The previous chapters have been necessarily, though perhaps somewhat tediously, filled up with a narrative of the many intricate considerations which went towards the final determination to send a mission to Tibet. But of all that had been going on—of the voluminous correspondence in the great offices, of the meetings and attempts at meetings on the frontier—I was wholly ignorant. Anglo-Indian papers seldom contain information on such happenings. And for some years past, in accordance with the well-intentioned, but, as it has since turned out, thoroughly unsound, advice of a previous Viceroy, that it would be to my advantage in the Political Department not to remain for ever on the frontier, but to acquire experience of internal affairs as well, I had been serving in the interior in political agencies in Rajputana and Central India, and had heard nothing of any intention to send a mission to Tibet. Nor had I ever had any connection with Tibet, though as long ago as 1888 the then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal had, I discovered many years after, asked the Government of India for my services, as I had then just returned from a journey around Manchuria and across Central Asia, from Peking to Kashmir, and it was thought that, knowing Chinese customs, I might be of use, in addition to the Chinese interpreter. This request was twice made, it appears; but I was then a young subaltern, still in military employ, and in the throes of examination, and the Government of India replied that I was not available, as I was about to go up for examination, and, if sent away then, would fail to qualify for promotion. So I went up for one of those examinations of which such a fetish is made, and never till now had been near the Tibet frontier. I made, indeed, an abortive effort in 1889 to go to Lhasa, disguised as a Turki from Central Asia; but this, too, was nipped in the bud by the refusal of my Colonel to give me leave from the regiment. What spirit of adventure I possessed never received much encouragement from Government, and, as I have said, I had left the frontier for some years, and was superintending the affairs of a native State in the very heart of India, when, on a sweltering day in May, I suddenly received a summons to proceed at once to Simla to receive instructions regarding a mission I was to lead to Tibet.

Here, indeed, I felt was the chance of my life. I was once more alive. The thrill of adventure again ran through my veins. And I wasted little time in rounding up my business, packing my things, and starting off for Simla.

There I was handed over all the papers in the Foreign Office to digest while the final instructions of the Secretary of State were still awaited. And one afternoon I was asked to lunch with Lord Curzon and Lord Kitchener, at a gymkhana down at Annandale, where, after lunch, sitting under the shade of the glorious pine-trees, Lord Curzon explained to me all his intentions, ideas, and difficulties. Men and ladies performed every feat of equestrian skill and equestrian nonsense, and the place was crowded with all the beauty and gaiety of Simla in the height of the season. But the Viceroy and I sat apart, and talked over the various difficulties I should meet with in Tibet, and the best means by which they could be overcome.

One thing he made perfectly clear to me from the start—that he meant to see the thing through; that he intended the mission to be a success, and would provide me with every means within his power to make it so. Fortunately, we knew each other well—ever since his first appointment as Under-Secretary of State for India. We had travelled together nine years previously round Chitral and Gilgit; we had corresponded for years; and when he came to India he, with a kindness of heart for which he is ordinarily given very little credit, had asked me to regard him, not as Viceroy, but as an old friend and fellow-traveller. No better initiator and supporter of such an enterprise as a mission to Tibet could be imagined. He had his whole heart and soul in the undertaking, and I do not think it took long for me to put my whole heart into it, too.

I had in previous years been despatched from Simla on two political missions—in 1889 to explore the unknown passes on the northern frontier of Kashmir, and to put down the raids from Hunza, and in 1890 to the Pamirs and Chinese Turkestan—so I had some general idea of what to expect on the present occasion; and as I had also spent three months in the Legation at Peking, besides travelling from one end to the other of the Chinese Empire, I knew enough about the Chinese to know that I should never be able to deal successfully with them without the assistance of someone who had had a life-training in the work. I therefore, in the first place, asked for an officer of the China Consular Service to act as adviser and interpreter. Next, as regards dealing with the Tibetans, it was most necessary to have an officer who could speak the Tibetan language, and it was fortunate for the success of the mission that Government were able to send with it, first as Intelligence Officer and afterwards as Secretary, Captain O’Connor, an artillery officer, who, when stationed with his mountain battery at Darjiling, had learned the Tibetan language and studied the history and customs of the Tibetans, and who, I afterwards found, was never so happy as when he was surrounded by begrimed Tibetans, with whom he would spend hour after hour in apparently futile conversation.

