Lord Cromer, when I saw him at Cairo on my way home, made a remark which showed an unusually appreciative insight into situations such as we were in at Lhasa. He said that everyone was praising us for reaching Lhasa, but he thought most Englishman could do that. What he considered really praiseworthy was our getting back again. In such situations ragged ends are often left, resentments incurred, entanglements formed, which make it difficult to retire with grace or even to retire at all. We were happy in this case to be able to return to India on better terms with the Tibetans than we had ever been before.

On September 22 I exchanged farewell visits with the Chinese Resident. In the reserved Chinese way he was cordial enough, and we had always got on well together. But he was in a very nasty position between the Tibetans on the one hand and his own Government on the other, and he was subsequently degraded and put into chains for having, it was locally reported, been too favourable to us.

The Members of the Council also visited me, bringing presents, for the third time, and assuring me of their friendly sentiments. They begged me never again to entertain suspicion regarding them, and to believe that they fully intended to carry out the Treaty.

Before leaving on the following morning, the Ti Rimpoche visited me, and presented each of us with an image of Buddha. He had also visited General Macdonald and given him a similar image. He was full of kindliness, and at that moment more nearly approached Kipling’s Lama in “Kim” than any other Tibetan I met. We were given to understand that the presentation by so high a Lama to those who were not Buddhists of an image of Buddha himself was no ordinary compliment. And as the reverend old Regent rose from his seat and put the present into my hand, he said with real impressiveness that he had none of the riches of this world, and could only offer me this simple image. Whenever he looked upon an image of Buddha he thought only of peace, and he hoped that whenever I looked on it I would think kindly of Tibet. I felt like taking a part in a religious ceremony as the kindly old man spoke those words; and I was glad that all political wranglings were over, and that now we could part as friends man with man.

A mile from the town a large tent had been set up by the roadside, and here we found the whole Council, a number of the leading men of Lhasa, and the Chinese Resident’s first and second secretaries, all assembled to bid us a final farewell. Tea was served, and then, with many protestations of friendship, we shook hands for the last time, remounted our ponies, and rode away.

When I reached camp, I went off alone to the mountainside and gave myself up to all the emotions of this eventful time. My task was over and every anxiety was passed. The scenery was in sympathy with my feelings; the unclouded sky a heavenly blue; the mountains softly merging into violet; and, as I now looked towards that mysterious purply haze in which the sacred city was once more wrapped, I no longer had cause to dread the hatred it might hide. From it came only the echo of the Lama’s words of peace. And with all the warmth still on me of that impressive farewell message, and bathed in the insinuating influences of the dreamy autumn evening, I was insensibly suffused with an almost intoxicating sense of elation and good-will. This exhilaration of the moment grew and grew till it thrilled through me with overpowering intensity. Never again could I think evil, or ever again be at enmity with any man. All nature and all humanity were bathed in a rosy glowing radiancy; and life for the future seemed nought but buoyancy and light.

Such experiences are only too rare, and they but too soon become blurred in the actualities of daily intercourse and practical existence. Yet it is these few fleeting moments which are reality. In these only we see real life. The rest is the ephemeral, the unsubstantial. And that single hour on leaving Lhasa was worth all the rest of a lifetime.

We of the actual Mission were now to leave the military escort and ride rapidly back to India to arrange final details with the Government of India. So on the following morning we started early, and as we rode away the whole of the 32nd Pioneers turned out to say good-bye. Some native officers had come to me the previous evening to say the men wanted us to leave camp through their lines. As we rode by, the men all came swarming out of their tents. The native officers clustered round our ponies shaking our hands, and the whole regiment waved and cheered as we passed out of camp. They had been with the Mission from the very start; indeed, they had been working at the road in that steamy Sikkim Valley before the Mission was formed. They had been through all the fighting and through the dreary investment at Gyantse; and it did one good to feel that something substantial had been obtained in return for their labours, and that they would be able to go back to their villages rewarded and happy. Indian troops of the best type have a wonderful capacity for invoking attachment, and for both the 32nd and 23rd Pioneers I shall always have a warm affection.

The behaviour of these Indian troops had also contributed greatly to the change of feeling in the Tibetans. Their discipline was excellent. They had fought hard when fighting was necessary. When the fighting was over they readily made friends with the Tibetans. And the latter more than once told me that the people suffered more from their own troops than they did from ours. This discipline and good behaviour of Indian troops we take for granted. It is none the less very remarkable. We had with us Gurkhas, trans-frontier Pathans, Sikhs, and Punjabi Mohammedans. All of these in their natural state, under their own leaders, and uncontrolled by British officers, would have played havoc in Lhasa. Their good behaviour on the present occasion was one of the main causes of the Tibetans suddenly swinging round as they did in our favour.

With the relays of riding animals and transport which General Macdonald had arranged for us at every stage down the long line of communications we now pressed rapidly on. We did not strive to emulate Mr. Perceval Landon, who had a week or two before made the record ride from Lhasa to India, but we doubled or trebled the ordinary marches, and in a few days reached Gyantse again.

