tibetan birds, two— the lammergeier (Gypae- 
 tus barbatus) and the raven (Corvus corax) —are of particular inter- 
 est. Both species are almost ubiquitous throughout Southern Tibet ; 
 
426 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 they appear to be quite impervious to the rigors of the climate, and 
 keep fat and lively under conditions that would be fatal to other 
 birds of their great bulk. The powers of flight of the lammergeier 
 are truly superb, and it is a magnificent sight to see one circling, 
 without an effort, around some precipitous mountain-peak, an oc- 
 casional flap of the wide wings sufficing to impart all the impetus 
 required. The old stories of lammergeiers carrying off babies from 
 Alpine villages are pretty well discredited nowadays; certainly the 
 Tibetan bird appears to feed entirely on carrion, associating with 
 griffon vultures around the carcasses of yaks, sheep and other 
 animals. On one occasion I put up a hare, which ran for a hun- 
 dred yards or more^long a bare hillside, a few yards below a lam- 
 mergeier that was sailing along close to the ground. The latter 
 took absolutely no notice of the hare, which it might easily have 
 seized. No doubt a lammergeier may occasionally take a living 
 animal, but I fancy that it would only do this if the beast were 
 sickly or very young. There were hundreds of lammergeiers about 
 the camps of the Commission at Kamba-jong and Tuna, and I had 
 daily opportunities of studying their habits, but I never saw them 
 eating anything but offal or dead animals. The length of the 
 lammergeier's wings prevents the bird from rising at once from the 
 ground ; when it wishes to fly, it is obliged to hop forward for some 
 yards, in order to get up a little " way," and it then presents rather 
 a grotesque appearance. The weak, querulous cry also seems very 
 inappropriate to such a noble-looking bird. During the summer 
 months the lammergeier retires to the higher mountains, where it 
 makes its large nest on some rocky ledge; but, even then, it comes 
 down to the plajns at times, especially in the evening. Thus, both 
 at Gyantse and Lhasa, these birds were always to be seen. The 
 wedge-shaped tail and peculiar flight enable one to recognize a 
 lammergeier immediately, even at a great distance. 
 
 The raven (Corvus corax) is an even more familiar bird in Tibet 
 than the lammergeier. Although the Tibetan bird is the same 
 species as the European raven, it differs from the latter in being 
 usually larger. Ravens occurred at all the camps of the Tibet Fron- 
 tier Commission, and where these were more or less permanent, the 
 birds literally swarmed, disputing with mongrel dogs for the posses- 
 sion of offal. My own previous acquaintance with wild ravens was 
 mostly acquired in Iceland. In that country ravens are tolerably 
 common, but they are so shy and wild that most of one's observa- 
 tions have to be made through the medium of field-glasses. It was, 
 
APPENDIX A 427 
 
 therefore, a pleasant surprise to me to find the Tibetan raven so 
 utterly devoid of fear that one could stand within five yards of a 
 bird, who, quite undisconcerted by such a close scrutiny, would con- 
 fine his protest at the most to a croak or two, and resume his un- 
 savory repast with undiminished appetite. In spite, however, of 
 the Tibetan ravens' tameness, they still retain the wariness common 
 to all the CorvidcB; although in a land where firearms are rarely 
 carried and where ravens are not molested, they cannot possibly 
 associate the sight of a gun with danger to themselves. I found 
 them apparently fully alive to my fell designs whenever I went 
 after them " on business." As usual with this species, ravens in 
 Tibet are early breeders. I found a nest containing young birds on 
 the 6th of April, at an elevation of about 15,000 feet. The inhab- 
 itants of Lhasa keep several species of birds in captivity; consider- 
 ing what excellent pets ravens make, I was rather surprised to see no 
 tame ones there. 
 
 The Himalayan griffon vulture {Gyps himalayensis) is another 
 common bird occurring up to the greatest altitudes. The wonderful 
 rapidity with which numerous vultures appear about a dead animal 
 (although a few minutes before its death no more may have been 
 visible than a solitary bird soaring high up in the firmament) is a 
 familiar fact, but it nevertheless impresses one afresh each time 
 that one witnesses it; especially is this the case among the bare 
 mountains of Tibet, where such a large tract of country must be 
 required to provide sufficient food for each bird. 
 
 Pallas's sea-eagle {Haliaetus leucoryphus) , a large fulvous-color 
 bird, with a whitish forehead and a broad white band across the tail, 
 was also somewhat numerous, and, in the plains of Gyantse and 
 Lhasa, the black-eared kite (Milvus melanotis) abounds. A pair 
 of these kites built their untidy nest on a tree standing in the garden 
 of the house in which the Commission was living at Gyantse. This 
 house was under a daily bombardment from the guns of Gyantse 
 jong for over two months, and the kites' nest was directly in the line 
 of fire. Although jingal balls were whistling through the leaves, or 
 striking the branches, of the tree for many hours on almost every 
 day, they scarcely disturbed the kites in the least, and the latter suc- 
 cessfully reared their young. 
 
 Of the smaller Falconidce, sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus), hob- 
 bies (Falco subbuteo) and kestrels (F. tinmmculus) were all fairly 
 common ; a few kestrels spent the winter at Tuna, but their numbers 
 were largely reinforced by migrants in the spring. Three species of 
 
428 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 owls occurred, among them, the large eagle-owl (Bubo ignavus), 
 which is rather common at Lhasa. In the spring hosts of migratory 
 birds appeared. Thrushes were represented by the red-throated 
 ouzel (Merula ruficollis), on its way to breeding grounds in higher 
 latitudes, but most of the following birds remained with us until 
 the cold weather set in : Redstarts (Ruticilla ruHventris and R. 
 hodgsoni) were particularly numerous, as were also hoopoes 
 (Upiipa epops), willow-warblers (Phylloscopus ofHnis), rose-finches 
 (Propasser pulcherrimus and Carpodacus severtsovi), cinnamon 
 sparrows {Passer cinnamomeus) , and several species of wagtails. 
 The resident sparrow of Southern Tibet is the common European 
 tree-sparrow {Passer ntontanus). This bird abounds even in places 
 which, from the total absence of trees, would apparently prove quite 
 unsuitable; however, the bird accommodates itself to circumstances 
 and occurs in all the Tibetan villages. 
 
 The horned lark {Otocorys elwesi) is another common resident 
 species, but is only met with in the bare, treeless tracts of country, 
 and retires to the mountains and higher passes to breed. The same 
 applies to the large calandra lark {Melanocorypha maxima), whose 
 melodious call-note became very familiar to us. 
 
 Skylarks {Alauda arvensis) abound from Gyantse to Lhasa; 
 swifts {Cypselus apiis) and sand-martins {Cotile riparia) occur 
 along the well-watered valleys, and swallows {Hirundo rufula, 
 stibsp.) and crag-martins {Ptyonoprogne rtipestris) everywhere. 
 
 Flocks of red-billed choughs {Pyrrhocorax graculus) frequented 
 the whole of the country that we visited. This is the same bird as 
 the Cornish chough, but it differs from the British species in being 
 of a larger size. As they do not feed on carrion, it is difficult to 
 imagine what food such large numbers find in winter in the bare 
 frozen country round Tuna. Magpies {Pica hottanensis) are very 
 common at Gyantse and Lhasa. They very closely resemble the 
 British magpie (P. rustica), but are distinguishable from the latter 
 by having the rump entirely black; they are also somewhat larger 
 birds. 
 
 As might be expected, snow-finches (mountain-finches) are well 
 represented in Tibet. Three species {Montifringilla blanfordi, M. 
 ruHcollis and M. adamsi) spent the winter with us at Tuna. Though 
 there was literally nothing for them to eat there, except the scanty 
 seeds of coarse grasses, they kept in excellent condition, even during 
 the severest weather. 
 
APPENDIX A 429 
 
 The Tibetan twite (Acanthis brevirostris) is also very common 
 and very similar in appearance and habits to the European bird. 
 
 No cuckoos were met with; this is rather strange since several 
 species, including the familiar Cuculus canorus, are common in 
 summer up to high altitudes in the Himalayas. The wryneck {lynx 
 torquilla), known in many parts of England as the " cuckoo's mate," 
 occurred in small numbers at Lhasa, early in September. It was no 
 doubt migrating then, as it is a regular winter visitor to the plains of 
 India. 
 
 The blue-hill pigeon (Columba rupestris), the differences between 
 which and our own blue rock (C. livia) are very trivial, is the com- 
 mon pigeon of South Tibet. Although the Tibetans are not pigeon 
 fanciers, this bird lives in a semi-domesticated state in all the vil- 
 lages. Oddly enough, the "snow" pigeon (C. leuconota), a hand- 
 some pied bird, was only seen at comparatively low altitudes in the 
 Chumbi Valley. 
 
 There is a good stock of game birds. In the Chumbi Valley 
 monals (Lophophorus refulgens) and blood pheasants (Ithagenes 
 cruentus) were very numerous, and on the mountains and high table- 
 lands the fine Tibetan snow cock (Tetraogallus tibetanus) was al- 
 most equally common. Snow partridges (Lerwa nivicola) were de- 
 cidedly local in their distribution, but the Tibetan partridge {Perdix 
 hodgsonice) was plentiful almost everywhere. It is an excellent 
 bird for the table, but is too confirmed a " runner " to afford much 
 sport. From the sportsman's point of view, one of the best birds is 
 the sand-grouse (Syrrhaptes tibetanus), which also occurred in con- 
 siderable numbers. 
 
 The Hram or Bam tso and Kala tso, lakes on the road between 
 Tuna and Gyantse, were covered in the spring with innumerable 
 geese and ducks, resting, for the most part, on their way to their 
 breeding grounds. The only goose shot and positively identified 
 was the bar-headed goose (Anser indicus). This bird breeds on a 
 lake near Kamba-jong, on the Kala tso, and probably on several 
 others of the larger lakes in Southern Tibet. Indeed, at Lhasa, wild 
 goose's eggs were offered for sale in the bazaar, but only in small 
 numbers. The ruddy sheldrake, or Brahminy duck (Casarca rutila), 
 breeds all over the country, making its nest in any sort of hole or 
 hollow in the vicinity of some small stream. This bird, owing to its 
 extreme wariness, is a perfect curse to the sportsman in India who 
 is in quest of wild-fowl. While worthless itself for the table, and 
 
430 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 consequently seldom shot at, it alarms all the better ducks by its loud 
 call, and by being the first to take to flight. It was therefore quite 
 novel to note how tame the Brahminy was in Tibet. There, when 
 nesting, or about to nest, it scarcely took any notice of one, merely 
 waddling off a few yards if approached too closely. Another duck, 
 which breeds certainly at Lhasa and probably elsewhere, is the white- 
 eyed pochard (Nyroca ferruginea). "Flappers," still unable to fly, 
 were shot at Lhasa at the end of August. The other ducks that 
 were met with in Tibet were the mallard {Anas boscas), the pintail 
 (Dafila acuta), shoveler (Spatula clypeata), common teal {Nettium 
 crecca), Garganey teal {Querquedula circia) and tufted pochard 
 (Nyroca fuligula). Goosanders (Mergus castor) were also com- 
 mon from the Chumbi Valley to Gyantse. 
 
 Two species of snipes, the large solitary snipe (Gallinago solitaria) 
 and the pintail snipe (G. stenura), were obtained; the latter only at 
 Lhasa, where it was very scarce. At Lhasa also redshanks (Totanus 
 calidris), moorhens (Gallinula chloropus) and coots (Ftilica atra) 
 occurred in large numbers. 
 
 The Tibetans are apparently not very observant people. I asked 
 an ofiicial of high rank at Lhasa, who had held appointments at sev- 
 eral places in Tibet, how many species of birds he had seen. He was 
 silent and thoughtful for a minute or two, while he counted oflF on 
 his fingers those that he knew. He then replied that he knew of 
 twelve kinds of birds, and had heard of, but had not seen, two others ! 
 
 On the other hand, a few of the Tibetan names of birds imply 
 some little observation of their appearance, size or habits. Thus 
 the tree-sparrow is called " Kang-che-go-mar," or " the little house- 
 bird with the red head " ; " Pang-che," or " the little bird (that 
 lives) on grassy hillsides," is Severtzoff's warbler (Leptopoecile 
 Sophia), and " Chi-u-teb-tok," or " the little bird as small as the top 
 of one's thumb," is a willow-warbler (Phylloscopus aflinis). The 
 following names are very good onomatopoeic renderings of the birds' 
 notes :—" Pu-pu-pu-shu " is the hoopoe (Upupa epops), and " Di- 
 di-ku-ku " is the turtle dove (Turtur orientalis). 
 
 At Lhasa many birds are kept in captivity, the favorite cage-birds 
 being larks, rose-finches and turtle doves. 
 
 FISH 
 
 The streams and lakes of Southern Tibet are well supplied with 
 fish. During the summer fishermen from Gyantse and Lhasa go as 
 
APPENDIX A 431 
 
 far as the Kala tso lake for the purposes of their trade. The fish that 
 they catch vary in weight from about half to two pounds or more. 
 They are split in two, like haddocks, and dried in the sun. 
 
 I collected several species, but they are at present awaiting identi- 
 fication. One fish, which furnished a good deal of sport to the 
 anglers of the Commission and escort, is quite like a trout in color 
 and general appearance, but differs in wanting the small " adipose " 
 fin. It was as good for the table as for sport. 
 
 Another fish of which we caught large numbers up to four pounds 
 in weight in the Tsang-po and in the streams at Lhasa, is an ugly, 
 slimy brute, with a flattened head and four long feelers hanging 
 from the sides of the mouth. In spite of its repulsive appearance,^ 
 it was a very excellent and welcome article of food. 
 
 REPTILES 
 
 Of the reptiles, snakes (non-venomous) are said by the Tibetans 
 to occur in th*e vicinity of the numerous hot springs, but I was not 
 fortunate enough to come across any. 
 
 I collected several species of lizards : the most interesting was a 
 large dark-colored animal, which was often to be seen sunning itself 
 on the rocky hillsides near Lhasa. Its body is remarkably flattened 
 from above downward, and is of a dark stone-gray color, thickly 
 marked with black, and a few large white spots. The largest that I 
 secured measured sixteen inches in length. 
 
 AMPHIBIA 
 
 I was requested by a distinguished Russian naturalist to keep a 
 sharp lookout for newts, as little or nothing was known of these 
 amphibians. I spent many hours in searching for them, in the most 
 likely places, but I found none. Toads, also, seem to be quite want- 
 ing in Southern Tibet, but frogs of two or three species are very 
 common. Owing, presumably, to the brevity of the Tibetan sum- 
 mer, the frogs are only just about able to get through their meta- 
 morphoses before the winter sets in, and tadpoles were still com- 
 mon in all the ditches and ponds at Lhasa at the end of August. 
 
 INSECTS 
 
 To any one possessing an acquaintance with British insects, the 
 Tibetan ones seem quite familiar. The common butterflies at once 
 
432 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 recall our "whites," "blues," " tortoiseshells," and " fritillaries," 
 and various beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, ants, bees, and dragon- 
 flies are strongly suggestive of our own. 
 
