Gyantse, which had been our goal for so many months, and with which we were to be but too well acquainted before we had finished, has two principal features—the jong and the monastery, called Palkhor Choide. The jong is a really imposing structure built of strong, solid masonry, and rising in tiers of walls up a rocky eminence springing abruptly out of the plain to a height of 400 or 500 feet. It has a most commanding and dominant look. And the monastery immediately adjoining it at a part of the base of the hill is also impressive from the height and solidity of the walls with which it is surrounded, and by the massiveness of the buildings within the walls.^[28]

The town itself was not of much importance, nor so promising as a trading-mart as I had hoped. It lay at the foot of the jong, and the bazaar did not possess shops of any size. The real population, indeed, seemed to be scattered in the numerous hamlets dotted all over the valley, through which ran a considerable river.

The demeanour of the inhabitants was respectful. They brought in supplies for sale, and in a few days a regular bazaar was established by the Tibetans immediately outside our camp, the bartering being carried on, as usual, mostly by women. The people said they had not the slightest wish to fight us, and only desired to escape being commandeered by the Lhasa authorities. The valley proved to be very fertile, with cultivation all down it, and supplies were plentiful.

Gyantse was indeed a delightful change from Tuna. It was, in the first place, nearly 2,000 feet lower, so naturally warmer. In addition, spring was coming on. Leaf-buds were beginning to sprout on the willows. The little irises in plenty were appearing. And birds of several rare varieties came to rejoice Captain Walton’s heart and fill his collection.

Captain O’Connor, Captain Ryder, and Mr. Hayden rode down the Shigatse road to Dongtse and visited its monastery, besides other houses and estates of note in the valley. They found the people everywhere friendly and very different from what they would have been on the north-west frontier, for instance, under similar circumstances. The peasants were ploughing and sowing their fields, and the whole country appeared perfectly contented and quiet.

From the rear, too, came encouraging tidings. I received a letter from the Dharm Raja, of Bhutan, saying that when he heard that his friends had won a victory he was greatly rejoiced, for nowadays England and Bhutan had established a firm friendship, and he hoped that there would always be firm faith and friendship between the English and Bhutanese.

Yet, with all this ease and quiet, there was not the slightest real sign of the business of negotiation being commenced. I had naturally expected that, when the Resident had been specially deputed by the Chinese Government for these negotiations sixteen months previously, I should have found him at Gyantse, or at any rate on his way there, and that, after the Chinese Government had been urging the Tibetans since the previous summer to send a properly empowered delegate, the Resident would have been accompanied by a Tibetan Commissioner capable of negotiating with me. But on April 22 I received a despatch from the Resident, stating, indeed, his intention of arriving at Gyantse before May 12, but giving no news that a proper Tibetan Commissioner had been appointed. He stated that the Lhasa General had been the aggressor in the fight at Guru, that the fault was on the side of the Tibetans, who had disregarded his advice, and he recognized our compassion in having magnanimously released the foolish and ignorant prisoners, cared for the wounded, and shown humane motives of sternness and mercy. He added that the Dalai Lama was now aroused to a sense of our power. But still there was no mention that the transport which the Resident was “insisting on” had been provided, and the appointment of a proper Tibetan Commissioner was still not made. In fact, the Councillors had all been imprisoned by the Dalai Lama, and there were “but few capable Tibetan officials to settle the frontier and other important questions,” which could not, added the Resident, “be disposed of in a peremptory manner.” A few days’ delay would not, therefore, he considered, be out of place.

Three days later he wrote that in this matter of proceeding to meet me he had exhausted himself in talking with the Tibetans, and trusted I would perceive something of the difficult nature of the circumstances. And on April 29 he wrote that he had received a reply from the Dalai Lama about some representations I had made against monks taking part in the fighting, but in this reply not a word was mentioned about his transport or any other matters.

In these circumstances I telegraphed to Government on April 22 that the best way to meet these dilatory tactics was, at the earliest moment by which military preparations could be completed, to move the Mission straight to Lhasa, and carry on the negotiations at the capital, instead of halfway. This, I said, would be the most effective and only permanent way of clinching matters, besides being the cheapest and quickest. Our prestige, I urged, was then at its height, Nepal and Bhutan were with us, the people were not against us, the Tibetan soldiers did not care to fight, the Lamas were stunned. By a decisive move then a permanent settlement could be procured. I added that, in recommending this proposal at so early a stage for the consideration of Government, my object was that the favourable season might be utilized to the full, and that we might not allow the psychological moment to pass without taking advantage of it. Meanwhile, I said, I would receive the Amban, and would ascertain what power to effect a settlement he and the Tibetan representative really possessed.