The services of some of the Gurkhas and of the Pathan, Shahzad Mir, who had been with me on my mission in 1889, I also tried to secure; but the Gurkhas had all left their regiment, and Shahzad Mir, who had been employed on many a mission and reconnaissance since, was then absent in Abyssinia.

Mr. White reached Simla a day or two after my arrival, and we at once set to work to discuss arrangements. He had had experience on that frontier for fourteen years, and was naturally well up in all the local aspects of the question, and knew—what I did not—what dealing with Tibetans really meant. His accounts of their obstinacy and obstructiveness appeared to me exaggerated, and, with the optimism of inexperience, I thought that we should, together with Captain O’Connor’s assistance, be able to soon break through it. But Mr. White turned out in the end to be right, and I think from the first he knew that we should not be able to do anything elsewhere than in Lhasa.

Mr. White’s long local experience on that frontier made his recommendation in regard to arrangements specially valuable. We were to have an escort of 200 men from the 32nd Pioneers, who had been for some months in Sikkim improving the road towards the frontier, and we wished arrangements made for them to precede us to the vicinity of the frontier, so that we, travelling lightly, might reach Khamba Jong as quickly as possible, for we were now getting well on into the summer, and had not much time to spare for negotiation before the winter came on.

Indian troops and officers have, fortunately, plenty of experience in rough work of this and every other description. The 32nd Pioneers I had known in the Relief of Chitral in 1895, and they had come almost straight to Sikkim from another frontier expedition, so they could be relied on to be thoroughly up to the duty now expected of them. All I asked Government for, on Mr. White’s recommendation, was that, as they would be moving up from the hot, steamy valleys of Lower Sikkim to a plateau 15,000 feet above sea-level, they should be provided with clothing on the winter scale, with poshtins (sheepskin coats) for sentries, and that special rations should be issued to the men. And for ceremonial effect, which is an item never to be lightly passed over in dealings with Asiatics, I asked that they should take with them their full-dress uniforms, and that twenty-five of them should be mounted on ponies, which could be procured locally.

The Government of India always equips and organizes its expeditions well, and such little arrangements were soon and readily made. And by a piece of foresight on its part, there was on the spot in Sikkim the best practical rough-and-ready supply and transport officer in their service, Major Bretherton, D.S.O., a very old friend of mine in Chitral days, a man of unbounded energy, of infinite resource, and of quite unconquerable optimism, who was drowned in the Brahmaputra within a few days’ march of Lhasa, when we were just about to reap the reward which he, more than any other single man, had put within our reach.

All headquarter arrangements having been made, and my formal instructions received, Mr. White and I left Simla early in June to proceed by Darjiling to the Sikkim frontier. In India such enterprises as we were now embarking on are always started off very quietly, and few outside a limited official circle, and possibly the Russian Government, knew anything at all about our mission. The Government of India is over-sensitive to questions and criticisms in Parliament, and, dependent as it is upon the support of public opinion in England, would be better advised, in my opinion, to take the public in England more into its confidence. But this sensitiveness is intelligible. It must by the necessity of the case be especially difficult to govern India from England, but that task is rendered vastly more difficult by careless questions and criticisms of Members of Parliament. My mission suffered much through the want of support by the British public, and they could hardly have been expected to give it support when it was eventually sprung so suddenly on them, and when they had not had the opportunity of watching affairs gradually growing to a crisis. On the other hand, the Indian Government cannot be expected to expose delicate affairs to the risk of rough, crude handling from men who, though they ultimately control these affairs, are so very little versed in their conduct.

I departed, then, from Simla in the most matter-of-fact manner possible, telling my friends, what was perfectly true, that I was going to see Darjiling. I had therefore no “enthusiastic send-off.” But I had what was better, the heartfelt good wishes of the Viceroy, who has known the conditions under which frontier officers work, and has been more interested in the problems which confront them than any other Viceroy for many a year past. I was also greatly cheered, and subsequently most warmly and continuously supported, by Sir Louis Dane, the Foreign Secretary, whose hospitality I had enjoyed during my stay in Simla.

The journey from Simla to Darjiling by Calcutta was a curious beginning for an expedition to the cold of the Himalayas. The monsoon had not yet broken. The heat of the railway journey was frightful. At Calcutta the temperature was almost the highest on record. And we hurried on, for I was impatient, not only to be out of the heat, but to be getting to work.