 Mosquitoes, of savage propensities, were very common at Lhasa, 
 though they were not at all troublesome elsewhere. The extensive 
 swamps and marshes around the city were, doubtless, responsible for 
 these unpleasant creatures. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 Hunting spiders were common everywhere in summer, but I saw 
 no web-spinning ones. Scarlet " velvet mites " also abounded. 
 A species of centipede, about an inch and a half in. length, was ob- 
 tained in the Brahmaputra valley. 
 
 The Tibetans carry about on their persons a particularly luxuriant 
 parasite fauna of the familiar types. As the lower classes of the in- 
 habitants of Tibet do not appear to possess even the most rudimen- 
 tary ideas on the subject of bodily cleanliness, this is by no means 
 to be wondered at. Earthworms seemed to be very local in their 
 distribution. 
 
 The general similarity, referred to above as existing between 
 Tibetan and British insects, was noticeable too in the case of the 
 common mollusks, which closely resemble the fresh-water snails 
 of an English pond. 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 Sir Edward Maunde Thompson has drawn my attention to the 
 following extract from the Warren Hastings papers [British 
 Museum. Additional MS. 29,233, f. 388] . It is a note by George 
 Bogle upon the attitude he assumed toward the Tibetans and Bhu- 
 tanese, and is not without interest as showing the kind of man War- 
 ren Hastings selected for his important commission to Tibet. 
 
 . . . . " I sometimes considered that the Character not only 
 of the English, but of all the People of Europe depended upon me. 
 This Idea, of being shown as a Specimen of my Countrymen has 
 often given me a world of Uneasiness, and I dont know that I ever 
 wished so heartily to have been a tall personable Man, as upon* this 
 Occasion. It was some Comfort to have Mr. Hamilton with me, 
 and I left it entirely to him to give a good Impression of the Per- 
 sons of Fringies. But from a national and perhaps excusable van- 
 ity, I was anxious also to give the People whom I visited, a favourable 
 opinion of the dispositions of the English. The Hostilities in Cooch 
 Beyhar had shewn them, to the Inhabitants of Bootan and Thibet, 
 as a nation brave and warlike. My Business among them was meek 
 and peaceful. In order to fulfill the Purpose of my Commission 1 
 had to gain Confidence and to conciliate Goodwill. With this View 
 I assumed the Dress of the Country, endeavoured to acquire a little of 
 the language & Manners, drank a Deluge of Tea with Salt and 
 Butter, eat Beetle in Bootan, took Snuff and smoked Tobacco in 
 Thibet, & would never allow myself to be out of Humour. If with 
 this view also I have sometimes given presents which a parsimo- 
 nious Economy might have saved, and have thereby enhanced my 
 Expences a few Thousand Rupees, the propriety or Impropriety of 
 my Conduct may be easily appreciated, by weighing the Object that 
 I aimed at against the Money which it cost me. 
 
 " Indeed the whole of my Expences (Servants wages excepted) 
 are in a Manner formed of Presents. Even the Charge of travelling 
 
 433 
 
434 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 may be included under this Head. An order of Government sup- 
 plied me with Coolies Horses and Accommodations. The best 
 House in every Village was allotted me for my Quarters, and the 
 best provisions which the Country afforded, were prepared for my 
 supper. During the five Months that I lived in the Lama's Palace, 
 I had Rice, Tea, Sugar, preserved Fruits, Bread, and dried Sheeps' 
 Carcases in Abundance, and the whole Expence of living, for myself 
 and Mr. Hamilton, during that Time, amounts but to about forty 
 Rupees. The Presents, I gave to the Bootieas, were principally 
 made in Money. Those to the Inhabitants of Thibet, in Coral, 
 Broad Cloth, and other Articles. The different Genius of the two 
 Nations required this distinction. The Ideas of the high Class of 
 People in Thibet are more refined, and they with difficulty accepted 
 even of those presents from a Stranger. The Bootieas are of a more 
 sordid Disposition, and receive, with little Ceremony, whatever is 
 offered to them. In return I received in Bootan, besides some 
 Pieces of Silk, Blankets, and other woolen Manufactures, Fruits, 
 Rice, Butter in such quantities that I could have set up as a Tallow 
 Chandler, and a parcell of unmatched Tanyan Horses — which have 
 almost ruined me. In Thibet I received Gold Dust and Talents of 
 Silver, from the Lama and his Officers, for all which, except some 
 small Bulses * which I gave away in the same Manner as I got them, 
 I have given Credit in my Accounts. 
 
 " I have stated my Charges fairly. The Money which I expended 
 was for the Honour of the Company, and to facilitate the Object 
 which I aimed at, and thus I submit the Accounts to your Judge- 
 ment." 
 
 * Bu/j^— package of diamonds or gold dust (Oxford Dictionary). 
 
APPENDIX C 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION AND GOVERNMENT OF 
 
 TIBET 
 
 By Captain W. F. T. O'Connor, CLE. 
 
 Secretary and Interpreter to the Tibet Mission, now acting as 
 
 British Agent at Gyantse 
 
 Mr. Landon has asked me to write as an appendix to his book a 
 note on Tibetan affairs, and I have consequently much pleasure in 
 putting together such scraps of information as I have been able to 
 collect— if only as a memento of the many pleasant days we spent 
 together, at Gyantse and at Lhasa, in riding abroad together through 
 the weird landscapes of this strange country. 
 
 I would, however, premise that as yet we have only scratched the 
 surface of Tibet and things Tibetan. Every day in the country, 
 every individual one meets, and every manuscript one reads, all 
 reveal some new trait, some bizarre superstition, something unsus- 
 pected before. We can only hope that in a few years' time patient 
 study may reveal some of the secrets now hidden and give us a 
 wider comprehension of facts as yet only partially understood. 
 
 The first thing that strikes a student of Tibetan administration 
 and affairs in general is the marked resemblance in many points be- 
 tween Tibet at the present time and Europe as it must have been dur- 
 ing the Middle Ages or up to the time of the Reformation, Apart 
 from the actual government by absolute monarchs the two most 
 prominent characteristics in the interior economy of Europe of, say, 
 the fourteenth century, were the systems of Feudalism and Monasti- 
 cism. It was these two institutions which at this period spread far 
 and wide over the whole of Central, Western and Southern Europe, 
 and stifled by the mere fact of their existence all initiative, know- 
 ledge, and spirit among the lower orders; and gave learning and 
 
 435 
 
436 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 power exclusively into the hands of a comparatively small minority 
 of nobles and priests. If one opens any history of Europe relating to 
 the time in question one finds numerous passages which might be 
 quoted almost verbatim as applying to Tibet as we find the country 
 to-day: "Amongst the various evils which oppressed and degraded 
 the people .... may be mentioned two of especial prevalence 
 and most baneful influence— the Feudal and Papal despotisms." 
 Again : " The plebeian peasant was still a plebeian by birth, and 
 few circumstances could take away the sting which aggravated his 
 inferior condition .... only in the church could he rise to 
 his proper rank or feel his true dignity as a man." 
 
 Such remarks and many others of similar import might be used 
 to-day to describe the conditions under which the Tibetan peasant 
 now labors. Practically all the high offices of State are monopo- 
 lized by men of two classes — either by a most jealous and narrow 
 clique of hereditary nobles, or by dignitaries of the Yellow-Cap or 
 Reformed School of the Buddhist Church. Of these hereditary 
 nobles there are altogether only some twenty or thirty families, but 
 in a small country like Tibet even these furnish, with their numerous 
 connections and hangers-on, sufficient individuals to occupy all 
 lucrative government posts from the highest almost to the lowest. 
 The bulk of these great families have been ennobled by virtue of 
 the blessing of having at one time or another given birth to a Dalai 
 Lama or a Penchen Rinpoche. This inestimable privilege at once 
 ipso facto raises the head of the fortunate family to the highest rank 
 of the Tibetan peerage ; that is to say, the father or the eldest brother, 
 as the case may be, immediately becomes a " king " or duke, and, in 
 the latter case, the rank is hereditary, passing in direct succession 
 from father to son, while large grants of land are made to support 
 the dignity of the rank. In this way most of the great families have 
 originated. They all possess" large estates scattered about in various 
 parts of the country, but the male members almost invariably hold 
 office and reside in or near Lhasa. The younger members may be 
 either monks or laymen, but in any case are entitled to some small 
 office, beginning generally low down on the scale as Jong-pens * or 
 clerks in government offices, and rising finally to be Sha-pes, treas- 
 urers, etc. 
 
 The ecclesiastical or monk officials are selected in two ways. In 
 
 * Captain O'Connor spells this word with a modified o (6). I have, for 
 purposes of uniformity, kept to the spelling in the text. The difference is 
 immaterial. 
 
APPENDIX C 437 
 
 the first place there is a school at Lhasa for the education of young 
 ecclesiastics who desire government employment. These young 
 men, as remarked above, are generally but not necessarily scions of 
 the great families. They are educated as boys in the conduct of 
 official correspondence, the keeping of accounts, etc., and when duly 
 qualified are given some small office from which they may gradually 
 rise to power. They are not monks in the true sense of the word, 
 and although nominally entered at one of the big monasteries as an 
 In-chung or novice, they do not as a rule join their monasteries at 
 all, but live at home and attend school in the city. The other class 
 of ecclesiastical official is composed of monks proper, who by dint of 
 force of character and intellect have risen above their compeers in 
 the monastery and are selected for office owing to their proved capac- 
 ity. They are in a very small minority. In the case of the lay 
 officials each office is accompanied by a gift of land in lieu of salary. 
 In the case of the monks, who are not supposed to value or desire 
 earthly possessions, a small salary is given for their support. Thus 
 it will be seen that as far as the actual administration of the country 
 is concerned the governing body is solely composed of members of 
 the nobility and of a few monks who have risen by force of character. 
 With the latter exception men of low origin, or even of respectable 
 birth, are altogether debarred from office or power. As a natural 
 result of this we find that throughout the country there are two 
 classes— the great landowners and the priests— which exercise each 
 in its own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal. 
 The peasant on an estate is in almost every sense a serf. He is 
 bound to furnish the greater part of his agricultural produce for the 
 use of his landlord, keeping only enough for the bare support of him- 
 self and family. He cannot without his lord's permission leave the 
 soil or the country, and he is compelled to furnish free transport and 
 supplies to all official travelers or visitors — Chinese or Tibetan. 
 But in spite of this state of affairs, it need not be supposed that, ad- 
 ministratively, the Tibetan peasant is crushed and ground beneath a 
 tyrannical yoke. In spite of the arbitrary rule of the nobles and 
 officials, the country on the whole is well governed and the people 
 well treated. They are not, it is true, allowed to take any liberties 
 or to infringe the orders of their superiors, but as long as they con- 
 fine themselves to their legitimate sphere of action, and, above all, 
 abstain from political offenses, their lives are lived simply and hap- 
 pily enough under a sort of patriarchal sway. The common people 
 are cheerful, happy-go-lucky creatures, absurdly like the Irish in 
 
438 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 their ways, and sometimes even in their features. They are always 
 anxious to please and thoroughly understand the art of blarney; 
 they are quarrelsome but good-natured. Discipline of any descrip- 
 tion is entirely remote from their conception of life, and if employed 
 on any labor, they will only work as long as some European eye is 
 upon them. They sing cheerily and display a deal of vigor while 
 watched, but the moment they are left to themselves they gather 
 under the lee of the nearest wall and spend the time in gossip and 
 drinking buttered tea, for a teapot and the necessary ingredients 
 invariably accompany every party of workmen, and even individuals 
 when detached by themselves. They are, in fact, great children, very 
 ignorant, very simple, and devoid of all idea of moral responsibility. 
 
 The regular artificers — carpenters, painters, masohs, smiths— are 
 of a better and more intelligent class. They are in their way ex- 
 cellent and conscientious workmen. Brought up to their trade from 
 childhood they thoroughly understand it, and will work away all day 
 without any supervision whatever. Their ideas of art, furniture, 
 etc., are peculiar. They are partly Chinese, partly Indian, and partly 
 the product of their own bizarre imaginations. Everything in 
 Tibet, in fact — dresses, houses, furniture, paintings, ornaments, 
 jewelry, whatever it may be— bears the impress of a country un- 
 like any other country in the world. Every Tibetan, high and low, 
 is a curiosity who ought to be in a museum. His salutations, ges- 
 tures, clothing, and general tout ensemble, stamp him as something 
 apart from the rest of the inhabitants of the globe. Yet with all this 
 they are a highly civilized race. A mere savage would never excite 
 so much interest. But the civilization of Tibet, although derived 
 originally from two such well-known countries as China and India, 
 has been, so to speak, forced into a mold congenial to Tibetan ideas, 
 and during the centuries which have elapsed since its introduction 
 no outside influences have been permitted to modify or modernize 
 the original conceptions as to what was right and proper. The 
 ancient Mexicans and Peruvians no doubt exhibited to the Span- 
 iards a somewhat similar state of affairs. They, too, were the in- 
 heritors of a unique civilization, totally uninfluenced by any known 
 form of European culture, which had existed among them for cen- 
 turies, and had retained throughout the ages all the original peculiar- 
 ities and superstitions. 
 
 But in Tibet, besides the manners and customs peculiar to the 
 country to which allusion has been made, we are confronted by the 
 extraordinary spectacle of a simple agricultural people, supersti- 
 
APPENDIX C 439 
 
 tious indeed to the last degree, but devoid of any deep-rooted religious 
 convictions or heart-searchings, oppressed by the most monstrous 
 growth of monasticism and priest-craft which the world has ever 
 seen. H-ere again comparison is invited to Europe of the Middle 
 Ages : a vast number of superfluous ministers of religion were sup- 
 ported in idleness and pomp. There were continual additions made 
 to the various orders of monks, who, pretending to superior sanctity, 
 consumed the revenues of the people. They forged innumerable 
 weapons of servitude, invented degrading legends, and stimulated a 
 spirit of superstition. So it is in Tibet at this moment. A very 
 large proportion (estimated by some at one-fifth) of the male popu- 
 lation, having embraced the monastic life, is lost to all intents and 
 purposes as a practical factor in the well-being of the nation. Vast 
 as was the number of superfluous monks in medieval Europe, their 
 sum in Tibet is, in proportion, vaster still. Monasteries abound 
 in profusion all over the whole face of the country. Every valley, 
 however small, owns one at least; one or two are seen on nearly 
 every hill-side. They are found in the immediate neighborhood of 
 the larger towns, and are buried away in the most remote and inac- 
 cessible fastnesses. Some are huge collegiate institutions, like the 
 monasteries of Lhasa, Shigatse, and Gyantse, numbering on their 
 rolls 3,000 to 10,000 inmates ; others are mere hermitages affording 
 shelter to half a dozen of the ruling caste. But all are run upon 
 much the same lines. To every monastery certain lands have been 
 apportioned by the State, upon the produce of which the monks are 
 to a great extent supported. These estates are occupied and farmed 
 by ordinary peasants, who are in effect the serfs or servants of the 
 monks, and are managed, as a rule, by lay stewards. After harvest 
 the great bulk of the crop is set aside for the monastery, and the 
 cultivators are allowed just enough to support themselves and their 
 families until the next autumn. Very exact records are kept. Every 
 measure of grain and every bundle of straw is noted and has to be ac- 
 counted for. During this last harvest I have often watched these 
 stewards or agents at their work. While the active operations of 
 threshing and winnowing are in progress the steward will sit all 
 day long beside the threshing-floor keeping a watch upon the labor- 
 ers. The grain is weighed daily in his presence and the straw put 
 in sacks and duly recorded, and the whole locked up in some con- 
 venient storehouse and seals placed upon the openings. 
 