In making this recommendation I was counting on a collapse of the Lhasa authorities, which seemed to be indicated by the Resident’s statement, by the statement of a Chinese official from Lhasa that Tibetan officers were begging the Resident to intercede, by the fact that the common people even, it was said, at Lhasa did not resent our presence, that there were few troops between Gyantse and Lhasa, and that the Lhasa authorities had been able to produce only 5,000 men to oppose our advance as far as Gyantse.

Whether this collapse would have taken place if we had then set about advancing to Lhasa it is impossible to say. Certainly it did not take place. But this may have been due to the retirement of General Macdonald with the greater part of the force which now took place, in accordance with the plan prearranged between us of leaving the Mission with a good strong escort to conduct negotiations while the bulk of the force remained in support in Chumbi, where supplies were more readily available. This, from a supply point of view, was desirable, and it was in accordance with the policy of Government, but it may have had the effect of re-arousing the Tibetans.

Anyhow, rumours soon began to reach me that Tibetan forces were collecting again. On the 24th came news that they were building walls across the road at the Karo-la (pass) on the way to Lhasa, that camps holding 700 or 800 Tibetans had been established there, that the Dalai Lama was endeavouring to gain time to enlist Tibetans from far and wide to resist a British advance to Lhasa, and that the local soldiers round Gyantse were, under his orders, quietly leaving and proceeding towards Lhasa.

To ascertain the truth of these rumours, Colonel Brander, who was now in command of the Mission escort of 500 men, two guns and two Maxims, and some mounted infantry, on April 28 sent out a reconnaissance party of one company of mounted infantry to the Karo-la; and on May 1 we received news from Captain Hodgson, commanding the party, that he had advanced with his mounted infantry across the pass, and three miles beyond had found the Tibetans in occupation of a wall, some 600 yards long, built across the valley. The Tibetans, estimated at from 1,000 to 1,500 in number, opened a heavy fire on the mounted infantry at about 300 yards’ distance. Our men then retired steadily, firing only a few shots and returned towards Gyantse.

Besides the definite information thus acquired, reports also reached me that other troops were assembling in the Rong Valley, ready to support those on the Lhasa road, and that there was a large gathering, estimated at 4,000, assembled at Shigatse itself, a portion of which was to move up to Dongtse, twelve miles from Gyantse.

Colonel Brander now came to me and asked for leave to go out and attack the Tibetans before these gatherings could come to a head. He had much frontier experience, and I also had some, and we both of us knew that when such gatherings take place it is a pretty sound general principle to take the initiative, and hit hard at them before they have time to accumulate overwhelming strength. It was a bold move, he contemplated, for the Karo-la (pass) was forty-five miles distant, and was over 16,000 feet high; and while he was away with two-thirds of the escort, the Mission, with only one-third of its full escort, might be itself attacked. I said that if he, on his side, did not mind taking this risk, I, on my side, did not mind it, and, as far as my military opinion was worth anything, was quite in favour of the operation.

But it was on political grounds that I had to give the decision, and on those grounds I had no objection. I had come to negotiate, but there was no symptom of negotiators appearing. On the other hand, the Tibetans were still further massing their troops; their position at the Karo-la and between there and Kangma was threatening our line of communication; and they had fired on our reconnoitring party. For these reasons I informed Government by telegram on May 2 that I had raised no objection on political grounds to Colonel Brander’s proposal to go out and attack the Tibetans on the pass before they could attack our line of communication. I had stated, verbally and in writing, to the Chinese and to the Tibetans that we came to Gyantse to negotiate. Since our arrival we had evacuated the jong, and General Macdonald, with the greater part of the force, had returned to Chumbi. There could be no question, then, that we meant to negotiate and not to fight. Yet they still neither sent a negotiator, nor said they had any intention to negotiate; instead they massed troops to attack us; and I felt at perfect liberty to let the commander of the Mission escort take whatever means he liked to secure its safety.

On the same day, in view of the rumours of the hostile attitude of the Tibetans towards Shigatse and of their reinforcement by local levies, I placed the Gyantse Jongpen in custody in the British camp.

Colonel Brander set out on May 3, with three companies of the 32nd Pioneers, one company 8th Gurkhas, two 7-pounder guns and two Maxims, accompanied by Mr. Wilton and Captain O’Connor, to assist him in case Chinese or Tibetan officials were met with.

On May 4 Captain Walton’s patients warned him that some kind of attack on us at Gyantse was likely, and Major Murray, 8th Gurkhas, who was in command during Colonel Brander’s absence, sent out a mounted patrol some miles down the Shigatse road; but they returned, reporting everything quiet.

At dawn the next morning the storm burst. I was suddenly awaked by shots and loud booing close by my tent. I dashed out, and there were Tibetans firing through our own loopholes only a few yards off. From the Shigatse direction a force of 800 men had marched all night, and many, under cover of the darkness, had crept up under the walls of our post. Then at dawn these suddenly jumped up, and, supported by the remainder, made an attempt to rush our post, a substantial house with a garden at one side, the wall of which we had loopholed. In the first critical moment they almost succeeded. They as nearly as possible forced an entrance, but were stoutly held at bay by two gallant little Gurkha sentries till our men turned out. Then, as at Guru, once the single favourable moment had flashed by, nothing but disaster lay before them. The attack began at about 4.30, and did not cease till nearly 6.30, but in that time they had left about 250 dead and wounded round our post.

