dPornsU 5Ilntucrattg ffithcarg 3tt}ara, Kfw ^orh CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library DS 785.W11 Lhasa and its mysteries :with a record o 3 1924 023 498 813 The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023498813 Upy^y/Ux^<^€^-t>L. LHASA AND ITS MYSTERIES LHASA AND ITS MYSTERIES WITH A RECORD OF THE EXPEDITION OF 1903-1904 BY L. AUSTINE WADDELL LL.D., C.B., C.I.E., F.L.S., F.A.I. LIEUT. -COLONEL, INDIAN MEDICAL SERVICE AUTHOR OF "the buddhism OF Tibet" "among the Himalayas" etc WITH 155 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS THIRD AND CHEAPER EDITION NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1906 W(i Originally putUsheA iy Mr. John Murray . . March igoj Second Edition April igo^ First published by Methuen &= Co. . March iqob Third and Cheaper Edition .... May igo6 YlBr'OS PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION The favourable reception accorded this work by the general reader and the Press is gratifyingly evinced by the fact that two editions have been practically exhausted within a few months of its first appearance, notwithstanding the high price which the unusual profusion of its illustrations had entailed. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I find the publishers, in response to a demand for a less costly edition, are now able to issue the book in its present form at a very much cheaper rate, yet nevertheless containing all the original letterpress and nearly all the numerous original illustrations— most of the latter being of permanent historical importance, and unique, in that they are reproduced from my own photographs, taken by myself at critical moments during the progress of the famous "Mission," and are not to be found elsewhere. The Natural History notes on the newly explored country recorded in the Appendices have been expanded in this edition to include an interesting list of the numerous wild flowers collected by me around Lhasa. Politically, it is a striking sign of the tremendous upheaval made in Tibet by our Mission, that over a year after the withdrawal of our troops from that country, the Grand Lama of Tashilhumpo, one of the "Living Buddhas," and the recognised successor of the fugitive Dalai Lama of Lhasa, should have broken through all the traditional isolation of centuries, and, for the first time in the history of Tibet, has crossed the Himalayas, braving the long journey of many weeks over dangerous passes, to offer homage at Calcutta to the son of the Emperor of India. L. A. W. London, January 1906. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION The following pages give an account, inadequate no doubt, yet I would fain hope, so far as it goes, intelligible and authentic, of Central Tibet, its capital, its Grand Lama hierarchy, and its dreamy hermit people, as they appear to one who has had exceptional advantages for making their acquaintance. It is now nearly a quarter of a century since I paid my first visit to the mystic land beyond the Himalayas. Soon therfeafter, on my return from the war in Burmah (1885-86), where I had had an opportunity of examining the primitive Buddhism of King Thebaw's late subjects, I was stationed for some years at Darjeeling on the borders of the Forbidden Land, where there was a floating colony of several thousand Tibetans, Lamas and laity, fresh from the sacred city, and in daily communication with it. The curiosity naturally aroused by the sight of these strange people, with their picturesque caravans and encampments, was farther stimu- lated by echoes of the theosophist belief that somewhere beyond the mighty Kanchenjunga there would be found a key which should unlock the mysteries of the old world that was lost by the sinking of the Atlantis continent in the Western Ocean, about the time when Tibet was being upheaved by the still rising Himalayas. Here more obviously and indisputably must lie the key to many unsolved problems in the ethnology, natural history, and geography of the "Roof of the World." At Darjeeling also I made the acquaintance of several of the Survey spies, those brave PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION vii men who, carrying their lives in their hands, are engaged in what Kipling calls "The Great Game," the exploration of the most savage and least known parts of the Trans- Hirnalayan valleys, and I heard from their lips the stirring narratives of their adventures. To turn these hitherto neglected opportunities to best account, 1 set about learning the Tibetan language and collecting information wherever available. Awaking from my first surprise at finding how little is certainly known as to the religion of the country, and how unlike it is to the Buddhism of Burmah, from which I had freshly come, I undertook a comparison of the Tibetan beliefs and rites with those which pass under the Buddhist name in other lands, devoting much of my holiday leave to the prosecution of the enquiry in Ceylon, China, and Japan ; whilst, with a view to acquire information of a more secular character, I tramped many hundreds of miles along the mountain tracks of the Tibetan frontier, at various points from Garhwal and Nepal in the west, to Assam in the east, where the valley of Central Tibet ends in that of the Brahmaputra River, often at great altitudes, sometimes sleeping in caves to evade the frontier guards, and on several occasions penetrating some days' journey into the territory of the Lhasa Government, eliciting information about the tribes, ^ topography, and natural history ^ of those regions. Although my attempt to reach the mystic citadel in disguise in 1892 failed, yet during these years of preparation I had accumulated such accurate pictures of the land that my ultimate entry into its capital, when it came, seemed but the realisation of a vivid and long- cherished dream. The reader will, I trust, excuse these personal references, which are made in no boastful way, but merely to explain ^ Tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley. Calcutta, 1900. ^ My large collection of the birds of the South-Western Tibet border- land is now in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow University, and is analysed by me in the Gazeteer of Sikhim, pp. 198-234. Calcutta, 1894. viii PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION the somewhat peculiar position in which I found myself as a member of the advance column of the recent historic ex- pedition to Lhasa. The circumstances enumerated opened to me an intercourse with the Lamas, native chiefs, and people met with on the journey, which would have been impossible to one not similarly prepared beforehand, and put into my hands a means of interpreting much symbolism, custom, and myth which would have been quite incom- prehensible to the uninitiated. Amongst the wealth of photographs of this book, all taken by myself, with one or two exceptions, are some unique ones, direct from Nature, by the "colour-process," which give vivid and truthful pictures of the marvellous colouring of the originals. The clever sketches by Mr Rybot, a member of the Expedition, after the style of the Bayeux tapestries, will be appreciated. An unusually full Index has been added for convenience of reference. I take this opportunity of expressing my great indebted- ness to my friend Dr Islay Burns Muirhead, and to Mr John Murray, for much-valued assistance in revising the proofs. L. A. W. London, 9/^ February 1905. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Lhasa the Forbidden . . . PAGES The Inaccessibility of Lhasa — Attempts by Modern Travellers — Surveyed by Trained Native Spies — Indian Survey Spies — Lamas Torture Harbourers of Spies — Early Roman Missionaries in Lhasa — Manning's Visit to Lhasa — Warren Hastings' Mission to Tibet — Moorcroft's Alleged Stay in Lhasa — Hue's Visit — Origin of China's Suzerainty — Absolute Exclusion of Foreigners . . 1-21 CHAPTER II The Grand Lama and his Evolution as the Priest-God of Lhasa Legendary Origin of the Tibetans — Buddhism and Priest- Kings — The First Pope - King of Tibet — Invention of his Divine Origin — His Mystic Spell — Secondary Grand Lama at Tashilhumpo — Civil War brings in China — Intriguing Ambans — Policy of Assassination — The present Dalai Lama ..... 22-30 CHAPTER III How the British Mission came to be sent Great Northern Desert Plateau — First Relations with Tibet — Annexation of Sikhim — Tibetan Invasion of Sikhim — The Prime Minister of Tibet — Letters refused by Dalai Lama — Lama's Intrigues with Russia — Siberian Priest Dorjieff — British Mission organised under Colonel Younghusband — Its Armed Escort . . . 40-57 CONTENTS CHAPTER IV Forward 1 The Peaceful Mission becomes an Armed Force PAGES Military Escort under General Macdonald — Its Difficulties of Transporting Stores across Himalayas — The Start Off — Up the Tista Gorge— The Tista Valley — Kalimpong and Rangpo — Building Roads across Mountains — Climbing the Himalayas — Kanchenjanga and Everest Peaks— Tibetan Portrait of Everest— Arrival at Gnatong s^-77 CHAPTER V Invasion of the Chumei Valley across the Jelep Pass and Occupation of Phari Fort Crossing the Jelep Pass — Trade-Mart of Yatung — In the Chumbi Valley — Sacred Monuments, Chortens, etc. — Prayer-Flags and their Legends — Chumbi Palace and Village — Advance to Phari — Lingmo Alpine Meadow — Frozen Camp at Dotak — Chinese at Phari — -The Cold at Phari — The Dirt of Phari — Indispensability of Yaks — More Transport Difficulties — Proposed Chumbi Valley Railway . . . . . . .78-108 CHAPTER VI Advance to Tuna on the Tibetan Plateau, across THE Formidable Tang Pass The Column for Tuna — Nepalese Yaks as Baggage Animals — Obstructive Tibetans at Phari — Tibetans Prepare for War — Temples and the Founder of Lamaism — Across the Himalayas — Chumolhari Snows — The Tableland of Tibet — Wild Asses and Great Plain — Mirage — InstaUing Mission at Tuna — Hot Springs .... 109-125 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER VII WINTERING IN TIBET Intensity of Cold— Sufferings in the Cold — The Frosted Land- scape — Post and Telegraph Communications — Omens of Good and Bad Luck — Home of the Great Stag — Diseases of Cold and Altitude — Prevailing Diseases — Tibetan New Year — Onset of Spring . . . .126-146 CHAPTER VIII On to Guru, with Battle at the Crystal Springs Conference with Tibetans — Carts up the Mountains — Crossing the Tang Pass — Parley with Tibetan Generals — Clearing the Block- wall — Battle at Crystal Springs — The Wounded Tibetans— Effects of the Fight . 147-163 CHAPTER IX The Tibetan Army and its Leaders War-songs — Martial Spirit — The Government of Tibet — Army Organisation — Grades of Officers — Uniforms and Badges — Weapons of the Tibetans — Gunpowder — Food and Pay — Amban's Inspection — Reports — Warlike Courage — Charms against Bullets . . • . 164-175 CHAPTER X Dash on Gyants^;, past the Lakes Rham and Kala, with fight in the Gorge of the Red Idol Along Lake Rham — Snow-scapes and Snowstorms — Kala Lake — Formation of the Lakes and Plains of Tibet — Hiuen Tsiang's Travels — Enter Watershed of Tsangpo — Ruined Villages — Vestiges of Forests — Another Block- wall — Kangmar and Hot Springs — Fight in the Red Gorge — Tibetan Prisoners — Fertile Plains of Tibet 176-195 xii CONTENTS CHAPTER XI Gyantse— ITS Fort and Town FACES Gyantsd Fort and Garrison— Surrender and Occupation of Fort — Fort, Temple, and its Images — Mission Post at Changlo — Mission Post is Fortified — Market in Camp — Wayside Shrines and Texts — Streets in the Town — Market — Trade — Carpets — Smallpox Plague . . 196-215 CHAPTER XII Temples, Priests, and Convents of Gyantse and Neighbourhood, with Visit to the Caves of the Entombed Hermits Monastery of Gyantse — Monks and Priests of Gyantse — Exterior of the Great Temple — Buddhist Wheel of Life — Altar and Sacred Books — High Mass — Manuscripts — Devils' Chamber — Great Pagoda — Gyants^ and Gaya Pagodas compared — Nuns — Cemeteries — Tsechen — Suburbs of Gyants^ in Spring — Caves of Entombed Hermits — Entombed Hermits — Magician's Training — Morbid Mummery ..... 216-244 CHAPTER XIII Besieged at Gyantse Attack on Mission Post — Enemy re-occupies the Jong — Savage Brutality of Tibetans — Bombarded by the Jong — Defences and Vigils — The Kharo Column — Swearing in of "Braves" — Storming of Phala Post — Cutting off our Communica- tions — Cannonaded by Tibetan "Jingals". . . 245-264 CHAPTER XIV Relief of Gyantse and Storming of the Jong Arrival of Reinforcements — Fight at Naini Monastery- Storming of Tsechen Monastery— Armistice for Peace Negotiations — Peace Delegates in Conference — Storming and Capture of the. Fort — Dongtse Village and Monastery ... .... 265-276 CONTENTS CHAPTER XV Gyants^ to Lhasa, past the Yamdok Sea, and across the tsangpo valley PAGES Marching in Heavy Ram— Deadly Aconite— Striped Build- ings— Ralung and Mt. Nojin Kangsang— Glaciers in the Kharo Pass — Fighting in the Kharo Pass — Caves of Prehistoric Men— Peace Delegates re-appeai^ — Yamdok Lake and Pig-faced Abbess — The Devil's Lake and Yamdok — Drying up of Yamdok Lake — Fishing in Yamdok Sea — Palte Fort and Village — Storm on the Yamdok Sea — The Tsangpo Valley — Seizure of the Ferry — Fatalities at the Ferry — Iron Suspension Bridge — Across the Ferry — The Lhasa Valley — Deserts and Defiles — Rock Sculptures and Indian Monks — First View of Lhasa — Tilung Bridge — Delegates — Elation on nearing Lhasa — Arrival at Lhasa .... 277-329 CHAPTER XVI Lhasa, "The Seat of the Gods" The Vatican of Lhasa — British March through the City — The Streets of Lhasa — Amban and his Residence — Mutilation as a Punishment — More Streets — Markets and People of Lhasa — Jewellery and Diseased Gems — Home and Food of Tibetans — Furs, Tea, and Trade — Change Camp — Wild Asses — Visit to Nepalese Consul — ^Visits of Amban ...... 330-360 CHAPTER XVII Temples and Monks in the Hermit City: The Lamas' Holy of Holies Visit to the Cathedral of Lhasa — Edict Pillars at Entrance — Shrines in the Cathedral — My Translation of Guide to these — Plan of Cathedral and Relation to early Christian Churches — The Holy of Holies — Its Golden Roof— Mice of the Divinity of Pestilence — Visits to the State CONTENTS Monasteries, Sera and Dapung — The Four Lings, Ramoch^ and "Sacred Circular Road" — Rock Picture Gallery — Temple of Medicine and its Priests — Tibetan yEsculapius — Medical Notions and Treatment . . 361-379 CHAPTER XVIII Oracles and Sorcerers Demoniacal Possession — Visit to the Tibetan Delphi — The State Oracle Royal — Story of its Origin —The Demon Spirit — Deliverances — Popular Karmashar Oracle — Its Soothsayings — Retort to myself .... 380-386 CHAPTER XIX The Priest-God and his Palace Visit to Potala Hill and its Red Palace — Thrones of the Dalai Lama — Mausoleums — Chapel Royal and its Altars — Promenade of Grand Lama — Private Apartments of Dalai Lama— His Infancy and Mother — Courtyards and Flying Spirits — Gate and Gardens . . . 387-399 CHAPTER XX Tea with the Regent, Ruler of Tibet Cardinal as Regent— His History— -High Mass in Chapel— The Litany— Reception by the Regent— The Cardinal's Personality and Conversation — Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Mahatmas— Ancient Books and Manu- scripts — Lost Secrets of Atlantis — Tibetan Tea — Photographing His Reverence .... 400-411 CONTENTS XV CHAPTER XXI Peace Negotiations and Signing of the Treaty TAces Political Chaos — The Cardinal begins to Treat — His Proclamation — Fanatic Lama — Treaty agreed to — Its Pompous Signing in Potala Palace — Seals — Release of Prisoners ....... 412-419 CHAPTER XXII Rambles round Lhasa Suburbs of Lhasa — Harvesters — Wild Flowers — Villas and Farms — Cemeteries — Amusements and Plays — Dogs — Salutations— Edict-pillars — Capuchins and Sunshades — Rock Paintings — Friar Odoric's Visit — Fairy Spring — Arsenal — Restaurants — Deposition of Dalai Lama . 420-429 CHAPTER XXIII The Return Journey— Exploration of the Tsangpo Valley, and snow-bound at Phari Leave-takings- — Ferry — New Birds — Fertility of Central Tibet — Exploration of Upper Tsangpo — Exploration of Lower Tsangpo — Narrative of Kiintup, " K.P." — Lower Tibet — Savage Abor and Lo — Falls of Tsangpo — Tengri and Kula Kangri Ranges — Winter in Yamdok — Gyantse half-way House — New Trunk Road — Snow-bound at Phari — Snow-blindness — Re-crossing the Tibetan Border — Back to India — Results of the Expedition — Tibet, its Lessons and Future ..... 430-448 xvi CONTENTS APPENDICES SCIENTIFIC RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION AND NOTES TO THE TEXT AFFENDIX PAGB I. Tibetan Year-Cycles . . ■ ■ -449 II. Points reached by Previous Modern Travellers . . ■ • ■ • 45' iiL Convention between Great Britain and China RELATING TO SiKKIM AND TiBET . . • 452 IV. Climate and Meteorology . . . -455 V. Sack of Lhasa in 1710 a.d. .... 468 VI. Population of Tibet and Causes operating to KEEP IT DOWN ...... 469 VII. Charm for killing the Enemy . -471 VIII. Analysis of Saline Earth, etc., from Yamdok AND Red Gorge . . . • . 472 IX. Gold in Tibet ...... 474 X. Trade— Imports and Exports . . . 476 XI. The Fauna of Central and South - Western Tibet, with Descriptions of New Birds, Fish, etc. ...... 479 xiA. Botanical— Lhasa Plants .... 490A XII. Geology . . . . . .491 XIII. Text of the Tibetan Treaty . . 496 XIV. Deposition of the Dalai Lama by the Chinese 500 XV. Fertility of the Po District of the Lower TSANGPO . . . . . .502 XVI. Itinerary— From Calcutta to Lhasa . . 504 XVII, Diary of the Chief Events of the Expedition 506 Index ....... 509 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Full Page Palace of Dalai Lama on Potala at Lhasa, by Colour Photography from Nature Prime Minister of Tibet, the Shata Shape Phala Manor, Dongtsd .... Prime Minister of Tibet and Suite Lepchas of Sikhim — Nepalese and Lepchas selling Oranges ..... Sikhimese making Ambulance Baskets Tibetan Officials of Yatung Chinese Block-wall at Chorten Karpo, Chumbi Villagers of Chumbi .... Lingmo Plain, Chumbi — Upper Chumbi Pine Woods of Upper Chumbi . Phari Fort— Outside the Walls of Phari Fort . Vacating Phari Fort for the British Yaks on the Slopes of Chumolhari — Tibetan Generals in Council ..... British Flag crossing Pass (15,200 feet) under Chu molhari Peak — Chatsa Monastery, Phari Crossing the Great Plain of Tuna Tuna, with Chumolhari in the distance General Macdonald and Staff wintering at Chumbi Mission receiving Headmen Approaching Guru before the Battle . Parley with the Tibetan Generals before Guru Tibetan Block-wall at Guru (one minute before the fight) Battlefield of Guru on Shore of Rham Lake — Tibetans begging to be spared .... Medical Aid to the Wounded Tibetans Cavalry Soldier in Mail Armour Tibetan Infantry in Mail Armour Along the Shores of Lake Rham (14,900 feet) — Sheep of Northern Tibet, on Rham Plain Frontisp Tofacep ieu . 8 10 48 )' 66 5J 70 80 82 84 11 92 )1 94 96 )» 100 112 116 118 122 126 148 152 156 158 160 162 168 172 176 XVIU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Dismantling Loop-holed Wall at Kangmar — The Governor {Jongpon) of Gyantse Fort . . To The General questioning Villagers Gyantse Fort from the North . Surrender of Gyantse Fort — Chinese General Ma is interested in the Heliograph Gate of Gyants^ Fort .... Blowing up of Gyantse Fort Gate Tibetans of Gyantse .... Inside Gyantsd Monastery Plough Yak-oxen bedecked with tassels — Tibetan Lady and her Maids Fortified Mission Post at Gyantse Officers of beleaguered Garrison at Gyantsd . Attack on Tsechen Monastery . The Chief of Bhotan, Offen Wang Chug, K.C.LE., the Penlop of Tongsa .... Storming of Gyants^ Jong from Phala . Gobzhi Castle . . . . Entrance to Ralung (14,500 feet)— Entrance to Kharo Pass above Ralung Our Camp under Nojin Glacier . Kharo Pass, looking North (16,400 feet) Final Phase of Kharo Pass Action An arm of Yambdok Inland Sea Palt6 Fort on Lake Yamdok Tsangpo Valley from Kampa Pass (16,500 feet) — New Carp from Yamdok Lake . Valley of the Tsangpo in Central Tibet Ferry over the Tsangpo Riverat Chaksam in Central Tibet Iron Suspension Bridge over Tsangpo River at Chaksam Monastery .... First View of Lhasa ..... Old Castle at Dongkar, on the Lhasa River . Lhasa Valley at Dongkar — Dapung Monastery British Mission entering the Gate of Lhasa — Inside the Gate, passing under Potala Palace . Panorama of Lhasa (from the west) Royal London Fusiliers marching through Lhasa — Edict Pillar and Chinese Temples below Potala Entrance to Chinese Embassy, Lhasa — The Chinese Amban and General Macdonald Smallpox Edict at Lhasa .... The "Turquoise" tiled Bridge {Yutok)—1\i^ Grand Square at Lhasa ..... face p. 190 194 1 96 198 200 202 212 218 234 250 252 266 268 272 280 282 284 286 288 290 302 306 308 310 314 324 326 328 330 332 336 338 340 344 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix Lhasa Women ...... To face f. 348 Nepalese Consulate in Lhasa — Mahomedan Consul of Lhasa and Ladaki Merchants . . . „ 356 Nepalese Consul and his Wife at Lhasa . . „ 358 Amban's Palanquin and Pikemen . . . „ 360 Cathedral of Lhasa (from roof of adjoining building) . „ 363 Outside the Gates of Sera Monastery — The two Proc- tors of Sera with Maces and Lictors . . „ 372 Temple of Medicine ...... 376 Tea-cauldrons in Great Square, Lhasa — Physician feeling the three Pulses . . . . „ 378 Receiving an Oracle ...... 386 Grounds of Potala Palace — The Vatican of Tibet . „ 388 North Entrance of Red Palace — North Gate of Potala Palace ....... 390 Corridor in Grand Lama's Palace, Potala . . „ 392 The Grand Lama's Promenade, on the roof of Potala Palace .... • „ 394 Altar in Potala, in Chapel of Avalokites'wara — The Ruler of Tibet ...... 