At the very outset I looked forward to one experience of, to me, peculiar interest. My life through, mountains have excited in me a special fascination. I was born in the Himalayas, within sight of the Kashmir Mountains; and some inexplicable attraction has drawn me back to them time after time. Now that I was called upon to pierce through the Himalayas to the far country on the hither side, I was to make my start from that spot, from which of all others the most perfect view is to be obtained. Darjiling is now known throughout the world for the magnificence of its mountain scenery, and fortunate it is that such a spot should be now so easily accessible.

As in the earliest dawn I looked out of the train window, to catch the first glimpse of those mighty mountains I had to penetrate, I saw far up in the sky a rose-tinged stretch of seeming cloud. All around was level plain. The air was stifling with the heat of a tropical midsummer. But I knew that pinky streak across the sky could be nothing else than the line of the Himalayas, tinted by the yet unrisen sun. It gave me the first thrill of my new adventure, and I forthwith drank in greedily every new impression.

All around in the plains there was rank, dank, depressing vegetation. Unwholesomeness exuded from the soil. Putrefying pools of water lay about on every side. The whole air was thick with fever. But those high heavenly mountains carried hope. As the train progressed, the lower "hills"—themselves 7,000 or 8,000 feet in height—came into sight. Eventually we reached their base, and left the ordinary train for the little mountain railway which ascends to Darjiling. And now, indeed, were charms on every hand. The little railway winds its way upward through a tropical forest of superb magnificence. The orchids could almost be plucked from the miniature carriages. The luxuriant vegetation nearly met over the train. Immense tree-ferns and wild bananas shot up beneath the overhanging arches of the dripping forest trees. Wreaths and festoons of vine, convolvulus, and begonia stretched from bough to bough. Climbing bauhinias and robinias entwined the trunks and hung like great cables from tree to tree. Bamboos shot up in dense tufts to a height of 100 feet. Refreshing streams dashed foaming down the mountain-side. Glorious waterfalls here and there thundered over steep cliffs. And through all the diminutive train panted its way upward—by zigzags, by spirals, through tunnels, across dizzy bridges, along the sides of cliffs—but only too slowly, for, glorious as was the tropical forest, I thirsted for the sight of Kinchinjunga, which we should get when we at last topped the ridge and reached Darjiling.

Alas! when we at last reached the summit, all was hid in cloud. Fresh from the steamy plains, we shivered in the damp mists, and when we reached Darjiling itself rain was descending in cataracts. It was depressing, but it had the advantage that it enabled me to recuperate a little from the hot, trying railway journey through the plains of India, and be all the more fit therefore to thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the great view when at last it should be revealed.

Many times afterwards I saw it, and each time with a new and more wonderful impression. Sometimes in the eddying cloudy billows a break would come, giving a glimpse into heaven itself; and through the little inlet would be seen a piece of sky of the intensest blue, and against it a peak of purest white, so lofty and so much a partner of the sky and clouds it seemed impossible it could ever be of earth. This was Kinchinjunga in one of its aspects. At another time, when all was clear of cloud, I would look steeply down from the tropical forests of Darjiling for 6,000 feet to the bottom of the narrow valley beneath, and then up and up through tier after tier of ever-heightening ridges, till, far up in the skies, suffused in the blue and dreamy haze, my eyes would rest on the culminating range of all, spotless and ethereal, and reaching its climax in one noble peak nearly 28,000 feet above the valley depths from which it rose. And at yet another time, when the houses were all lit in the bazaar, and the lamps lighted along the roads, and night had almost settled down upon Darjiling, high up in the skies would be seen a rosy flush: Kinchinjunga was still receiving the rays of the sun, long since set to us below. In these and many other aspects Kinchinjunga had never-ending charms.

Darjiling itself, with such scenery and vegetation, was, it need hardly be said, an exquisitely beautiful place. And it had about it none of the busy air of Simla. It was at this season nearly always shrouded in mist, and seemed wrapped in cotton-wool. No one was in a hurry, and the whole tone of the place was placid and serene.

Sir James Bourdillon, the acting Lieutenant-Governor; Mr. Macpherson, the Chief Secretary; Mr. Marindin, the Commissioner; Mr. Walsh, the Deputy-Commissioner, were all most helpful to me, and I appreciated their assistance all the more because I could not help feeling somewhat of an interloper and poacher upon other people’s preserves. Since 1873 the Bengal Government had been working for the settlement of their frontier affairs with Tibet, and now at the crucial moment a stranger dropped down from the Olympian heights of Simla to carry out the culminating act. I could naturally expect ordinary official civility from them. But they, every one of them, went out of their way to put their whole information and experience at my disposal. More than that, both they and their wives were more thoughtful and kind to my wife than I could possibly record during all that time of anxiety and depression when we subsequently advanced to Lhasa, and we have ever felt most deeply grateful to them.