Personally, I did not deserve to get through the attack unscathed, for directly I was out of my tent I made straight for the Mission rendezvous. I was in my pyjamas, and only half awake, and the first thought that struck me was to go to the rendezvous, agreed upon beforehand, in what we called the citadel. But I ought, as I did on other occasions—and as I think always should be done in cases of any sudden attack—to have made straight for the wall with whatever weapon came to hand, and joined in repelling the attack during the few crucial moments.

Major Murray, as soon as he had repelled the attack, pursued the enemy for about two miles down the Shigatse road. But it now became evident that this attacking party was not the only force of Tibetans in the neighbourhood, and that another of similar strength had occupied the jong, for these latter began firing into our post, and we gradually came to realize that we were now besieged.

It turned out from information received from prisoners that these troops had been collected by a General recently appointed by the Lhasa Government, and that it was accompanied by a representative of the great Gaden monastery at Lhasa, by two clerks of the Dalai Lama, and by other Lhasa officials. It was, therefore, no mere local rising, but an attack deliberately planned by the Central Tibetan Government.

For a few days, till Colonel Brander returned, we were in a critical position, and we were also anxious about Colonel Brander himself. The worst that, in making our calculations at Darjiling in November, we had deemed likely to happen had happened, and we were now at the straining-point. Major Murray, assisted especially by Captain Ryder with his engineering experience, strengthened the post as far as possible during the day, and at night we looked out watchfully for a further attack. For it was at night, when our long-range rifles lost their special advantage, that the Tibetans would have their best chance. We only had 170 men, and the vastly superior numbers which the Tibetans were now collecting ought to have had a fair chance of overwhelming us if they had pressed home a well-planned night attack. They fired a good deal during this and the following nights, but we kept a good watch, and we heard afterwards that the Lamas tried to organize a second attack on us, but the men refused to turn out.

It was an intense relief to me to hear on the 7th that Colonel Brander had been successful in clearing the gathering at the Karo-la, which consisted of 2,500 men, armed with numerous Lhasa-made and foreign rifles, and headed by many influential Lamas and officials from Lhasa. In a short note to me he told me of the anxious moments he had passed when, on the early morning before he made his attack, he received a letter from me saying that the Mission had been attacked at Gyantse. The Tibetans were in a very strong position behind a loopholed wall of great solidity, and 800 yards long, which they had built right across the pass; and to attack such a position at a height of over 16,000 feet above sea-level, surrounded with glaciers, with only a sixth of the numbers opposed to him, and with his communications not over safe behind, Colonel Brander had in truth to set his teeth and steel his nerves. His frontal attack failed. Poor Bethune, a typically steady, reliable and lion-hearted officer was killed. The guns proved absolutely ineffective. Ammunition was none too plentiful. And Colonel Brander said in his letter to me that he was on the point of despairing when, just at the critical moment, the turning movement of the Gurkhas, under Major Row, who had slowly scrambled up to a height of 18,000 feet, proved successful. Panic took the Tibetans. They first began dribbling away from the wall, then poured away in torrents. Colonel Brander hurled his mounted infantry at them, and Captain Ottley pursued them halfway to Lhasa.

It was a plucky and daring little action, and unique of its kind in the annals of any nation; for never before had fighting taken place at altitudes well over the summit of Mont Blanc. I was indeed relieved to hear of its brilliant success, and late at night on the 7th—that is, the very day after the fight—to welcome back Captain O’Connor, Mr. Perceval Landon, and the indefatigable Captain Ottley, with his dashing mounted infantry, already the terror of the Tibetans. They had made a bold dash back ahead of Colonel Brander, and on the very next morning Captain Ottley was to show the Tibetans who were investing us the difference which his presence made.

A party of Tibetan horsemen were seen from our post sauntering unsuspectingly along the valley, out of reach of our rifles, but not out of reach of our mounted infantry, twenty of whom, under Captain Ottley, now dashed out of our post in pursuit. The Tibetans galloped up a side valley; Captain Ottley galloped after them; and now we saw a great body of Tibetan horsemen issue from the jong to cut him off. I held my breath in suspense, fearing he would not see the party behind in his eager pursuit of the party in front. But Captain Ottley was not to be so easily caught. He suddenly wheeled on to some rising ground, dismounted his men as quick as lightning, and was blazing away at both parties before they could realize what had happened. In a moment several Tibetans dropped, and the remainder scuttled away as fast as they could.

All this put fresh spirit into our men, for we had had three days and nights of considerable strain; and on the day following Colonel Brander himself with his column returned safely to camp, and arrangements were at once made to harry the garrison of the jong with rifle and Maxim fire.