400 High Mass in the Temple of Sera at Lhasa . . „ 402 Monks bringing in Bags of Grain and Flour . . ,, 412 Peace Delegates ....... 416 Harvesting the Grand Lama's Corn — Suburbs of Lhasa ....... 420 Sunshades in Tengye Ling, Lhasa . . . „ 424 Gallery of Rock Paintings . . . . „ 426 Escorted party visiting Lhasa City — Chinese Pro- clamation deposing the Dalai Lama . . „ 428 State Councillors and General Macdonald — The Joint Governors or Jongpons of Phari Fort . . „ 430 Savage Abors of the Dihong (Lower Tsangpo) — Striped Walls of Monastery . . . „ 436 Cemetery of British who fell at Gyantse — Wheel of Life in Vestibule of Gyantsd Temple . . „ 442 Peasants of Central Tibet . . . . „ 448 In Text PAGE Dragon with fiery yin-yang disc . . . . i Facsimile of the Prophecy ..... 3 Mystic Om-mani Legend ..... 22 The Compassionate Spirit ..... 23 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Profile Section across Tibet from India to Siberia The Modern Bayeux Tapestry, by Rybotte de Jersey . Crossing the Mountains — Tapestry Bringing Provender for the Army — Tapestry . Girl carrying a Bamboo Pitcher .... Building Roads over the Mountains — Tapestry Picture-Map of Mount Everest .... Prayer-Flag ...... Translation of Prayer- Flag .... Chinese Visiting-Card of Author Ruler of Nepal ...... Founder of Lamaism, St. Padma Sambhava, and Wives Aerial Temperature Chart .... Sepoys and their Rum — Tapestry Crossing the Plateau in Carts from India — Tapestry . Bullet Charm Talisman ..... God incarnate in Tashi Lama — Amitabha A Discoverer of " Revelation Gospels "^(ZA«-/j«« Chempo) The Eight Lucky Signs or Glorious Emblems . Chorten, symbolising the Elements The Hermit-Saint, Mila ..... Hermit with Skull-Cup ..... " Happy Musing on Misery " .... The Ruling Chief of Bhotan (the Penlop of Tongsa) . Iron Suspension Bridge over Tsangpo . Lhasa postal mark ..... Bazaar finger measurements .... Falls of the Tsangpo River .... Seal of Dalai Lama (in square Indian characters, full size impression) — Seal of Tashi Lama (full size impression) . PAGB 41 57 59 61 65 71 n 86 87 no 112 IIS 139 143 151 174 192 220 224 231 237 239 242 270 313 342 354 348 448 MAPS AND PLANS Map showing the Position of Tibet with Reference to Russia, India, and China Map of Tibet, showing its main Physical Divisions and Districts Chart of the Altitudes traversed . . Map of Mission Post and Fort of Gyants^ Sketch Map of the Environs of Lhasa . Plan of Lhasa .... Ground-plan of Lhasa Cathedral {Jo-ICang) Route Map to Lhasa To face p. i 40 62 246 327 331 365 At end LHASA AND ITS MYSTERIES CHAPTER I LHASA THE FORBIDDEN "In the heart of Asia lasts to this day the one mystery which the nineteenth century has still left ta the twentieth to explore — the Tibetan oracle of Lhasa." — CURZON. "/« the year of the Wood-Dragon [1904 A.D.] the first part of the year protects the young king; [then'] there is a great coming forward of robbers, quarrelling and fighting, full many enemies, troublous grief by weapons and suchlike will arise, the king, father and son will be fighting. At the end of the year a conciliatory speaker will vanquish the war." — Tibbtan Prophecy from Almanac for the Wood-Dragon Year [1904 A.D.]. Wreathed in the romance of centuries, Lhasa, the secret citadel of the "undying" Grand Lama, has stood shrouded in impenetrable mystery on the Roof- of-the- World, alluring yet defying our most adventurous travellers to enter her closed gates. With all the fascination of an unsolved enigma, this mysterious city has held the imagination captive, as one of the last of the secret places of the earth, as the Mecca of East a 1 2 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. Asia, the sacerdotal city where the "Living Buddha," enthroned as a god, reigns eternally over his empire of tonsured monks, weaving their ropes of sand like the schoolmen of old, or placidly twirling their prayer- wheels, droning their mystic spells and exorcising devils in the intervals of their dreamy meditations. But now, in the fateful Tibetan Year of the Wood- Dragon, the fairy Prince of "Civilisation" has roused her from her slumbers, her closed doors are broken down, her dark veil of mystery is lifted up, and the long-sealed shrine, with its grotesque cults and its idolised Grand Lama, shorn of his sham nimbus, have yielded up their secrets, and lie disenchanted before our Western eyes. Thus, alas ! inevitably, do our cherished romances of the old pagan world crumble at the touch of our modern hands ! How the astrologers of Tibet were able to predict this distressful storm which was in store for their country, so long before it happened, and to specify that it should occur exactly in this very year, is amazing. Certain it is, that the prophetic words heading the foregoing page, and here reproduced from their original, were copied out by myself, about a year before our expedition was ever heard of, from a Tibetan manuscript almanac for this ill-starred year of the Wood-Dragon, of the fantastic calendar of the Lamas. ^ lo view of this adverse prophecy staring them in the face, the poor Tibetans, so deeply influenced at all times by superstition, are much to be admired for their patriotism and fanatical loyalty to their priest-god, in desperately rushing headlong upon a conflict which, even in their ignorance 1 This calendar, with its grotesque symbols and terms, is com- pounded of the twelve zodiacal beasts, mythological and other, coupled on to the five Chinese elemental bodies, all of which are implicitly believed by the Tibetans to exercise a powerful influence on man's destiny during the year. See Appendix I., p. 449. I.] THE INACCESSIBILITY OF LHASA 3 of our overwhelming strength, they knew was already doomed by their own oracles to be a hopeless contest, in which Tibetan exclusivism was fighting its death- struggle. The inaccessibility of Lhasa has been due in part to the well - nigh unsurmountable natural barriers 1^ ^^qt;:5^-q|3^-^i^-ir]^-(^%-2F(^^z(| FACSIMILE OF THE PROPHECY. which seclude that city behind the most stupendous mountains in the world, and to the extreme difficulty of journeying within the country of Tibet it self, owing to the enormous elevation, averaging 12,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea-level, and the absence of all facilities for travel. But the chief cause has been the political barriers raised by its monks, the Lamas, who are at the same time the rulers, the 4 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. priests, and the merchants of the country ; and who, prompted by their own commercial and clerical self-interest, and their dread of losing their advan- tageous monopoly by the introduction of Europeans and their methods, have struggled and striven by every means in their power to preserve their isola- tion. Suspicious of all strangers, and ever on the alert, they blocked all avenues of approach to their country, and unflinchingly opposed all intruders, repelling them by armed force if necessary. In this way, such daring travellers as Colonel Prjevalsky in 1872-1879, Count Szechenyi in 1880, Mr Rockhill, the great Tibetan scholar, in 1889 and 1892, M. Bonvalot and Prince Henry of Orleans in 1889, Captain Bower in 1891, the ill-fated M. Dutreuil de Rhins in 1893, Mr and Mrs Littledale in 1895, and Dr Sven Hedin in 1901 — all of these explorers, after braving unparalleled dangers in the attempt, had to confess to having failed to penetrate beyond the mere outskirts of the central province, and not within a week's journey of Lhasa. As a result of this forcible exclusion from the populous central tracts, the narratives of these travellers are mainly geographical, and contain, with the exception of Rockhill's, little information about the life and notions of the people. Nor was the jealousy of the Lamas directed against Europeans only. All natives of India, whether Buddhists or not, except a few well-known merchants from Nepal and Ladak, were equally excluded and prevented from crossing the frontier, in accordance with the standing order of the Emperor of China, as conveyed to the missionary M. Hue half a century ago, which prescribed that "no Moghul, Hindostani (Indian), Pathan or Feringhi (European) " should be admitted into Tibet. It resulted from this exclusive policy that when the British Government wished, in view of possible I.] SURVEYED BY TRAINED NATIVE SPIES 5 contingencies, to get a trustworthy map of the great unknown territory of the Land of the Lamas which for so many hundreds of miles marched with the frontiers of India, it had to employ as its secret surveying spies, for the most part Tibetans, who had settled on our side of the Himalayas as naturalised British subjects, and whose Mongoloid features assisted in their disguise. Of this class were the famous surveying "Pandits"^ Nain Sing and "A-K," trained and sent out into unknown Tibet by Colonel Montgomery of the Indian Survey in 1866 and subsequently ; and to these survey spies we are indebted for most of our knowledge of the map of Tibet. These gallant exploring Pandits, both of them naturalised Tibetans from the North- western Himalayas of Kumaon, after being thoroughly trained to survey-work — to the use of the prismatic compass, to plot out routes, understand maps, read the sextant, recognise the fixed stars, use the boiling- point thermometer for altitudes, etc. — they proceeded, in the . guise of merchants, risking their lives in the event of detection, to traverse Tibet in all directions and map it out in secret. In this adventurous enterprise they displayed wonderful courage and resource in evading and overcoming suspicion. The former pioneer explorer, Nain Sing , disguised as a merchant of Ladak, reached J^l^^ through Nepal in 1^66 ^ and was the firgt fn fiv thp. — latitude and longitude of the Forbidden City. Again, eight years later, in 1874, he revisited that place from Ladak by way of the great gold-mine region, in both cases making wide traverses and curves across the country. He did most of his surveying under cover of his prayer-wheel and rosary. When he saw anyone approaching he at once began to twirl his prayer-wheel, and as all good Buddhists whilst doing that are supposed to be absorbed in religious thoughts, he was very seldom disturbed. 'An Indian word meaning "learned men.'' 6 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. His prayer-wheel, instead of the usual prayer-scrolls, contained long slips of paper for recording the compass- bearings of places, and the number of paces between towns, etc. ; and afterwards, as it was always exempt from customs-house examination, it secreted a compass. His rosary, instead of the usual one hundred and eight beads, was made up of one hundred as counters for his paces — at every hundred paces he dropped a bead. On his visit to the Grand Lama, in a batch of pilgrims, he was much exercised lest His Holiness, who is credited with knowing the secrets of all hearts, should penetrate his disguise ; but the pundit put on a bold face and passed this ordeal successfully. The latter explorer, Krishna, who is a well-educated gentleman and a personal friend of mine, is officially known as "A-K" by reversing the initials of his name. He did even better work, the best of all these native explorers. He, too, visited Lhasa twice, the second time in 1878, and cross-quartered Tibet, up to the borders of Mongolia, China, and Burma, with such remarkable accuracy that, when his figures were calculated out in Calcutta, they fitted in almost exactly with those of the Russian observer. Colonel Prjevalsky, at their points of contact in Mongolia, this agreement being the more surprising when we consider that their routes extended across many hundreds of miles of the most difficult country in the world. Captain Ryder of the Royal Engineers also informs me that he recently tested several of A-K's road-measurements in South- eastern Chinese Tibet by wheel-cyclometer and found that A-K's measurement by paces was marvellously accurate. The other most famous Tibetan surveying spies are Lama Ugyen Gyatsho and Kiintup, both naturalised British Tibetans of the Sikhim or Darjeeling border of Tibet. Even such men were repeatedly stopped as suspects, and as they procured this geographical information at I.] INDIAN SURVEY SPIES 7 the risk of their lives, they have mostly been rewarded with pensions and grants of land. The geographical knowledge thus bravely procured by these Tibetan agents of the British Government, combined with the route-surveys across the outer ranges by Mr Rockhill and the few Europeans above-named, has already filled up most of the map of Tibet, the basis of which was the old "Lama Survey" of the Jesuits, under that most active of Chinese Emperors, Kangshi, in 1717.^ A very few Indians also have gained entry into Tibet, during the past century, aind even into its sacred capital, in the guise of Tibetans, which their swarthy skin renders somewhat easy. Thus Babu Sarat Chandra Das of Bengal contrived to get into Tibet from our frontier town of Darjeeling, over a quarter of a century ago, in disguise as the Tibetan companion of the surveying Lama, Ugyen Gyatsho ; and he was also smuggled into Lhasa for a few days as a feigned Tibetan monk by a Lama friend of Ugyen Gyatsho. The terrible penalty, however, paid by Ugyen's old Lama friend for being a party to the impersona- tion by which this Bengali procured entry into Lhasa is horrible to relate, and throws a lurid light on the savage inhumanity of Buddha's so called vice-regency on earth. I heard the story several years ago from eye-witnesses, and from the lips of my friend the Tibetan governor of Lhasa himself, who shed tears of emotion as he related it to me. This beloved old Lama 1 This emperor having employed the Jesuit Fathers Regius and others in constructing a remarkably accurate map of China, more accurate than most of the maps of Europe in those days, asked them to make a map of Tibet. For this purpose two Lamas were trained as surveyors by the Fathers at Peking, and sent to Lhasa and the sources of the Ganges ; and their results were plotted out by the Jesuits, and form the first map of Tibet, which was published by D'Anville in Du Halde's work of 1735. See Markham's Narrative of the Mission of Bogle and Manning, Ixi., for details. 8 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. was one of the chief monks of the western capital of Tibet at Tashilhumpo, who have practically nothing whatever to do with the political government of the country, which is in the hands of the Lhasa Lamas. He bore the high title of "Minister" or Seng-c/ien. As he was anxious to learn the language of India, the native country of Buddha, he asked Ugyen Gyatsho, on the occasion of one of his visits to Tibet, to bring with him next time he returned an Indian to teach him this language, and he would arrange to have him passed secretly through from the Darjeeling frontier. In this way Sarat C. Das, who happened at that time to be at Darjeeling as a vernacular teacher in the school there, got to Tashilhumpo, and after a few months there he begged the Lama, in return for his services, to get him a sight of Lhasa. After much importunity the Lama consented, and persuaded his nephew, the governor of Gyantse, to whom he disclosed the Babu's disguise, to take the Babu there for a few days in the retinue of his wife. When, over a year later, it leaked out at Darjeeling that this good -hearted old Lama had assisted an Indian to get into Lhasa, even for a few days, not- withstanding his high position, next in rank only to the Grand Lama himself, and of such sanctity that he was esteemed to be an incarnation of a divinity, and the bodies of his predecessors for three genera- tions were all enshrined in gilded tombs in the Grand Lamasery, where they were objects of worship by swarming pilgrims — nevertheless, when it transpired that he had assisted Sarat Chandra to get into Lhasa, he was denounced from Lhasa as a traitor, he was dragged from his high office by the fanatical Lamas of Lhasa to that sacred city, and there beaten daily in the public market-place, and afterwards ignomini- ously murdered, with his hands tied behind his back. His body, denied its place amongst his predecessors, s«5S?/ I', ' / I, , ^■'^jOfpi'^ PRIME MINISTER OF TIBET— THE SHATA SHAPE I.] LAMAS TORTURE HARBOURERS OF SPIES 9 was thrown into a river to the east of Lhasa,^ and his reincarnation was abolished for ever by the Grand Lama, who exercises dominion over the soul as well as the body, 2 although, curious to relate, a child which was born immediately after the murder, and who is now an inmate of one of the monasteries, bears on his body the peculiar mark of being a re- incarnation of this Lama, namely, the absence of a left knee-cap, which is an extraordinarily rare abnormality. The ruin thus brought about by the Babu's visit extended also to the unfortunate Lama's relatives, the governor of Gyantse (the Phala Dahpon) and his wife (Lha-cham), whom he had persuaded to befriend Sarat C. Das. These two were cast into prison for life, and their estates confiscated,^ and several of their servants were barbarously mutilated, their hands and feet were cut off and their eyes gouged out, and they were then left to die a lingering death in agony, so bitterly cruel was the resentment of the Lamas against all who assisted the Babu in his attempt to spy into their sacred city, which resulted in practically no addition to our knowledge of that city beyond what was already recorded by the native survey explorers. Of Asiatic outsiders, other than Indians, a few Russian survey spies, of late years, have added con- siderably to our knowledge of the Forbidden City. One of the best known of these is M. Tysbikoff, who brought back, in 1902, photographs of that city. The last of all these Asiatic foreigners who contrived to 1 The Kongbu river at Shoka fort-prison. " This case is not without precedent. In the Peking Gazette ol 31st May 1877 a Tibetan incarnate Lama, who was denounced by the Chinese political resident at Lhasa for having carried off the seals of office, was declared by The Son of Heaven, under his celestial powers, that "his soul should not be allowed to transmigrate at his decease." ^ They were imprisoned at Chukya fort to the south of Chetang, where the Dahpon died. 10 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. enter Lhasa was the Japanese priest, Kawaguchi, and he had to flee for his life in May 1902, when his disguise and nationality were discovered. In revenge, several of his friends amongst the monks in the Sera monastery where he lodged in Lhasa have been imprisoned, and some, it is reported, had their eyes gouged out by order of His Holiness the Grand Lama. Contrary to the general popular belief, quite a number of Europeans succeeded in reaching Lhasa in former days during the past three centuries ; and, though never welcomed, they were permitted to reside there for varying periods of months and years. Most of them were devoted Roman Catholic missionaries, and the meagre accounts they have left us, industriously collected by Sir Clements Markham merely served to whet our curiosity for more. The fir.'jt Kurnpean to set foot in Lhasa seems to have been EriarOdoric, who is believed to have reached that sacred city about the year i.i-^o a .d. on his way overland from China. Nearly three centuries elapsed before another Europeafi followed him, this time also from the China side. The Austrian Jesuit, Grueber, accompanied by the Belgian Count Dorville, made his way from China to Lhasa on foot in 1662, and remained there for two months and passed out by Nepal ; the only extant sketch of the Grand Lama's palace, until a few years ago, was made by the former of these two travellers.! They did not see the Grand Lama, as they refused to prostrate themselves before him. They were followed, in 1706, by the Capuchin Fathers Joseph de Asculi and Francisco de Tour, and, in 17 16, by the two Jesuits Desideri and Freyre, who travelled from Delhi vid Kashmir and Leh. Desideri under- took this daring journey and settled at Lhasa in the hope of converting the Tibetans to Christianity. He ^ Published by Kircher ; see my Buddh., p. 229. PHALA MANOK, UUiNGTSK I.] EARLY ROMAN MISSIONARIES IN LHASA ii remained there thirteen years, when he was recalled by the Pope and prevented returning on account of complaints made against him by Capuchin monks who had found their way to Lhasa shortly after him from Patna in India vid Nepal, and established there a rival mission. The chief of these Capuchins was Horace della Penna, with no less than twelve others, of whom at least four reached Lhasa vz'd Nepal in 1 7 19, and established there a mission^ which lasted more or less continuously for nearly half a century in that city. They were, in 1724, allowed to build a chapel in Lhasa, which the Grand Lama, who held many friendly arguments with these fathers, himself visited, and was deeply impressed by what he saw there Horace returned to Rome in 1735 for reinforcements, and the Pope sent out with him, in 1738, nine more, also letters to the Dalai Lama, the Grand Lama of Lhasa. They reached that city in 1740, and remained there for twenty years more,^ when they were expelled through the influence of the Chinese political Resident, and were forced to retire with their converts to Nepal. From here, driven out a few years after by the barbarous Goorkhas at their cruel invasion of that country, they settled in British territory at Bettiah in Bengal on the borders of Nepal, where I visited this mission in 1880, and heard for the first time of its chequered and romantic history. Its Tibetan work was not abandoned, and thus has given rise ' At Sachen Naga. About 1730, whilst these missionaries were settled in Lhasa, a young Dutch traveller, Van de Putte, reached that city in disguise, and after " a long residence " there travelled to Peking in the guise of a Chinese mandarin, and finally returned to India through Lhasa, thus being the only European who has completed the journey from India through Lhasa to China up till now. See Markham, Ivi. etc. '•* One of them, Beligatti, has left a journal of which most of the information is incorporated in George's Alphabetum Tibetamim, Rome, 1762. 