Here a redistribution had to be made. Captain O’Connor, to whom so much of the success of the negotiations was due, was to remain here permanently as Trade Agent under the new Treaty. Also a party had to be sent to Gartok to arrange for the opening of the new trade-mart there. And preparations for some exploration work had to be made.

As soon as the Treaty was signed and I could say for certain that we would be returning to India, I obtained from the Tibetans and Chinese, through Captain O’Connor’s and Mr. Wilton’s powers of persuasion, leave for three parties to return to India by three different routes besides the one we came up by. One party was to go down the Brahmaputra to Assam; another party was to go up the Brahmaputra to Gartok, and come out by Simla; and Mr. Wilton was to return to China through Eastern Tibet. For all these passports were given, but only the second actually set out.

The journey down the Brahmaputra was the one in which many adventurous officers at Lhasa and Sir Louis Dane, the Foreign Secretary, were keenly interested. No one to this day knows for certain that the San-po of Tibet is the Brahmaputra of Assam. And it was to solve this problem, to discover how and where this mighty river cuts its way clean through the main axis of the Himalayas, and to see the falls and rapids which are involved in a drop from 11,500 to 500 feet, that so many ardent spirits were set. Mr. White was to have had charge of this party, and Captain Ryder was to have accompanied it as Survey Officer. All that was wanting was the sanction of the Government of India, and that, unfortunately, at the last moment was not forthcoming. The party would have had to find a way through some truculent, independent tribes between the border of Tibet and the Assam frontier, and Government were not at that moment prepared to run any further risks. It was a pity, and a sad disappointment to many, for it will be many a year before we again have such an opportunity of solving what is one of the greatest remaining geographical problems.

Mr. Wilton’s journey I had myself to stop, though there is nothing I hate more than to block enterprise in travel. The negotiations with the Chinese were not concluded—in fact, had hardly commenced—and I could not afford to part with anyone so valuable to us in India as he had proved himself to be. We Indian officials are like children in dealing with the Chinese, and the help of that special experience with which Mr. Wilton so effectively had aided us was particularly necessary at this time, though it is deplorable to find from the latest Blue-book how little advantage was taken of the advice he gave.

The Gartok party I put in charge of Captain Rawling, as its main purpose was to open the new mart, and he had in the previous year made a remarkable and most useful journey in Western Tibet. Captain Ryder had been detailed for charge of the survey operations of the expedition down the Brahmaputra, and Lieutenant Wood, R.E., who had been engaged for some time in resurveying the peaks round Mount Everest in Nepal, was to have done the survey work with the Gartok party. But now that the project for the former expedition had fallen through, Captain Ryder also accompanied the Gartok party and took charge of the survey. He was an officer of great capacity, and during the Mission had done most valuable work in extending the triangulation of India right up to Lhasa. He had now an even more interesting piece of geographical work before him—the survey of the upper course of the Brahmaputra (San-po) to its source, and the settling definitely of the question whether there was any higher peak than Everest at the back of the Himalayas.

But the party would have to race against time, for they had many hundreds of miles to traverse, and had to cross the Himalayas back to Simla before the winter finally closed the passes. They had also to face the possibility of obstruction in the matter of supplies and transport, and even the possibility of active hostility, for they would be travelling with no other escort than a Gurkha orderly apiece through a country which had only recently been in open arms against us.

Captain O’Connor and Mr. Magniac accompanied them as far as Shigatse, and Lieutenant Bailey, 32nd Pioneers, a keen and adventurous officer, who had distinguished himself with the mounted infantry, and in his leisure moments learnt Tibetan, was also attached to the party to proceed to India.

Captain O’Connor was most warmly received by the Tashi Lama, and laid the foundation of as sincere a friendship as Bogle had with his predecessor. Every arrangement was readily made, and the party was despatched under the best possible auspices. Its result Captain Ryder, who was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, has given in a lecture before that Society.

The survey work had to be conducted under the most trying conditions. Besides the ordinary march, high mountains had to be ascended for purposes of observation and these observations in winds of hurricane force and in piercing cold were wellnigh impossible to make. From a spot directly opposite Everest the surveyors saw this superb mountain towering up high above the rest of the range with a drop of 8,000 feet on either side, and the point was settled that there was no other peak on the north approaching it in height. They surveyed the Brahmaputra (San-po) to its source, as well as the Gartok branch of the Indus. They established the trade-mart at Gartok, installing a native agent there. They completed the survey of the Sutlej from its source (which they concluded was among the hills on either side of the lake region) to British territory. In all they accurately surveyed 40,000 square miles of territory. And after crossing the Himalayas by the Ayi-la (pass), 18,700 feet, in deep snow and with the thermometer 24° below zero, they reached British territory on Christmas Eve, and Simla on January 11. It was a good piece of work, magnificently executed, for which the greatest credit is due to both Captain Rawling and Captain Ryder, and it was an immense relief to hear of their safe arrival in spite of the risks of hostility and of cold.

In the meanwhile Messrs. White, Walsh, Wilton, and myself had proceeded on to India. It was fairly cold even as we crossed the Tang-la, the thermometer not being much above zero, but we were fortunate to escape the blizzard, the 3 feet of snow, and 27° of frost which General Macdonald and the troops experienced a week or two later, and which caused the death of two men and about 200 cases of snow-blindness.

We had a long, steep, cold ride over our final pass—the Nathu-la—and then we rode down and down through all the glorious Sikkim vegetation into soft and balmy ease. A scientific gentleman once asked what was the chief effect of being a long time at high altitudes, and I told him the principal effect was a desire to get to a lower altitude as soon as possible. Now that we were back at ordinary human altitudes, bathed in delicious air and basking in the glorious sunshine, we realized what the strain of those high levels, combined with the biting cold, had been. Life seemed so easy now. There was no more unconscious effort in breathing; no more conscious fighting against the cold. Existence was once again a pleasure, and in the best season of the year, amid the most splendid scenery in the world, with snowy peaks rising sheer out of tropical forests into a cloudless sky, there was little more a man could wish.

But in the midst of this dream of ease, and just the very day before I reached Darjiling, came the rude shock that the best points I had obtained at Lhasa were to be given up. I will deal with this matter in a subsequent Chapter. It is enough here to state that all the pleasure of my return was dashed from me in a moment, and I bitterly regretted ever having undertaken so delicate a task with my hands so tied.

As we approached Darjiling we passed an enthusiastic tea-planter sitting at his gateway with a gramophone, which, as we neared him, struck up “See the Conquering Hero comes.” He said he was by himself, and the gramophone was all the band he had, but he felt he must do something to welcome us; and this, our first greeting in British territory, given with such genuine feeling, went no small way to restoring my spirits.

At the station outside Darjiling I met my wife, and only then realized what the strain and anxiety to her my absence in Tibet must have caused. We went by rail to Darjiling itself, and there I had the unexpected honour of being welcomed on the platform by the kindly Sir Andrew Fraser, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and nearly the whole of the European residents in the place. They had all—and particularly Sir Andrew and Lady Fraser—been so especially kind to my wife I could not thank them enough. Mr. and Mrs. Macpherson, Mrs. Walsh, and many others had never failed in their thoughtfulness, and I hope when they read this they will believe that their kindness will never be forgotten by either of us.

We stopped at Darjiling only a day, which I set apart entirely for our little girl, and then Messrs. White and Wilton, with my wife and myself, set out on our last stage to Simla, where Lord and Lady Ampthill warmly welcomed us to Viceregal Lodge. Lord Kitchener had already asked us by telegram to dine with him our first night at Simla, and from Sir Denzil and Lady Ibbetson, Sir Arundel Arundel, Sir Louis and Lady Dane, and many others we received the greatest kindness.

Nor could anything have been more generous than the support which Lord Ampthill and the whole Government of India gave me in the matter of the disallowed points in the Treaty. But what caused me anxiety was the view which Lord Curzon would take of what I had done. He had recommended me originally on account of my discretion. As long as he was in India he had given me unfailing and ungrudging support, besides the personal encouragement of a real friend; and if he thought that in the end I had failed him I should have been miserable for the rest of my days. I had acted absolutely and entirely on my own responsibility in what, in most difficult circumstances, had seemed to me the best for my country; and I had to take the risk of my action being approved or disapproved. But it would have been indeed a blow if I found Lord Curzon thought I had acted wrongly.

So I hastened home, and at Port Said stopped to meet him on his way out to India again. In one moment he set me right. I dined with him on the P. & O. steamer, and for hours afterwards on deck we talked over all the stirring events which had happened since we had parted in his camp at Patiala. Of all he was warmly appreciative. There is no man more staunch in friendship, and no keener patriot in England, than Lord Curzon; and what he did for the Indian Empire, and still more what he would have done if he had been more amply supported from England, will perhaps some day be more fully recognized than it is at present. If this Mission had been a failure, on him would have fallen the blame. How much its success was due to him no one knew better than I did.

On my arrival in England I had the honour of an audience of His late Majesty, and the reward I most appreciated for my services in Tibet was this opportunity of personally knowing my Sovereign. I saw him quite alone. He placed me in a chair by his desk, and then in some indefinable way made it possible for me to speak to him as I would have to my own father. He was himself most outspoken. He did not merely ask questions in a perfunctory way, but took a genuinely keen interest in our proceedings. He warmly praised the conduct of the troops. He was well aware of the deeds, and even character, of individual officers, and he spoke most feelingly of the loss of Major Bretherton, of whose splendid work he was fully cognizant. It appeared to me that it was men, and not policies, which chiefly interested him: human personalities rather than abstract principles. He was himself, as all the world now knows, a generous personality; and not merely a great Sovereign, but a great man. No one I have ever met has given me such an impression of abounding vitality and warm-blooded humanity, full and overflowing. And I left his august presence not only rewarded, but re-inspired.

Through the kindness of H.R.H. Princess Christian, who informed His Majesty of my wish, the flag^[41] which I had with me throughout the Mission, which was carried before me on every march, which was planted before my tent in camp, which was flown over the Mission quarters at Gyantse, and which was placed on the table on which the Treaty was signed at Lhasa, was deposited in Windsor Castle, and by His Majesty’s express commands was hung in the Central Hall over the statue of Queen Victoria.