 As can easily be imagined, the allotment of estates sufficiently ex- 
 tensive to afford sustenance to the entire corporate body of monks 
 
440 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 implies the sequestration for this purpose of no inconsiderable por- 
 tion of the cultivable area of Tibet. Rentals which might otherwise 
 be employed in enhancing the meager revenues of the State or in fur- 
 nishing a livelihood to more useful members of the community, are 
 now swallowed up in the thankless office of maintaining in idleness 
 a host of ignorant, pretentious sluggards. But besides this more 
 legitimate source of livelihood the monks obtain yearly large sums 
 both in cash and kind in return for their religious offices at births, 
 deaths, marriages, and festivals. The extent of these squeezes is 
 only limited by the degree of the priestly rapacity and the poverty of 
 the victim. 
 
 To comprehend in some degree the extent to which the monas- 
 teries bleed the country it is only necessary to enter any one of the 
 larger lamaseries, and to mark the extraordinary contrast at once 
 presented by its huge, solid buildings and rich trappings as compared 
 with the houses of even well-to-do people in the neighborhood. 
 These latter, though generally comfortable and well built, are of an 
 extreme simplicity— square, mud-walled, two-storied structures, fur- 
 nished within with the plainest of household goods, and, with the 
 one exception of the domestic chapel, devoid of ornament or luxury. 
 The monastery presents a remarkable contrast. Here we find mas- 
 sive stone buildings, their roofs often topped with gilded pinnacles 
 and finials, surrounded by great flagged courtyards and a towering 
 outer wall. Inside the temples are hung with silken banners and 
 scrolls, and among the monastic treasures are to be found books 
 and images, cloisonne enamels, china and ornaments of gold, silver, 
 and ivory. There are, of course, monasteries of various degrees 
 of riches. In Tashi-lhunpo, for instance, there is an overwhelming 
 display of wealth. The fine tombs of the five previous Tashi Lamas 
 are most richly ornamented, and contain numbers of beautiful speci- 
 mens of Chinese and Tibetan art, including some finely chased 
 golden cups and bowls. Even the smallest monasteries have one or 
 two temples containing brass images of Buddhist gods and saints and 
 a variety of ornaments, silk scrolls, illuminated missals, etc. When 
 the capital outlay on these treasures is added to the yearly sum neces- 
 sary to support the vast monk population, to keep the monasteries in 
 repair, and to decorate the chapels, it will be apparent that the peo- 
 ple of Tibet pay no light price for the privilege of being included in 
 the fold of the Buddhist Church. 
 
 But in pointing out the evils which necessarily follow in the train 
 of two such abuses as feudalism and monasticism, I would neverthe- 
 
APPENDIX C 441- 
 
 less emphasize the fact that the Tibetan peasant is far from being- a 
 depressed or degraded type of mankind. Conditions which in mod- 
 ern Europe would be considered intolerable are the natural heritage 
 of the Tibetan, and he accepts them not only complacently but with 
 remarkable good humor. And taking it all round, he really has not 
 much to complain of. Except at the very highest elevations and in 
 the bleakest and most exposed parts of the Tibetan uplands the soil 
 is of a wonderful fertility. The valley from Gyantse to Shigatse 
 (sixty miles by four or five), that of the Tsang-po, and the whole 
 neighborhood of Lhasa, are all in summer a solid mass of beautiful 
 crops. Wheat, barley, peas, mustard, are the staples, and the yield 
 is in many cases fifty to sixty fold. The soil, which is alluvial, re- 
 quires but little special nursing. Portions are allowed to lie fallow 
 in rotation once every five years, and this precaution, combined with 
 a copious supply of manure, seems to preclude the danger of ex- 
 haustion. The seasons are regular, and except for occasional hail- 
 storms (for which a sure preventative is provided in the shape of pro- 
 fessional wizards), little is to be feared from the elements. The 
 agriculturist has consequently an easy time and little anxiety as com- 
 pared with his brother in the United Kingdom. The standard of 
 comfort among the very poorest is high, and indeed luxurious as 
 compared with that of an Irish cotter. It is no exaggeration to say 
 that the average Tibetan farmer's condition of life is beyond com- 
 parison better than that of the average Irish peasant. Their houses 
 are larger, cleaner, and better built. Their household and agricul- 
 tural implements are superior and more plentiful. They are better 
 dressed and better fed. Naturally a placid and law-abiding people, 
 they chafe not at all at any partiality displayed by the laws of the 
 country, or on account of .their lack of political privileges. As to 
 learning it is enough for them that the numerous monks should 
 study the scriptures and expound the dark passages of their re- 
 ligion. But in respect to ordinary education, it is surprising to find 
 how many of the commonalty can read and write— far more cer- 
 tainly than was the case with our own lower orders one hundred or 
 even fifty years ago. In every village not only the headmen but one 
 or two members of nearly every family are tolerably well educated, 
 and can read and write the Tibetan running hand fluently enough.* 
 This is no doubt due to a great extent to the diffusion of education 
 by the monks and the teaching faculties of the larger monasteries; 
 so much at least may be attributed unto them for righteousness. 
 * No mean feat. I think O'Connor here also stands alone among white men. 
 
442 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Tibet, in short, with some natural limitations, is a land ripe for 
 enlightenment. Given some reforms in the administration of jus- 
 tice, less partiality in the selection of officials, with more supervision 
 on the part of the central government, a curtailment of the powers 
 and numbers of the monks, the abolition of some of the privileges of 
 the feudal aristocracy, and popular liberty : Tibet will then want for 
 little. The beginnings of free trade and the introduction of Euro- 
 pean ideas have been effected by the recent mission to Lhasa, and 
 will be continued under the terms of the resulting treaty. All that 
 now remains is for a Tibetan Luther to appear upon the scene ; and 
 in a land so fruitful of religious reformers there would appear to be 
 no good reason why a new and up-to-date reformer should not effect 
 great changes, both moral and material, in his native land. 
 
 The above notes will serve to give some sort of idea of the present- 
 day conditions of life of the average Tibetan peasant. But, as al- 
 ready noticed, the governing class forms a caste apart— high offices 
 passing from father to son in each of the great families, and the 
 subordinate members or poor relations between them monopolize 
 every single post in the gift of the government. A brief sketch 
 of the principal features of the Tibetan administration may be of 
 interest. 
 
 The center of all authority in Tibet is situated at Lhasa, where 
 reside the Dalai Lama, the four Sha-pes or ministers, and the bulk 
 of the administrative officials. The head of the State is the Dalai 
 Lama, known to the Tibetans as the Gyal-wa Rinpoche or Kyap-gon 
 Rinpoche, meaning Precious Majesty or Protector. This personage 
 is believed by the Tibetans to be the incarnation of Padma Pani 
 (Avalokita* in Sanskrit, Chen-re-sik in Tibetan), as well as the in- 
 heritor of the spirit of the reformer Tsong-kapa. The first Grand 
 Lama was Gedun-tubpa, the nephew of Tsong-kapa, who succeeded 
 his uncle as head of the new Geluk-pa, or Yellow-cap Church, in the 
 year 1419. He was the first of those spiritual reflexes or incarna- 
 tions, who are now so numerous throughout Tibet, and who play so 
 important a part in the government and general interior economy of 
 the country. The name of the present Dalai Lama is Ngak-wang 
 lo-sang Tub-den gya-tso. He is the thirteenth incarnation, and is 
 now thirty-one years of age. It would be tedious to attempt to 
 trace the history of his predecessors. Some have been men of ener- 
 getic character and high ambitions, and have* exercised great powers. 
 One at least has been dissolute and was removed by order of the 
 * Or Avalokiteswara. The word is equally common in either form. 
 
APPENDIX C 443 
 
 Chinese Emperor. But the majority of the Dalai Lamas have been 
 mere semi-divine figureheads at the mercy of ambitious and unscru- 
 pulous lay ministers ; and the natural result has followed that a large 
 proportion of them have been removed from the sphere of earthly 
 grandeur before they could arrive at years of discretion and take 
 into their own hands the reins of temporal power. 
 
 The present Dalai Lama, however, showed himself early in his 
 career to be of a very different mettle from the bulk of his ill-fated 
 predecessors. From all accounts he is a man of pronounced traits 
 of character, violent temper, and stormy passions, and when quite 
 a youth evinced uncomfortable symptoms of an intention to have his 
 own way. Shortly after he attained his majority the then Regent — 
 an incarnate abbot of one of the four Lhasa " Lings," or monas- 
 teries—was accused of practising witchcraft against the sacred per- 
 son of the " Protector," and was seized and thrown into prison. It 
 was then conclusively proved that this arch scoundrel had concocted 
 a spell, committed it to paper, and actually sewn the incriminating 
 document into the sole of one of the Dalai Lama's new boots. So 
 heinous an offense could not pass unpunished. The culprit, with 
 several of his relations and his political faction, was interned in a 
 dungeon, where he expired in less than a twelvemonth. The young 
 Dalai Lama now found himself free to act in accordance with the 
 dictates of his own untrammeled will. No person or party of the 
 State dared for a moment to oppose him. His brief rule was sig- 
 nalized by numerous proscriptions, banishments, imprisonings, and 
 torturings. Neither life nor property was safe for a moment. His 
 friends were raised to high honors in the State; his enemies or 
 political opponents were banished and deprived of property and 
 place. Among these last victims were personages no less highly 
 placed than the four Sha-pes or executive ministers of the Tibetan 
 Government. Cases had been known before of single ministers 
 being arraigned for offenses and disgraced. Such precedents in 
 fact were far from uncommon, and the overthrow of any one coun- 
 cilor would have excited little surprise or even unfavorable com- 
 ment. But to eradicate at one fell swoop the whole executive au- 
 thority of the country was a measure rendered possible not only by 
 a considerable amount of audacity, but by an authority supported 
 upon a divine as well as a temporal basis. 
 
 The above facts have been adduced merely to emphasize the al- 
 most unassailable position of one of these incarnate lamas in the 
 queer, topsy-turvy polity of Tibet. These incarnations are, of 
 
444 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 course, merely conventional, just as the symbols of Buddhist worship 
 scattered broadcast throughout the country are conventions. But it 
 is a conventionality which exercises an extraordinary power over the 
 minds and imaginations of the simple Tibetan folk. During a 
 recent visit to Shigatse I had the opportunity of visiting the second 
 great incarnate Lama of Tibet (the Penchen Rinpoche of Tashi- 
 Ihunpo), and I was astonished to see the very real reverence with 
 which he is treated not only by pilgrims from outside but by his own 
 servants and immediate entourage. But it had been different at 
 Lhasa, and even an earthly manifestation of Avalokiteswara may 
 carry things too far. Scandals and ill-feeling, however carefully re- 
 pressed, will at length find a vent : and it was no ^oubt partly the 
 storm-clouds which the young ruler felt to be gathering about him 
 no less than the imminent approach of a British army which caused 
 that hasty flight at midnight from the Potala. At Lhasa, under the 
 shadow of the walls of the Palace, people spoke little and with bated 
 breath. But at Tashi-lhunpo and Shigatse, far from the intrigues 
 of Lhasa and the overwhelming influence of the three great monas- 
 teries, there was less reticence, and many tales were told of the over- 
 bearing ways and cruel acts of the absent Dalai Lama. 
 
 Far different in character and general disposition is the Penchen 
 Rinpoche (or, as generally called by us, the Tashi Lama) of the 
 great monastery of Tashi-lhunpo near Shigatse. This prelate, as 
 being the earthly manifestation of Amitabha, the spiritual father of 
 Avalokita now represented by the Dalai Lama, should actually rank 
 in the Buddhist world as the holier and higher of the two— and so 
 he is considered by no small portion of his worshipers. At one 
 time, in fact for some centuries, the Grand Lamas of Tashi-lhunpo 
 not only enjoyed a high spiritual renown, but possessed in addition 
 a full share of temporal power. The greater part of the large 
 province of Tsang (which includes Shigatse, Gyantse, and many 
 other large and flourishing towns) was under his sway, and his 
 jurisdiction extended north beyond the Tsang-po and eastward to 
 Lake Yam-dok. But the grasping and jealous policy of Lhasa has 
 gradually deprived Tashi-lhunpo of almost all remnants of author- 
 ity, and the provincial government consists now of but three small 
 jongs. Confiscation of property for political offenses is a favorite 
 punishment in Tibet, and the central government does not hesitate 
 to apply the principle here in the case of a person so highly placed 
 as the Penchen Rinpoche. But small as his kingdom is, the Lama 
 still holds his court at Shigatse. Here, as at Lhasa, the Grand 
 
APPENDIX C 445 
 
 Lama has his winter and his summer residences, his prime minister, 
 his treasurers, and his chamberlain, and maintains all the etiquette of 
 royalty itself. Nor is the divinity which hedges royalty a matter of 
 any doubt. In the case of the present Lama, at any rate, his im- 
 mediate worshipers regard him with a devotion as real as it is 
 touching. In the ordinary course of his frequent audiences the 
 Lama, in bestowing his blessing upon a suppHcant, will but touch 
 with a tassel or wand the scarf extended as an offering; but in the 
 case of holy men or high officials he will touch the uncovered head 
 with his fingers. This is a mark of special honor, and is also much 
 esteemed as a means of grace. On the occasion of my farewell visit 
 to His Holiness numerous poor women and humble persons accom- 
 panied my Tibetan servants in the hope that on so propitious an 
 occasion they also would receive the Sacred Touch. Nor were they 
 disappointed, for the Lama graciously accorded to one and all the 
 hoped-for blessing, and they departed happy. 
 
 But the character of the young Lama (he is only two-and-twenty), 
 as in the case of nearly all his predecessors, apart from the sacred 
 nature of his person, is such as to inspire his followers with confi- 
 dence and affection. He is universally beloved and esteemed. His 
 kindness, charity, good sense, and learning are everywhere acknow- 
 ledged, and I feel impelled to repeat Bogle's oft-quoted words re- 
 garding his predecessor, the third Lama : " I endeavored to find 
 out, in his character, those defects which are inseparable from hu- 
 manity, but he is so universally beloved that I had no success, and 
 not a man could find it in his heart to speak ill of him." 
 
 These two Lamas, then, the Dalai Lama and the Penchen Rin- 
 poche, are the two highest spiritual authorities in Tibet. But they 
 are far from being the only ones. There are, besides, the Sakya 
 hierarch, head of a sect of the Reformed Church, which differs but 
 little from the Unreformed or Ancient School, and a vast number of 
 other incarnate Lamas of greater or lesser degree. Some by their 
 own genius or piety rise to the exercise of great spiritual authority, 
 while many are practically unknown except to the inmates of some 
 secluded monastery, where they pass their quiet days encompassed 
 by a perpetual atmosphere of homage and devotion. Their influ- 
 ence in politics is small. 
 