We now heard full details of the Karo-la fight. It appears that the Tibetans engaged were mostly drawn from the districts of South-Eastern Tibet. They were commanded by a layman and a monk official, and had been organized by a monk State Councillor and another high ecclesiastical official who had been stationed for some time at Nagartse. Representatives of the three great Lhasa monasteries were at the fight, and each monk had been provided by the Lhasa Government with a matchlock and a knife before starting to join the army.

On the morning of the 10th we buried the remains of poor Bethune, and it was my melancholy duty to read the Burial Service over one whom I had known since the Relief of Chitral, whose genial, manly nature attached him to every one of us, and for whose soldierly qualities all had the highest admiration. He was a grand type of British officer, strict and thorough in his duties, yet beloved by his men, and his loss was severely felt in the days that were upon us.

Colonel Brander now reconnoitred the jong to see if it was possible to capture it. He came to the conclusion that an attack was too much to undertake. Our two 7-pounder guns were useless, though they had been brought up specially for this purpose, and our force was too small to carry the place by assault. It will naturally be asked why, when the jong was evacuated on our first arrival, we were not now occupying it instead of a house in the plain. General Macdonald had several excellent reasons for not establishing the Mission with escort in the jong. It was too far from a water-supply; and it was too big to hold. The post he chose was compact and on the river. Here he placed us, with ample supplies to last us till relief could arrive if we were attacked. As I have said, the worst that could happen did happen, and we held out till reinforcements came.

But Colonel Brander, though he could not attack the jong, did not allow himself to be simply invested in his post. He constantly sallied out to clear villages, and demolish any within the vicinity of our post; he maintained a mounted dak service to the rear, and in every way endeavoured to keep as much in the ascendant as was possible in the circumstances.

An important stage had now been reached. The Government of India on May 14 telegraphed to me that His Majesty’s Government agreed with them that recent events made it inevitable that the Mission should advance to Lhasa, unless the Tibetans consented to open negotiations at Gyantse. I was, therefore, to give notice to the Amban that we should insist on negotiating at Lhasa itself if no competent negotiator appeared in conjunction with him at Gyantse within a month.

This was satisfactory to a certain degree, but I was disappointed to have to be still further talking about negotiations when we had been wantonly attacked, when we were now actually invested, and when the Lamas were gathering yet more forces around us. Any mention of negotiating in such circumstances would only lead them to believe we feared them, and it was with much reluctance that I eventually gave this message. But the Government had to contend with many difficulties. They were in the face of a strong opposition in the House of Commons. There was no enthusiasm for the enterprise in the country. We had only recently emerged from the South African War. The Russo-Japanese War was causing anxiety. And we had not yet concluded the agreement and formed the Entente Cordiale with France.

General Macdonald was meanwhile making every preparation in Chumbi for supporting the Mission escort and eventually advancing to Lhasa; and he had many difficulties of his own to contend with, through an outbreak of cholera, and through the heavy rains causing many breaches in the road in Sikkim. Supplies, munitions, and transport, had to be laboriously collected, and progress was necessarily slow. But on May 24 strong reinforcements reached Gyantse, and were a most welcome addition to our strength, enabling Colonel Brander to assume a more active attitude. They consisted of two 10-pounder guns of the British mountain battery, under Lieutenant Easton, a company of native sappers and miners, 50 Sikhs, and 20 mounted infantry.

Our little garrison was strengthened, too, by the arrival of Captain Sheppard, Royal Engineers, who, of all the officers I saw during the Mission, struck me as being the most likely to rise to the very highest position in the service. His energy, his never-failing cheerfulness, his daring, and his general ability, were altogether exceptional. He was the champion racquet-player in the army, and he was already known on north-western frontier campaigns for his bravery. Here he added daily to his reputation, and he and Captain Ottley were the two whom I, as an onlooker—seeing a good deal, if not always most, of the game—singled out to myself as having in them the surest signs of military genius. In a military career so much depends on chance that these two may very possibly sink down to the usual humdrum respectable commander or staff officer. But I will stake my reputation as a prophet that, if the chance ever does come to either of them before routine and examinations have quenched their burning vitality, they will make a mark like Lord Roberts or like the daring Hodson of Hodson’s Horse.

Here I must in a brief parenthesis criticize some remarks I heard Mr. Roosevelt, for whom otherwise I have the greatest admiration, make to the Cambridge University Union Society. He said that in public life and in the army geniuses were not wanted, but that what was required were average men with the ordinary qualities developed by the men themselves to an extraordinary degree. In this I most profoundly disagree. It is not the ordinary average man, however much he may develop his mediocrity, that is most wanted. It is the exceptional man. It is the man with just that touch which we cannot possibly define, but which we all instinctively recognize as genius. There is a superabundance of ordinary men, and it must be admitted that they do ordinary work very much better than geniuses. But it is the genius alone who, when the occasion arises, will flash a ray through these masses of ordinary men, and make them do what they would never do with any amount of development of their ordinary plodding qualities. And it is of the highest importance to find out these exceptional men. But the way to do this is not by examinations—unless those who are least capable of passing them are chosen. It is by letting the best select the best, by letting the proved best select whom they think promise best.