The Bengal Government, I have often thought, has experienced a hard fate over Tibet affairs. It was a Governor of Bengal—Warren Hastings—who initiated the idea of sending a mission to Tibet. It was another Lieutenant-Governor who revived the idea of intercourse in 1873. It was a Bengal officer, Colman Macaulay, who originated and pushed through the idea of a mission to Lhasa in 1885. It was a Bengal officer, Mr. Paul, who negotiated the Trade Regulations of 1893; and it was a Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Charles Elliott, who, in 1895, made what seems to me to have been the most suitable recommendation for the settlement of the question, an occupation of the Chumbi Valley.

But gradually, in the course of years, the conduct of frontier matters has been taken out of their hands by the Government of India and out of the hands of the latter by the Imperial Government. There has been a greater and greater centralization of the conduct of frontier relations, which may be necessary from some points of view, but one of the effects of which is apparent locally. The local Government loses its sense of responsibility for frontier matters. Local officers feel little inducement to fit themselves for the conduct of such affairs. And, consequently, when good frontier officers really are wanted in future, they will not be found, and the next mission to Lhasa will in all probability be led by a clerk from the Foreign Office in London.

I left Darjiling on June 19, in drenching rain. To realize it the English reader must picture to himself the heaviest thunderstorm he has ever seen, and imagine that pouring down continuously night and day. I was, of course, provided with a heavy waterproof cloak, with a riding apron and an umbrella; but the moisture seemed to soak through everything, for there was not only the rain beating down from above, but the penetrating mists creeping in all round. But I could not be depressed by mere rain, however much. The road passed through a forest of unsurpassable beauty. Chestnuts, walnuts, oaks, laurels, rhododendrons, and magnolias grew in great magnificence, and among them Himalayan kinds of birch, alder, maple, holly, apple, and cherry. Orchids of the most brilliant varieties I could have gathered in basketfuls. The perpetual moisture and the still atmosphere nourished the most delicate ferns; while the mosses were almost as beautiful, and hung from the trees in graceful pendants, blending with the festoons of the climbing plants.

After riding for some miles along the ridge, we descended towards the Teesta River, and again met with the magnificent tree-ferns, palms, bamboos, and wild bananas. We passed by several flourishing tea plantations, each with its cosy, but lonely, bungalow, surrounded by a beautiful garden. By the roadway caladiums of every variegated colour brightened the prospect. But as we descended the atmosphere grew more oppressive and stifling, till when we reached the Teesta itself, which here lies at an altitude of only 700 feet above sea-level, the atmosphere was precisely that of a hothouse. The thermometer did not rise above 95°, but the heat was well-nigh unbearable. Perspiration poured from every pore. Energy oozed away with every drop, and the thought of a winter amid the snows of Tibet became positively cheering. It was a curious beginning for such an expedition as was to follow, but the Indian officer has to be prepared to undergo at a moment’s notice every degree of heat or cold, of storm and sunshine, of drought or deluge, and take everything he meets cheerily as in the day’s work.

We were now in Sikkim proper, the thin wedge of a valley which runs from the plains to the watershed of the Himalayas, and separates Nepal from Bhutan. For luxuriance and for variety of vegetation, and of animal, bird, and insect life, it must, I should say, be unequalled by any other country in the world, for it lies in the tropics, and rises from an elevation of only a few hundred feet above sea-level to a snowy range, culminating in a peak 28,178 feet in height.