 The person next in consideration to the two great Lamas of Lhasa 
 and Shigatse is the Regent, or, as he is generally called by the Tibe- 
 tans, the King. A Regent is appointed during the period while 
 each Dalai Lama is reaching his majority (generally eighteen years). 
 
446 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 when the Tibetans are naturally deprived of the offices of their 
 proper ruler. He is invariably an ecclesiastic and has usually been 
 selected from among the higher lamas of the various small monas- 
 teries scattered about in the city of Lhasa and its environs. These 
 selections have not always been successful. No human being val- 
 ues or covets political authority more than the Tibetan, and most 
 of the Regents have found themselves so reluctant to relinquish 
 the reins of power that they have actually proceeded to the extrem- 
 ity of quietly doing away with their sacred ward before he arrived 
 at years of discretion. Grave suspicions, amounting in one case 
 to a certainty, have been aroused in previous instances. In fact, the 
 present Dalai Lama is the only one for a hundre^i years who has 
 reached his majority, and he took the precaution of anticipating 
 any foul play on the part of the Regent by the vigorous measures 
 alluded to above. 
 
 But this same ruler, when quitting his capital lately en route 
 for a foreign land, made a most excellent selection of a temporary 
 Regent to officiate during his absence. The monk chosen is known 
 as the Gaden Ti Rinpoche. This is really the title of an office, the 
 holder of which occupies what may be described as a sort of " Di- 
 vinity Chair " in the great monastery of Gaden lying some twenty 
 miles east of Lhasa. The post is won by pure merit, the incumbent 
 being elected by his fellows from among a number of the most 
 learned professors of the Yellow-cap School of Tibetan Buddhism, 
 and the holder is regarded with the greatest respect — amounting 
 to veneration— by all Tibetans, monks and laymen alike. On the 
 Ti Rinpoche entering a room, all, from the highest to the lowest, 
 rise and uncover, and it is an honor to bow and to receive his hand 
 in benediction upon the head. It is curious and almost touching, 
 in this land of self-seeking and scheming politicians, to see how 
 much consideration is attached to an individual who has risen solely 
 through his learning and personal character, and who owes his po- 
 sition to no favoritism or family influence. 
 
 The present holder of the Divinity Chair is one of the most 
 charming men it would be possible to meet in any country. He 
 is an elderly man of over sixty years of age, of a perfect simplicity 
 and modesty of character. That his attainments are great and his 
 character above reproach is testified not only by the position he 
 holds, but by the very real affection and respect displayed toward 
 him by all, from the most highly-placed officials to the beggars 
 in the streets. The existence of such a man is in itself a justifica- 
 
APPENDIX C 447 
 
 tion of the Buddhist Church in Tibet, and strengthens the hope 
 of a possible Reformer in the near future. 
 
 The executive powers of the Tibetan Government are vested in 
 four ministers, known in the vernacular as Sha-pes, of whom three 
 are generally laymen and the fourth an ecclesiastic. Of these the 
 three laymen belong almost invariably to some of the great families, 
 while the monk is often a self-made man. In ordinary circum- 
 stances the four Sha-pes are practically, as far as the internal ad- 
 ministration is concerned, the rulers of Tibet. They reside, gener- 
 ally speaking, all four in Lhasa, and meet daily in a little office near 
 the Jo-kang or cathedral. Hence they issue all orders to the minor 
 executive officials throughout the country. The collection of the 
 revenue, the posting and changing of officials, the general adminis- 
 tration of justice, the levying of troops, transport, and supplies— 
 orders on all these and many other matters emanate from the Coun- 
 cil and are stamped with their square seal, well known to all through- 
 out the length and breadth of Tibet. 
 
 Occasionally one or other of the Sha-pes will make a tour of in- 
 spection to Shigatse or Dingri, or some important frontier post, at- 
 tended by a body of minor satellites, and received everywhere with 
 all possible marks of respect. But by far the greater portion of 
 their time is spent at Lhasa, where they find themselves sufficiently 
 busy not only in the transaction of their own duties but in circum- 
 venting the ceaseless plots of their rivals. I went one day while at 
 Lhasa to visit their office and some of the other public offices and 
 chambers. These are all situated in a range of buildings which, 
 while forming a portion of the main cathedral structure, incloses 
 the actual temple on three sides. Among these offices are found 
 those of the Lhasa magistrates, the financial secretaries, the treas- 
 urers, the Sha-pes, and the National Assembly. They are, generally 
 speaking, small, untidy, ill-lighted rooms, furnished with a few cush- 
 ions, whereon the officials themselves sit while transacting business, 
 and with long files of papers fastened by strings in festoons across 
 the low roofs. The Sha-pes' room, or council chamber, is rather 
 better than the others. There are four fat cushions disposed at the 
 upper end for the four ministers and smaller ones near the door 
 for the clerks, while in addition to the numerous papers there is 
 a small altar on one side with a few little images and the usual Bud- 
 dhist paraphernalia. But the meeting-hall of the National Assem- 
 bly (of which more below), where all questions of high policy are 
 discussed, is the worst and untidiest den of all. This is a low-roofed. 
 
448 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 gloomy room, some thirty feet square, perhaps, lighted by a single 
 window looking out on to the streets of Lhasa, devoid of furniture, 
 fittings, or decorations of any kind — if one may except a few long 
 ragged and very filthy looking cushions set out in parallel rows, 
 whereon sit the members of the Assembly during their deliberations ; 
 at one end, facing the window, stands a sort of raised chair or throne 
 for the president— who just now is the Ti Rinpoche. Adjoining 
 the main hall is a small room screened off, where the Sha-pes sit 
 during a momentous debate. They are not permitted by the laws of 
 the Tibetan Constitution actually to attend the meetings of the De- 
 liberatiye Assembly, but they may listen from behind the screen to 
 what is going, on. 
 
 Immediately below the four Sha-pes, and forming a part of the 
 Central Administration at Lhasa, come a host of lay and ecclesias- 
 tical officials of varying degrees of importance. There are chief 
 secretaries, treasurers, accounting officers (or secretaries to Govern- 
 ment in the financial department), judges, paymasters, under-secre- 
 taries, and clerks ; and among these should be included the De-pens 
 or generals, who, although nominally military officers, have in 
 reality almost no military duties as a rule, but occupy a high rank 
 and important place in the political world. Thus there are a large 
 number of officials resident at Lhasa, wlio constitute the central 
 government of Tibet. Every question of the slightest importance 
 must be referred sooner or later to Lhasa, and hence issue all orders 
 to the provincial executive authorities, the jong-pens, or district pre- 
 fects. These latter are distributed all over the country in. the various 
 district headquarters or jongs, where they administer justice, collect 
 the revenue, and are responsible to Lhasa for the state of their dis- 
 trict. Many of these jongs are picturesque old edifices perched on 
 crags or low rocky hillocks, and are often the remnants of strong- 
 holds belonging to independent chieftains or brigands in the old 
 days, before Tibet was united under a single administration. Some 
 of these jongs at Shigatse, Gyantse, Kamba, and elsewhere, are 
 really fine, imposing structures, towering several hundred feet above 
 the plain and villages below ; but nowadays they are all falling into a 
 state of more or less decay owing to want of proper attention and 
 repair. Even so as defenses they can give a good account of them- 
 selves, as was proved in the case of Gyantse. Each jong-pen has a 
 number of subordinates— such as tax-gatherers, clerks, and under- 
 strappers of sorts— through whom his orders are conveyed to the 
 surrounding peasants. Like the majority of Tibetan officials the 
 
APPENDIX C 449 
 
 jong-pen gets little or no pay, but his perquisites are by no means 
 inconsiderable. At the same time, be it understood, the average Tib- 
 etan strongly objects to parting with a farthing more than he is 
 obliged to, and while conforming cheerfully to the usages of long- 
 established custom, he will protest most volubly should the jong-pen 
 or any other official push things too far. 
 
 Besides the regular government officers at Lhasa there are a 
 large number of purely monkish officials, who are in attendance on 
 the Dalai Lama, and are intrusted with various duties of a cere- 
 monial or religious character. Such, for instance, are the Lord 
 Chamberlain and his assistants, the private secretary, cup-bearer, 
 master of the horse, and numerous others of a similar personal 
 character. These monks, though not properly government servants, 
 exercise nevertheless a considerable amount of influence in the State, 
 and as the confidential advisers of the Dalai Lama may often direct 
 the course of political events. • 
 
 But there is one institution of high importance in the Tibetan 
 constitution which has not yet been described. This is the Tsong-du, 
 or National Assembly as we might call it, though it is far from 
 being a representative or popular assembly according to European 
 ideas. Allusion had frequently been made to this assembly in 
 reports and correspondence dealing with Tibet, but it is only within 
 the last two years that its real consequence as a factor in the Tibe- 
 tan government has been properly estimated. The Assembly is 
 of two kinds— the Greater and the Lesser Assembly. The Greater 
 Assembly is composed of all government officials, lay and eccle- 
 siastical, who may wish to attend, representatives from any monas- 
 tery throughout Tibet, and members of any good family irrespective 
 of office. The Lesser Assembly, which sits constantly when matters 
 of importance are on the tapis, is composed of delegates from the 
 three great Lhasa monasteries— Debung, Sera, and Gaden— and 
 a certain number of the higher officials and noblemen resident in 
 Lhasa. The Sha-pes, as being the direct executive instruments of 
 the State, do not sit in the Tsong-du, but, as noted above, are ac- 
 commodated with a small room adjoining the Assembly Hall, where 
 they can listen to, but not share in, the proceedings. 
 
 The duty of the Tsong-du is to deal with any matters of national 
 importance, and with all questions, however trifling, relating to 
 foreign policy. The Greater Assembly is summoned only when 
 some broad guiding principle has to be decided or some momen- 
 tous step (such, for instance, as a declaration of war) taken. The 
 
450 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Lesser Assembly may be, and often is, in constant session. It was 
 in this state during the whole period of our stay at Lhasa, and no 
 doubt since the Mission first crossed the frontier at Kamba-jong. 
 Its decisions are final all over Tibet. In minor matters of internal 
 administration the Sha-pes have a fairly free hand; but in any 
 question even remotely connected with the outside world the 
 Tsong-du alone can dictate the policy to be pursued. Its leading 
 lights are the abbots of the three great monasteries, and, as might 
 be expected from a congregation so led, its tendencies are narrow 
 in the extreme, and any liberal or forward movement meets with 
 instant disapproval if not persecution. The monkish element all 
 over the world has always been intolerant, narrow-minded, and at 
 times cruel; the Tibetan monks are no exception to the rule. A 
 national assembly guided by such stiff-necked priests will naturally 
 counsel exclusion of foreign influence, and will look with horror 
 upon the introduction of enlightenment or moral progress before 
 which their authority will inevitably decline. Hitherto they have 
 had their own way and the results are only too apparent. Tibet 
 in remaining a closed land has never advanced a foot beyond the 
 position she assumed one thousand years ago on the first introduc- 
 tion of Buddhism and letters from Chinese and Indian sources. 
 Like China, she is still the slave of worn-out customs and long- 
 exploded ideas. In spite of the intelligence and natural abilities 
 of the people in general, modem science and knowledge are a sealed 
 book to them all, and the wisest and most revered lamas spend their 
 time and waste their brains in poring over aged metaphysics and 
 infantile legends translated into almost incomprehensible Tibetan 
 from old Sanskrit works. Trade, invention, progfress, learning, and 
 freedom have alike been stifled by this plethora of priests; and it 
 is typical of the amazing ignorance even of the best-informed and 
 highest-placed officials that the Tibetan government should have 
 deliberately made preparations to declare war upon the greatest 
 Power of the modern world with no better means of manufactur- 
 ing arms than a hand-power wheel and a forge for an arsenal, under 
 the superintendence of one Mohammedan blacksmith. 
 
 There was to my mind something almost pathetic in the stubborn 
 resistance made by these brave, simple peasants with their anti- 
 quated muzzle-loaders, swords, and magic spells, without leaders, 
 organization, training, or aptitude for war, in order to defend their 
 fatherland against what they were told was the greedy advance of 
 an unscrupulous enemy, eager to seize and ravage their country. 
 
APPENDIX C 451 
 
 That phase of our Mission into Tibet has now passed away. A 
 treaty has been made and friendly relations established, and it re- 
 mains to be seen what the effect will be of a few years of trade 
 and intercourse with a civilized and sympathetic neighbor. 
 
 W. F. T. O'Connor, 
 Gyantse, 8th Dec, 1904, Capt. R.A. 
 
APPENDIX D 
 
 RETURN OF THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 
 
 After a stay of a few weeks, marked by no incident excepting an 
 attempted " a-mok " run by a fanatic monk in the camp, the ex- 
 pedition left Lhasa on the 23rd of September, and after an unevent- 
 ful journey returned to the Chumbi Valley and India. Colonel 
 Younghusband, Mr. White, Mr. Wilton and Captain O'Connor rode 
 on ahead of the main body, which was ferried across the Tsang-po 
 most expeditiously by Captain Sheppard. He selected a point about 
 ten miles higher up the river, and the Nabso la was used to conduct 
 the force over the brim of the basin of the Yam-dok tso. No inci- 
 dent occurred during the retirement of the force except a blizzard 
 on the Tang la which caused a good deal of temporary snow-blind- 
 ness. 
 
 Three other return expeditions were planned :— Mr. Wilton pro- 
 posed to go back through Ta-chien-lu to China; Captain Ryder 
 planned a descent into Assam by the banks of the hitherto unex- 
 plored Tsang-po; and eventually Captains Ryder, Rawlings and 
 Wood, and Lieutenant Bailey were detailed for a surveying excur- 
 sion to Gartok, far along the road to Leh, one of the places at which 
 a trade market was to be established. 
 
 For different reasons the third was the only expedition which 
 was actually carried out. I take the following brief account of their 
 journey from the Times. Captain O'Connor also makes some refer- 
 ence in his " Political Notes " to the Tashi Lama, with whom he 
 had repeated conversations. He did not accompany Captain Ryder 
 beyond Tashi-lhunpo. 
 
 " The Gartok party, consisting of Captain Rawlings and his com- 
 panions, and accompanied by Captain O'Connor, whose researches 
 in Tibet during the past few years have been so frequently described 
 in the Blue-book, left Gyantse on October loth, and arrived at Shi- 
 
 452 
 
APPENDIX D 453 
 
 gatse in three days, after what is described as a delightful jour- 
 ney through richly cultivated and highly irrigated valleys. Villages 
 lay dotted thickly over the slopes, every house and hamlet being 
 surrounded with trees. The harvest had been very good and was 
 being got in, and affairs looked prosperous in this part of Tibet. 
 On nearing Shigatse the British officers were met by a deputation 
 of lamas and laymen, who extended to them a cordial welcome and 
 entertained them with refreshments laid out in tents by the roadside. 
 The streets of the town were filled with large crowds, who gazed 
 with much surprise at the first Europeans seen at Shigatse since 
 Turner's visit 120 years ago. The Tibetan Government, on receiv- 
 ing notice of the setting out of the Mission, had relays of ponies 
 and mules and also coolies, prepared at all the towns and post-sta- 
 tions along the road from the Ladak frontier to Lhasa. 
 