All this, however, is by way of interlude, and is merely one of the many reflections I made while I was myself under enforced inactivity, and had nothing much else to do but watch the action of those others upon whom the responsibility for the time being rested.

With his reinforcements Colonel Brander now took the offensive in earnest, and on May 26 attacked the strongly-built village of Palla, which was only 1,100 yards, from our post, and which the Tibetans were holding in strength, and connecting with the jong by a wall. In the dead of night, in utter darkness, the attacking party assembled. All of us who were to remain behind went up to the roof to watch the result. The column moved noiselessly out from our post. A long silence followed. Then a few sharp rifle cracks rang out, and soon from the jong and from the Palla village there was a continuous crackle, with sharp spurts of flame lighting the darkness. Soon after a great explosion was heard, followed by a deadly silence. What had happened we heard afterwards. Captain Sheppard, accompanied by Captain O’Connor, had dashed up to the wall of one of the principal houses in the village, and after shooting two Tibetans with his revolver, placed a charge of gun-cotton, lighted a fuse, and dashed back again to cover. The explosion was the result, and a big breach had been made. Captain OO’CConnor had then, with his cake of gun-cotton, rushed into another house and successfully fired it. Lieutenant Garstin and Lieutenant Walker in another place tried to make a similar breach, but the fuse did not act, and in making a second attempt the former was killed, while Captain O’Connor also was severely wounded.

This blowing up of houses crammed full of armed men is indeed a desperate undertaking, but except by this method of deliberately rushing up and placing a charge under manned walls, and firing the charge, there was no means of getting in, and Sheppard, Garstin, Walker, and O’Connor deserve all the honour that is due to the bravest of military actions.

Breaches had been made, but the village had yet to be stormed, and Major Peterson, with his Sikh Pioneers, as soon as it was light, gallantly stormed house after house, while Colonel Brander supported him with the guns on the hillside a few hundred yards off. The Tibetans fought stubbornly, as they always did in these villages, but Major Peterson pressed steadily on, and by 1.30 the village was in Colonel Brander’s hands.

Our losses were, besides Lieutenant Garstin, Royal Engineers killed, Captain O’Connor, Lieutenant Mitchell, 32nd Pioneers, Lieutenant Walker, Royal Engineers, and nine men wounded. It was a heavy casualty list for our little garrison to sustain, but the capture of the village was a great shock to the Tibetans, who till then, according to a Chinaman whom Mr. Wilton met when accompanying one of our sorties, had become very truculent, and talked of first attacking us and cutting all our throats, and then murdering all Chinese.

The Palla village was occupied by our troops, and at 1.30 on the morning of May 30 the Tibetans, who had for long been trying to screw themselves up for an attack upon us, attacked both this and a Gurkha outpost we had established. It was a beautiful sight to watch, with the jong keeping up a heavy fire on us, and the houses at the foot of the jong firing away hard on the village. But the Tibetans were easily repulsed, for Colonel Brander had been careful to fortify the place well, and the Tibetans after this never ventured to take the offensive against us, and the tide now definitely began to turn.

I therefore now with less reluctance wrote letters to the Resident and Dalai Lama, saying that we were ready to negotiate at Gyantse up to June 25, but that unless by that date the Resident and competent negotiators had arrived, we would insist upon negotiations being carried on at Lhasa. The letters, together with a covering letter to the Tibetan commander in the jong, were sent by the hands of prisoners. Before undertaking their delivery, however, the bearers stipulated that they should be allowed to return to us as prisoners, which was a significant commentary on the method of enlistment of the Tibetan forces opposing us. The next morning the letters were returned by the Tibetan General, who said that it was not their custom to receive communications from the English.

On the afternoon of June 5 I received instructions from the Government of India to proceed to Chumbi, to confer with General Macdonald as to future plans. We had to a certain degree kept open our communications. Still, there were Tibetans all about, and it was a somewhat unusual, and certainly risky, proceeding for the chief of the Mission to have to ride 150 miles down the lines to consult the military commander. However, I was glad enough of the change from the monotony of our investment at Gyantse, and at four the next morning, while it was still dark, I rode out with an escort of forty mounted infantry, under Major Murray, and accompanied by that gallant doctor of the 8th Gurkhas, Dr. Franklin. We gave a wide berth to the Niani monastery, and arrived safely at Kangma, our first fortified post, forty miles distant, where Captain Pearson, of the 23rd Pioneers, was in command with about 100 men.