12 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. to the paradox that the "Vicar Apostolic of Tibet," who is still nominated at Rome up to the present day, unable to find a footing in Tibet, is forced to live on the borderland in China to the east, or in British territory in the Darjeeling district to the west of the closed land. No - Eng-lishman ever saw Lhasa up till the present year, except one, about a century ago, if we do not admit the doubtful case of Moorcroft.i This one was Thomas Ma nning, of the Chinese branch of the old East India Company's Service. He was a friend of Charles Lamb, himself also of the same Company's office in London. Manning, fascinated by the romantic accounts of China and. its mysterious dependency Tibet, determined to devote his life to exploring these regions. His friend Lamb tried to dissuade him from what he termed "foolish" purposes. "Believe me," writes Lamb, "'tis all poets' invention. Pray tiy and cure yourself. Take hellebore. Pray to avoid the fiend. Read no more books of voyages, they are nothing but lies." But Manning was resolved, and entered the Chinese branch of the Company's service to acquire the Chinese language and the knowledge of the customs of the people necessary for his plan of travel. After three years at Canton he proceeded to Calcutta, in 1811, for official assistance in his enterprise ; but the red-tapeism of those early days, discouraging the employment of anyone outside its own clique, however specially fit, denied him help of any kind, and would not even grant him any credentials. Depressed by this official neglect, he nevertheless bravely set out alone ; and in the guise of a Chinese physician, enduring endless hardships, made his way through Bhotan to Lhasa. He resided in that city some months, and had several friendly interviews with the Grand Lama there till he was finally arrested by ' See, for doubtful case of Moorcroft, p. 16-17. I.] MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA 13 the Chinese and deported back to India. Thence he returned to China by the way he came ; but disgusted with his official treatment he withheld the report on his travels, and even related his experiences to no one, and left only a few jottings in a rough diary.^ Manning's first interview with the Grand Lama is recorded in some detail, and the glimpse thus obtained lent some colour to the popular belief in the supernatural character of this sacred personage, who just before Manning's visit had "transmigrated" into the body of a princely young child. "This day (17th December 181 1) I saluted the Grand Lama ! Beautiful youth. Face poetically affecting ; could have wept. Very happy to have seen him and his blessed smile. Hope often to see him again," and Manning goes on to relate: — "The Lama's beautiful and interesting face and manner engrossed almost all my attention. He was at that time about seven years old, had the simple and unaffected manners of a well-educated, princely child. His face was, I thought, poetically and affectingly beautiful. He was of a gay and cheerful disposition, his beautiful mouth perpetually unbend- ing into a graceful smile which illuminated his whole countenance. . . . He enquired whether I had not met with molestations and difficulties on the road, to which 1 promptly returned the proper answer, I said that I had had troubles, but now that I had the happiness of being in his presence they were amply compensated, I thought no more of them. I could see that this answer pleased both the Lama and his household peoples." On Manning being asked if he had any request to make: "I begged of the Grand Lama to give me books respecting his religion and ancient history, and to allow me one of his learned Lamas who understood Chinese to assist and instruct me." This request was only very partially complied with, a promise being made that copies would be prepared and delivered afterwards. ' These are published by Markham, op. cit. clix., etc. 14 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. This unfortunate child died a few years afterwards, assassinated, it is believed, by his regent^ in his intrigues to retain the sovereign power for some time longer in his hands. Previous to Manning, only two parties of English- men had ever set foot in Tibet, though neither of them reached Lhasa. They were the emissaries of Warren Hastings, the first and greatest of our governor- generals of British India. This far-sighted adminis- trator, who did so much to transform the trading East India Company into a sovereign power and source of strength to England, had strong geographical instincts. In the same year in which he assumed office, he caused a survey of his territory to be made, resulting in the celebrated map of Rennel, the first fairly correct map of India. In the same year he tried to bring the Land of the Lamas into friendly and commercial intercourse with the plains of Bengal. For this purpose he established a great fair under the mountains at Rangpur, below Bhotan, and taking advantage of a letter he received from the Grand Lama of Western Tibet, interceding for Bhotanese raiders,* he despatched, in 1774, a mission to the Grand Lama, consisting of Mr Bogle, a magistrate, and Dr A. Hamilton of the Indian Medical Service, in the hope of opening up new trade. This mission was well received in Western Tibet, but was not allowed to go on to Lhasa ; nor did it succeed in negotiating any commercial treaty. Still, it was a great thing to have opened up amicable relations with Western Tibet, and to cement the friendship 1 Named Si-fan. 2 The Bhotanese, in 1772, invaded Cooch Behar, a dependency of the East India Company, and carried off the Raja prisoner. The Company sent a force which retook Cooch Behar, and would have severely punished the Bhotanese, but Warren Hastings forgave them on the intervention of this Grand Lama. I.] WARREN HASTINGS' MISSION TO TIBET 15 still further, Warren Hastings established a Tibetan temple at Howrah in Calcutta,^ and he seized the opportunity of the death of this friendly Lama of Tashilhumpo in Western Tibet to send another mission to congratulate the new Lama upon his "reincarna- tion " — for the Tibetans believe that their great Lamas never die, but on their apparent death merely transmigrate into the body of a newly-born child. This mission of congratulation was despatched in 1783, under Captain Turner, a relative of Warren Hastings, as Bogle had meanwhile died. Captain Turner seems to have been not a little impressed by the halo of supernatural dignity and decorum surround- ing this infant, though . one cannot help feeling that the irony of the following passage of diplomatic history is at least as remarkable as its official adroitness. "On the morning of the 4th December (1783) the British envoy had his audience and found the child then aged eighteen months seated on a throne with his father and mother on his left hand. Having been informed that though unable to speak he could understand. Captain Turner said : ' The Governor- General on receiving the news of your decease in China was overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, and continued to lament your absence from the world until the cloud that had overcast the happiness of your nation was dispelled by your reappearance ; and then, if possible, a greater degree of joy had taken place than he had experienced grief on receiving the first mournful news. The Governor anxiously wished that you might long continue to illumine the world by your presence, and was hopeful that the friendship which had formerly subsisted between 1 The temple for the use of Tibetan traders visiting Calcutta was endowed by Bogle's friend, the Grand Lama of Tashilhumpo with Tibetan books and images. The building was rediscovered in 1887, with its books and some of its images, which latter are now worshipped as Hindu gods. It bears the name of the "Tibetan Garden" {Bkot bagari). i6 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. us would not be diminished, but rather that it might become still greater than before j and that by your continuing to show kindness to his fellow-countrymen there might be an extensive communication between your votaries and the dependents of the British nation.' "The infant looked steadfastly at Captain Turner with thQ appearance of much attention, and nodded with repeated slow motions of the head as though he understood and approved every word. His whole attention was directed to the envoy, and he conducted himself with astonishing dignity and decorum. He was the handsomest child Captain Turner had ever seen."^ But this mission also failed to reach Lhasa, or to secure any commercial treaty, owing to the hostility of the Chinese Resident at Lhasa, who, it was alleged, caused the following letter to be sent by the Regent of Lhasa to the friendly Lama of Western Tibet. He had heard, he wrote,^ " of two Feringhis [Europeans] having arrived in Tibet with a great retinue of servants ; now the Feringhi were fond of war, and after insinuating themselves into a country raised disturb- ances and made themselves master of it ; and as no Feringhis had ever been admitted into Tibet he advised the Tashilhumpo Lama to find some method of sending them back " ; and the Emperor of China, he added, forbade the admittance of all Feringhis. Another Englishman, Dr Moorcroft, is alleged to have reached Lhasa in 1826 and to have remained there for many years, although another account • asserts that he died in 1826 before reaching Lhasa. Dr Moorcroft had a remarkable career. He devoted himself to the commercial exploitation of Ladak and North-Western Tibet, chiefly as a source of breeding horses for the Indian Government, but, as in the case of Manning, his request for official recognition in ' Turner's Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, pp. 335-6. * This referred to Mr Bogle. I.] MOORCROFT'S ALLEGED STAY IN LHASA 17 dealing with these far-off countries, was rigor- ously refused. Even when, undeterred by his want of official standing, the chiefs of Ladak, whose con- fidence he had won through his unique intimacy with the people, made him their medium of an offer of their allegiance to the Indian Government, this offer was peremptorily refused, with the result that the Sikhs took over Ladak, and it afterwards passed with Kashmir to the Raja of the latter country and so was lost to us. Moorcroft disappeared soon after, and the story which M. Hue heard in Lhasa from the lips of Moorcroft's servant, and also from several Tibetan officials, of his master's long residence in that city in the disguise of a Kashmir merchant, is quite possible. "The servant's story, which was confirmed by other people in Lhasa, was : Moorcroft arrived from Ladak at Lhasa in the year 1826 with his Ladak servant ; he wore the Musulman dress and spoke the Persian language, expressing himself in that idiom with so much facility that the Kashmi^rians of Lhasa took him for one of their countrymen. He hired a house in the town, where he lived for twelve years with his servant Nishan, whom he had brought from Ladak, and who himself thought that his master was a Kashmirian. Moorcroft had purchased a few herds of goats and oxen, which he confided to the care of some Tibetan shepherds in the gorges of the mountains about Lhasa. Under the pretext of inspecting his herds, the feigned Musulman went freely about the country, making drawings and preparing his geo- graphical charts. At last, having dwelt for twelve years at Lhasa, Moorcroft took his way back to Ladak, but whilst in the province of Nari (or Hundesh in North- Western Tibet) he was attacked by a troop of brigands, who assassinated him. The perpetrators of this murder were pursued and arrested by the Tibetan Government, who recovered a portion of the property of the English traveller, among which was a collection of geographical i» LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. designs and charts. It was only then, and upon the sight of those objects that the authorities of Lhasa found out that Moorcroft was an Englishman."^ The last Europeans to enter Lhasa were the two French Lazarist priests MM. Hue and Gabet. They went, in 1845, to inspect the new diocese of the Vicar Apostolic of Mongolia, which the Pope had just created. They arrived in the sacred city on 29th January 1846, and sojourned there about a month, when they, like the missionaries before them, were expelled by the Chinese resident Minister, who cunningly persuaded the Lama that their spiritual power would be over- thrown by the rival creed of the Christian missionaries ; though the real reason was believed to be retaliation for China's defeat at that time in the opium war. There is, indeed, no doubt that China has all along persistently exercised her suzerainty over Tibet to encourage the Lamas to exclude Europeans from the country, lest her own commercial advantages and political prestige should suffer. China's suzerainty dates only fro m 1^20 a ^d.. when she steppea inwith an army, on the invitation of one of the rival factions of monks at Lhasa, to put down a civil and religious war there. On restoring order, the emperor Kangshi established at Lhasa for the first time two Chinese mandarins as political agents or Ambans^ — of whom we have heard so much lately — with large powers^ and a suitable force for their protection. Up to this time Tibet, though paying nominal tribute to China, was practically independent. As an indemnity, ' Hue's Travels in Tariary, etc., ii. 202. Hue fully discusses the conflicting statement of Moorcroft's prior death, which is suggestive of a possibility of mistake. ^ It is a Manchu word, and all Ambans are Manchus and bear the title of " Imperial Associate Resident in Tibet and Military Depiity Lieutenant-Governor." See p. 166. ^ See p. 34, footnote. I.] ORIGIN OF CHINA'S SUZERAINTY T9 China also retained a large slice of the richest part of Eastern Tibet ^ (see map). Still tighter did China draw her hold over Tibet to the express exclusion of Europeans, when the Emperor Chien Lung (famous for his artistic porcelain) had to send an army to drive the Goorkhas out of Tibet in 1792. In that year the freebooting Goorkhas attracted by the reports of the immense riches of the great monastery of Western Tibet which Bogle and Turner had visited, sent an expedition to plunder it. The panic-struck monks appealed to the Chinese emperor, whose army routed the Goorkhas, drove them over the Kirong Pass (about 16,000 feet above the sea), and pursuing them into Nepal, inflicted on them a humiliating defeat near their capital (Kathmandu).^ As the Chinese general reported that the Goorkhas had been assisted by British officers (which, however, was not a fact), China thereupon established the forts at Phari and other places along the Indian frontier to bar all ingress from that side. Since our Sikhim-Tibet war of 1888, the Chinese have aided the Tibetans in making exclusion still more absolute. My own private attempt to reach Lhasa from the Nepal side, in the summer of 1892, in the disguise of a Tibetan pilgrim, with surveying instruments secreted in prayer-wheels, hollow walking-sticks, and false-bottomed baskets, was frustrated by the unfortunate circumstance that the Raja of our protected Himalayan 1 The districts of Dartsendo (Ta-tsien-Iu), Lithang with its silver mines, Bathang and Amdo, all now incorporated in Sze-chuan province. 2 An amusing reference to this Chinese army is made by the then Amban at Lhasa in a letter translated by Mr Rockhill : — " .At present (1791) the wild Gorkhas have everywhere shown their deceitfulness ; the Imperial forces are advancing against them, and they no more can escape than fish at the bottom of a cauldron, so easy will be the task of putting out the flames of revolt and restoring order"— {Jour. Roy. As. Soc. xxiii. 22). And the Amban proved to be quite correct. 20 LHASA THE FORBIDDEN [chap. state of Sikhim, to the east of Nepal, on his intrigues with the Tibetans having been discovered, escaped with all his valuables into Tibet, at the very time and by the very same track, via Tashiraka, which I had selected. Thereupon that track, thus favoured by the Raja in his unplanned excursion, the only one at all promising for my purpose, was so rigorously watched by both Nepalese and Tibetans that my small party was detected. In the passes remote from the central province I found it was possible to evade the frontier guards so as to march for several days in the interior, always shifting camp after dark to circum- vent spies and robbers. In this way on two occasions I penetrated to the source of the Sutlej river in North- western Tibet, but when discovered and stopped I had of course to return to avoid political complications. To escape detection was well-nigh impossible for a European, as every headman of every village in Central and Western Tibet has for many years been held responsible by the Lhasa Lamas, under penalty of death, that no foreigner should pass through or receive shelter in his village. The headman passed on this threat and responsibility to each villager. Thus every Tibetan watched and pryed so keenly into the personality of all travellers, that our Tibetan survey spies were constantly stopped on suspicion. Even the Mongolian-featured Kawaguchi was frequently suspected — "You are not what you pretend to be," said one of his inquisitive companions ; "I am inclined to think you are an Englishman in disguise. If you are not actually English, I am sure you are a European of some sort." Nevertheless, as there was an off- chance of escaping detection, I was willing to take it, notwithstanding that my movements at Darjeeling were watched by resident Tibetan spies, and a description of my appearance sent to Lhasa. In this latter was the reference to blue eyes, which I.] ABSOLUTE EXCLUSION OF FOREIGNERS 21 puzzled Dr Sven Hedin as to why his Tibetan captors should search for this particular feature in his face. The almost insuperable obstacles thus raised against entry to any part of Tibet proper, even far outside the charmed Lhasa, seems to have led many European travellers of late years to extend the limits of the magical term "Tibet" so far northward as to include the whole of that vast uninhabitable desert the " Chang-t'ang " (see map, p. 41), which lies between inhabited Tibet and the Kuen Lun wall of the lofty plateau overlooking the lowlands of Central Asia ; although neither this no-man's-land itself nor its approaches are held by the Tibetans, nor by anyone to " forbid " the way for hundreds of miles. One result of this has been to convey the false impression to the public that Tibet is a vast desert plain, bleak, barren and treeless, which we shall see is widely different from the reality. This isolation of Lhas a, maintained for so many centuries, has resulted inthat city becoming the centre of the most extreme form of p riest-governme nt the world has ever seen, and has. led its esoteric priest- king, in his luxurious, self-centred leisure, to arrogate to himself the position of a divinity. He is adored as a manifestation of the Divine Being who has taken an undying form upon the earth — a supernatural condition which has exercised over European minds a weird fascination. CHAPTER II THE GRAND LAMA AND HIS EVOLUTION AS THE PRIEST- GOD OF LHASA f^ o)de-phyi-ka, or Tsannyis Khanpo. II.] THE PRESENT DALAI LAMA 39 being deposed, imprisoned, and even murdered by their own people, when it suited the convenience of the Lamas or the suzerain Chinese, and they are not likely now to protect him and his hosts of vampire priests from the results of his present hostile policy. Will this Leviathan of the mountain -top weather the storm of this epoch-making year of the Wood- Dragon? Who can say what is woven into his destiny ; but it is curious to find that so long ago as 1866, that is ten years before he was born, the surveying pandit, Nain Sing, recorded that it was then a popular saying in Lhasa that the Grand Lama will transmigrate only thirteen times. Now it is note- worthy that the present Lama is the thirteenth. " Om ! ma-ni pad-me Hung!''' "Hail ! The Jewel [Grand Lama] in the lotus-flower 1" CHAPTER III HOW THE BRITISH MISSION CAME TO BE SENT " What handling will do for other weeds will not do for the nettle." — Tibetan Proverb. It was no mere light-hearted curiosity to see the Forbidden Land which led to the despatch of the armed British Mission to Tibet in December 1903, but the aggressive hostility of the Tibetans themselves, aggravated by the alarming intrigues of Russia for supremacy at the great politico-religious centre, the Rome of Buddhist Asia, and for the possession of its mountain plateau, which commands the eastern passes to India. The exasperating hostility and insolence of the Lamas had been going on for a long series of years to the detriment of our trade and prestige, and although several attempts had from time to time been made to grapple with this standing question, successive viceroys had always let it drift, so that the last mission, that to Khamba Jong in 1903, might also have been abandoned and the impasse suffered to go on for some years longer. The discovery, however, in 1903, of Russia's avowed intrigues for establishing her influence at Lhasa, so long suspected, but now openly admitted, compelled England to advance in self-defence, without delay, in order to prevent this important geographical position, so near and so capable of being utilised for 40 TIBET showing its main PHYSICAL DIVISIONS & DISTRICTS / /.owe-r terraj-e witii frrnuzjwjit .seitLe^n-erds, i-LfidcT- 73.000 feef .Middle- ierT^ihCfi, of'upljxrtA fjosUtrfi^ irihahiteJ'hv r^ornadjS, avera^i/iif li.OOO-lS.OOO /.I iJc.si'H Itihffi/irid with4ni.l pefn^itVi'fU S'^Uletni'fiis, averaginx^ averts. 