The valley bottom was narrow, and the Teesta River, 100 yards or so broad, dashed down over great boulders and beside precipitous cliffs with immense velocity. Both the main and the side valleys were very deep, the slopes steep, and the whole packed with a dense forest of rich and graceful and variegated foliage. Tropical oaks of gigantic size, a tree with a buttressed trunk growing to a height of 200 feet, “sal,” sago-palms, bamboos, bananas, bauhinias, “took,” screw-pine, and on the ridges Pinus excelsus. An immense climber, with pendulous blossoms, and which bears a fruit like a melon, was very prevalent, and aristolochias, with their pitcher-like flowers, orchids, and ferns. Tropical profusion of vegetable growth was nowhere better exemplified. But almost more remarkable were the number and the variety of the butterflies. I counted seventeen different species in a couple of hundred yards, some of the most exquisitely beautiful colouring, flashing out every brilliant and metallic hue; others mimicking the foliage, and when at rest shutting their wings together, and exactly resembling the leaves of a tree. Less beautiful, but equally abundant, was the wealth of insect life. And here with a vengeance was the thorn which every rose possesses. Midges, mosquitoes, gnats, every conceivable horror and annoyance in this particular line, was present here; also beetles in myriads; some spiders, too, of enormous size; cockchafers and cockroaches, winged ants, and, in addition to all these insect pests, the countless leeches on every leaf and every blade of grass. It is indeed a paradise for a naturalist, but only for such a naturalist as has his flesh under due subjection to the spirit. And such a naturalist was the great Sir Joseph Hooker, the friend of Darwin, who first explored this country in 1848 and 1849, and who is even now living amongst us.

The stillness of these parts I have already referred to. There is seldom a breath of air stirring, and one feels in a gigantic hothouse. But it is not noiseless, for, apart from the roar of the main river as it dashes impetuously through the languid forest, and, apart from the thundering of the voluminous waterfalls, which, fringed with rich masses of maidenhair and many other delicate and graceful ferns, form yet another striking feature in the landscape, one hears also in the forest depths the incessant chorus of the insects. Bird-life there is scarcely any, and therefore very little song of the birds; but there is an incessant rhythmic rise and fall of insect whirring, broken at intervals by the deafening, dissonant screechings of invisible crickets.

All this was very beautiful and very interesting as an experience, but I felt no temptation to linger in the stifling valley, and was glad when the road began to rise to Gantok and the temperature to lower. Then the more distinctly tropical vegetation began to disappear, and at between 4,000 and 5,000 feet a kind of birch, willows, alders, rhododendrons, and walnuts grew side by side with the plantains, palms, and bamboos. Among the plants grew balsam, climbing vines, brambles, speedwells, forget-me-nots, strawberries, geraniums, orchids, tree-ferns, and lycopodiums.

Embedded amidst all the luxuriance of forest and plant life, and facing the snowy range with a view of Kinchinjunga itself, is the Gantok Residency, a charming English house, clustered over with roses, and surrounded by a garden in which rhododendrons, magnolias, canna of every rich variety, tree-ferns, lilies, and orchids, and all that could excite the envy of the horticulturist, grow almost without the trouble of putting them into the ground.

Here I enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. White, who had preceded me to make preparations. He and Mrs. White had lived there for fourteen years. They were devoted to their garden, in which they found a never-ending interest with all the English flowers—narcissus, daffodils, pansies, iris—in the spring, and the beautiful tropical plants in the summer.

They were also devoted to the people amongst whom they lived. These Lepchas are, says Mr. White, in his recent book, “Sikkim and Bhutan,” "quite an exceptional people, amongst whom it is a pleasure to live." And he says they make excellent and trustworthy servants. Certainly these people were devoted to Mr. White, who, in a kindly patriarchal way, did many a kindness for them as he toured through their valley. And I was particularly interested in observing them, and hearing Mr. White’s opinion of them, because they have been the subject of so many encomiums on the part of Herbert Spencer. On account of their truthfulness and gentleness they had been held up by him as an example to civilized people, and I was anxious to see whether at close quarters they were as estimable as they had appeared at a distance to the philosopher.

They are of the Mongolian type of feature, yet they have very distinctive features of their own, and would never be mistaken for either the Tibetans, the Nepalese, or the Bhutanese, who touch them on either side, and they seem to have come along the foothills from Assam and Burma. Their chief characteristic is undoubtedly their gentleness. Timidity is the word which might better describe it. They live in a still, soft, humid climate, and their character is soft like the climate; but their disposition is also attractive, like their country. They are great lovers of Nature, and unequalled as collectors. In their own country and unspoiled they are frank and open, good-natured and smiling, and when they are at their ease, amiable, obliging, and polite. They are indolent and improvident, but they seldom have private or political feuds. They never aggress upon their neighbours. And by nature they are scrupulously honest. Their women are chaste, and neither men nor women drink in excess.

These 6,000 Lepchas certainly have every estimable quality, and many for which we Europeans are not strikingly remarkable. Yet mere gentleness, without strength and passion at the back, can hardly count much in the world, and it is not possible seriously to regard the Lepchas as an ensample for our living. Even the naughty little Gurkhas, who would, except for our protection of the Lepchas, have long since swallowed them up, we really prefer.