All was quiet here, and the post had never so far been attacked, owing probably to the effect of Colonel Brander’s action on the Karo-la, from which a route led direct to this place. I had risen at 4.30 the next morning to make an early start, and was just dressed when I heard that peculiar jackal-like yell which the Tibetans had used when they made their attacks at Gyantse. I instantly dashed on to the roof, and there, sure enough, was a mob of about 300 of them weighing down upon the post, and before our men were out they were right up to the walls, hurling stones and firing at me up on the roof, which was flat, and from which I could not for the moment find a way down. We all, dressed or undressed, dashed up to the walls, seizing the first rifles we could find, and firing away as hard as we could. And here again the Tibetans just lost their opportunity. As before, in a moment it was gone, and they suffered terribly for their want of military acumen. Sixty or seventy were killed, and the rest drew off up the mountains.

But this was not the only body of Tibetans about. While these were making the direct attack, two other bodies of 400 men each had appeared, all of them Kham men, the best fighters in Tibet. One party went up the valley and the other down, to cut off our retreat on either hand. This was a great strategical effort on the part of the Tibetan commander, but it failed, because as soon as the attack on our post was repulsed Major Murray sallied forth, and in turn attacked the other Tibetan parties, climbing the hillside and sending them helter-skelter over the mountains.

Then we had some breakfast, and I proceeded on my way to Chumbi. It was twenty-eight miles to the next stage, at Kala Tso, and there was considerable risk of encountering Tibetans on the way; but I argued that there was less risk immediately after a repulse than there might be a day or two later. So I set out with twenty mounted infantry, Major Murray and his men having to return to Gyantse. At Kala Tso I was welcomed by my old friends the 23rd Pioneers, under Colonel Hogge, who had been our escort at Tuna during all that terrible winter.

I now replied to a telegram I had received in the morning from Government, asking me to communicate my views on the general situation by telegram, as they wished to have them as soon as possible. I said, with reference to the contention which had been made by the military authorities that it would be impossible to keep troops at Lhasa after the autumn, that in my opinion “an effort should be made to quarter troops at Lhasa for the winter, for if we retired to Chumbi in November, we risked the loss of all the results of our present efforts, and the Tibetans would be still more obstructive.” I computed that the Lhasa and Gyantse valleys would support 1,000 men each. I hoped that while the ample forces now being sent would break down opposition during the summer months, it would be possible to keep in Lhasa a garrison, like that then at Gyantse, capable of holding its own for a whole winter. I added that if it was the case, as the military said, that troops could not be maintained in Lhasa during the winter, I had better not go to Lhasa at all, for there was little use in my commencing negotiations with two such obstructive people as the Tibetans and Chinese in any place where I could not stay a full year, if necessary. I had been eleven months trying even to begin negotiations. I should be quite unable to complete them in two or three months, especially if the Chinese and Tibetans knew we intended to leave before the winter.

The substance of this telegram I still think was perfectly sound, but its tone I do not now in cold blood seek to defend. I must confess that during all this Gyantse period I was not so steady and imperturbable as an agent should be. Perhaps the prolonged stay at very high altitudes was beginning to tell, for even Gyantse was over 13,000 feet. Perhaps it was the greater realization that nothing ever would be effected short of Lhasa, and that this playing about at Khamba Jong, at Tuna, and at Gyantse was merely for the benefit of the distant British elector. Or it may have been the difficulty of reconciling military with political considerations. Or possibly it was reading in the newspapers now arriving from England the accusations of cruelty, injustice, and oppression which were being publicly brought against the Mission, and the prophecies of disaster, such as befell Cavagnari, which were to come on us also. Whatever it was, I certainly became very restive, and now earned a rebuff from the Government of India, which only made me worse, and determined me to give up the whole business. It seemed so easy to carry through if we only went straight at it, so utterly impossible when in England they were only half-hearted. I see now that I ought to have gone stolidly and cheerily on, for Governments, too, have innumerable difficulties of their own. Still, this was not easy at the time.

It was tolerably certain a fortnight after my arrival at Gyantse that the Tibetans did not seriously mean to negotiate, and if we had to go to Lhasa, it was urgently necessary to make early preparations for an advance, so that another whole summer might not pass away without result. Yet I was undoubtedly premature in breathing the word Lhasa so early as the end of April. It was clear to me that if we wished to make a well-thought-out, complete, and lasting settlement with the Tibetans and the Chinese combined, and if we wished—what I always regarded as much more important than any paper settlement, and as our real object in going to Tibet—the establishment of a good feeling between ourselves and the Tibetans, we must not only go to Lhasa, but be able to stay there for an ample period. Yet when I stated this opinion to Government, I should, I acknowledge, have given it in a less brusque way than I did in the telegram I have quoted.