 " The reception of the Englishmen was of a pleasing character. 
 The officials could not have been more courteous or hospitable and 
 the populace were most friendly. The two parties were lodged in 
 a nobleman's garden, and Captain Steen, of the Indian Medical 
 Service, was called upon to minister, from morning* till late at night, 
 to the sick of Shigatse and the surrounding parts. Rich and poor 
 are said to have sought his good offices, the fame of Captain Wal- 
 ton's skill at Lhasa having spread far and wide. The British officers 
 describe the monastery of Tashi-lhunpo as far finer than anything 
 at Lhasa, its circumference being two miles. Turner says it is a 
 large monastery consisting of three or four hundred houses, the 
 habitations of the Gylongs, besides temples, mausolea, and the 
 palace of the Sovereign Pontiff, in which is comprised also the resi- 
 dence of the Regent and of all the subordinate officers, both eccle- 
 siastical and civil. Its buildings are all of stone, none less than two 
 storeys high, flat-roofed, and crowned with parapets. 
 
 " On October i6th Captain O'Connor, accompanied by all the 
 Europeans, paid an official visit to the Tashi Lama, who is at present, 
 by virtue of the decree of the Emperor of China, the head of all 
 the Churches owning the supremacy of the Dalai Lama. The Tashi 
 Lama is a young man of twenty-three years of age, with a pleasing 
 address and owning the reputation of being both pious and able. He 
 received the Englishmen with respect and regard, and impressed his 
 visitors most favourably. On the night of their arrival the lamasery 
 was brilliantly illuminated in memory of some great Lama of the 
 past, and, curiously enough, this date coincided with the date of 
 Captain Turner's arrival, October 13th, 1783, a fact considered by 
 
454 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 the Lamas to be especially propitious. The monastery contained 
 some wonderful tombs and was far more richly decorated than any 
 of those of Lhasa. Here Captain O'Connor separated from his 
 friends and returned to Gyantse, while Captains Ryder, Wood, and 
 Rawlings, and Lieutenant Bailey continued their long and interest- 
 ing journey to Gartok." 
 
 The last news of the party is that after a pleasant but monotonous 
 journey beside the Tsang-po to Gartok, its members returned in 
 the first week of this year to Simla, having crossed from Tibet to 
 India over the Shipki pass. 
 
 
APPENDIX E 
 
 The following is, I believe, a complete list of the officers, civil and 
 military, of the Mission who actually reached Lhasa. I am indebted 
 to Major Iggulden for it. 
 
 THE MISSION 
 
 Colonel Francis E. Younghusband, CLE. 
 
 Mr. J. Claude White, Political Officer of Sikkim (Deputy-Com- 
 missioner) . 
 
 Mr. E. C. Wilton, Chinese Consular Service (Deputy-Commis- 
 sioner) . 
 
 Capt. W. F. T. O'Connor (Secretary and Interpreter). 
 
 Capt. H. J. Walton, LM.S. (Medical Officer and Naturalist). 
 
 Mr. H. H. Hayden (Geologist). 
 
 Mr. Vernon Magniac (Private Secretary to the Commissioner). 
 
 THE ESCORT STAFF 
 
 Brig.-General J. R. L. Macdonald, C.B., R.E. 
 
 Major H. A. Iggulden, Chief Staff Officer. 
 
 Lieut.-Col. L. A. Waddell, CLE., P.M.O. 
 
 Major W. G. L. Beynon, D.S.O. 
 
 Major A. Mullaly. 
 
 Major McC Ray (Intelligence branch). 
 
 Capt. J. O'B. Minogue. 
 
 Capt. C A. Elliott, R.E. 
 
 Lieut. B. H. Bignell. 
 
 Lieut.-Col. E. H. Cooper, D.S.O., Royal Fusiliers. 
 
 " F. Campbell, D.S.O., 40th Pathans. 
 
 " M. A. Kerr, 8th Gurkhas. 
 " " H. R. Brander, 32nd Pioneers. 
 
 455 
 
456 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Major R. W. Fuller, R.G.A. 
 " A. R. Row, 8th Gurkhas. 
 " F. Murray, 8th Gurkhas. 
 " F. H. Peterson, D.S.O., 32nd Pioneers. 
 " A. Wallace Dunlop, 23rd Pioneers. 
 
 tt 
 
 (t 
 
 tt 
 
 Capt. S. F. Legge, Royal Fusiliers. 
 " C. V. Johnson, Royal Fusiliers. 
 " C. H. Peterson, 46th Punjabis (M.I.). 
 " J. B. Bell, 32nd Pioneers. 
 
 F. A. Easton, R.G.A. 
 J. R. Maclachlan, 40th Pathans. 
 S. H. Sheppard, D.S.O., R.E. 
 L. H. Baldwin, 8th Gurkhas. 
 
 G. J. S. Ward, 8th Gurkhas. 
 
 F. E. Coningham, 12th Pathans, att. 40th Pathans. 
 
 G. A. Preston, 40th Pathans. 
 C. Bliss, 8th Gurkhas. 
 H. F. Cooke, 32nd Pioneers. 
 W. J. Ottley, 23rd Pioneers (M.I). 
 H. M. Souter, 14th B.L. (M.I.). 
 J. L. Fisher, Royal Fusiliers. 
 
 C. A. H. Palairet, Royal Fusiliers. 
 
 D. W. H. Humphreys, 8th Gurkhas. 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 Lieut. H. V. L. Rybot, att. 23rd Pioneers. 
 
 " G. C. Hodgson, 32nd Pioneers. 
 
 " L. A. Hadow, Norfolk Regiment. 
 
 " R. N. Macpherson, 40th Pathans. 
 
 " J. D. Grant, 8th Gurkhas. 
 
 *.* L. G. Hart, 8th Gurkhas. 
 
 " E. H. Lynch, 8th Gurkhas (Treasure Chest Officer). 
 
 " W. G. T. Currie, 40th Pathans. 
 
 " G. A. Yates, R.G.A. 
 
 " C. C. Marindin, R.G.A. 
 
 " A. C. S. Chichester, Royal Fusiliers. 
 
 " L. A. Bethell, 8th Gurkhas. 
 
 " A. D. Walker, R.E. 
 
APPENDIX E 457 
 
 Lieut. W. A. B. Daniell, Royal Fusiliers. 
 
 " W. P. Bennett, R.G.A. 
 
 " F. Skipwith, 24th Punjabis (M.I.)- 
 
 " F. E. Spencer, R.GA. 
 
 " H. G. Boone, R.G.A. 
 
 " J. F. S. D. Coleridge, 8th Gurkhas. 
 
 " T. de B. Carey, Royal Fusiliers. 
 
 " H. St. G. H. Harvey Kelly, 32nd Pioneers. 
 
 " E. Marsden, 32nd Pioneers. 
 
 " F. M. Bailey, 32nd Pioneers (M.I.). 
 
 " J. C. Bourn Colthurst, Royal Irish Rifles. 
 
 " H. F. Collingridge, 9th Gurkhas. 
 
 MEDICAL CORPS 
 
 Major C. N. C. Wimberley, I.M.S. 
 Capt. C. W. Mainprise, R.A.M.C. 
 
 " W. H. Ogilvie, I.M.S. 
 
 " E. P. Conolly, R.A.M.C. 
 
 " T. B. Kelly, I.M.S. 
 
 " W. H. Leonard, I.M.S. 
 
 " A. Cook-Young, I.M.S. 
 Lieut. G. D. Franklin, I.M.S. 
 
 " G. J. Davys, I.M.S. 
 
 SURVEY 
 
 Capt. C. H. D. Ryder, R.E. ) Officers in charge of the 
 Capt. H. M. Cowie, R.E. I Survey. 
 
 « ^ '» « -i.TT% " a« " 
 
 S AND T CORPS 
 
 Capt. C. H. G. Moore. 
 " R. C. Moore, A.V.D. 
 " A. P. D. C. Stuart. 
 " J. B. Pollock Morris. 
 " F. T. T. Moore. 
 
458 THE OPENING OF TIBET. 
 
 Capt. F. G. Ross. 
 " M. Synge. 
 
 " O. St. J. Skeenc. 
 
 CORRESPONDENTS 
 
 Times, Mr. Perceval Landon. 
 
 Daily Telegraph and Pioneer, Mr. C. B. Bayley. 
 
 Daily Mail, Mr. Edmund Candler. 
 
 " Reuter," Mr. Henry Newman. 
 
 The force which moved to Lhasa from Gyantse was composed 
 as follows: 
 
 Head-quarters Staff. 
 
 Six guns of the 7th M.B. (lo-pr.). 
 
 Two guns of the 30th M.B. (7-pr.). 
 
 5^ company, 3rd Sappers. 
 
 Mounted Infantry (2 cos.). 
 
 Royal Fusiliers, H.Q. and 4 cos. 
 
 32nd Pioneers, H.Q. and 4 cos. 
 
 40th Pathans, H.Q. and 6 cos. 
 
 8th Gurkhas, H.Q. and 6 cos. 
 
 Section British Field Hospital. 
 
 2j/$ Sections Native F.H. 
 
 Transport taken from the 7th, 9th, loth and 12th Mule Corps. 
 
 The 23rd Pioneers were left behind at Gyantse, greatly to the 
 regret of the members of the Mission, with which they had been 
 connected for so long. 
 
 TOTALS 
 
 British Officers ....*.... 4 ••» . Qt 
 
 British Warrant Officers II 
 
 British N.C.O. and men 521 
 
« 
 
 APPENDIX E 459 
 
 Native Officers , 32 
 
 Native Warrant Officers 5 
 
 Native N.C.O. and men 1,961 
 
 Followers 1,450 
 
 Mules and ponies 3,45i 
 
APPENDIX F 
 
 THE FOLK-LORE OF TIBET 
 
 The three following tales are characteristic of Tibetan folk-lore, 
 and it is interesting to note how similar they are to those of Europe. 
 It is difficult, however, to see how any external influence can have 
 been brought to bear upon them, as there are almost no Chinese 
 or other foreign women in the country : 
 
 THE TALE OF THE MONKEY AND THE LIZARDS 
 
 Once upon a time a Lizard and his family lived in a lake by the 
 side of a great forest in Tibet. Now there was not much to eat 
 in the lake, and after a while Mrs. Lizard gaid to her husband: 
 " I see on the shore a tree with beautiful fruits upon it ; if you 
 really cared about me and the children, you would go ashore and 
 climb the tree and bring us back some of the beautiful fruits, that 
 we may not all starve." 
 
 And the Lizard said : " My dear, you know that I cannot climb 
 a tree, so why should I go ashore to try to do that which you know 
 is impossible ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Lizard kept on day after day saying that he did not 
 really care about her and the children, or he would go ashore and 
 climb the tree and bring back the beautiful fruits for her and the 
 little Lizards. 
 
 So at last the Lizard was weary of what his wife said to him day 
 after day, and swam ashore and tried to climb the tree. 
 
 Now you know a Lizard cannot climb a tree.* 
 
 But there was up in the branches of the tree a Monkey, and to 
 
 * This is the Tibetan story : I should have thought that there was nothing 
 on earth that the big Tibetan lizards could not climb. 
 
 460 
 
APPENDIX F 461 
 
 him the climbing of a tree is the easiest thing in the world. And he 
 was a clever Monkey, and having made the Lizard very grateful to 
 him, by picking for him the beautiful fruits on the tree, he struck up 
 a friendship with the Lizard and persuaded him to leave his wife 
 and come and live with him in a cave. So there they lived, and the 
 Lizard forgot all about Mrs. Lizard and the children, and remained 
 in the cave eating the beautiful fruits of the tree. 
 
 Now after a while Mrs, Lizard began to think that something 
 had happened to the Lizard, and at last, after long hesitation, she 
 sent one of her little children to see what had happened to father 
 Lizard. So the little Lizard went ashore, and spied out to see what 
 had happened to father Lizard who had been away for such a long 
 time. And for a long time he could see nothing of any one, but 
 toward evening he saw father Lizard come out of the cave with the 
 Monkey and go to the tree. And then the Monkey ran up the tree 
 and picked the beautiful fruits and threw them down, and the Lizard 
 carried them into the cave, and that was all he saw. 
 
 So he swam back to his mother and told her, and she was very 
 angry, for there was nothing to eat for herself and the children, and 
 now she knew that her husband was living in a cave in the forest 
 and eating plentifully with a Monkey, and forgetting all about his 
 wife and children. 
 
 So she sent the little Lizard once again, and she said to him : 
 
 " Go to the cave from which you saw your father come out and 
 call to him, and when he comes out to you, take him aside, and say 
 to him, ' Mother Lizard is sick unto death.' And say no more then. 
 And when he says to you, ' What is the matter ? How can she be 
 cured ? ' then say to him, ' Only one remedy there is.' And then say 
 no more to him. And when he shall say to you, ' What is the rem- 
 edy ? ' then you shall say, ' There is only one thing which can cure 
 her, and that is a piece of a monkey's heart.' " 
 
 So the little Lizard did as he was told, and went on shore, and 
 called out for his father, and said to him as his mother had told him ; 
 and he said : " There is only one thing which can cure her, and that 
 is a piece of a monkey's heart." 
 
 When he heard that he was sorely frightened, and remembered 
 all about his wife and the children, and he did not know what to do. 
 But at last when he had again and again asked his son, and his son 
 had again and again answered, " There is only one thing which can 
 cure her, and that is a piece of a monkey's heart," he determined to 
 do as his wife asked. 
 
462 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 So he went back to the cave, and asked the Monkey to come with 
 him to his own home in the lake, and he offered to carry him on his 
 back. And the Monkey said that he would come and pay a visit to 
 the Lizard's home, and because he could not swim he said he would 
 be very glad to be carried on the Lizard's back. 
 
 So they started, and the Lizard was carrying the Monkey across 
 the lake on his back. And the Monkey asked about Mrs. Lizard, 
 and the children, and how she was. And the Lizard, who was not 
 very clever, told him all that his son had said, and even that Mrs. 
 Lizard could only be cured by a piece of a monkey's heart. 
 
 Now when he heard this the Monkey was very much frightened, 
 and he wondered what he ought to do, for he said: "There is no 
 doubt that the Lizards are going to kill me and take my heart to cure 
 Mrs. Lizard with." So he said to the Lizard : " I know all about 
 this cure. You are quite right, a monkey's heart is the only thing 
 that can cure Mrs. Lizard, and, indeed, if we cannot get the remedy, 
 she will surely die. But if she is very ill, one monkey's heart is not 
 enough ; she must have two monkey's hearts, or she will surely die." 
 
 Now in order to bring her husband back to her, Mrs. Lizard had 
 told her son to say that she was very ill indeed, and the Lizard 
 stopped swimming in the middle of the water, and said : " What 
 ought we to do ? " 
 
 Then the Monkey said : " I have a capital plan. I know where I 
 can get for Mrs. Lizard two monkey's hearts, and then we will bring 
 them back to her and she will recover. Put me on shore again, and 
 I will get them for you at once." So the Lizard, who was not a 
 very clever Lizard, believed all that the Monkey told him, and car- 
 ried the Monkey back to shore on his back. 
 