000 CeH tiiil Th.:- low-sf t/uirt.sv^r.sf tirte nf hill.s Indictifes ilw outer CornpiUd i^L.A.WADDELL. CHAP. III.] GREAT NORTHERN DESERT PLATEAU 41 attacking India, from gravitating definitely into the orbit of Russia. For, notwithstanding the magnificent defence which the Himalayas afford to India on the east, it is not the Himalayas but the vast and lofty plateau to the north of them and of Tibet, the great desert wall of the Kuen Lun plateau (see map) which forms India's scientific frontier against the great rival Power in the Central Asian lowlands, namely Russia. This vast and stupendously high plateau of Kuen Lun is indeed an effective barrier between the two great rival empires of mid-Asia. This immense desolate icy plateau, the Chang-tang'^ ■M.MO-I'fet HIMAUVAS CENTRAL GREAT DESERT PLATEAU KUENLUNS Sc HIMIR PROFILE SECTION ACROSS TIBET FROM INDIA TO SIBERIA. no-man's-land, which is unfit for human settlement, where without water, the traveller, " oppressed constantly ^ This vast lofty desert, the Chang-tang or Jang-tang stands at an elevation of 15,000 to 16,000 feet above the sea-level. It is about 1500 miles long with an average width of about 500 miles, tapering to 100 miles at its northern end to 350 miles at its eastern border. The area of the desert is about 480,000 square miles, or about three and a half times as much as Great Britain and Ireland. It is unfit for permanent settlements, but its surface in the summer months from May to August is covered by sparse grass, which attracts from the lower plateaux herds of wild yak, wild goat, sheep, antelope, and wolves which prey upon them. Tibet proper lies to the south of this Chang-t'ang, and in area is not much over 200,000 square miles, and not much larger than twice the size of Great Britain. This is inclusive of the Thok goldfields but exclusive of Chinese Tibet. 42 HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap. by an altitude of more than 5,000 metres, drags along for more than two months in the wind and snow without seeing a single human being or a single tree between the plains of Eastern Turkestan and the first encamp- ment of the Tibetan shepherds 150 or 200 kilometres to the north of Lhasa," is practically impossible for any army, whereas Tibet is a near and accessible neighbour of India. As Prince Henry of Orleans used to say — " // n'y a qu'un pas de I'Inde au Tibet!' This step is over the Himalayas no doubt, but it is accom- plished in a few days' time ; Darjeeling is nearer to Lhasa (330 miles) than it is to Calcutta, from which it is less than one day's rail. And as the present expedition proves, the journey to Tibet from the Indian side can be accomplished, either way, by a considerable army, even in mid-winter. A Chinese army of 70,000 men crossed the Himalayas from Tibet into Nepal on the Indian side, in 1793, by the Kirong Pass of about 16,000 feet, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Goorkhas near their capital. It is no wonder therefore that England does not mean to allow this important and penetrable frontier of India to be acquired by a hostile Power. Were Russia to establish herself in the rich valley of Lhasa, or make her influence supreme there, this would have far-reaching political effects all along our eastern frontier for over a thousand miles, from Ladak and Kashmir on the north end, to Nepal and Assam on the south, leading to combinations against us among the many Himalayan States, and whilst endangering our hold on our great Dependency would entail enormous outlay in fortifying our eastern frontier along its length, and in maintaining in Bengal a standing army of tens of thousands of inen, as large as we have in the Punjab, and even more expensive. The inevitableness of this forward movement to Tibet, on these same grounds, was recognised several years ago by some of us who were familiar with the III.] FIRST RELATIONS WITH TIBET 43 facts, and represented the necessity for it so long ago as 1888 and in 1895, and the imperativeness of throwing over the Chinese intermediary and dealing directly with Tibet. Again, more particularly, we advocated this forward movement in 1898, receiving for this a good deal of abuse from a section of the English press in India ; but in 1903 it became an accomplished fact. How extremely long-suffering England has been over her relations with Tibet is evident from a brief survey of the causes leading up to this mission, which also illustrates the tortuous and evasive policy of the Chinese to an almost comical degree. Our first relations with Tibet arose out of raids by the Bhotanese, in 1772, into Bengal, The Grand Lama of Tashilhumpo then sent a letter to our Governor-General, Warren Hastings, interceding for the Bhotanese, and the outcome was Bogle's commercial mission of 1774. The acquisition by us of the Himalayan State of Sikhim, adjoining Bhotan and containing the sanitarium of Darjeeling, famous for its snow views of Everest and Kanchenjunga, brought us into more direct relations with Tibet, as Sikhim was spiritually subject to Lhasa and its frontiers marched with Tibet for over a hundred miles, and, indeed, it was the question of these Sikhim boundaries and the trade across them which led to the present mission. The manner in which we secured suzerainty over Sikhim forms an interesting portion of English history, and is of importance in our case against Tibet. On the break-up of the Moghul empire in the beginning of the 19th century, when petty prince adventurers and marauding bands were carving for themselves short-lived principalities out of the moribund empire, a small tribe of Goorkha soldiers of fortune seized Nepal, and, establishing themselves there, overran 44 HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap. the whole stretch of the Himalayas from the Sutlej river to Bhotan, and then began to intrigue with the Mahratta princes of India against us for the mastery of India and for the expulsion of the English from the country. At that critical time in 1815, the year of Waterloo, when* our rule was trembling in the balance, General Ochterlony (whose great pillar of victory is now rightly the most striking monument in the capital of India) saved the empire. He defeated the Goorkhas in 1816 and drove them out of the> northern Himalayas of Kumaon (Naini Tal), and Garhwal (Mussoorie), and also ejected them from Sikhim on the south-east. Permanently to cripple these aggressive little Goorkhas, to confine them to Nepal, and wedge them in there against any further expansion, the tracts on either side of Nepal were then either taken over and held by us or restored to their former rulers. In this way we reinstated the Raja of Sikhim under British suzerainty. Some years later, in 1830, when a hill sanitarium was required for Calcutta, a tract on the outer Sikhim hills as far as Darjeeling was leased from the Sikhim Raja, and this was opened by Dr A. Campbell of the Indian Medical Service, regarding whose achievement Dr Hooker wrote : ' ' He [Dr Campbell] raised British Sikhim from its pristine condition of an impenetrable jungle tenanted by half savages and mutually hostile races to that of a flourish- ing European hill-station and a rich agricultural province." He also introduced the tea industry, which has since assumed such vast dimensions. When, in 1849, Dr Campbell and Dr (afterwards Sir Joseph) Hooker were travelling in the Sikhim Himalayas, they were captured and imprisoned by the Raja at the instigation of his rabid Tibetan prime minister, "the mad diwan," Namgyal. As a punishment for this outrage all outer Sikhim, III.] ANNEXATION OF SIKHIM 45 including the station of Darjeeling, was annexed as a British district. The Lhasa Lamas, taking advantage of their spiritual influence over the Buddhist Raja and his Tibetan wife, excited him to hostilities. When these were suppressed, in 1872, Mr (afterwards Sir John) Edgar, the magistrate of Darjeeling, seized the opportunity to try and establish friendly communication with the Tibetans, for the first time since Warren Hastings' attempt a century before, partly in the hope of opening up new trade — for the shortest of all existing trade-routes to Lhasa from the outer world pass through Sikhim — and partly to be in good political and neighbourly relations with the religious head of some million of Lamaistic Buddhists who now are British subjects in our Himalayan States, from Ladak on the north to Bhotan on the south-east. Mr Edgar effected, in 1873, an interview with the petty Tibetan magistrate of the adjoining Chumbi Valley of Tibet, but failed to open up any communication with Lhasa. In 1884, Mr Colman Macaulay, a secretary of the Bengal Government, which has its summer headquarters at Darjeeling, impressed there by the trade possibilities of Tibet with India, effected a meeting with the Tibetan magistrate of the frontier fort and customs station of Khamba on the north of the Sikhim boundary ; and enlisting the interest of Lord Randolph Churchill, then Secretary of State, in his scheme, obtained from Peking, as suzerain of Tibet, a passport to visit Lhasa with a trade mission. When this mission was organised in 1886, and on its way to cross the Sikhim frontier into Tibet, the Chinese objected to its pro- ceeding, notwithstanding that they had given the passport ; and Lord Dufferin, acting under the orders of Lord Salisbury, who held the then current exaggerated notions of the military strength of China — the Yellow-Terror colossus whose feet of clay 46 HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap. it was left for the Japanese a few years later to reveal — and not caring to oppose her wishes, ordered the abandonment of the mission, for a nominal con- cession in Upper Burma just then newly annexed. This decision proved a most unfortunate one, as it gave the impression of weakness on our part, for which we were despised accordingly. Emboldened by this apparent weakness, the Lamas became actively hostile. They invaded our tributary State of Sikhim in 1886 with an armed force, and advanced to within sixty miles of Darjeeling, causing a panic in that European sanitarium. Their wave of fanatical hatred to Europeans thus excited, swept across Tibet to the other side, where the Lamas expelled the Roman Catholic missionaries from their long-established home at Batang in 1887, burned their mission-houses to the ground, and massacred many of their converts. The Lamas also forced the Sikhim Raja to sign a treaty declaring that Sikhim was subject only to Tibet. After fruitless negotiations with China, as the Tibetans refused to withdraw from Sikhim, we had to expel them by force of arms in the costly little expedition of 1888 under General Graham. Their entrenchments were stormed, and the Tibetans, "showing great courage and determination," were driven out and pursued by our troops over the Jelep Pass into the Chumbi Valley. Farce now succeeded comedy. The envoy of His Celestial Majesty the Emperor of China appeared immediately on the scene and haughtily ordered the Western Barbarians to withdraw, notwithstanding that China had just declared herself unable to control the Tibetans or induce them to evacuate Sikhim. In deference to these fresh demands of the dreaded Chinese, the then Viceroy of India ordered the instant recall of our troops from Chumbi, and they were withdrawn the very same day they got III.] TIBETAN INVASION OF SIKHIM 47 there. Our immediate compliance with this demand, coupled with the fact that not only did we not annex this desirable Chumbi Valley as a sanitarium, but exacted no indemnity whatever for the cost of this little war — about a million sterling and our casualties^ — which the Tibetans had thrust upon us, confirmed both the Chinese and Tibetans in the belief that we were afraid of them. Two years' negotiations with the Chinese after the Sikhim War of 1888 now followed for the settlement of the boundary on this Sikhim frontier, and a treaty was then signed on the 17th March 1890 by the Chinese Amban of Lhasa for the nominal suzerain of Tibet on the one hand, and by Lord Lansdowne as Viceroy of India on the other. In this treaty the Lamas, in addition to arranging for the settlement of boundary disputes, agreed to facilitate trade across the frontiers, and to the appointment of a joint commission to give effect to this. This was in 1890, but the Lamas afterwards refused to acknowledge this treaty, and imposed still more vexatious taxes and obstructions on Indian trade than before. After three more years of negotiations with China, so long dragged out by her usual evasiveness, the British and Chinese commissioners, namely, Mr Paul, the magistrate of Darjeeling, and Mr James Hart of the Chinese Customs, and the Chinese Amban ^ met on the 5th December 1893 and signed a set of trade regulations under the treaty. This included the opening to all British traders of Yatung in the Chumbi Valley of Tibet, as a trade-mart, and specified that no duty was to be imposed on Indian goods 'The British loss was one officer killed, one officer and three men wounded ; the Tibetans lost about 200 killed, 400 wounded, and 200 prisoners. ^ Sheng Tai, a brother of the present Amban of Lhasa, and a Manchu of the royal house. 48 HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap. for five years, except on arms, salt, and a few other things, and that Indian tea was to be admitted after five years on a tax not exceeding that imposed on China tea imported into England. This arrangement had some personal interest for me, as I was to have been the resident British officer at this mart. Unfortunately our commissioners missed this excellent opportunity of making the Tibetans a party to this treaty, and so probably preventing further trouble. Notwithstanding that the Tibetans had sent all the way from Lhasa to Darjeeling, in the suite of the Chinese, one of their highest officials, their prime minister - elect, the Shata Sha-pe, of an old noble family, he was not associated in the negotia- tions, nor was he recognised in a way befitting his high rank. Happening to be at Darjeeling at the time, and being keenly interested in Tibet, I paid him several visits, and found him to be a most refined and well-informed gentleman, and very well disposed towards the English. As a hereditary ruler he was anxious to learn something about how we ruled India, and he begged me to give him a summary of our criminal, police, and civil codes. For said he, as he had nothing to show politically for his visit of many months to Darjeeling, he should like to be able to take back to Lhasa some useful information by which his countrymen might improve their govern- ment by imitating portions of our Indian system, the superiority of which had much impressed him. I -complied with this request, and in handing him the translations, indicated their general contents. He was much struck with our practice of not compelling an accused person to testify against himself, and exclaimed, "Why, we, following the Chinese, do the very opposite, for we torture the accused until he confesses to the crime ! " He also asked me for a list of officials in order of precedence, and for several III.] THE PRIME MINISTER OF TIBET 49 kinds of medicines, all of which I gave him. Offering to take him down to the plains to see Gaya, the holiest place on earth to a Buddhist, the spot where Sakya Muni became a Buddha, he thanked me effusively, but explained that, while personally nothing would give him greater pleasure, he was an official, a servant of the Grand Lama, who had permitted him to go only as far as Darjeeling, and that were he to go further on to India he might, on returning to Lhasa, be disgraced and lose his position and influence, on the ground of having been too friendly with the English. He hoped, however, to take back a favourable report and be allowed to return with permission to make the pilgrimage to Gaya. Just before he left Darjeeling he was much incensed at the rude treatment his clerk received at the hands of some hot-headed young British "subs," who pulled him off his horse and hustled him on the public road because he did not salaam to them. So this friendly Tibetan nobleman, who came specially in connection with the treaty, was allowed to return to Lhasa without having been associated in it. The treaty thus concluded between the Chinese and British was repudiated by the Lamas, who, with some reason, refused to acknowledge it, on the plea that they had not been a party in the making of it. The Lamas effectually neutralised the opening of Yatung by preventing any Tibetan traders from coming to or settling in it, and by barring the valley beyond by building a strongly loopholed wall across. It is an open secret that the Chinese were at the bottom of this stratagem, to give the Tibetans a proof of their diplomatic skill and show them that while they were forced to open Yatung, they were clever enough to evade this concession by the erection of this block- house. This strangled the trade by the most direct of D so HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap. all the routes to Lhasa ; and the Chinese officials, both in Lhasa and Chumbi, were given a monetary interest in stopping all trade this way by the Chinese viceroy of Sze-chuan, the province of China bordering on Tibet, who exerted himself to divert the trade which had ' hitherto flowed by this short Indian route into the long and difficult route vid Eastern Tibet through his own province, in order that he himself might reap the tolls and other profits on Chinese tea, and European goods from the Lamas and Tibetan merchants. He is the same unpatriotic viceroy who negotiated for Russia the secret treaty with China, by which the latter transferred her suzerainty of Tibet to the former, for which services part of the price was to be a monopoly for him of all the traffic with Central Tibet. All trade was therefore to be made to pass through his hands, through his province, and none by the Chumbi route. In addition to blocking Indian trade through the Chumbi valley, the Lamas threw down the boundary pillars erected under the treaty, made further encroach- ments in Sikhim, and carried off from there several British subjects against their wills into Tibet. All attempts to obtain redress either from Peking or Lhasa failed entirely. Communication with the Dalai Lama by letter was attempted in 1900 and 1901. These letters from our Government to the Dalai Lama were sent by the hands of a Bhotanese chieftain, Ugyen Kazi, a British subject (see photo, p. 84). "The first of these letters was despatched in August 1900 from Ladak by our political officer there, who travelled as far as Gartok, several weeks' journey within Tibet, to deliver the letter to the Tibetan governor or Garpon of that district for transmission to Lhasa. This official, however, returned it a few weeks later with the message that he dared not forward it as promised. In June 1901 a second letter was sent from Darjeeling III.] LETTERS REFUSED BY DALAI LAMA 51 along with the returned one by Ugyen Kazi, who was proceeding on a complimentary errand to the Dalai Lama from the Raja of Bhotan with presents of two elephants and a leopard. This emissary reached Lhasa in August 1 90 1. His account of his efforts to present the letters was as follows in his own words : — ' I told the Chamberlain Abbot that I brought a letter from His Excellency the Viceroy. He reported this to the Dalai Lama. On the fifth day after my arrival I gave his Excellency's letter to the Dalai Lama. The Chamberlain went with me, but left the room, and there was only a servant present, who was serving tea. On this servant leaving the room the Dalai commenced to talk about things concerning Bhotan, and then about the government of India. Regarding the letter, he said he could not take it without consulting the council and the Amban, and, as he knew they would not agree he did not wish to call them, as he said he was afraid the Chinese Amban would make a fuss and probably create a disturbance, in which case he could not be responsible for my life, and, he added, he was precluded from writing any letter to any foreign government. . . . I then pointed out that this letter was written by the greatest official under the king. To this he replied that the agreement precluding him from receiving it was not made by himself but by his predecessors, and that he was sorry he could neither receive a letter nor send an answer. . . . "Your government must not be angry with me, I have never done it any harm. I allow my subjects to trade in the products of this country, but if any of the subjects of your big government come in here I am afraid disturbances will follow." I pointed out that allowing our merchants in would do no harm, to which he replied that that might be, but he doubted it, and pointed to the manner in which the Chinese and Nepalese were already making trouble.'" Whilst these letters were insultingly returned unopened,! Jt transpired that the Dalai Lama, on the ' The address was : — " To the Illustrious Dalai Lama Nay-wang Lo-sang, Theedan Gyarso Gyon Rimboochay, Supreme Pontiff of the Great Buddhist Church" — a rather free phonetic rendering of the name. See p. 36. 