I had this much in excuse. I had, as I have related, at dawn on the day I sent that telegram, and before having had my breakfast, been attacked by the Tibetans, and had myself to fight with a rifle in my hand. I had had, after breakfast, to ride nearly thirty miles with the constant risk of further attack on the way. I had had to do all this after being cooped up for a month in a house without being able to stir outside it. I had therefore to compose and cipher my telegram when I was physically exhausted and depressed in spirit. I knew that military considerations, and Imperial considerations, and international considerations, and every other consideration which hampers action, were dead against my proposal, and I was not in the mood to be respectful towards them. Still, I was ill-advised to let my telegram have the slightest tinge of brusqueness in it. If I wanted to get the thing done, I should have preserved that marvellous imperturbability and cheery good sense which, from the Strangers’ Gallery, I have so frequently admired in British Ministers in the House of Commons. All this I note for the benefit of future leaders of unpopular Missions. For the effect of my telegram was not to further the object I had in view—the making of all preparations for keeping the Mission at Lhasa for the winter, if need be. It merely earned for me a reprimand from Government, who telegraphed back on June 14 that they found it necessary to remind me that any definite proposals I made for their consideration should be, as far as possible, in conformity with the orders and present policy of His Majesty’s Government; and I was to remember that the policy of His Majesty’s Government was based on considerations of international relations wider than the mere relations between India and Tibet, which were not only beyond my purview, but also beyond the purview of the Government of India. They expected me, therefore, to do my utmost to carry out the present plans until there was unquestionable proof that they were impracticable. It was impossible, I was told, to argue the political necessity for remaining at Lhasa during the winter until I had arrived there and gauged the situation; and the military objections were great and obvious.

My reply to this is not published, so I will not quote it. I will only say that I pretty well despaired of getting this business through. Lord Curzon was away in England, and evidently now military, and not political, considerations were having the upper hand. I knew about the “international relations” and the “wider view,” for copies of all the important despatches to our Ambassadors were sent to me. But there were dozens and scores of men to represent those “wider” views, which need not, as is so often imagined, be wiser simply because they are wider, whereas there was only one person, and that was myself, to represent the narrower view, but which, because it was local, need not be inferior or less important.

The narrow local point of view was, then, that for thirty years continuously we in India had been trying to settle a trumpery affair of trade and boundary with a semi-barbarous people on our frontier, and time after time we had been put off by these “considerations of international relations wider than the mere relations between India and Tibet.” But now we had the chance of a century of settling this business once and for all. We had, after years of negotiations and correspondence, made our effort. We had taken immense trouble and gone to great expense. And all I wished to do was to represent from my restricted point of view that I ought to have plenty of time to make the most of this opportunity. I should have represented my views in less provocative language, I admit; but the main contention was, I am sure, sound, and it would have been better now if it had been acted on. If I had not been rushed at Lhasa, but had had plenty of time to gauge and report the situation there, and to receive the orders of Government on any modifications which might be suggested by the circumstances, I should have been able to conclude with both the Chinese and Tibetans a treaty which my own Government as well as they would have accepted.

The Russian Government now began again to refer to Tibetan affairs. On April 13 Lord Lansdowne had assured the Russian Ambassador^[29] that “nothing had happened to modify the objects with which we had originally determined to send Colonel Younghusband’s Mission into Tibetan territory.” And on June 2,^[30] the Ambassador having on several occasions expressed a hope that our policy towards Tibet would not be altered by recent events, Lord Lansdowne informed him in writing that, in sanctioning the advance of the Mission to Gyantse, they announced to the Government of India that “they were clearly of opinion that this step should not be allowed to lead up to the occupation of Tibet, or to permanent intervention in Tibetan affairs. They stated that the advance was to be made for the sole purpose of obtaining satisfaction, and that as soon as reparation had been obtained, withdrawal would be effected. They added that they were not prepared to establish a permanent mission in Tibet, and that the question of enforcing trade facilities in that country was to be considered in the light of this decision.” “I am now able to tell you,” continued Lord Lansdowne, “that His Majesty’s Government still adhere to the policy thus described, though it is obvious that their action must to some extent depend upon the conduct of the Tibetans themselves, and that His Majesty’s Government cannot undertake that they will not depart in any eventuality from the policy which now commends itself to them. They desire, however, to state in the most emphatic terms that, so long as no other Power endeavours to intervene in the affairs of Tibet, they would not attempt either to annex it, to establish a protectorate over it, or in any way to control its internal administration.”

This, in the sequel, was to be a clinching fetter on the action of the Indian Government. They still wanted a representative at Lhasa; and in view of the determined hostility of the Tibetans, they wanted discretion to occupy the Chumbi Valley as a guarantee for the fulfilment of the treaty; and when the Russians had permanently stationed thousands of troops in Manchuria, had constructed railways, built forts, and established posts, where seventeen years before I had not seen a single Russian, and when they had Consular representatives all along their border in Chinese Turkestan and Mongolia, it was hard to see on what grounds they could have objected to the very mild measures which the Government of India desired to adopt. In any case, when the Tibetans had shown, not merely passive obstinacy, but downright hostility, and when, even though it might be the case that, in the words of Count Lamsdorff to Sir Charles Hardinge,^[31] “the relations between Russia and Tibet were of a purely religious nature, due solely to the large number of Russian Buriats who regarded the Dalai Lama as their Pope,” it was clear that the Tibetans relied on those merely religious relations as a support against us, the Government of India might have hoped that their hands would be freed to enable them to definitely settle up this intrinsically not very important Tibetan affair. But “wider international considerations” were, as so often happens in Indian affairs, to tell hardly against the Government of India. Since the Mission had started into Tibet war between Russia and Japan had broken out. Our relations with Russia were, consequently, at a very delicate stage. War was in the air, and statesmen had to be careful. For the sake of this insignificant business with Tibet, it would be hardly worth while endangering our relations with Russia, especially when her adhesion to our arrangement with France in regard to Egypt was required. Yet when we look at the map at the end of this book, and see how far the Russian frontier is from Tibet and to what a length our own actually touches it, and when we remember, too, that there was actually in Lhasa at this time a Russian subject who had been accustomed to go backwards and forwards between Lhasa and St. Petersburg, and served therefore all the purposes required of those religious relations which it was very natural should subsist between the Dalai Lama and Russian Buddhists, it does seem hard that the Government of India, now at the climax of all their efforts, should have been tied down through deference to the distant Power.

It is a remarkable coincidence, in this connection, that while the Russians were making protests and representations upon a move of ours which was not within a thousand miles of their frontier, the Chinese Vice-Minister, when Sir Ernest Satow informed him^[32] that we intended to advance to Lhasa, received the news with perfect equanimity, raised no objection, and remarked that the Dalai Lama was ignorant and pigheaded.

I reached Chumbi on June 10, and spent the next few days in discussing details of the advance with General Macdonald. The change from the monotony of the investment at Gyantse and from the barrenness and high altitude of Tibet was refreshing in the extreme. I met old friends again: Colonel J. M. Stewart, who had years before relieved me when I had been arrested by the Russians on the Pamirs; Major Beynon, who had been Colonel Kelly’s Staff Officer in the Relief of Chitral; and my brother-in-law, Vernon Magniac, who was to accompany me now as private secretary, and whose companionship was the greatest relief in the midst of a host of the usual official worries. The drop from 13,000 feet at Gyantse to 9,000 feet in Chumbi, and the change from constant risk to absolute security, all eased the tension on me; and the joy of being once more amidst luxuriant vegetation, with gorgeous rhododendrons, dense pine forests, roses, primulas, and all the wealth of Alpine flowery beauty, was a softening and welcome relaxation.

At Phari, on my way to Chumbi, I had met the Tongsa Penlop, now the Maharaja of Bhutan, who had recently come to interview General Macdonald and myself. Mr. Walsh, who had been in political charge of Chumbi, had interviewed him on June 3, and to him the Tongsa Penlop had admitted the unreasonableness and folly of the Tibetans, but argued that it was due to the bad advice of the Councillors, who had, in consequence, all been put in prison. He said, though, that nothing could be gained by our going to Lhasa, as the Dalai Lama and the Government would all leave before our arrival, and we should find no one there with whom to negotiate. He had written to the Dalai Lama, informing him of what I had told the Trimpuk Jongpen at Tuna we wanted, and the Dalai Lama had replied that the Sikkim boundary must be as it was, that no trade-mart could be established, and that no communication from the Indian Government could be received by the Tibetan Government. The Tongsa Penlop added that the rumour in Bhutan was that Mr. Walsh had been killed at Guru, that I had been killed at Gyantse, and that Russians had landed at Calcutta, defeated the English, and set up five banners.

This was a somewhat gloomy outlook; still, I was a good deal encouraged by my interview with the Tongsa Penlop. Mr. Walsh had been able to dispel many illusions, and at subsequent interviews the Tongsa Penlop had been a good deal impressed by General Macdonald and Mr. White, the latter of whom founded a friendship which has had most beneficial subsequent results.

The Tongsa Penlop I found to be a straight, honest-looking, dignified man of about forty-seven years of age. He bore himself well, dressed well, gave me costly presents, and altogether showed himself a man of importance and authority. He said he was most anxious to effect a settlement between us and the Tibetans. The latter had been very obstinate and wrong-headed, but the Dalai Lama was a young man, who needed good counsellors, and unfortunately there were bad men in Lhasa, who acted in his name to the detriment of the country. General Macdonald had told him that we were prepared to receive negotiators up to June 25, and he (the Tongsa Penlop) had, accordingly, written urgently to the Tibetans to send a negotiator before that date. Would not I, therefore, show patience up to then?

THE TONGSA PENLOP (NOW MAHARAJA OF BHUTAN).