 Then the Monkey climbed very quickly up into the tree, and said 
 to the Lizard : " Lizard, what a foolish Lizard, even for a Lizard 
 you must be. Did you really think that I was going to find you 
 another monkey for you to kill as well as myself, in order that your 
 ugly wife might recover? It would be a good thing if she were to 
 die— ugly thing. Truly, you must be a very foolish Lizard." 
 
 Then the Lizard saw that he had been outwitted, and he became 
 very angry, and determined to kill the Monkey after all. But he 
 could not reach up to the Monkey, and he could not climb a tree. 
 So the Monkey continued to revile the Lizard, who had repaid his 
 kindness so unkindly, and it became night. 
 
 And the Lizard, when it became night, said to himself: "I will 
 go away, as if I were going back to the lake, but I will really go to 
 
APPENDIX F 463 
 
 the cave, and when the Monkey comes down and goes back to his 
 cave, I will spring upon him and kill him." And so the Lizard went 
 back to the cave and thought that he was doing a very clever thing. 
 
 But the Monkey was a clever Monkey, and when at last it was 
 quite dark, and he could see nothing, he came down from the tree, 
 and cautiously went to his cave. Now he did not know anything 
 about what the Lizard had done, but he suspected that he might be 
 planning some treachery; so when he came about ten yards from 
 the mouth of the cave he stopped, and called aloud : 
 
 " Oh, Great Cave ! Oh, Great Cave ! " And then he listened for 
 awhile, and said out very loud : " It is very strange, there must be 
 some one in the cave, for there is no echo to-night." Now there 
 never was really any echo at all. 
 
 And the Lizard heard what he said, and after a while, when the 
 Monkey called out aloud again, " Oh, Great Cave ! Oh, Great 
 Cave ! " the Lizard answered him : " Oh, Great Cave ! Oh, Great 
 Cave ! " So the Monkey knew that the Lizard was laying a trap for 
 him, and he ran away jeering at the silly Lizard. 
 
 So the Lizard returned to Mrs. Lizard in the lake. 
 
 II 
 
 THE STONE LION 
 
 Once upon a time there was in Tibet a poor woman and she had 
 two sons, and one of them was proud and the other one was humble. 
 And the proud son took unto himself a wife, and he said to his 
 mother : " There is no more room for you in the house, you must go 
 away and get another shelter. I will have you no longer." And to 
 his brother he said the same thing, so the mother and the humble 
 son were driven forth and lived as best they could while the proud 
 brother and his wife lived in comfort and luxury. 
 
 And after a long time it came to pass that the humble brother 
 went a-gathering sticks over the hillside, for it was very cold and 
 the old mother needed a fire. And as he went along he found a few 
 sticks here and there, and at last he came to a Stone Lion sitting on 
 the hillside. 
 
 And the Lion said to him: "Do not be afraid, but go fetch a 
 bucket, and bring it here." And he brought a bucket, and the Lion 
 said to him : " Hold it beneath my mouth " ; and the man did so. 
 And the Lion said : " Take care that not a piece of gold fall to the 
 
464 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 ground," and as he spoke he let fall from his mouth a stream of 
 pieces of gold until the bucket was nearly full. 
 
 So the humble brother went away thankfully to his mother, and 
 they two lived in peace and contentment for a long time. 
 
 But at last the proud brother began to hear of the comfort of his 
 mother and brother, and was exceedingly jealous. So he went to 
 where they were living and found that it was true, and his jealousy 
 knew no bounds. And he said to his brother : " Brother, how came 
 you by all these riches? Tell me, that I also may receive much 
 money." And the younger brother told him at once, saying, " On 
 such a hill you will find a Lion made of stone. Be not afraid, but go 
 to him and ask him to fill a bucket with gold pieces for you also, and 
 he will do so." 
 
 So the proud brother hasted and took the largest bucket that was 
 in his house, and went as fast as the wind to the place that his brother 
 had told him. And he found the Stone Lion, and the Lion, though 
 unwilling, said to him just what he had said to the other brother, and 
 the heart of the proud brother was exceeding glad, and he hasted 
 and set underneath the great bucket, and the gold pieces dropped 
 from the Lion's mouth even as his brother had said. And he said 
 to himself : " I was a wise man to bring a great bucket, and I will 
 see that it is well filled indeed." So he let the Lion drop gold into 
 the great bucket until it rose in a heap in the middle over and above 
 the brim. And then there fell just one gold piece too many, and it 
 slipped upon the heap and ran over on to the ground. And the 
 proud brother looked up, and saw that the finest and greatest lump of 
 the whole was stuck in the jaws of the Lion, and he put out his 
 hand into the Lion's jaws, and tried to take it, but the Lion's jaws 
 shut tight upon his arm, and he remained caught ; and he cried out 
 a great deal, but no one could help him to get free. 
 
 And there he remained for many years, while at home his wife 
 and children became very poor and everything in the house was 
 spoiled or stolen. Still the proud brother could not get his arm out 
 of the mouth of the Stone Lion. 
 
 Then, after many years, his wife came weeping to the Stone Lion 
 and told him how all the house was ruined because her husband was 
 still being held by the arm, and the Lion laughed to himself as he 
 heard. And the wife went on with her sad tale, and the Lion was 
 more and more glad, until at last he could not help opening his 
 mouth and chuckling. And at once the proud brother pulled his 
 arm away out of the Stone Lion's mouth and became free again. 
 
APPENDIX F 465 
 
 But he had lost all his money, and from that day he was only able 
 to beg his livelihood at the street corners, while his mother and his 
 brother lived in comfort and luxury in their own house. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE DEFORMED BOY 
 
 Once upon a time there was a Boy with a deformed head, and 
 as soon as he was born, his father said that he was so ugly that he 
 would never get any one to marry him, and so it happened. For no 
 one would speak to him, and at last he went away by himself sadly, 
 and kept cattle, and never saw the face of a man or a woman for a 
 long time. Then there happened to him a strange thing. One day 
 he was tending his herds by the side of a great lake, and a white 
 drake came down from the sky toward him and settled upon the 
 surface of the lake. And the bird swam three times all round the 
 lake to the right, and three times all round the lake to the left, and 
 after that the Boy caught the drake. 
 
 And the bird struggled to get away, but the Boy held him fast, and 
 at last the drake told the Boy who he really was. Now the drake 
 was no other than the King of the Fairies, and he promised to give 
 the Boy any one of his three daughters to wife if only he would re- 
 lease him. And the Boy consented, and chose the daughter that was 
 neither the eldest nor the youngest, but the middle one. So the 
 drake flew away. 
 
 Then after a little time, the middle daughter of the Fairy King ap- 
 peared, most beautifully dressed, and in her hand she carried jewels 
 of priceless value. So the two were married, though the Fairy 
 King's daughter foretold to her husband that she would be able to 
 remain with him only nine years. 
 
 So for nine years everything went as happily as it could, and 
 everything that the Boy wished to have was at once there ready for 
 him, palaces and cattle and servants and silks and jewels. And he 
 almost forgot that there had once been a time when no one would 
 speak to him for his very ugliness. 
 
 But at the end of the nine years, the fairy princess vanished with- 
 out warning, and with her vanished also all the palaces and cattle 
 and servants and silks and jewels. So the Boy was heartbroken, 
 and he went out to search throughout all the land for the princess, 
 but he found her nowhere. Still he went on searching, and as he 
 
466 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 wandered he came one day to the side of a great lake, and it was the 
 place where he had first seen the drake and won his bride nine years 
 before. 
 
 And as he stayed to look he saw a huge nest in the rushes by the 
 side of the lake, and he knew at once what it was. For there is 
 nothing like the nest of a Gryphon in the world. Luckily for the 
 Boy the big birds were away and only the young ones were in the 
 nest, for the Gryphon eats a man at a single meal. And as he looked 
 in terror lest the parent birds should return, there came up out of the 
 lake a Dragon, and he crawled toward the nest to eat up the young 
 Gryphons. Then the Boy ran toward the nest and fought with the 
 Dragon, and at last toward night he killed it ; and just then the par- 
 ent Gryphons came home; and they saw the nest and the dead 
 Dragon, and they could not thank the Boy enough who had saved 
 their young ones from the Dragon. 
 
 Then the Boy told them all his sad story, and asked the Gryphons 
 if they would help him, and they said that they would. So the Boy 
 sat upon the back of the male Gryphon, and the Gryphon flew away 
 with him up into the air for a long, long way until at last they 
 reached the kingdom of the fairies. And they went into the king- 
 dom. 
 
 Now if there is one thing which the fairies and the gods cannot 
 abide it is the sight of a mortal in their kingdom, so they all called 
 out to him that he must go. But he said : " I will not go except my 
 wife come with me." And they all called out upon his boldness and 
 foolhardiness, and told him that he was but a mortal and might never 
 again mate with a fairy. But he held his ground and said, again 
 and again, " I will not go except my wife come with me." And the 
 fairies and the gods wearied themselves in crying out against him, 
 but always he said the same thing and retreated not an inch. 
 
 So at last, in despair, the King of the Fairies (for he found that 
 his middle daughter after all was glad at the thought that she would 
 go back again and be the Boy's wife, although he was so ugly) said 
 to her : " Go, then, with him, and never again show yourself here." 
 And blithely then she went away with the Boy on the back of the 
 Gryphon, and returned to the Boy's country, and there they lived 
 happily ever afterwards. 
 
APPENDIX G 
 
 MISCELLANEA 
 
 1. The origin of the name Tibet is phonetically curious. The 
 inhabitants of the country spell its name " Bod." This, in accord- 
 ance with the recognized rules of Tibetan pronunciation, they pro- 
 nounce "Peu" (as in French, but with a phantom "d"). "Up- 
 per " in Tibetan is " Stod," which, for similar reasons, is pronounced 
 " Teu." " Upper Tibet " as opposed to the lower districts to the 
 north, east and west of Lhasa, is about conterminous with what we 
 regard as Central Tibet. The pronunciation of "Teu-peu(d) " was 
 crisped on the Darjeeling frontier into "Tibet," and thus became 
 known to Europeans in this form. 
 
 The Chinese name for Lhasa is " Tsang." The two provinces of 
 U (Lhasa) and Tsahg (Tashi-lhunpo) are distinguished by them 
 as Chien-tsang and Hou-tsang respectively. 
 
 2. Lhasa lies in N. latitude 29° 39' 16", and in E. longitude 
 (Greenwich) 90° 57' 13". Its height above the sea is approxi- 
 mately 12,900 in feet. 
 
 3. I cannot refrain from inserting the following remark of a 
 Chinese historian named Masu. In the I-shih, a work upon the 
 Chinese empire in 160 books, he says, in reference to the fauna and 
 flora of this country, " There is in Tibet a plant which flies. It re- 
 sembles a dog in shape, its color is like tortoise-shell, and it is very 
 tame. If lions or elephants see it they are frightened: hence it is 
 the king of beasts." If there is really anything in the theory of the 
 transmigration of souls, it is clear that Miss Sybil Corbet must have 
 inherited that of Masu. 
 
 4. One of the earliest kings of Lhasa, it' is interesting to note, 
 was a practical socialist. Muni-tsanpo three times redistributed the 
 
 467 
 
468 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 wealth of the country among its inhabitants, and three times he 
 found it useless. The rich became richer, the poor even poorer, so 
 he abandoned the scheme. 
 
 5. The names of MM. Tsybikoff and Norzunoff deserve to be 
 mentioned in connection with Russia's policy of expansion in Tibet. 
 The former is a Buriat of Trans-Baikalia who has visited Lhasa as 
 the personal friend of Dorjieff. He took a series of good photo- 
 graphic views which have been published by the Russian Geograph- 
 ical Society. The latter is chiefly known for an unsuccessful at- 
 tempt to join his colleague Dorjieff by crossing the frontier from 
 Darjeeling. Neither of these men is of much political importance. 
 
 6. As illustrative of the influence which the Dalai Lama has over 
 his present asylum, Urga, it is worth while to draw attention to the 
 following story told by Sven Hedin. Some monk there had offended 
 the Grand Lama of Lhasa, and twice the wretched man was com- 
 pelled to make the journey from Urga to Lhasa— a three months' 
 posting journey at the quickest— m/>ow his knees. Then he was 
 again compelled to perform the same penance only to find the Dalai 
 Lama unrelenting, and the doors of the Sacred City shut upon him. 
 
 7. I append a rough translation of the extract from the Odyssey, 
 which I have placed on the title-page. The coincidence is worth 
 quoting : 
 
 " Over the tides of Ocean on they pressed, 
 
 On past the great White Rock beside the stream, 
 On, till through God's high bastions east and west, 
 They reached the plains with pale-starred iris dressed, 
 And found at last the folk of whom men dream." 
 
 The Arabian Sea, Ta-karpo, the Himalayas, Gyantse, and the 
 Lhasans seem prophesied here clearly enough. 
 
 8. In a blacksmith's shop in Phari, I found a man-trap very 
 similar in construction to those but recently obsolete in England. 
 The jaws were armed with the teeth of some huge fish, and the 
 spring was provided by a strong yak-hair rope. The punishment's 
 inflicted by the Tibetans are abominably cruel. The wretched men 
 attached to the Mission who were caught in Gyantse on the night of 
 the 4th of May, were cut to pieces slowly in the " alternate " method, 
 
APPENDIX G 469 
 
 and during the stay of the Mission at Kamba-jong an unhappy 
 woman, convicted or suspected of adultery, had her nose and Hps 
 sUt, and was afterward flogged to death. In a country where moral- 
 ity is of the loosest, this was simply inhuman. It is a Tibetan, not 
 a Chinese custom. The " alternate " mutilation is of course Chi- 
 nese also. 
 
 9. On the 1 6th of February I went for a two-day excursion with 
 Major Ray down the valley of the Ammo chu. After a difficult 
 climb through the rhododendron jungle nine or ten miles below 
 Rinchengong we encamped across the Bhutanese frontier — which is 
 here delimited by the clearly defined line of bamboo growth — in a 
 " dmo " accouchement clearing in the bamboos, named Bolka. Un- 
 fortunately, in returning for the mules which were unable to climb 
 further, Ray slipped in the darkness, and fell down the khud. He 
 hurt his arm severely, and on the next day when we moved to the 
 precipitous cliff of the De chu, he was not able to climb down, and 
 we yielded to the protests of our servants. The head of the gorge 
 lay immediately to the south of us, and from where we were we 
 could see the extreme difficulty which would attend any attempt to 
 carry the road from India through this locality at the level of the 
 Ammo chu. 
 
 10. The Aryan foot is high in the instep, and the big toe projects 
 from the others. The Tibetan foot is flat on the ground from end 
 to end, and has three equally projecting toes which give a foot-print 
 that is unmistakable. It is as square cornered as a brick, except that 
 the heel is narrow. 
 