52 HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap. other hand was sending autograph letters by special envoys under the Lama Dorjieff all the way to the Tsar in St Petersburg in 1900, and in 1901, as the following official Russian notifications show : — Extract from the Journal de Saint-Petersbourg of 2nd Oct. 1900. " Sa Majeste I'Empereur a re9u le Samedi 30 Septembre, au Palais de Livadia, Aharamba Agvan Dorjiew, premier Tsanit-hamba pres le Delai-lama du Tibet." Extract from the Odesskia Novosti of 12th fune 1901. {Translated from the Russian.) " Odessa will welcome to-day an Extraordinary Mission from the Dalai Lama of Tibet, which is proceeding to St Petersburg with diplomatic instructions of importance. The personnel of the Mission consists of eight prominent statesmen, with the Lama Dorzhievy at its head. The chief object of the Extraordinary Mission is a rapprochement and the strengthening of good relations with Russia. At the present time Tibet is, as is well known, under the protection of China, but the conditions of this protectorate have never been clearly defined. . . . The present Embassy has been equipped by the Dalai Lama, and despatched to His Imperial Majesty, and the Envoys carry autograph letters and presents from the Dalai Lama. . . . This Extraordinary Mission will, among other things, raise the question of the establishment at St Petersburg of a permanent Tibetan Mission for the maintenance of good relations with Russia." The composition of this mission was detailed in the St Petersburg Gazette with Agwan Dorshieff as Head ; the Secretary of the Dalai Lama, Chambo Donid (or Hambo Donir) Lubson Kaintchok ; the Captain of a district of Tibet Sombou Tsiduron Pundzok (or III.] LAMA'S INTRIGUES WITH RUSSIA 53 Djantsan Zombon Tsitong Puntsok) ; Dorshieff's secretary and translator, Owshche Norsunof; and the Chief Shigshit Gaszonof. Extract from the Messager OfSciel of z'i^th June 1901. " Sa Majeste I'Empereur a recu le Samedi 23 Juin, au Grand Palais de Peterhof, les Envoyes Extra- ordinaires du Dalai-Lama du Tibet ; Hambo Akvan Dorgeview at Loubsan Kaintchok Hambo Donir. Apres la reception des Envoyes a I'honneur d'etre presente a Sa Majeste I'Empereur le Secretaire de la Mission Djantsan Zombon Tsitong Puntsok, Chef de I'Arrondissement du Tibet." Extract from the Messager Officiel of ist December 1901. {Translated.') " On the 28th November the Envoy of Tibet, Hamba-Achvan-Dorjew had, the honour of being presented to Her Majesty the Empress Alexandra Feodorowna." The political character of these Missions is even more evident from an article in the Novoe Vremya of i8th June 1901, which stated that Dorjieff wrote for the information of the Russian Government a pamphlet in which the customs of Lhasa, and the intrigues surrounding the Dalai Lama, are described. This newspaper goes on to say that " the news of the defeat of China, the Russian victories in Manchuria, etc., have penetrated to the Lama of Tibet. Under these circumstances, a rapprochement with Russia must seem to him the most natural step, as Russia is the only power able to counteract the intrigues of Great Britain, who has so long been endeavouring to obtain admission, and only awaits an opportunity to force 54 HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap. an entrance." Those envoys with Dorjieff at their head were escorted back to Tibet, so the Russian newspapers stated, by a "scientific mission," which included officers of the intelligence branch of the Russian army. This suspicious interchange of missions with Russia, combined with the sullen hostility and deliberate discourtesy and rebuffs received by us from such a weak and semi-barbarous Power as Tibet, was the last straw on the patience of our Government. Strong pressure was therefore applied at Peking by our minister in 1902, with the result that China agreed to a British political mission proceeding to Khamba Jong within Tibet ; and she promised that the Chinese Amban from Lhasa, accompanied by certain high Tibetan officials, would meet the British Commission there to discuss disputed matters with a view to their settlement ; and China made a display of so far modifying her policy of obstruction as not only to instruct her resident Amban, in Tibet, to cease from further opposition to the admission of British agents, but also to publish in the Peking Gazette a report from him describing his urgent remonstrances with the "Councillors" of the Dalai Lama, against any further incivility to British Envoys. There must, he says, be conciliation, for "if hostilities occurred, the consequences would pass conception, and the intervention of the Imperial Resident would be of small avail." In doing this, however, the Chinese Government was evidently merely making an empty pretence of shifting responsibility from itself on to the Lamas, whom it scornfully terms "our barbarian vassals"; for, when the Amban at Lhasa urged the Lamas to acquiesce in what he termed "the very just demands of the British," he was impeached as a traitor by the Chinese and immediately recalled, and it is believed the unfortunate man committed suicide. m.] BRITISH MISSION ORGANISED 55 Meanwhile, the British Commission was organised. Major F. E. Younghusband, of the political depart- ment, was chosen as Envoy, with the Resident of Sikhim, Mr J. C. White, as assistant, Mr E. C. Wilton of the Consular Service as Chinese interpreter, and Captain W. F. O'Connor, Royal Artillery, as Tibetan interpreter and secretary. In July 1903 this peaceful Mission, with a small escort of 200 Sikh pioneers, crossed the frontier to Khamba Jong as had been arranged, travelling at considerable expense, on account of having to carry its own provisions and transport all the way from the Indian plains. On arrival at Khamba Jong, 20 miles within the Tibetan frontier and across a pass over 16,000 feet above the sea-level, the Mission found no one to meet it, neither Chinese nor Tibetan. An enquiry, addressed to Peking, asking why the representative of the Son of Heaven had not arrived, elicited the reply that the new Amban had started from Peking, but had succumbed to the hard- ships of the journey, and that another Amban had left Peking in December 1902 and was still on his way, and, meanwhile, a very high Tibetan official had left Lhasa for Khamba Jong. This individual arrived after several weeks' delay, but turned out to be a person of very low rank, so that the British Commissioner properly refused to enter into any relations with him. In this deadlock Colonel Younghusband's Mission waited wearily for four months for envoys who never came. On the contrary, an army of 3000 Tibetans was drawn up in front of the Mission camp, and threatened to attack it if the Mission did not with- draw. At the time of this hostile demonstration by the Tibetans there are grounds for thinking that a secret treaty was arrived at between Russia and the Dalai Lama, in which the former assumed the suzerainty of Tibet and protectorate of the Lamaist religion. Russia, 56 HOW THE MISSION CAME TO BE SENT [chap- on being taxed with this, denied the treaty, but admitted that she was establishing interests in Lhasa, and in her usual menacing way, by which she has so successfully extended her empire in Asia, indulged in veiled threats, which only showed all the more our need for immediate action. Indisputable evidence was received that Tibet was preparing for war against us. The Nepalese Raja (see portrait, p. 112) informed our Government that the Dalai Lama had asked him for armed assistance in expelling the Mission ; and there was ample proof that Russian breech - loading rifles and ammunition had been imported into Tibet. This was common talk amongst the Tibetans in the Darjeeling Bazaar, to which Lhasa news quickly filtered, and it was confirmed by the Japanese priest, Kawaguchi, who on his return from Lhasa, in 1903, reported that two hundred camel-loads of rifles were received by the Lamas in Lhasa, in 1902, from the Russian Government. In September 1903, it was ascertained that Dorjieff was combining with his professional Buddhist labours the business of super- vising the war preparations in the Lhasa Arsenal. With the interests of India thus vitally threatened by Russia, the immediate advance of our Mission became an imperative necessity ; for, as Lord Curzon explained, we could not afford to tolerate hostile influences on our Indian frontiers, and that while we had no wish ourselves to occupy the territory of other tribes or countries, and were quite content to let such territory be occupied by our allies and friends, the Government could not allow rival and unfriendly influences to creep up to our frontiers and lodge themselves under our very walls. At last, therefore, on the 6th November 1903, His Majesty's Home Government decided (i) that our Mission must advance, without delay, as far as the large market-town of Gyantse, in the heart of Tibet, 130 miles ..I.] ITS ARMED ESCORT 57 from the British frontier, and 145 miles from Lhasa, accompanied by a sufficiently large escort to force its way there, if necessary, and insist on the Tibetans fulfilling their treaty obligations ; (2) that the Chumbi Valley should be occupied to show we were in earnest ; and (3) that the expedition was to withdraw as soon as reparation should be exacted from the Lamas. niTTI E Y' : OREATE : ANO-PVlSiANTE : CovERNOVR : i5N0£TH : HYi ; qENERAYLE ! TOXIUE:eATTAYL£ ■ W\TH J V : RAYNIM ■■ {/^lO/H the Modern Bayeux Tapestry by Rybotte de Jersey.) CHAPTER IV FORWARD I THE PEACEFUL MISSION BECOMES AN ARMED FORCE " Beat a Chinaman enough and he will speak Tibetan." — Tibetan Proverb. Thus it happened that this time our entry into Tibet was not to be in the character of suppliants begging for admittance, nor as a small party of travellers sneaking undignified past an insolent and barbarous frontier guard. It was now to be the advance of the representative of a superior Power, unclandestinely in a peaceful manner, yet with a sufScient force to compel an opening of the door if it were found closed. The situation was deliciously hit off with blunt frankness in Punch's cartoon on the subject, where the Grand Lama, in protesting to John Bull, the peddler, that he does not want the proffered blessing of Free Trade, is told "You've got to have it!" When, therefore, in October 1903, it was decided that the British Mission must force its way forward into the heart of Tibet, against armed opposition if necessary, the precaution was taken of increasing the strength of the escort up to a brigade of troops, so as to secure the safety of the Mission against all risks, and bear down all probable opposition. This brigade,^ 1 23rd Sikh Pioneers . 700 32nd Do. . 700 8th Goorkhas . . 700 I Coy. Mounted Infantry 100 I Coy. No. 3 Bengal Sappers. 1 Coy. No. 4 Madras Sappers. 2 Guns, No. 7 Mountain Battery Machine Guns, Norfolks. Engineers, Field Rank. S Sections, Field Hospitals. Supply and Transport Depart- ments. CHAP, iv.j DIFFICULTIES OF MILITARY ESCORT 59 numbering about 2800 rifles, was placed under the command of Brigadier-General J. R. L. Macdonald, C.B., R.E., of Uganda fame, with instructions to advance on peaceful lines, and act strictly on the defensive in protecting the Mission during its advance in Tibet as well as in the occupation of the Chumbi Valley. Never before in military history had the army of any civilised Power been called on to conduct a little war — for that is what it had now become — at a height of over 15,000 feet above the level of the sea — on V ■■ CENERATLE ■- 'WITH -A - ftYCHTE CfOODi-Ya A/^oa JOYOVJ (.OnPAGNia CRO?Sei : V : MOVNTATArei . a level with the summit of Mont Blanc. The task thus allotted to General Macdonald might well have awed most leaders. The advance in the face of such physical difficulties had to be made on the shortest notice, without any preparations whatever having been previously made, and, owing to the lateness of the season, it had to be made in the depth of winter, with its intense cold to be endured by the Indian troops in the face of unparalleled difficulties in mountain transport, and with the probabilities of armed opposition in the strong natural defences by the way. General Macdonald selected as the line of his 6o THE PEACE MISSION BECOMES ARMED [chap. advance into Tibet the easiest route, namely, the ordinary trade route over the Jelep Pass by Chumbi, which was all the more desirable as the Chumbi Valley was to be occupied by us. So, whilst his troops and their transport were being mobilised, and food and other supplies being collected at the base, at the foot of the mountains, he arranged for the withdrawal of the Mission and its small escort from Khamba Jong back to the Jelep route, and to give up the former route. This decision was a wise one, as it placed the lines of communication on a better basis for the advance of the large body of troops which it was now decided to send. The long and difficult Lachen route, little better than a goat-track, with its pass over 16,000 feet, and very little firewood by the way, was thus given up in favour of the Chumbi route, with its pass nearly 2000 feet lower, and affording considerable firewood and grazing for the transport animals. Food supply and its transport — those bugbears of the traveller as well as the general of an army — were soon found to be the especial difficulty of this ex- pedition, and associated with these was the construc- tion and improvement of the mountain tracks for the passage of this transport along the most difficult line of communications in the world. For, in addition to the carriage of tents, bedding, ammunition, and other stores, up the mountains, there was the infinitely greater difficulty that all the food supply for the troops, and for the still larger army of followers, had to be brought up the mountains from the Indian plains, as practically no food supplies were obtainable within the mountains. The daily food supply for an army, consisting chiefly of grain-eaters as ours was, mounts up to an incredible number of loads, and the question of how to push on the greatest number of these loads in the quickest possible time up the many IV.] TRANSPORTING STORES ACROSS HIMALAYAS 61 scores of miles of bad mountain tracks at enormous elevations — was the problem which General Macdonald and his Chief of Supply, Major Bretherton, had to tackle. It was soon solved. Almost every conceiv- able form of transport and baggage animal suited for the work was impressed, and soon the whole track was filled by a toiling, moving mass of baggage animals and coolies. From the base at Silliguri, where the shrieking locomotives dumped down their hundreds of tons of food and other stores daily MVUTl : y^NinALEJ ; CVRIOJIiiini CIBVn: AD': EXEPvCITVM : PORTA VERB MANIE ■■ STPiAVNCiE ■' BEASTEi ; BHIN; t* M o a H < 15 S 3 = z S 2 < 5 «< S o « 2 u 3 a «! = i: W « fc * u u o s jju , J . • ,„ DKAGON. and may Buddha s doctrme prosper ! " TRANSLATION OF PRAYER-FLAG. people, a bit of real China-land transplanted thus far west. Entering the gateway under the Chinese tablet, bordered by ferocious leering dragons, you are in a truly Chinese street. On either side are the shops with their swinging signboards, on the window-sills are neat flower-pots with a marigold, daisy, or balsam in bloom, an unexpected luxury in mid-winter ; and the fostering care bestowed by the Chinese on such things, 1 Spell of Manjusri. * Avalokita's spell. * Vajrapani's. * Vajrasatwa's. 88 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. and on their caged song-birds, cannot fail to have some civilising effect upon the wild Tibetans. Inside the shops, behind the counters, are the pigtailed shop- keepers, placidly smoking their opium-pipes beside a teapot and saucer. In the street in front of the Court- house or Yamen little baby John Chinamen are playing about with their Tibetan mothers dressed in celestial costume. A few lantern-posts stand up like dove-cots. Even the unwholesome lean pigs are here, routing amongst the garbage and scurrying off at our approach. Many celestials find here a last resting-place ; for outside the village a top-heavy arch covered with inscriptions bestrides the entrance to their small cemetery with its votive tablets. This post is said to have been established since the treaty of 1893, for the - express purpose of blocking trade and neutra- lising that treaty. Some of the Chinese officials have a quiet dignified appearance. They look at the Tibetans with unconcealed contempt, and at us Western Barbarians quite uninterestedly, as if our entry was an everyday occurrence and in no way con- cerned them. Above this village the hills approach on either side and give the valley a bare rocky look for about a mile, till we cross a cliff by a solid stone embankment of remarkably well-built masonry, when the ravine again opens out at the foot of a prettily wooded glen, round the bend of which stands up boldly the Sikhim Raja's old summer palace in his private estate ot Chumbi, or "The Bend of the Waters," in an amphi- theatre of receding hills. This palace is a great square, three-storeyed house of stone, surmounted by a glittering gilt cupola, and overtopping the dwellings of the Raja's serfs, some twenty houses, which cluster round it. It is in a dilapi- dated state, having been deserted since 1892, when the Raja, on his recapture, was forbidden to come here, in v.] CHUMBI PALACE AND VILLAGE 89 order to stop intrigues with the Tibetans, of which this had been a hot-bed. Some remains of good frescoes cover the walls of certain of the rooms, and Chinese influence is seen in the framework of the papered windows. In the small chapel I found a set of the Tibetan translation of the Indian Buddhist scriptures^ in a hundred bulky volumes. The watch-dogs chained up at the doors of the houses gave us a fierce reception. They are huge Tibetan mastiffs — "the mastiff dogs" of which Marco Polo writes, "as big as donkeys, which are capital at seizing wild beasts."^ Strategically, Chumbi was declared by the General to be unsuitable for the headquarters post of this valley ; so a halt was made for a day, and an explor- ing party ascended the valley for some miles in search of a better site. A more defensible spot was found a mile and a half higher up, at the junction of the Khangbu Valley with this one. This position, selected 9780 feet above the sea level, was christened "New Chumbi," and we moved there the following day, crossing to the left bank by a fine cantilever bridge, with a guard-house at one end. Below our camp is the pretty village of Eusaka, amidst willows and pines, and beyond it the small monastery of Bakcham on a terrace above the river ; and towering nearly 7000 feet above it on the west, is the Tangkar Pass, which after Hooker I was the first European to visit. The defect of the spot as a permanent camp (as it is to be the headquarters of the Civil officer of the Mission, Mr E. Walsh, who has been deputed to the charge of this newly occupied or annexed district) is that it is so windy and overshadowed by high cliffy ridges that it receives very little sun in the winter-time. This new station of Chumbi, however, was not General Macdonald's objective, but the fort of Phari, 28 miles higher up, at the apex of the horse-shoe ' Kahgyur. ^ Yule's edition, ii. 41. go INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. basin of the Mo river, on the edge of the great plain of Tibet proper, and commanding the traffic of the Chumbi valley route. For the speedy occupation of the Phari fort, a flying column of 800 rifles, with Maxims and 4 guns, was got ready to start within two days, so soon as the six days' provisions necessary for this enterprise had been hurried up from the Indian plains, for we were at present forced literally to live from hand to mouth. When the timid Sikhimese coolies, the Lepchas and Bhotiyas, heard that a move up the valley to the dreaded Tibetan stronghold was about to take place, they were so terror-struck that they deserted during the night, almost to a man, under their headman, the grandson of that "mad minister" who had im- prisoned Dr Hooker, and who now had been given this opportunity of retrieving the lost character of his family by assisting the British Government ; but he proved hopelessly disloyal at the very outset. It is quite remarkable to see how terribly overawed all these semi-savage border tribes are at the mere mention of the word Tibetans. In their silly fear they thought that we should all be annihilated by the Tibetans, notwithstanding that many of these men have lived at Darjeeling for years, and have even visited Calcutta, where they should have been impressed by our superior strength. But they are not impressed by it. Their wholesale desertion when barely outside their own frontier compels us to reconsider the too favourable character which we are apt to give them on seeing them in their own forests. They lose heart immedi- ately they leave their jungle home a few miles behind, and they now have proved themselves hope- lessly untrustworthy for work even a short distance outside their own narrow zone of the lower forests. It was this radical defect of character which compelled Mr White in despair to give them up in his attempt v.] ADVANCE TO PHARI 91 to open Sikhim, and to import plodding Nepalese for the work in their stead ; so if these more aboriginal Buddhist natives of Sikhim are now being swamped in their own country by immigrated Hindus from Nepal, they have themselves and their own effete- ness only to blame for it. The Phari flying column left Chumbi on the i8th December, the second day after our arrival there. The upper valley of the Mo, through which we were now threading our way, had never before been seen by European eyes. It was very picturesque but too steep and rocky for cultivation, except in the alluvial flats below the finely variegated forest, above which, in the upland pastures, yaks were grazing. At the third mile, where an almost vertical cliff about 1000 feet high, "The Vulture's Fort" (Gab-jong), juts into the river-bed and bends the valley round at right angles, contracting it to a narrow gorge and making it a position of enormous natural strength, the Chinese have built another barrier wall across the valley, blocking the passage most effectually. The only path is through a gateway in the rampart, and a mere handful of determined riflemen on the cliffs could annihilate a whole column. Commanding this wall, on a terrace above it, is a fortified post for the Chinese troops, who, to the number of about a hundred, are here under the command of a Chinese colonel, whilst Tibetans man the Vulture's Fort across the river. Fortunately they had taken the precaution of leaving the gate in the wall open for us. Had this place been held against us, it could not have been stormed without the loss of many lives on our side. A steeper climb over a rocky track for a mile more brought us to the large flourishing village of Galingk'a (10,800 feet), on a sunny terrace surrounded by fertile fields. The headman of the village came out and respectfully greeted the General, doffing his hat 92 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. and putting out his tongue in his naost polite way, and presenting a ceremonial silk scarf.^ From here no less than five monasteries^ are visible across the valley mostly perched eyrie-like on almost inaccessible spots looo to 4000 feet above the river-bed. Now we had to zigzag up the face of a mighty landslip, fallen from the mountain on our left, which some few hundred years ago blocked the valley, forming a dam about 1000 feet high, over whose remains the river still tumbles in a series of cascades. On reaching the top, therefore, I was almost prepared to see the magnificent plain which then burst into view. The vast landslip had dammed the waters of the upper valley into a great lake, which in course of time had become silted up by the mud deposited from its torrent-feeders, until it formed the present wide grassy meadow, flat like a billiard-table, and about 3 miles long by half a mile broad, through which the limpid stream, unfrozen except at its margins, winds silently in curving links, narrowing into turquoise pools, where the speckled trout can be seen even at this winter season. In the shallower pools a few wild duck and other water-fowl are wading. Some startled blood-pheasants and tragopan disturbed in their wanderings escaped into the open pine-woods encircling the meadow, where the great stately stag of Chumbi, the '^ Skao," has his home. In this restful meadow of Lingmo, which combines the beauties of the Alps with the grandeur of the Himalayas, we encamped on the green sward amid the scent of the pines at an elevation of 11,200 feet above the sea, where, sheltered by the encircling pine- 1 The scarf is about a yard long and is called Khatag. No Tibetan, however poor, would dream of approaching & big man for a request, or paying a visit without one. They are also used to envelop letters. ' The most conspicuous is " The White-faced " {Dong-Kar). LINGilO PLAIN, CHUIIBI UPPER CHUMBI (note Tin-: tiuktan saddi v.] LINGMO ALPINE MEADOW 93 clad hills, which rose up boldly into graceful snow- peaks, it was much warmer than at Chumbi, nearly 2000 feet below us. I felt at once that this beautiful meadow seemed destined in the near future to be a great sanitarium for Bengal. Its delightfully crisp and exhilarating air and beautiful surroundings fit it to be an Indian Nordrach for the open-air treatment of consumption, so alarmingly on the increase in India. In this belief, I went around and selected sites for hotels and hydropathic establishments, with graduated exercises in walking and climbing through the woods above the golf-links in this delicious alpine air. The beauties of its restful glades are worthy of being idealised by brush, pen and song. Next day's track was about the worst possible. It led over great masses of sharp-cornered rocks which bruised the feet and bodies of both men and the struggling animals. It also took us over the slippery bergs of ice on the edges of the frozen streams. The valley now became very bold and wild ; great over- hanging naked cliffs of blackened granite swept up in unbroken beetling masses for 1000 feet or more, on each side of the narrowed gorge, meeting frown with frown. The trees, now limited to thin fringes in the ledges, became more and more stunted, and finally ceased at an elevation of 13,350 feet, the silver birch, creeping above the pine, and shrubby rhododendron some few hundred feet higher, till we emerged from the rugged ravines on to the open, bare, wind-swept uplands, furrowed into bright red and ochrey yellow and purple streaks from the shaly formation of the Tibetan plateau, which surges thus far down this valley. A trudge over these undulating grassy slopes for about a mile more brought us to the bleak frozen plain of Do-t'ak, or "The Rocky Stones," about a mile long by a quarter of a mile broad, where we encamped amidst the frosted stems of deadly aconite, 94 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. opposite a frozen waterfall, over loo feet high, which King Frost had made solid from top to bottom in a twinkling. This icy plain was bitterly cold beyond all belief. The sun had just dipped behind the hills, and the cold even then, at 4 p.m., was the intensest we had yet experienced in the daytime ; already it was minus 11° Fahrenheit, or 43° F. of frost, and in the icy wind which then sprang up it became positively painful. Our tents did not arrive till nearly dark, and the supply of firewood we brought with us, owing to want of transport, was barely sufficient to warm a little food, and left none to warm us. The terrible intensity and penetration of the cold of this wind was excruciating ; it seemed as bitter in our tents as outside ; our felt boots gave no warmth to our benumbed feet, and none of us, shivering as we were in our sheepskins, could sleep during that awful night. The poor chilled troops and followers, huddled cowering together for warmth in their tents, kept up around us a chorus of coughs and sneezes till day broke. It was a marvel that no one died, except a few of the mules, and that there were so few cases of frostbite. At last the day dawned in this arctic region, the wind died down, and we began to venture out in the sunlight. A comical sight we were, as, wrapped up in our furs with livid blue faces, we stamped about for warmth, our breath falling in snowflakes, or frozen into long icicles on our moustaches and beards — for everybody had by this time grown a beard, or tried to grow one, as a protection against the cold. No better testimony to the paralysing intensity of the cold could be had than the effect it had on our hardiest sportsmen. When at daybreak it was dis- covered that the cold had driven down a herd of wild blue sheep near to our camp, even this exciting news failed to interest our keenest sportsmen, who UPPER CIIUMBI v.] FROZEN CAMP AT DOTAK 95 ordinarily would climb 4000 feet on the mere chance of sighting this game. In the reviving sun, we soon forgot the misery we had suffered during that awful night, and struck camp and started off again up the valley. The pleasures of this nomadic life, however, did not seem to appeal to our Asiatic fellow-travellers, though they plodded on faithfully and uncomplainingly. There was very little more climbing in store for us. Winding ahead three miles through the bare hills above the frozen rivulet, we arrived at the edge of the plain of Phari at the ford of Khangbu (Khangbu-rab), and from here our progress became quite easy. The great plateau of Tibet throws a wave into the head of this valley to form the plain of Phari. On the grassy open downs of this plain, about 3 miles broad, our long winding thread of a column massed up into a broad front, with the mounted infantry a mile off on either flank. In this order our little army advanced across the plain, bounded on either side by round-topped bare hills, above which towered, only about 12 miles away, the snow-capped chaste Chumolhari,^ or "The Mountain of the Goddess Lady," which lifts her horn in the angle of meeting of the three countries of Tibet, Bhotan, and Chumbi. On the plain, several gazelles {Ga-wa) were quietly grazing within shooting distance, but were safe from us, as no shooting was allowed on the march ; and on the hills a glimpse was got of the wild blue sheep {Barhal, or, as the Tibetans call them, Na-wd). A good deal of this plain is a peat-bog, yet, strange to say, the people, although under great privations for want of fuel, do not use the peat for this purpose. Our track was crossed by several broad frozen streams coming down from the low hills, the ice of which is so thick as to bear our weights, and also the laden animals. ' Properly " Jo-mo-lha-ri." 96 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. ^ phpr^ fnri- I nnmftH suddenly into view about 4 miles off on turning a corner of the plain. It seemed to be nestling at the very foot of the great white peak of Chumolhari, with the black huts of the town clustering round it ; and on our right was the low pass from Bhotan adown which had come, a century or more ago, Bogle, and Turner, and Manning ; so that now we had struck a track over which Europeans had been before us, though long ago. As we approached Phari we could see that there was great commotion amongst the people, who were buzzing about like bees, and a deputation of the towns- folk came out to meet General Macdonald and begged him not to enter the fort or the town. Neither the governor, that is our friend of Yatung, the Depono, nor the two joint magistrates of the fort {Jong-poii) came out, however, one of the latter excusing himself on the plea of illness and the other as absent. But when the General considered the occupation of the fort necessary, for military reasons, and after his mounted infantry reported that there were no Tibetan troops in the fort, and two companies of our Goorkhas occupied it, and hoisted the Union Jack on its top- most tower, these Jong-pons made a remarkably quick recovery ; for one of them came into our camp almost immediately to pay his respects to the General, who permitted them both to remain in the quarters in the fort, and told them to continue to perform their duties under his protection. Reassured, they at once began sending into camp large quantities of fodder and fuel and a few available provisions, such as turnips, for all of which they received full and prompt payment. The resident Bhotanese commercial agent here^ seemed especially friendly, and exerted himself in getting in supplies for us. The following day, the 2ist December, the Depon, accompanied by the ' The Ka-tso Tsong-pon or " Master Merchant-" ''^'''- ■ffi;'.>,3???^iy;5??r.---. .. PHARI FORT ^"-_^^,-':- .•M^*^^ "' OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF PHARI FORT v.] CHINESE AT PHARI 97 Chinese colonel, Chao, and the two Jong-pons, paid the General a visit in camp, who explained to them that he had come to prepare the way for the Mission, and they need fear nothing so long as they remained friendly. Colonel Chao volunteered the information that he had received a letter from the Amban saying that he was starting from Lhasa that day. This bloodless victory of General Macdonald was a great achievement. By a swift and secret swoop he was able to seize this great mobilisation centre of the Tibetan troops, with its tons of gunpowder and bullets, without firing a single shot, as all its large garrison were still at Khamba Jong in ignorance of our advance. By this rapid movement we had now got possession of that fortress which dominates the great trade - route to India, and had obtained peaceful possession also of the almost invincible lower ravines, which, if held by the Tibetans against us, could not have been captured without very much bloodshed on both sides. Any idea of retreat, therefore, which our withdrawal from Khamba Jong may have led the Tibetans to entertain, has been much more than dispelled by our rapid reappearance at Phari in greater force than before, with the strong fort of Phari itself also in our hands. Thi s fortress of Phari look s like a mediasval castle in Europe. It stands upon a hillock about 60 feet high in the middle of the bare mountain-girt plain, and towers up with its turrets over 70 feet above this, in front of the pass into Tibet on the north, over which it keeps watch and ward. It has an appear- ance of great massiveness and strength owing to the thickness of its stone-built walls, their inward tapering slope, as in the Egyptian style, and the fewness of its windows, though it is freely slit by loopholes. Inside, when you enter to explore it, it is less imposing. Stepping within the massive gateway, we G 98 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. see the courtyard strewn with old lumber, chain- armour, iron helmets, spears, swords, matchlocks, and miscellaneous rubbish. When passing across the court- yard you enter the main door of the building — the charm is at an end. You feel as if you were down the dark hold of a ship. Steep ricketty ladders of rough-hewn logs lead up and down through mazes of dark narrow passages to malodorous dingy cabins, kitchens, larders, etc., and everywhere the undersized lintels rudely remind your head of their limited door-space. On the ground floor are stored cakes of yak-dung fuel and grain ; in the middle storey are the barracks of the troops, with stores of gunpowder and bullets, thrown by us into the river. In this flat is a chapel, with a set of the Tibetan version of the Buddhist Scriptures in loo volumes, of which the British Museum has not a copy. On the upper storey is the citadel with the residential rooms of the two joint governors, the Jong-pans'^ and their offices. These were the best rooms in the building, and were occupied afterwards by the officers of our small garrison holding the fort, and by the Head- quarters Staff. The Jong-pon^s room, in which I was quartered, had its walls decorated with rude frescoes. But even these, the best of all the rooms, are miserably adapted for keeping out the arctic cold of this place. They have no glazed windows, but doors which have to be kept shut to keep out the wind, and usually no chimney whatever. When there is a hole in the roof for the latter purpose, the acrid smoke of the yak fuel, refusing to take advantage of it, fills the room with suffocating fumes, and irritates the eyes insuffer- ably. Even with a small stove of this fuel in the room, the cold was so intense that the thawed ink froze on our pen, boiled eggs crunched in ice-spangles * One is in charge of the eastern half of the district, and the other the western ; for their photos, see p. 430. v.] THE COLD AT PHARI 99 in our teeth, and some kerosene oil which I had brought froze solid and had to be thawed before it could be poured into my lantern. At this great height, on the top of the castle, the wind was terrific, and sweeps down the pass from the tableland and the glaciers of Chumolhari, blowing gales all day long, such as never blew at sea. How this old fort holds together is a marvel. Many of these high-perched rooms are quite unsafe, owing to the walls being badly cracked, and having even fallen out of the vertical. The unsafest room of the lot had been selected for our messing, when I discovered that it was a death-trap supported 60 feet in the air by a mere thin shell of the inner layer of the wall, bulging and badly cracked, so that the mere vibration of walking across the floor was enough to precipitate us to the bottom. Closer inspection showed that the fort walls are built of two outer shells of stone and mortar, the interval between which is packed with loose stones and mud. That such a badly-built and cracked building continues to stand favours the local statement that earthquakes are almost unknown in these parts.^ On the flat roof of the citadel, from whose highest turret flies the British flag, and where & gale is always blowing as on a hurricane-deck, magnifi- cent bird's-eye views are obtained of the surrounding country, completely encircled by snowy peaks, from the jagged "Hill of Heroes" (Pawori) on the northern ranges of Sikhim, round by the snows of Bhotan on the south to the Chumolhari group from the east to the north. The upper parapets and balconies are all of peat-sods pinned together by wooden spikes, so as to lessen the weight of this superstructure, on the ricketty supporting walls. This band of purple peaty turf is bordered below, on its supporting rafters, by a ' An earthquake occurred at Tuna, 18 miles north of Phari, in February 1904. loo INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. strip of red ochre, which helps to bring out boldly the detailed form of the building, as the rest of the walls are whitewashed. Before we occupied these rooms an attempt was made to remove some of the accumulated garbage of ages, but it took many days before an army of several hundreds of the villagers, carrying off basketfuls of stuff all day long, made any impression on its dirt. The date of building of this fort I have as yet been unable to find out with certainty ; but it was enlarged, if n ot rebuilt, in i 7Q2, under Chinese advice, as a defence against the British, when it was alleged that we had assisted the Nepalese in their invasion of Tibet. Previous to this it was called "The Victorious White One " ; ^ then its name was changed to "The Fort of the Sublime Mountain," or Phag- ri, the Phari of our maps — which is a title of Chumolhari which overtops it as a background. It is kept directly under Lhasa in view of its important relations with India. The dirty town of Phari consists of about two hundred mean, low-roofed, windowless huts, built of black peat sods cut from the plain, and huddled round under the southern side of the fort, with a population of about two thousand. It is appallingly foul and dirty, possibly the dirtiest and foulest town on the earth. Its benumbed villagers for generations have been throwing all their refuse immediately out- side their doors into the streets, where this accumu- lated dirt of ages has raised the level of the streets so high that the dingy rooms now seem subterranean cellars, entry to which is got by digging steps down through the layers of this garbage. It is indeed a vast barrow in a muck-heap, with an all-pervading foul stench everywhere, the source of the smell often being visible to the eyes. ^ Nam-gyal Karpo. VACATING PHARI FORT FOR THE BRITISH NOTK -1 HE HEAn-DUii^S OF THE WOMEN v.] THE DIRT OF PHARI loi The people of Phari-the-Foul, this first outpost of real Tibet, are in thorough keeping with the squalor and filth amidst which they live. They are sunk in almost the lowest depths of savagery. They are as inferior to their relatively clean and better- featured near neighbours of the Lower Chumbi Valley as are their wretched hovels to the fine lofty houses of the latter — though it must be said in excuse for the poverty of their dwellings, that there is not here the bountiful supply of wood which makes building easier at lower levels. The great majority of the inhabitants at the time of our arrival were women, doubtless the wives of the soldiers and militia of the fort, who were still at Khamba Jong, opposing as they imagined our mission there, unaware of our rapid change of front. These women were more like hideous gnomes than human beings, and the men were no better. Clothed in greasy rags and sheepskins, their ugly flat features scourged by the cold and seared by the frost, begrimed and blackened like a chimney-sweep's with the deeply ingrained dirt and smoke of years, they were indeed repulsively hideous. Yet no "lady" in Phari society with any pretensions to good manners, it is said, would be so indiscreet as to wash her face or hands, for she would at once be considered not quite respectable or something worse were she to do so. Despite this repulsive coating of material dirt, both men and women cover themselves with jewellery. The married women wear a wonderful piece of headgear, a large hoop like the framework of a tall crown, suggestive of the Norwegian bride's hat, and set with a wealth of turquoise, coral, etc. No doubt this thick coating of dirt does protect to some extent against the cold, and almost any sacrifice of conventional appear- ances would be justified could it reduce the suffering inflicted by the cold of this most miserable spot of I03 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. the earth. Even our own officers after a time, bearded and begrimed, seated around a reeking yak-dung fire, began to acquire an almost Tibetan aspect and complexion. In the distance, sufficiently far off to avoid disenchantment, these women looked picturesque enough as they trooped out carrying wooden pails to draw water or chipped ice from the frozen stream running past our camp. To obtain it they dig a hole in the thick ice and ladle up the water with a wooden cup. Their clumsy, uncouth figures were also seen in camp, where they drove a thriving trade in selling to our men, turnips, dried fish, cheese, butter, and, what was most in demand, basketfuls of cake-fuel. The trade of these people is to carry merchandise, wool, salt, borax, gold, etc.,'^ from Tibet proper to this place, and exchange these here for imports from India, which they carry back to Tibet. At Phari the exports from Tibet change into the hands of the Chumbi carriers who ply with their mules between here and Darjeeling (log miles) and Kalimpong (87 miles) for the markets of India. No grain whatever except barley grows on this bleak spot, and that even does not ripen, but only yields seedless ears, so that it can only be used for fodder. The people, there- fore, have to obtain their food grain by barter — rice, for the few rich from Bhotan on the south, and barley from the lower -lying parts of Tibet, in the Gyantse Valley on the north ; whilst their flocks of sheep and yaks supply them with meat, clothing, and fuel. The revenue of this fort, which is one of the chief Customs barriers in Tibet, is derived mainly from a ten per cent, toll imposed on all goods, both exports and imports, passing this way. Speaking of crops, I elicited here a local proverb, which runs, "When rice grows at Phari, the foreigners will reach Lhasa." This is of course supposed to ' See Appendix No. X., p. 476. v.] INDISPENSABILITY OF YAKS 103 imply an impossibility, like the Shakespearian reference to the Dunsinane Woods. Nevertheless, in view of the absurdly superstitious nature of the Tibetans, I suggested that capital might be made out of this legend to justify in the eyes of these natives our advance to Lhasa, in the exceptional year of the Wood-Dragon, were our garrison here to cultivate a little rice this year, by forcing it in a box, which was quite possible. A curious illustration of the monetary value of fuel in this arctic region, where the only available material, namely, yak-dung, is a life necessity, came to light, when, owing to our telegraph wire having been cut near Phari, a fine was inflicted on the town of dried yak-dung fuel, as this was badly required by our troops. A fine of fifteen tons of cakes of this material was imposed, which at local barter rates represented in money about ;^i5 sterling. So effectual was the fine, in this local coinage of the country, that they willingly paid half of it in Indian rupees, to escape parting with this invaluable article, and the line was never cut again. Without this commodity all human life in this barren part of Tibet would be impossible. As it is, the Tibetans seldom warm themselves at fires, but trust to thick clothing and animal food to keep themselves warm, and use fuel only for cooking. The yaks are indeed a god- send in these barren regions. They are never given any food by their owners, but are sent adrift to forage for themselves, yet in return they work as beasts of burden, give milk for butter, and their own flesh for food, and also bestow this indispensable fuel daily. This arrangement recalls the extensive use of a similar article for the same purpose in India, where firewood is scarce, and where its substitute is gratefully called by the Indian peasantry "the gift of the cow" {go-bar). Our troops, encamped on the plain outside the fort I04 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. of Phari, spent a miserable existence for two days and nights in the biting icy wind, which blew all day in gales, literally icy dust-storms, full of flying grit and gravel, blinding to the eyes. Phari is notorious for its terrible dust-storms. The cold here was little less than at our frozen camp of Do-ta'k, and even at mid-day the temperature was below the freezing-point, and at night it fell to 41J degrees below freezing. This dry and terrible cold shrivels up, wrinkles, and chaps the skin and cracks the nails ; and it so benumbs the limbs that scarcely anybody could move outside his tent until the sun rose. At Phari we are only twelve marches from Lhasa, and express couriers do the journey in two and a half days. But Phari, after all, although politically part of Tibet, is not geographically within Tibet at all, but lies on the Indian or southern side of the Himalayas. As our Mission had received orders to proceed without delay to the large market -town of Gyantse within Tibet, the immediate objective of General Macdonald therefore now became the nearest village within Tibet proper, which was Tuna, on the great plateau, 18 miles distant. To conduct the Mission to Tuna, how- ever, necessitated the immediate return of our flying column down the valley again to Chumbi, in order to save consumption of the precious rations brought with such difficulty so far up the line of communica- tions, and also to hurry up and escort back a store of food from the Indian plains for the advance to Tuna. So leaving the small garrison of 200 Goorkha rifles with all the food we had brought up, except one day's rations to take us back to Chumbi, the General, on the third day after our arrival at Phari, hurried back again to Chumbi, doing this return march in two days. Travelling lightly, and unwilling to suffer again the agonising cold of the frozen camp of Dotha, we scurried past it, down into the tree zone, and soon v.] MORE TRANSPORT DIFFICULTIES 105 had blazing camp-fires at Gaut'ang, ' ' The Meadow of Gladness," a name which very well expresses how it gladdens the eye with its delightful green forest, and affords warmth and agreeable shelter to anyone descending as we had done from the cruelly cold and inhospitable uplands. The following forenoon saw us back in Chumbi, and it was surprising to see how much the track had been improved in these few days by the pioneers and sappers, whose blasting operations now boomed and echoed through the hills. Back at Chumbi again, the General and Major Bretherton wrestled with the mighty problem of food supplies, for our advance and for the garrison left at Phari and on the road between, as well as for the con- sumption of the force in the lower valley. This task is immensely more difficult than it would seem at first sight; for all the food for both men and animals of the force, except some of the fodder for the animals, has to be brought up all the way from India, as we have already seen, and by a long line of the most difficult communications, now extended to about twenty marches. This would be a comparatively easy matter, putting aside the difficulties of the track, were transport unlimited, and were it a mere question of carrying a given number of loads from the railway at Silliguri up the mountains, and having them delivered bodily at Chumbi. But the facts are very different. Each of the coolies and the transport animals eats up a great portion of his load as he goes on the way. Thus a coolie on a single stage would eat up by himself a whole load in a month ; so that thirty coolies carrying their loads up one stage would deliver only twenty-nine loads to be passed on ; and so the loads go on rapidly dwindling at every stage of the journey, until there is comparatively little left to deliver at Chumbi to keep the garrison there in food, let alone the storing of any io6 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. for our advance. Mules are even worse offenders than coolies in this respect, for a mule eats four times the weight of grain that a coolie does, and only carries twice the load of a coolie. As it was found that the Jelep Pass route, even when worked to its fullest extent, with continuous lines of coolies and mules threading its difficult track, could not deliver at Chumbi nearly sufficient to provide for our advance, it became necessary to open another pass to supplement it. For this, the Nathu Pass (14,250 feet), a goat-track, 10 miles to the north of the Jelep and over the same ridge, was opened out by Mi^ White. This tapped the cart-road higher up at Gangtok, and soon brought in nearly as much as the Jelep route, the total of the two amounting to about 40,000 lbs. daily, carried with immense difficulty by coolies and mules and ponies over tracks often wrecked by snow and rain, and at an elevation where any exertion is almost painful. This transport difficulty brings prominently forward the radical mistake of all these passes through Sikhim to the Chumbi Valley ; for the natural and easy way into this valley from India is not through Sikhim at all, but up the lower valley of the Chumbi river from its outlet as the Torsha river, in the plains of Bengal, thus avoiding all passes whatsoever. The very circuitous routes through Sikhim, by which the traveller, after being compelled to climb needlessly more than 14,000 feet over roads constructed at great expense, only to dip down 5000 feet to reach his destination, must inevitably be given up, and their cost lost, in favour of the direct route. The proper ingress to the Chumbi Valley was first pointed out over thirty years ago by Mr (afterwards Sir Ashley) Eden ; and when it was afterwards lost sight of and other costly roads continued to be made in the same old wrong direction, with their needless ascents and descents, the necessity for v.] PROPOSED CHUMBI VALLEY RAILWAT 107 this natural alignment was repeatedly urged by some of those possessed of sufficient local knowledge. A great step towards the realisation of this project comes as the immediate result of General Macdonald's occupation of Phari fort ; for, whilst_Pljaji4s the key to th p PVmmhi Vallpy. it also commands one of the chiefpasses from Tibet into Bhotan, that by which Bogle and Manning travelled. No sooner was Phari occupied by us, and our military strength displayed in the Chumbi Valley, than the Bhotanese at once consented to the proposed road running through the narrow strip of their territory which separates the valley from the Indian plains. One of our native surveyors was then sent down the valley, on 27th December 1902, to the Indian plains, and followed by a British officer. Their reports, whilst showing that the existing map of this track is most inaccurate, make it appear that below Posha monastery the river flows between steep but by no means precipitous cliffs, which are not impracticable for the proposed road. Meanwhile another road is being aligned, not up the Chumbi or Torsha Valley, but from an existing railway station at the foot of the hills east of the Tista, whence it will pass up another valley, namely, the Dichu, and cross into the Chumbi Valley over a pass gooo feet high. There seems to be some strange fatality about the roads into the Chumbi Valley from India. One after another, they are constructed at great expense in a wrong direction, to be inevitably abandoned, and even now the direct one seems still postponed. In any case the new one up the Dichu Valley, although ever so much better than the existing lines, cannot be completed in time to benefit the present expedition in any way. The delay in aligning the new road up the Chumbi Valley from the Indian plains may also postpone the inevitable railway from India to Chumbi. This small io8 INVASION OF THE CHUMBI VALLEY [chap. v. steam-tramway, like the one to Darjeeling, whilst connecting with our new frontier post of Phari, and drawing a paying traffic from the wool, tea, cloth, and other Tibetan imports and exports,^ should also whisk the passenger or tourist from Calcutta up to Chumbi within about twenty-four hours, through most picturesque river scenery into magnificent alpine country, where, no longer perched on a mountain-top, as in other Himalayan hill-stations, the visitor may wander on the level amongst the mountain streams and wooded glades, drink in the divine air, and enjoy abundant fishing and shooting, or golf on the Lingmo plain, and then be sped away comfortably back to civilisation, all the way by train. To return to the present. Our occupation of the Chumbi Valley, with the fort of Phari at its head, marks the first stage in the progress of our Mission to Tibet, which fortunately has been accomplished without bloodshed. ^ See Appendix No. X., p. 476. CHAPTER VI ADVANCE TO TUNA ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU, ACROSS THE FORMIDABLE TANG PASS " The goal will not be reached if the right distance be not travelled." — Tibetan Proverb. Energetic transport arrangements had their reward, so that by the 4th January 1904 sufficient stores had been pushed up to Phari by the General to enable the force to advance to Tuna and establish the Mission there, within the threshold of Tibet proper. On that date the Mission, escorted by the General with all his available force, left Chumbi for Tuna. The track by this time had been so immensely improved by the pioneers that it was now quite a good mule-path the greater part of the way ; fresh tracks had been hacked out in the worst places. It was remarkable how the ice had increased in size and in height within the previous fortnight, owing to the rivulets flowing over their frozen surface in the day- time and then freezing up again at night, thus raising their level several feet in these two weeks and flooding the paths with long stretches of slippery ice. As we were passing the Chinese fort at the " White Cairn " barrier (Chorten Karpo), Colonel Chao, the Chinese commander of the troops in the Chumbi Valley, invited the General and his Staff in for some refresh- ments. He is a Tungling, corresponding to a colonel in our army, and wears the coral button of a mandarin of the second highest grade. He is a courteous old 109 no ADVANCE TO TUNA ON THE PLATEAU [chap. gentleman, and chatted pleasantly about various things. He gave some recent information about Dorjieff in Lhasa, a Chinese courier having just arrived from that city after performing the journey hither in three days. He reported that the Tibetans, relying on Russian support promised by Dorjieff, were openly taunting the ^ Chinese and saying that they now * ^w had a greater Power than China ^^^^^^L upon which to depend for assist- fJt^^^F^ ance. I handed him my Chinese ^L T^^^ visiting-card, and mentioned that I ^^T m^r had stayed for several months in ^^V ^B ^ one of the imperial palaces at ^ ^Hi^^ Peking, in 1900, which seemed, however, to revive in his mind un- pleasant memories of China's late humiliation, so that I immediately changed the subject. Before we left, he stated that he had been superseded in his command here by a major coming from Lhasa, because he had failed to keep us out of Chumbi ; and for the same reason the four great Secretaries of State at Lhasa, the Shapes, had all been imprisoned by the irate Dalai Lama ; the senior one, my CHINESE VISITING-CARD friend the Shata Shape (see photo, OF AUTHOR. pa^gg ^8), had been banished to a fort in South-Eastern Tibet,^ a recognised prison for political offenders, and the Horkang Shape had com- mitted suicide by jumping into the Kyi river at Lhasa, on hearing his sentence by the Dalai Lama's secret tribunal. The beautiful meadow of Lingmo, where we again encamped, was more wintry-like than before, owing * Sangnak Cho in Tsa-rong. VI.] YAKS AS BAGGAGE ANIMALS in to the freshly-fallen snow which had crept down its encircling pine-forests to the plain, where it lay in patches. Our ponies, as they went, snatched mouthfuls of the soft snow crystals, and ate them with great relish. The frozen plain of Do-t'ak was less painfully cold this time, for fortunately no fierce wind blew during the night. But Phari was as before, with its insufferable cold and icy dust-storms blowing all day long. Great droves of yaks, laden with our stores, were now conspicuous on the plain of Phari. These shaggy, uncouth beasts have somewhat the appearance of small Highland cattle, but with much longer hair, which almost sweeps the ground. The commonest colour is a jet black, with bushy white tail, and a white spot on the forehead. Though looking so clumsy, these animals cross the most slippery frozen streams with the greatest ease, carrying their heavy loads. Most of them were locally hired by our trans- port department, and their wild Tibetan drivers, as they went, glanced furtively at us, energetically twirled their prayer-wheels, and fingered their beads to neutralise the evil results of working for us, foreign infidels, against the orders of their priest-god at Lhasa. A very few of these yaks were survivors of the 3000 procured for us by the Raja of Nepal several months ago, and of the 500 presented by that prince, amongst which rinderpest and anthrax broke out, killing hundreds daily, until now some two hundred only remained. This Raja of Nepal, Chandra Sham Sher Jang,i who succeeded his brother on the latter's death two years ago, has rendered the expedition ' He is technically Prime Minister, though bearing the title of Maharajah. The hereditary king, with the title of "Primordial King" (Adiraja), is a mere puppet, and is given no part in the government. 112 ADVANCE TO TUNA ON THE PLATEAU [chap. much assistance ; he sent several thousands of his peasantry as coolie porters. He also sent several letters to the Dalai Lama, urging him to come to terms with the British ; showing how his own relations with the Indian Govern- ment had benefited his country, and warning him of the conse- quences of his obstinate policy. Thus the Dalai Lama has received advice and information from more than one outside source, from Nepal and from Bhotan. At Phari, several high Lhasa and other Tibetan officials had arrived a few days previously, and were living in the town. Amongst them were one of the two Lhasa generals, namely, the Lheding Depon ; a commander of troops, called the Honourable Teling, a grandson of the "mad minister" who imprisoned Hooker (see p. 44) ; the Master of Horse of the Tashi Grand Lama, and three monks representing the three great ruling yellow -cap monasteries of Lhasa, namely, Dapung, Sera, and Gahldan, which are collectively spoken of, from the first syllables of their name, as the " Dan-se-gah-ni " or the "Sen-da-gah." As these officials had by means of threats induced the Phari villagers to stop selling us any more supplies of grain, fodder, etc.. Captain O'Connor was sent to invite them to come and see the General with THE RULER OF NEPAL, MAHARAJA CHANDRA SHAM SHER. .r-^i^^B- VAKS ON THE SIXJl'KS OF CHUiMOLHAUI Tini'rr.xx gicnf.uals in councii. Till! "Mi ".": nil- l-l'Jl"' '^ III'' l.lilll.NG Ulil'O.X til' I.II.\SA VI.] OBSTRUCTIVE TIBETANS AT PHARI 113 reference to their interdict. On his entrance he found them all assembled in a room, with the Lhasa General seated on a cushion at the top, and the monks squatting apart by themselves. They all rose and returned his greeting, except the monks, who remained seated and scowled sulkily, and evidently were men of low birth, with coarse repellent features. In reply the Lhasa Depon, or general, said he had no wish to see General Macdonald about supplies, but that he and the Lamas had been deputed from Lhasa to discuss the disputed frontier questions at Yatung, and could only do so there and not here. This Depon (see photo, p. 156) is about thirty-five years of age, tall and stout, with a pleasant, well-bred manner. Next day, as these Tibetans were still preventing the villagers from selling supplies. General Macdonald sent them an ultimatum that (i) they must come and see him about this stoppage of supplies, and bring a written declaration that they would not interfere with the people selling to us ; or (2), if they did not do this, he must request them to quit Phari within three days. In reply, they refused either to come or to write anything, and the monks were especially rude in their snarling and snappish refusal, and used disrespectful language, whilst the others employed the polite honorific forms of expression. As to the notice to quit, they made no reply, but seemed vexed and nonplussed about it ; what they decided to do will appear presently. A Chinese major, Li, called on the General, and informed him that he had been sent to supersede Colonel Chao in command of the troops in Chumbi, because the latter had failed to keep us out of the valley. We left Phari for Tuna on the 7th January, doing the distance of 18 miles in two stages. The first march was only 4 miles along the plain to the H 114 ADVANCE TO TUNA ON THE PLATEAU [chap. small village of Chugya, or "The Pearly White Water," a series of frozen pools and marshes, glancing white in the sun at the foot of the Tang Pass. Our little army, advancing with its broad front of four columns, followed by our 2000 baggage animals, looked most imposing and seemed to fill the plain. On our way we met a wild-looking Lama, with piercing eyes, long matted locks, and straggling beard flowing in the wind, riding under a battered yellow umbrella, with a single attendant who ran by his side. I recognised him as the same monk who had visited our camp at Chumbi about ten days before, and who introduced himself as a restorer of temples and shrines.^ In this work he travelled a great deal to collect subscriptions, and frequently saw the Dalai Lama, who was a personal friend of his ; so that he wished to take a friendly message to the Dalai in the endeavour to settle our disputed questions. Colonel Younghusband, anxious to avail himself of every means to effect a settlement, took the trouble to inform this wandering monk of our case against Lhasa, and he thereupon set off, promising to convey the informa- tion to the Grand Lama in person. Now, however, he was already coming back with some important news, which caused his large eyes to flash with emotion as he asked me excitedly for the secretary to the Mission. I directed him to this officer, to whom he quickly made his way, and looking furtively about to see that he was not overheard, whispered hoarsely, "War/ — War/ They mean War/" After being calmed a little, he explained that pursuing his way to Lhasa he reached the neighbourhood of Gyantse, but every day's travel only showed the more how the Tibetans 1 Shik-so-pa is the title of such a person. He is a Bhotanese named Yun-den Norbu, and says he is an incarnation of the Indian hermit Kara. VI.] TIBETANS PREPARE FOR WAR "S everywhere were actively preparing for war, so that he returned to give us this news, and warned us that 2500 Tibetan warriors were collected a few miles beyond Tuna. THE FOUNDER OF LAMAISM, STi PADMA SAMBHAVA AND HIS TWO WIVES. During this stage also, I visited the monastery of Chatsa on the flank of Chumolhari, where Turner of Warren Hastings' Mission had lodged one hundred and twenty years before, and passed by Manning a ii6 ADVANCE TO TUNA ON THE PLATEAU [chap. few years later, since which date no European has been here (see photo here). It is a branch of the great Tashilhumpo convent; but I found that its monks were woefully illiterate, and, though professing to be reformed Lamas, that is of the yellow-capped order, they were giving the first place in their most popular temple to a gaudily painted image of the deified wizard priest Lo-p6n Rimboche,^ whom I have shown to be the founder of the earliest form of Lamaism, which is a debased devil-worship rather than Buddhism. Near this monastery I saw a herd of gazelles {ga-wa) grazing quietly within gunshot, and started several hares ; but all shooting, even for the pot, was as usual strictly forbidden, for military reasons, during our advance. We encamped on a grassy stretch amidst gentians and wild rhubarb. The cold during the night was terrible here ; the thermometer fell to minus 25° Fahr. or 57 degrees below freezing, but the chill wind bit worse than the frost. The ascent of 5 miles to the top of the pass next morning took us about five hours, including occasional halts to recover our breath, though most of us now had become acclimatised and suffered little from distressed breathing. At one of these halts it was discovered that the intense cold had so frozen the Rangoon oil lubricant of the rifle locks that the triggers did not work until rubbed warm, and the Maxims were unworkable until thawed — a serious predicament in case we were attacked here ; but this we were not, nor did we see a single soul. This lofty pass, called the Tang La,^ or "Clear Pass," from its being so seldom snowed (15,200 feet), was the highest our little army had yet crossed, and nearly as high as the top of Mont Blanc. 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J c - - - .1^ - . -il, - - -|l . - , - _ --13--- -l3---a--*l »---.> ^ .-) i-> .1 1(0 w 15 o Place •00 1 ; '« J -? § 1 I lis =3 f-J J ! il-I"! D.-5 Q. 1 . -x a 1. a U E U ; ; ■£ U (£ u i 1 .5 i : - - - .1 . . -O c - -!D >JS ' <2^ ; =«! S^-!U ; a: '1 It n a. I40 WINTERING IN TIBET [chap. rocks. Lower down near the river-bank I got a fine, white-spotted, horned chestnut pheasant or tragopan, the Bap of the Tibetans. It is a bird of the tree jungles, and seems less common here than in Sikhim. Several ducks, geese, gosanders, and other water- fowl began passing up the Chumbi Valley in the end of February, migrating from the Indian plains to their breeding-grounds in Tibet. They loitered by the way on pools on the river and on the Lingmo plain, thus showing that winter was drawing to a close, although on the nth March the cold at Chumbi and at Phari still registered respectively 31° and 46° Fahrenheit below the freezing-point. The lowest temperature recorded during the winter was at Chugya on the Tang Pass, when on the night of the 7th January the temperature registered below — 26° Fahrenheit, or 58° Fahrenheit of frost, and at Tuna on the following night, when 17" was registered, and 15° at Phari (see accompanying chart, also Appendix III.). These very low temperatures were found, as in North China, to be quite bearable until the wind set up, when, although the temperature rose slightly according to the thermometer, the pain from the cold became intense. This is doubtless owing to the living body surrounding itself in calm weather with a protective cushion or envelope of warm air, which when the cold wind blows is removed, whereupon the cold strikes the body directly and stings it painfully. The general health of nearly everybody, notwith- standing the continuous exposure to this excessive winter cold, and the rarefied air of these high altitudes, ranging from 10,000 to over 15,000 feet above the sea, kept remarkably good. The men were, of course, specially selected to start with, the obviously unfit having been eliminated by a medical examination before leaving India, then by a process of natural VII.] DISEASES OF COLD AND ALTITUDE 141 selection the weakest soon fell out, and those who remained represented the survival of the fittest. On arrival from the plains in these cold altitudes the men, most of whom had never experienced cold before, seemed for a few days shrivelled up and semi- paralysed. They soon became hardened when they did not knock up altogether. Although still feeling the cold, they went about doing their work, and endured their sufferings heroically. Daily the convoys and their escorts did their long round of marching over the wind-swept passes, the Madras and Bengal Sappers and Miners — the "Suffering Miners" as they called' themselves — daily shouldered their picks and shovels and marched off to their bridge- and road-making, assisted by the Sikh Pioneers ; the sentries and pickets performed their rounds of duty, beaten by the weather all through the bitter night, but not a murmur passed the lips of any one. The results of this exposure to the cold and altitude were chiefly pneumonia, frostbite, and mountain-sickness. Pneumonia occurred mainly and most fatally in those exposed to night sentry and picket duty when the cold was most intense. Although the rarefied air of the high altitude predisposed to this specific disease, owing to the lessened atmospheric pressure permitting the blood to come nearer to the surface of the lung and thus favour- ing congestion of the lungs, whilst the latter were forced to work more rapidly on account of the lessened oxygen in a given bulk of air, still it was found that it was actual exposure to the cold air which was the chief pre- disposing factor in this disease. As a person attacked by pneumonia dies mainly from want of oxygen, tubes of this gas were sent for from India for the treatment of the cases. Frostbite was not so frequent or severe as would have been expected. The cases were mostly mild ones of fingers and toes, and chiefly amongst followers who neglected to carry out the medical orders issued for 142 WINTERING IN TIBET [chap. its prevention. Only two fatal cases occurred, one of them in a postal clerk who sat at a desk all day, and so cramped up the circulation that he died of gangrene of the legs. Paradoxical as it may seem, most of the cases of frostbite were due to burns, consequent upon thrusting the frozen limb close up to a fire. Snow- blindness caused very little trouble, as all the men were provided with green and smoked glass goggles. As this affection is due to an intense congestion of the conjunctiva or membrane over the eyeball, the treat- ment practised by Captain T. B. Kelly of the Indian Medical Service is worth recording, namely, by the application of adrenaline, which is so constringent as to blanch at once the most congested surface. Hoarse- ness and sore throat every one suffered from more or less. It was generally temporary, but in those exposed to the cold of the high passes and the acrid smoke of the argal fires, the hoarseness lasted for several weeks after leav- ing those places. Mountain-sickness was experienced by nearly every one more or less at the high altitudes, in the form of headache and nausea, with occasionally retching and vomiting. The mechanical effects of lessened atmospheric pressure on the living body have been ascertained by physiological experiment in the laboratory to be little more than an alteration of the volume of the gases contained in the blood, and do not perceptibly affect the respiration and circulation while the person is at rest.^ It is probably, therefore, the lowered temperature of the atmosphere, and the effects on the blood-pressure of excessive exertion in the rarefied air which produce the headache and sensation 1 "Experiments have been repeatedly performed on men and animals showing that a rapid change from 760 mm. to 400 mm. or even 300 mm. (equal to about I4'i8 inches' and i8'i2 inches' fall in the barometer respectively) can be endured while at rest with very little change in the respiratory and circulatory mechanism and with- out the appearance of any symptoms." VII.] PREVAILING DISEASES M3 of muscular fatigue at high altitudes. Experiments were made to ascertain any dilatation of the chest, by a large series of measurements of plainsmen before entering the mountains and afterwards. Mountain- sickness is undoubtedly induced by indigestion, hence probably the custom for hill-men to chew cloves or ginger when crossing high passes. The remedies we found most efficacious were phenacetin with brandy and purgatives, and to get down to a lower altitude in the more obstinate cases. Indigestion, which was nlLlTEJ ■• CVn:>\?0TECARIO IRACVHJJlJJini: JVJ>1T. pvftroJl . Y" : riASTEft : APOTHSCARYS : flEFVaETH : "WlfJB : TUE :Y^! ySOt-DIERJ . ■r*:nEN:MAKe:e'TARTAftIE; : INCVRJKNtM- FACE,T. Y« : OENERAYLE : (TAV^ ES : tVinlS. : CHARfoTS : TaS, : BZ : BVIUjep : AND : ADVANCES : -pWARDBi r"fe : CASTEl.: "f --Y" : KyN^nrei-ft-a^-f}ifHMl fnr ajtack, the Tibetans gave a wild war-shout and fired^'off their muskets point-blank at us, whilst a large number rushed out at us with their great swords already unsheathed. Then ensued a fierce hand-to-hand mdlde. Our officers in self-defence, fighting for their lives, discharged their revolvers into the surging mass. Amongst the first of our party to fall were Major Wallace Dunlop, who had several fingers slashed off, and Mr Candler, Press Correspondent, who was fear- fully hacked and slashed over the head and hands, and both of whom were saved from immediate death by the revolvers of the officers around shooting down their assailants. \ The suddenness of this attack at such close quarters was startling; but within a few seconds our sepoys began to retaliate on their assailants. Under cover viii.J BATTLE AT CRYSTAL SPRINGS 159 of the wall, they poured a withering fire into the enemy which, with the quick-firing Maxims, mowed down the Tibetans in a few minutes with terrific slaughter. Those who had rushed out were soon all killed ; and the remainder were so huddled together that they could neither use their swords nor guns. This mob in a few seconds, unable to stand against the concentrated hot fire of our men, surged to the rear, and throwing away their arms, broke and ran, as fast as they could, which in such an altitude was not swiftly. Most of them as they fled through this zone of fire sank quietly down, riddled by the hail of our bullets and shattered by the shrapnel of the mountain-batteries bursting over them, and perished almost to a man ; whilst a throng of broken and disordered fugitives, consisting of those who had been further off, were pursued remorselessly by our mounted infantry, and their bodies strewed the road- side for several miles. It was all over in about ten minutes, but in that time the flower of the Lhasa army had perished ! When the rattle of our rifle-fire had ceased, it was found that half of the Tibetan warriors lay killed or wounded on the field of battle. Amongst the killed were the poor Lhasa General, who paid the penalty of his rashness, the Shigatse Depon, and that truculent mischief-making yellow-robed Lama. Our old acquaint- ance of Yatung, the Phari Depdn, I was sorry to see amongst the wounded, and had him carried to a tent. Altogether the Tibetans lost about 300 killed, 200 wounded, and 200 prisoners. Our losses were only 13 wounded, as our people were protected by the wall. This grim battlefield on the "roof of the world," 15,000 feet above the sea, deeply engraved itself on the memory of all who saw it — this blood-stained plain on the shores of the pure Rham lake (see i6o ON TO GURU, WITH BATTLE [chap. photo here), under the shadow of the chaste Chumolhari and her train of dazzling snow peaks. It was a ghastly sight, and all the more so in such sublime surroundings ; but all war is inevitably cruel and horrible, however necessary it may be at certain epochs of national life. Enemies as the Tibetans were, not only of ourselves, but in some sense, by reason of their savagery and superstition, of the human race, they nevertheless were entitled to the credit which belongs to brave men defending their homes against odds. And, it may be, they deemed it not a wholly unenviable fate to have died within the gateway of their country, this Tibetan Thermopylae, where their beautiful hills, their protectors during life, can still keep guard around them in death. Near the wall, and from 20 to 30 yards from it, the dead and dying lay in heaps one over the other amidst their weapons, while a long trail of piles of bodies marked the line of the retreat for half a mile or more ; and cringing under every rock lay gory, wounded men, who had dragged themselves there to hide. The ground was strewn with swords and matchlocks, also several rifles, mostly of Lhasa manufacture, but a few Russian. At a distance many of the slain looked as though they were sleeping quietly by their arms. } It was especially pathetic to see the wounded Tibetans expecting us to kill them outright, as they frankly said they would have done to us, kowtowing with out-thrust tongues, holding up their thumbs in mute appeal for mercy, and grovelling in the dust to the humblest of our passing coolies. This attitude of the thumbs suggested a somewhat similar use of the thumb by the Romans in the case of the gladiators vanquished in the bloody encounters of the arena. As soon as our own wounded had been attended PATlLEiyELI. OF ,;i;iiV ON SHORE OF RHAM LAKE (l4,Soo FF.J.:r ABU\K TI-IE SF.A-l.HVEl.) TIBETANS BEGGING TO BE SPARED viii.J THE WOUNDED TIBETANS i6i to, a party of our medical officers went over the battle- field, rendering assistance to the enemy's wounded and dying, and alleviating their pain and suffering. Many of the dying received water or brandy, or had their pain eased by morphia, or their bleeding stopped, or their wounds bound up with the field dressings of our men. I had several of the cleaner Tibetan tents torn up into bandages and dressings for these wounded, and the poles, scabbards and muskets served as splints. Afterwards these wounded Tibetans, to the number of about 200, were carried in our ambulance litters and on the backs of the prisoners into Tuna and Guru, where hospitals were improvised for their treat- ment. Many of the wounds were in the back, received in flight, yet many of the enemy stood their ground till the last, showing great personal bravery. The springs which gave their name to the place are called by the natives "The Springs of the Crystal Eye."^ They are those which were called hot springs by Turner, although at our visit they were not per- ceptibly hot, nor did we discover any traditions of their having been so ; though all during the winter they never froze. After about a quarter of an hour's halt at this fatal block-wall our force was formed up, and advanced through the piles of fallen dead to the village of Guru, 3 miles off, which was still held by the enemy. This position was shelled by our artillery, and the place captured at the point of the bayonet, about 100 being taken prisoners. Of these, one old man of seventy-three was a major, or Rupon, of the Lhasa army, who had just come from the capital with two companies of his retainers, his only son being too young to take command. The Rupon was slightly wounded. In this village vast stores of gunpowder were found ; there were many tons of it in skin boxes ' Shel-go Chu-mik. i62 ON TO GURU, WITH BATTLE [chap. in the houses, and it proved most unfortunate to some of our men. Many of the houses had been set on fire by our shells, and explosions were happening in various parts of the village. Being told that there were several Tibetan books in the house of the headman, I hurried in through a labyrinth of dark passages, crowded with boxes of gunpowder, and found some books, which I had brought out hastily as the adjoining house was afire, and I had to run the gauntlet of explosions, which were occurring all round, and the house in which I had been blew up a short time afterwards. In destroying a collection of boxes of the captured gunpowder, several of our sepoys were killed and others badly burned, so that, as was truly remarked at the time, the powder which the Tibetans abandoned proved more dangerous than that which they had fired through their matchlocks at us. After establishing a small post at Guru (properly Gura) with a store of supplies, the rest of the flying column, after this long and trying day, bent its steps back over the freezing plain, eight more weary miles across the battlefield to Tuna, which we reached in the groping dark on Good Friday eve. Next morning a reconnaissance to the Tibetan camp, which held the short-cut road to Lhasa on the other side of the plain, on the east, discovered that the Gyantse soldiers, 2000 strong, who had held the stone block-house there, had abandoned it during the night on hearing the issue of the Guru fight. Regrettable as it was that blood should have been shed in connection with this expedition, a collision could not possibly have been avoided. Sooner or later it was bound to come. The case seemed one in which a severe measure is the truest mercy ; and where it was to be hoped that the sharp lesson might render further bloodshed unnecessary. Their foolish decision to offer forcible resistance to our advance was JlEDICAL AID TO THE WOUNDED TIBETANS viii.] EFFECTS OF THE FIGHT 163 doubtless inspired by their conceited ignorance and inability to realise the superiority of our modern firearms; and to this was also due their apparently fearless courage in continuing to advance in the face of our deadly rifle - fire, often with several bullets through their bodies. Their pitiful infatuation was also doubtless inspired to some extent by Dorjieff's promise of aid from Russia. There was some reason too to believe, in view of the inveterate treachery of the Tibetans and the circumstances under which the officers were induced to approach the wall at the Crystal Springs, that possibly there was a treacherous plot to get the leaders of the Mission inveigled there, and then by a sudden rush to overpower them. If this were so, the device happily miscarried. The immediate practical result of this reluctant fight to clear our passage was that, as soon as the news of the Tibetan defeat reached Lhasa, a courier was despatched with a hurried note from the Chinese Amban, Yu Tai, to say that he was starting for Gyantse forthwith, and would be there as soon as possible to welcome Colonel Younghusband ; that he should have come before, but that the Dalai Lama had refused him transport ; that he had now brought the Dalai to a more reasonable frame of mind, and that both the Grand Lama and the Tibetan people were deeply grateful for our "compassion" in rendering medical aid to the wounded Tibetans, as having "conferred incalculable blessings on Tibet," and he concludes his letter by saying, "I now bring the Tibetans before you with prayers of gratitude." Neither the Amban nor the Tibetans seemed to have realised that under the soft glove of the peaceful commercial Mission they would find the strong hand of Britain's might. CHAPTER IX " The scabbard of my blue steel [spear] Is the liver of my enemy ! No thought of death finds any corner in my mind I I carry the red life on my finger-tip ! I have taken the vow of a hero ! " —Tibetan War-Song. I OBTAINED a good deal of information about the Tibetan army from the wounded and prisoners taken at Guru, which supplemented the information previously collected by Mr Rockhill from Chinese sources, and which it is desirable to record here in explanation of the titles and rank of the various officials with whom we have to deal, the interior economy, etc., of the enemy's force, and for reference during our journey, as the Tibetan army had now so much interest for us. The fierce martial spirit of the earlier barbarous Tibetans, expressed in the above popular song, still animates to some extent their present-day successors, notwithstanding the efforts of the Chinese to tame them by the teachings of Buddha and other means, and despite the grinding tyranny of their own priests, the Lamas. Tibetans, living in a country where they have to fight constantly against physical difficulties for a bare existence, still set much store by physical courage, and exhibit a contempt for hardships, from which more civilised men shrink. In the eastern CHAP. IX.] THE GOVERNMENT OF TIBET 165 o H w w > o o w ffi H O W pa H rf S <5 ^ '^ Id hJ i:^ ^■•^ z s c C4 to 8 1 -5 ^ ;lt ^^ d J, ro 1 fa -a 2=§ g Si ^ ^ 'f < i^ -;:;- i-i ■ — ' ■55 -•«! 1— 1 ti ^ .- c .S •.a.s s ri^sfi .las O O C3 to W ^ M 3 S .a 3 d H o y ui ti ' — I S: .^ S « « « N N 101^ j£ QJ ^OS a 12 ^, S3 12 2 g s 00030 oiJi o o y 000*^ a a. a, B, a a, S). a CCCCCC.2-S W ro •-< N N ro> Q S u u c iSS d t: ^« W Oc * O °§ in a a. O d 3 pa o «H-.