We remained only a few days in Gantok, and then pushed on toward the Tibetan frontier, for we were well on in the summer now, and we wanted, if possible, to get the matter settled before winter. The rain never ceased: bucketfuls and bucketfuls came drenching down. The ordinary waterproofing in which we wrapped our luggage was soaked through as if it had been paper. In the valley bottom we passed the camp of the 32nd Pioneers engaged in improving the road, and anything more depressing and miserable I have never seen. Tents, clothes, furniture—everything was soaking. The heat was stifling, the insect pests unbearable. Fever sapped the life out of the men, and one shuddered at the misery of life under such conditions: day after day, week after week, month after month, digging and blasting away at a road which as soon as it was made was washed into the river again; wet through with rain and with perspiration while at work, and finding everything equally moist on returning to camp; tormented with insect pests at work and in camp by night and by day. Yet it was only by mastering such conditions as these that the eventual settlement with Tibet was ever rendered possible.

Fortunately for them, some 200 were now to leave these dismal surroundings and accompany me to the Tibetan frontier as escort. We marched on up the valley by a road carried in many places along the side of precipices overhanging the roaring river, and with neither wall nor railing intervening between one and destruction. Only in Hunza, beyond Kashmir, have I seen a more precarious roadway. The same luxuriant vegetation extended everywhere. But what impressed me most in this middle region of Sikkim were the glorious waterfalls. Never anywhere have I seen their equal. We were in the midst of the rains. The torrents were full to the limit, and they would come, boiling, foaming, thundering down the mountain-sides in long series of cascades, gleaming white through the ever-green forest, and festooned over and framed with every graceful form of palm and fern and foliage.

And now, as we reached the higher regions, the loathsome leeches, the mosquitoes, gnats, and midges, were left behind, and we came into a region of Alpine vegetation—spruce-firs, ash, birch, maple, crab-apple, and nut, with jasmine, ivy, spirÆa, wood-sorrel, and here and there, rising lightly through the shade of the forest, a gigantic white lily, most exquisitely lovely.

On June 26 we reached Tangu, at a height of 12,000 feet above the sea, and here in a comfortable wooden rest-house, in a cool and refreshing climate, we were able to forget all the depressions of the steamy valleys. The spirÆa, maple, cherry, and larch, which we had met lower down, had now disappeared, and in their place were willow, juniper, stunted birch, silver fir, white rose, berberry, currant, and many rhododendrons. The mountain-sides were covered with grass and carpeted with flowers, and especially with many beautiful varieties of primulas, as well as with gentians, potentillas, geraniums, campanulas, ground orchids, delphiniums, and many other plants, while near by we found a fine dark blue poppy; and, most remarkable plant of all, growing here and there on the mountain-side in isolated grandeur, a gigantic rhubarb (Rheum nobile), described by Hooker as the handsomest herbaceous plant in Sikkim, with great leaves spread out on the ground at the base, while the main plant rose erect to a height of 3 feet in the form of a pyramid, but with the clusters of flowers protected from the wind and rain, by reflexed bracts.

Here, at Tangu, only a march below the district round Giagong, which the Tibetans claimed, the real business of the mission commenced. By July 1 the whole of both the escort and the support—the former 200 men and the latter 300—were assembled, under the command of Colonel Brander. Both the men and the transport animals had suffered greatly in marching through the drenching rain and the steamy, fever-laden lower valleys; but now, in the cooler air of Tangu, they recovered their strength, and all were eager for the advance into Tibet. I was myself equally keen, but as I could hear no news of either Chinese or Tibetan officials of rank or authority having arrived at Khamba Jong to meet me, I decided to let Mr. White, with Captain O’Connor and the whole escort, go on in advance to arrange preliminaries.

On July 4 they left Tangu, and encamped some nine miles distant, on the near side of the wall at Giagong, which the Tibetans claimed as their boundary, and from which they had been removed by Mr. White in the previous year. Before reaching camp—that is to say, well on the Sikkim side of even the wall—Mr. White was met by the Jongpen, or Commandant, of Khamba Jong—“Jong” being the Tibetan for fort. He informed Mr. White that there were encamped at Giagong, on the other side of what the Tibetans claimed as their frontier, two officials—a General and a Chief Secretary of the Dalai Lama—who had been deputed to discuss frontier matters, and who were anxious to confer with Mr. White on the following day.

Mr. White informed the Jongpen that he would be prepared to greet the officials on the road, and to receive them in a friendly manner in his camp on the next evening, but that he was not prepared to halt or hold any discussion at Giagong.

On the following day Captain O’Connor rode forward, and was met by the Jongpen of Khamba Jong at the wall at Giagong, which the Tibetans claimed as their frontier, but which was on a river flowing into the Teesta River, and therefore clearly on our side of the frontier laid down by the Convention of 1890, concluded by the Chinese Resident, who had with him a Tibetan representative. The Jongpen importuned Captain O’Connor to dismount and to persuade Mr. White to do the same. But Captain O’Connor said that no discussion was possible, and on Mr. White’s arrival with the escort they all passed through the wall, and just beyond saw the two Lhasa officers arrayed in yellow silks, and accompanied by a crowd of unarmed retainers riding towards them from their camp. Captain O’Connor advanced to meet them, and they dismounted and spoke to him very civilly. They asked him to persuade Mr. White to dismount, to proceed to their tent close by, to partake of some refreshments, and to “discuss matters.” Captain O’Connor replied that Mr. White was not prepared to break his journey or to discuss matters at Giagong, but would be glad to see them in his camp that evening, though any discussion must be deferred until after the arrival of myself and the Chinese Commissioner at Khamba Jong.

They pressed forward on foot, and, catching hold of Mr. White’s bridle, importuned him to dismount and repair to their tents. At the same time their servants pressed round the horses of the British officers, and, seizing their reins, endeavoured to lead them away. After speaking very civilly to the two Lhasa officials, Mr. White was obliged to call two or three sepoys to clear the way, and the British officers then rode on, while the two Lhasa officers mounted and rode back to camp. The Jongpen afterwards followed the British officers, and made repeated efforts to induce them to halt for a day at the next camp in order to confer with the two Lhasa officials. He was in a very excited state, and hinted more than once at possible hostilities, and said: “You may flick a dog once or twice without his biting, but if you tread on his tail, even if he has no teeth, he will turn and try and bite you.”

I suppose it is always difficult for one party to see the other party’s point of view; but, of course, his contention regarding us precisely applied to what we thought of the Tibetans. It was simply because the Tibetans had encroached on us, and were even now addressing us inside the frontier fixed by treaty, that we were at last turning and insisting on our treaty rights.

That evening Mr. Ho, the Chinese delegate, sent word that he had arrived at Giri, just on the other side of the frontier, and asking that Mr. White would remain at Giagong.

The next day Mr. White and his escort rode quietly across the frontier, without meeting anyone except the Chinese Commandant of the small post of Giri, who passed by without speaking. Mr. White encamped near Giri, and received a visit from Mr. Ho, who communicated to him the contents of the Resident’s reply to the Viceroy, and made a request, which was politely declined, that the British Commissioner should remain at Giri in preference to proceeding to Khamba Jong. In this despatch the Chinese Resident informed the Viceroy that he had again deputed Mr. Ho, in conjunction with Captain Parr, the Customs Commissioner at Yatung, who, he said, were truly of equal rank to the Commissioner deputed by the Viceroy, to discuss all matters in a friendly manner. He further said that the Dalai Lama had deputed his Chief Secretary and a Depon (General) of Lhasa to negotiate in conjunction with the Chinese Commissioners. But the Resident understood, he said, that Khamba Jong was in Tibetan territory, and therefore the meeting could only be at the boundary near the grazing-grounds fixed by the Convention of 1890. The Resident contended, that is to say, that though the Tibetans had for thirteen years with armed men occupied territory on our side of the frontier laid down by the Convention, we were not even to meet temporarily for discussion on the Tibetan side of the same frontier.

On July 7 Mr. White, with his escort, marched to Khamba Jong, and encamped on a small stream not far from the Jong, or fort, which was an imposing building on the summit of a lofty crag some hundreds of feet above the plain. Mr. Ho wrote to Mr. White saying that he had instructed the Khamba Jongpen to provide him with supplies, and that he himself, accompanied by the two Lhasa officials, would arrive there on the following day. A letter of thanks was sent, and on the strength of Mr. Ho’s letter Mr. White wrote to the Tibetan Jongpen asking him to supply some grass; but the letter was returned unopened, with a somewhat unceremonious verbal message.

Major Bretherton, the energetic supply and transport officer, who had come up from Sikkim to arrange supply matters, on the following day found a rich and fertile valley some three or four miles from Khamba Jong, where grazing was abundant, and where barley crops were raised and sheep and cattle reared.

In the evening the Khamba Jongpen, with two junior officers bearing presents from the Lhasa delegates, arrived in camp. Mr. White received them, and sent polite messages in return, and Captain O’Connor afterwards interviewed the messenger in his own tent, and conversed very amicably for some time, the messenger being evidently very pleased with his reception, and altogether refusing to accept money, which was all Mr. White had at the moment, in return for their presents. The Jongpen also behaved with great civility, and repeatedly apologized in regard to his refusal to accept the letter, and promised to supply grass on the following day.

The two Lhasa officials, who were those referred to in the Chinese Resident’s letter to the Viceroy, visited Mr. White on July 11. They were well-mannered, but made protests regarding what they called our transgression of the frontier. After the interview with Mr. White they visited the Sikkim heir-apparent, who had arrived in Mr. White’s camp on the previous day; and here Captain O’Connor, in a less formal way, had a long conversation with them, endeavouring to find out under what amount of authority they had come. But they evaded all queries, and merely reiterated that if they had not had proper orders they would not, of course, be there. On the same day Mr. White visited Mr. Ho.

Captain O’Connor had a two-hours conversation with the Lhasa delegates on the 12th. He elicited that the Chief Secretary had been to Peking and back by Calcutta and Shanghai. The position they took up was that the place appointed by their Government for the discussion of affairs was the Giagong frontier, and on arrival there they would produce their credentials. As regards official correspondence, they said that by the terms of some treaty between the Chinese and the Tibetans all official correspondence between the Tibetans and foreigners had to be conducted through the Ambans, and, under these circumstances, they could neither receive nor reply to our letters. But they affirmed, nevertheless, that they were fully empowered to treat with our Commissioners at the proper place—the Giagong frontier.

Their dislike of the Chinese they plainly expressed. They said the Chinese despised the Tibetans, and were often instrumental in letting foreigners into the country—the poor Chinese who are accused by us of keeping foreigners out! The relations of Tibetans and Chinese were indeed extraordinarily anomalous. Whilst the Tibetans deferred to Mr. Ho in almost every matter, going so far as to forward to him official letters received from our camp for fear that they might get into trouble if they retained them, Mr. Ho himself admitted that in many matters he was powerless. The Tibetan officials appeared to be childishly impotent and terrified of their own Government, whilst at the same time they were deliberately obstructive in every matter, great or small, in which the British were concerned, and were quite ready to use the Chinese as a very convenient scapegoat whenever it suited them.

Mr. White made a formal visit to them on July 13, and at the close of the interview gave them presents, including two packets of tea each. They tried to raise some objections to receiving the tea, but no attention was paid, and the presents were accepted.

While all these proceedings were taking place, I confess that I at Tangu was in some anxiety. To march across the frontier in face of all protest, as Mr. White did, appears, when set down like this, as a very high-handed action. But it was also very risky. I had purposely, though not very wisely, but at any rate to avoid a direct collision at the very start, decided not to attack, and remove the Tibetans from Giagong, as they had been removed on the previous year. Mr. White was simply to march through to the place appointed by our Government in communication with the Chinese Government for the place of negotiation. But in so doing we left Tibetan troops in a good position on our line of communications, and as the Tibetans were evidently in an irritable state, this was no mean risk to take, and Colonel Brander and I at Tangu used to look out with considerable anxiety for the arrival of the daily dak from Mr. White.

On the face of it there seems some force in the Tibetan argument that discussion should take place at Giagong; and when officials from Lhasa had at last arrived, and with a Chinese deputy as well, and even provided with credentials, and were ready to negotiate, it would seem more reasonable on our part to have met there and negotiated. But such negotiations would not in fact have led to any result. The powers they had would simply have been not to let us inside the wall. They would have had none to negotiate in the real sense of the word, and they would have been afraid to make any kind of concession for fear their property or even their lives would be forfeited. Even when we arrived close to Lhasa, and men of much higher rank came to meet us, they had absolutely no power. Even the Regent had none, nor the whole Council. The Tibetans had no machinery for the conduct of foreign relations. They were under some arrangement to let the Chinese conduct their foreign relations, and yet, as we had experienced, they refused to abide by what the Chinese did for them.