 11. The coldest temperatures we experienced were in January 
 and February near the Tang la. At Chu-gya the thermometer was 
 once observed to go down to 27° below zero (Fahrenheit), but there 
 can be no doubt that had there been the means of taking regular 
 records at this spot, this depth would often have been exceeded. The 
 average temperature nightly at Phari was about —10° during Jan- 
 uary. The bitter wind over the Tang la of course made the suffer- 
 ings of the troops infinitely greater, though the dryness of the air 
 no doubt saved us from feeling the full effects of the frost. 
 
 12. The rarefaction of the air caused several curious phenomena. 
 The sighting of our rifles on the back-sight was of course entirely 
 
470 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 thrown out. A 1,350 range was correctly sighted at 1,050 during 
 our stay at Gyantse (13,000 feet). At 15,000 feet the fusee springs 
 of the Maxim had to be reduced from a seven and a half pound " pull " 
 to four or even three and three-quarters. I have in the book re- 
 ferred to the action of the time fuses of shells at 17,000 feet. The 
 Maxim water-jacket was of course merely a source of trouble until 
 some one hit upon the device of filling it with a mixture of rum and 
 water. Lubrication was also a trouble. The only safe course was 
 found to be a thorough cleaning away of every speck of oil, and a 
 substitution of black-lead. 
 
 In other directions also there was difficulty. Water boiled at 
 about 180°, and as a result only Mussoor dal (lentils) would cook 
 properly. Arhar, Moong or Chenna dal was alike useless. Wounds 
 or scratches took an abnormal time to heal, owing to the oxygenless 
 state of the air. Colonel Waddell did indeed try to obtain cylinders 
 of oxygen for certain medical purposes, but they were found to be 
 impossible of transport. Incidentally it may be remarked that for 
 the same reason " instras "—of which the force took»up a large num- 
 ber — failed to keep alight, to our great disappointment. 
 
 13. Heaven, to the Tibetan, is a vast structure composed of 
 precious stones laid vertically, not horizontally, as in the Revelation. 
 The north is gold, the east, white crystal, the south, Indranila, the 
 west, Pemaraga or ruby. The colors therefore differ somewhat 
 from the recognized Hindu distribution of colors to the quarters, of 
 which the P. and O. houseflag is the best illustration. 
 
 14. The medical profession in Tibet is based exclusively upon 
 Chinese practice. This is one of the puzzles of the East. It is 
 naturally a matter of superstition and tradition alone, neither re- 
 search nor the first requirements of cleanliness are used by the profes- 
 sion. The medicines they employ are in many cases grotesque, 
 powdered lizards, dragon's blood, dry yellow dust, professing to be 
 the remains of the Guru Rinpoche or some other distinguished 
 teacher, the tiny powdered scrapings from a cup-mark, scraps of 
 Daphne paper with charms printed upon them; all these are taken 
 internally. Captain Walton, the surgeon of the Mission, tells me 
 that the Tibetans responded willingly and gratefully to his invita- 
 tions, and as he expressed it himself, if the expedition has done 
 nothing else It has certainly improved the looks of no small number 
 of the good people of Tibet; six or seven hundred cases in all of 
 
APPENDIX G 471 
 
 harelip or cataract must have been treated by him alone.* The 
 Amchi, or doctor, is a man greatly respected in Tibet. It was in 
 this disguise that Manning was able to enter Lhasa, and the records 
 of the Capuchins betray the fact that their services were in vastly 
 greater request as physicians of the body than of the soul. 
 
 15. The brilliancy of the moonlight in Tibet was beyond all con- 
 ception. 
 
 16. There is some little difficulty about the wording of the in- 
 scription on the Do-ring. In the journal of the Royal Asiatic So- 
 ciety, Vol. XII. N.S., a rubbing and a translation are given by Dr. 
 Bushell, of which I have incorporated the latter in the text. 
 
 It is at once clear that the rubbing was not made from the Do-ring. 
 The proportionate width of the rubbing to the length is about as 6 to 
 2$. That of the Do-ring is about 2 to 3. Further, in the rubbing, 
 the Tibetan and the Chinese versions are side by side in vertical 
 columns. On the Do-ring the Chinese version fills the eastern face, 
 the Tibetan the western. It is possible that the rubbing is taken 
 from the duplicate copy of the lettering on the Do-ring which exists 
 in the Amban's residence. In that case it is difficult to see how the 
 four cup-marks on it have been caused, but the fact seems probable. 
 
 It is clear from the wording of the treaty in the rubbing that 
 it was made at a time when " Te-chih-li-tsan " was reigning in 
 Tibet, not " Koli-kotsu." Now Chilitsan (the " Te " is merely an 
 official prefix— see Ti Rinpoche), or " Ralpachan," was reigning 
 in 783 and " Koli-kotsu " or " Yi-tai " reigning in 822. It is there- 
 fore clear that this particular treaty dates from 783, not— as Dr. 
 Bushell surmises— from 822. 
 
 But I have no doubt that there were at one time two treaties re- 
 corded on slabs outside the Jo-kang. Masu— who may be more ac- 
 curate in archaeology than he is in natural history— definitely states 
 that there were two, both of the Tang period— one called Te-tsang, 
 the other called Mu-tsang. These are the names, and this state- 
 ment tallies with the dates, of the two emperors who in 783 and 
 822 made two distinct treaties with Tibet. Masu goes on to say 
 that Mu-tsang is gone and only Te-tsang remains. If this be so, 
 the Do-ring dates from 783 and the rubbing of Dr. Bushell must 
 
 *I remember his grimly speculating one day, during our bombardment in 
 Gyantse, as to what his late patients must be doing who ran away from under 
 -his charge before the stitches had been taken out. 
 
472 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 have been taken from some authentic copy, probably that kept at 
 the Chinese Residency, for it is clear that the text of the rubbing 
 refers to 783. 
 
 17. Further examination of the case of Moorcroft merely in- 
 creases the mystery. It seems that every foreigner connected with 
 the matter was put away. It is difficult to suppose that Moorcroft 
 himself, Trebeck, Guthrie — a native assistant of Moorcroft's— and 
 Mir Izzat Allah, a confidential servant, all died within a year by a 
 mere series of coincidences. No one was with Moorcroft when he 
 was reported to be killed. Trebeck never saw the body which was 
 interred at Balkh; it was probably frightfully decomposed by this 
 time. 
 
 The story I have referred to in the first volume was corroborated 
 and given to Hue in a more detailed form by Nisan himself, Moor- 
 croft's servant, in Lhasa, eight years after it had occurred, and he 
 there added a fact which seems to destroy the only obvious recon- 
 ciliation of the opposing versions of Moorcroft's death. It will at 
 once occur to any one who studies the matter that Moorcroft's papers 
 and effects might have been looted by a Kashmiri traveling to Lhasa, 
 and that the whole story may have arisen from a discovery of this 
 loot in the Kashmiri's kit when he was himself murdered on his 
 return journey. 
 
 But Nisan's statement was direct that Moorcroft, before leaving 
 Lhasa, gave him a " chit " or letter of recommendation to some one 
 unknown in Calcutta. The letter was written in English charac- 
 ters, and, as he gave it to Nisan, Moorcroft remarked that if he ever 
 found himself in Calcutta the note would serve him in good stead. 
 
 I might suggest to any one who may have the opportunity of 
 doing so that an exhumation of the corpse buried at Balkh as Moor- 
 croft's would settle the matter at once. It might also be a good 
 thing to remove altogether the remains of an Englishman from a 
 place where they have for so long been treated with disrespect. If 
 the skull is that of a European the body is Moorcroft's. If it is 
 that of a native, there will arise a strong probability that the story 
 Hue tells had at least some basis of fact. I should add that so great 
 was the anger in Lhasa over the discovery of Moorcroft's notes and 
 maps, that Nisan destroyed the " chit " lest in some way it should 
 incriminate him. 
 
 18. I had not properly read my Marco Polo ("Yule's" latest 
 edition), when I wrote that I could not understand the reference 
 
APPENDIX G 473 
 
 to the "flesh-licking" yak. The emperor, Humaion himself, told 
 the Turkish admiral, Sidi AH, that when a yak had knocked a man 
 down, it skinned him from head to heels by licking him with his 
 tongue. 
 
 19. I have not drawn sufficient attention in these pages to the 
 danger with which any decrease of our prestige in Lhasa threatens 
 our best recruiting ground— Nepal. The Gurkhas, who are the 
 mainstay of all our hill operations in the North-West, would be 
 the first object of any foreign hostility in Lhasa which still exer- 
 cises considerable spiritual ascendancy over their races. The excel- 
 lent work of the 8th Gurkhas, who had been brought almost to 
 perfection by Major Row, and the opportunity of active service, 
 demands mention in this record, though in general I have avoided 
 singling out officers or men for especial comment. 
 
 20. In Tibet, only the members of the family are carried out to 
 burial through the door. Others dying in the house are put through 
 a window. In the Chumbi Valley the dead are cremated in a sit- 
 ting posture. Some important persons in Tibet are cast after death 
 into the Yam-dok tso, others — especially lamas— are reduced to 
 a mere cuticle and enshrined in chortens. The enormous majority 
 are hacked in pieces and given to the pigs, dogs, and vultures. 
 
APPENDIX H 
 
 RIDE FROM LHASA 
 
 The following bare record of the times of a ride from Lhasa to 
 Darjeeling may, perhaps, be of some small interest. As I have said, 
 the question of the real nearness to India of Lhasa in point of time 
 was one which the authorities were anxious to decide. With a 
 led horse apiece, and with very small kit, a well-found body of men 
 would occupy about the time that I took myself in coming down 
 from Lhasa to Darjeeling. The distances given are those by the 
 shortest route. This was not always available for myself. 
 
 First day: — • miles. 
 
 Left Lhasa, 5.36 a.m. 
 Arrived Tolung Bridge, 6.55. 
 Last view Chorten, 7.22. 
 
 Great Buddha, 8 -i 
 
 First spur, 9.15. 
 
 Spy Hole Rock, 10.12. 
 
 Nam, 10.37. 
 
 Chusul, 2.15 p.m ■ 
 
 Pome-tse, 3.40. 
 
 Chak-sam Ferry, 4.40. 42 
 
 Second day: — 
 
 Left Chak-sam, 6.45 a.m. 
 Arrived Kamba-partsi, 8.35..., 
 Top of Kamba la, 11.56. 
 Pe-di jong, 4.10 p.m. 27 
 
 Third day: — 
 
 Left Pe-di jong, 8.50 a.m. 
 Arrived Kal-sang Sampa, 9.57. 
 Arrived Nagartse, 1240 p.m. 17 
 
 Stayed twenty minutes at Nethang. 
 
 Stayed half-an-hour. 
 
 C River in flood ; an average crossing 
 (, would be about 20 men per hour. 
 
 Stayed twenty-five minutes. 
 
 474 
 
APPENDIX H 
 
 475 
 
 Fourth day: — miles. 
 
 Left Nagartse, 7.7 a.m. 
 Arrived at the Tibetan Wall, 11. o. 
 
 Arrived Karo la, 12 noon 
 
 Arrived, Ra-lung, 4.19 p.m. 27 
 
 Fifth day: — 
 
 Left Ra-lung, 6.20 a.m. 
 Arrived Long-ma, 8.40. 
 
 Arrived Gobshi, 10.50 
 
 Arrived Gyantse, 4.7 p.m. 33 
 
 Sixth day: — 
 
 Left Gyantse, 5.35 a.m. 
 
 Arrived Saugang, 9.20 
 
 Arrived Kang-ma, 2.20 p.m. 
 Arrived Menza Pass, 7.16. 
 
 Seventh day: — 
 
 Left Menza, 5.20 a.m. 
 
 Arrived Kala tso, 8.7 
 
 Arrived Dochen, 12.40 p.m. . 
 Arrived Tuna, 5.5. 
 
 • 
 
 Eighth day: — 
 
 Left Tuna, 7.5 a.m. 
 Arrived Tang la Post, 10.2. . 
 
 Arrived Phari, 11.32 
 
 Arrived Dota, 4.35 p.m. 
 
 Ninth day: — 
 
 Left Dota, 7.20 a.m. 
 Arrived Gau tso, 9.20 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 35 
 
 Arrived Chumbi, 1.45 p.m. 
 Arrived Chumbi-tang, 7.15. 
 
 Tenth day: — 
 
 Left Chumbi-tang, 6.50 a.m. 
 Arrived Natu la, 8.36 
 
 31 
 
 Arrived Changu, 1 1.45 
 
 Arrived Karponang, 4.15 p.m 
 
 Arrived Gangtok, 9.12. 32 
 
 Stayed half-an-hour. 
 
 Stayed half-an-hour. 
 
 Stayed an hour. 
 
 Stayed three-quarters of an hour. 
 
 Stayed an hour and a quarter. 
 Stayed forty minutes. 
 
 Stayed eighteen minutes. 
 
 Stayed an hour and twenty minutes. 
 
 Stayed fifty minutes. 
 Met large convoy on road, which de- 
 layed pace considerably. 
 Stayed an hour and a half. 
 
 Nine days five hours to frontier. 
 
 ( Stayed fifty minutes. Raining till 
 
 ( I reached Gangtok. 
 Stayed half-an-hour. 
 
476 
 
 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 Eleventh day: — miles. 
 
 Left Gangtok, 7.10 a.m. 
 Arrived Bridge, 8.30. 
 
 Arrived Rang-po, i p.m 
 
 Arrived Tista Bridge, 4.50 
 
 Arrived Pashok, 6.5. 41 
 
 Last day: — 
 
 Left Pashok, 5,50 a.m 
 
 Arrived railway station, 
 Ghoom, 8.46. 15 
 
 Stayed an hour. 
 Raining. 
 
 Raining. 
 Eleven days three hours and ten 
 minutes from Lhasa. 
 
 I 
 
 I reached the hotel at Darjeeling at 10. I may add that I reached Simla at 
 4.15 on the afternoon of the fifteenth day, and London on the evening of the 
 thirty-fifth day. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 The following honors and promotions were awarded in recognition 
 of services in connection with the Tibet Mission : 
 
 To he K.C.I.E. 
 
 Major Francis Edward Younghusband, CLE., British Commis- 
 sioner. 
 
 Major and Brevet Colonel James Ronald Leslie Macdonald, C.B., 
 R.E., in command of the Escort. 
 
 * 
 
 To he CLE. 
 
 John Claude White, Esq., Assistant to British Commissioner. 
 Captain William Frederick Travers O'Connor, R.A., Secretary to 
 
 British Commissioner. 
 Lionel Truninger, Esq., Chief Telegraph Officer. 
 
 To be C.M.G. 
 
 Ernest Colville Collins Wilton, Esq., His Majesty's Vice-Consul at 
 Chungking. 
 
 To be C.B. 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel and Brevet Colonel Hastings Read, Indian Army. 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence Augustine Waddell, M.B., CLE., In- 
 dian Medical Service. 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Joshua Cooper, D.S.O., Royal Fusiliers. 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Fountaine Hogge, Indian Army. 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Ancrum Kerr, Indian Army. 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Ralph Brander, Indian Army. 
 
 477 
 
478 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 To he D.S.O. 
 
 Major Alexander Mullaly, Indian Army. 
 
 Major Frank Murray, Indian Army. 
 
 Major Robert Cobb Lye, Indian Army. • 
 
 Major MacCarthy Reagh Emmet Ray, Indian Army. 
 
 Captain Charles Hesketh Grant Moore, Indian Army. 
 
 Captain Thomas Mawe Luke, Royal Artillery. 
 
 Captain Julian Lawrence Fisher, Royal Fusiliers. 
 
 Captain Dashwood William Harrington Humphreys, Indian Army. 
 
 Lieutenant George Cecil Hodgson, Indian Army. 
 
 Brevet 
 To he Colonel 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Campbell, D.S.O., Indian Army. 
 
 To he Lieutenant-Colonels 
 
 Captain and Brevet Major William George Lawrence Beynon, 
 D.S.O., Indian Army. 
 
 Major Richard Woodfield Fuller, Royal Artillery. 
 
 Major Herbert Augustus Iggulden, the Sherwood Foresters (Not- 
 tinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment). 
 
 To he Majors 
 Captain Seymour Hulbert Sheppard, D.S.O., Royal Engineers. 
 Captain William John Ottley, Indian Army. 
 
 The following officers had been brought to notice by Brigadier- 
 General J. R. L. Macdonald, C.B., as deserving of special approval 
 for their services with the military forces attached to the Tibet 
 Mission : 
 
 Staff.— Colonel H. Read, Indian Army, commanding Line of 
 Communications ; Major H. A. Iggulden, Nottinghamshire and Der- 
 byshire Regiment, D.A.A.G. ; Brevet Major W. G. L. Beynon, 
 D.S.O., 2nd Batt. 3rd Gurkhas, D.A.Q.M.G. ; Major J. M. Stewart, 
 2nd Batt. 5th Gurkhas, Special Service Officer Line of Communi- 
 cations; Major M. R. E. Ray, 7th Rajputs, D.A.Q.M.G.; Major 
 J. O'B. Minogue, West Yorkshire Regiment, D.A.A.G.; and Lieu- 
 tenant B. H. Bignell, 117th Mahrattas. 
 
APPENDIX I 479 
 
 Royd Artillery.— '}A2i]or R. W. Fuller, No. 7 Mountain Battery 
 R.G.A. ; Captain F. A. Easton, No. 7 Mountain Battery R.G.A. ; and 
 Captain T. M. Luke, No. 73 Company R.G.A. 
 
 Royal Engineers.— Major C. H. Heycock, 2nd Company Sappers 
 and Miners; Captain C. H. D. Ryder, Survey Officer; Captain S. 
 H. Sheppard, D.S.O., ist Company Sappers; Captain C. Elliott^ 
 Field Engineer; and Lieutenant J. A. McEnery, Assistant Field 
 Engineer. 
 
 The Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment.— Captam G. H. Neale, 
 Transport Officer. 
 
 Royal Fusiliers.— Colonel E. J. Cooper, D.S.O., Captain J. L. 
 Fisher, and Captain C. A. H. Palairet. 
 
 Norfolk Regiment.— hieutenaint A. L. Hadow, commanding Ma- 
 chine Gun Section. 
 
 Royal Highlanders.— Captain J. B. Pollock Morris, Transport 
 Officer. 
 
 14th Murray's Jat Lancers.— Captain H. M. W. Souter, Trans- 
 port Officer. 
 
 igth Punjabis.— Ma]or L. N. Herbert. 
 
 23rc? Sikh Pion^^r^.— Lieutenant-Colonel A. F. Hogge, Major R. 
 C. Lye, Captain H. F. A. Pearson, and Captain W. J. Ottley (com- 
 manding Mounted Infantry Company). 
 
 32nd Sikh Ptow^^r.y.— Lieutenant-Colonel H. R. Brander, Major 
 
 F. H. Peterson, D.S.O., Captain E. H. S. Cullen, and Lieutenant 
 
 G. C. Hodgson. 
 
 40th Pa^/taw.y.— Lieutenant-Colonel F. Campbell, D.S.O., Captain 
 T. R. Maclachlan, and Captain G. A. Preston. 
 
 46th Punjabis.— Captain C. H. Peterson (commanding Mounted 
 Infantry Company). 
 
 2nd Batt. 2nd Gurkhas.— Captam F. G. C. Ross, Transport Officer. 
 
 ^th Gurkha i?t^^.y.— Lieutenant-Colonel M. A. Kerr, Major F. 
 Murray, Captains C. BUss and D. W. H. Humphreys, and Lieuten- 
 ant J. D. Grant. 
 
 Supply and Transport Corps.— Ma]or A. MuUaly, Captains C. H. 
 G. Moore and H. H. Roddy, and Lieutenant W. Dunlop. 
 
 Royal Army Medical Corps.— Ma]or A. R. Aldridge. 
 
 Indian Medical Cor/».?.— Lieutenant-Colonel L. A. Waddell, C.I.E., 
 Major C. N. C. Wimberly, and Captain T. B. Kelly. 
 
 Army Veterinary Department.— Captain R. C. Moore. 
 
 Volunteer Nursing Sister A. Taylor. 
 
APPENDIX K 
 
 THE POLITICAL RESULTS OF THE MISSION 
 
 I HAVE waited till the last moment to sum up the results of the 
 Mission in order to include the latest possible phase. At the mo- 
 ment of the publication of this book there still remains much to be 
 done, if the full benefit of the expedition is to be reaped; but al- 
 ready matters have arranged themselves in a more satisfactory 
 manner than at one time seemed likely, and though the ultimate 
 action of the Dalai Lama is an unknown factor of the highest im- 
 portance, it is now possible to forecast with some certainty the 
 effect which any action of his or of the Chinese will have upon our 
 own position in the country. 
 
 After tedious and prolonged discussion during the month of Au- 
 gust, Colonel Younghusband determined to bring matters to a head, 
 the more so as General Macdonald was pressing him to retire from 
 Lhasa. The first serious hint of his determination to delay no longer 
 was enough, and with the assistance of the Amban himself, the 
 Nepalese Resident, and the Tongsa Penlop, the representatives of 
 Tibet agreed to sign, and actually did sign, on the seventh of Sep- 
 tember the long-demanded Treaty. The ceremony of affixing the 
 seals of the Dalai Lama, of the Sen-de-gye-sum and of the Tsong- 
 du, took place with all possible solemnity in the hall of the Potala 
 Palax:e, in the presence of a large gathering of all the more impor- 
 tant officers and officials on either side. In form the Treaty cor- 
 responded closely with that which I have already sketched out 
 on pages 224 and 225. One important clause there was, how- 
 ever, to which special attention must be drawn. The indemnity 
 demanded by the British Commissioner— this question having been 
 left entirely to him— was adjusted so that the Tibetans should pay 
 about one-half of the expense to which the Indian Government had 
 
 480 
 
APPENDIX K 481 
 
 been put in its effort to come to a final and amicable arrangement 
 with its Tibetan neighbors. This sum was, as at first arranged 
 with the Chinese Resident — who thought it an entirely inadequate 
 demand — to be paid within a period of three years, but at the dis- 
 mayed protest of the Tibetans, Colonel Younghusband at last con- 
 sented to adopt their own suggestion and accept payment in seventy- 
 five annual instalments. In return for this, they willingly consented 
 that the Indian Government should hold the Chumbi Valley as a 
 security till the debt was paid off. 
 
 This, it must be remembered, was the Tibetans' own suggestion, 
 and it is not surprising that they looked upon this occupation with 
 unconcern. The Chumbi Valley is of no importance to Tibet; it 
 was wrested by them from what is now an Indian Native State, 
 and from the point of view of value, agricultural, mineral, or other- 
 wise, the valley is an insignificant property. Its whole value lies in 
 the fact that it is the Lobby joining the two great Houses of India 
 and Tibet. There was, therefore, no difficulty in making this ar- 
 rangement, so far at least as our late opponents were concerned. 
 But there was violent opposition at home. As I have said before, 
 the Home Government had repeated their assurances to Russia that 
 we had no intention of annexing Tibetan territory. In June, this 
 pledge was not regarded by the Cabinet as interfering with any 
 mortgage to us of the Chumbi Valley, even if we admitted that 
 the soil of it properly belonged to them at all. But a certain def- 
 erence to the susceptibilities of Russia— it is hard to pick the right 
 words to describe the attitude of ministers at this time— now inter- 
 vened, and the fact that by the Tibetans' own deliberate action a 
 state of war between them and ourselves had taken the place of 
 the previous peaceful relations to which the assurances had re- 
 ferred, was not regarded as affecting the status of these voluntary 
 undertakings. They were even construed with greater rigidity than 
 
 before. 
 
 The agreement, therefore, to which the Commissioner has signed 
 his name has now to be modified lest Russia should resent what she 
 might regard in us, if not as a positive act of bad faith, at least as 
 a want of delicacy of conscience in ultra-Asian affairs. There is 
 no doubt much to be said from this somewhat cynical point of view, 
 and the fact that it received the support of our representatives in 
 St. Petersburg lends to it considerable weight. The Treaty, there- 
 fore, is still awaiting ratification so far as the suzerain power is 
 concerned, but it cannot be too widely remembered that, as agamst 
 
 .^'' 
 
482 THE OPENING OF TIBET - 
 
 the Tibetans themselves, the Treaty, in the form in which they 
 themselves agreed to its terms, is a valid document, and if China 
 should attempt to evade its formal ratification— subject of course 
 to such acts of remission in the terms as we may and, no doubt, 
 shall think it advisable to grant— her action must inevitably be 
 construed as a pro tanto renunciation of her rights of suzerainty 
 over Tibet. This, however, is not really to be feared. We have 
 acted throughout with the cordial assent and advice of the Wai- 
 wu-pu, and China has already reaped no small advantage from our 
 vigorous action. In addition, she has committed herself to support 
 of our policy by no less significant an action than the deposition of 
 the Dalai Lama from his temporal authority by procjamation of the 
 Amban in Lhasa on September nth. 
 
 This action deserves some notice. It is by no means the first 
 time that the Celestial Government has found itself obliged to in- 
 terfere with even the sacrosanct position of the Tibetan pontiflF. In 
 1706 Lo zang rin-chen tsang-yang gya-tso was beheaded at Dam, 
 and his successor was degraded and exiled by the Chinese con- 
 querors for fourteen years. Whether it was the latter's private 
 or public demoralization which oflFended his new suzerains, it is 
 clear that no protest was ever raised by the people of Tibet, either 
 then or eight years later, when His Holiness was again cast into 
 prison for the murder of the Chinese " Regent." 
 
 But Tubdan gyatso is no ordinary man. He is fully aware of the 
 almost irresistible influence which his incarnate self possesses over 
 a country trained in the narrow school of Lamaism, and if he does 
 not choose to accept his demission, he may find strong support, 
 especially among the outlying portions of his spiritual kingdom. 
 In Lhasa itself his absence will probably be little regretted, and 
 should he again put himself within the grasp of the hierarchy which 
 he has so deeply offended, the chance of his escaping the poison 
 which always lies handy to secure the devolution of Avalokiteswara's 
 spirit is small indeed. 
 
 In the event of his assassination or continued exile, the results of 
 the Mission will have been indirectly achieved, for Tubdan gyatso 
 is the only man of his own way of thinking among the greater dig- 
 nities of Tibet. If, on the other hand, he can force his way single- 
 handed back to power and reinstate Dorjieff, the Russophile ten- 
 dencies of Tibetan politics will of course be redoubled, and we may 
 again have to intervene to put things again upon a proper footing. 
 But Russian influence in Eastern Asia has naturally waned, and 
 
APPENDIX K 483 
 
 the Grand Lama has gone to the very place where the real lesson of 
 the ^Japanese war will have been perceived and assimilated more 
 perhaps than anywhere else in the dominions of China, and the re- 
 cent foolish Russian restrictions upon the Baikalia will have had time 
 to bring about a different estimate also of Russia's real sympathy 
 with the faith of which he is the divine head. Kiakhta, which is 
 said to be his present residence, is on the Siberian frontier less than 
 a hundred miles from Missovaia on Lake Baikal and the railway. 
 
 The temporary, almost nominal, Government which we helped 
 the Chinese to set up in Lhasa may almost be dismissed from con- 
 sideration, except in so far as the Three Monasteries are concerned. 
 The Tashi Lama— for whom we secured the temporary ascendancy 
 in things spiritual and, provisionally, in things temporal also — has 
 had no intention even of leaving his secure retreat at Tashi-lhunpo 
 to risk the unpopularity, impotence, and personal danger which he 
 would surely meet with in Lhasa. The jealousy between the two 
 capitals still plays a most important part in Tibetan politics, and 
 this deliberate challenge on our part was intended rather to set the 
 Tibetans thinking than to achieve any immediate re-devolution to 
 Tashi-lhunpo of the power of which, as we have seen, she was de- 
 prived by Lhasa in the seventeenth century. The Chinese Amban 
 may also be omitted from our estimates. He is powerless to vin- 
 dicate his Emperor's suzerainty or influence Tibetan counsels in any 
 Way. His very life is insecure. 
 
 In the hands of the Three Monasteries, therefore, lies all the 
 power at this moment, and their bitter hostility to foreign influence 
 of any kind is the strongest guarantee we have that no further 
 philanderi ngs w i^i^BM&sisr- wiW be allowed to go o n. This, after 
 all, is our chief aim. All other considerations are of insignificant 
 importance, and we are willing on our part to co-operate with the 
 Tibetans on our side of the frontier to keep unauthorized persons 
 from visiting Tibet, provided of course that an equally strict iso- 
 lation is enforced on all other frontiers. 
 
 We have not made ourselves beloved by the Lamaic hierarchy, 
 but their grudging respect we have won, and that for an under- 
 standing with an Eastern oligarchy is a better basis than love. How 
 important that understanding is for India I have before in these 
 pages attempted to show, and at the approaching conference in 
 Calcutta with Tang— the Chinese special envoy sent to discuss the 
 terms of the Tibetan Treaty— Lord Curzon may be trusted to safe- ,4 
 
 guard the advantages we have now fairly gained. 
 
 \ 
 
484 
 
 THE OPENING OF TIBET 
 
 I have just said that in dealing with an Eastern political oligarchy 
 affection counts for little. But I should be sorry to lay down my 
 pen without re-stating in this connection that in almost every other 
 department of Oriental life it counts for much indeed, and herein — 
 in the slowly spreading influence which the first acquaintance with 
 Englishmen must have among the mass of the Tibetan people— in 
 their memory of our fair dealing — in their gratitude for sick tended 
 and wounded made whole — perhaps even in return for the blow we 
 have unintentionally struck at the spiritual fetters which bind them 
 down — in these we may perhaps find in the end a greater advantage 
 to that vast Asian Empire for which we have made ourselves respon- 
 sible, than any secured by the mere letter of the Treaty as it will, 
 eventually be interpreted and modified. 
 
.the last date stamped below, or 
 
 TT>2lA-60m-3.'65 
 ^(F28368l0)476B 
 
 ,s^:r:,!'Srni. 
 
 U«^^««Srkeley 
 
U i ubZu 
 
 ^'^: