An apology is needed for the length of this book. When it was passing through the press, a Parliamentary Blue-book appeared containing much important information as to recent developments, and what I had intended as only the account of our relations with Tibet up to the return of the Mission of 1904 I thought with advantage might be extended to include our relations to the present time. The whole forms one connected narrative of the attempt, protracted over 137 years, to accomplish a single purpose—the establishment of ordinary neighbourly intercourse with Tibet. The dramatic ending disclosed is that, when that purpose had at last been achieved, we forthwith abandoned the result.

The reasons for this abandonment have been—firstly, the jealousy borne by two great Powers for one another; and, secondly, the love of isolation engrained in us islanders. I have suggested that our aim should be to replace jealousy by co-operation, and, instead of coiling up in frigid isolation, we should expand ourselves to make and keep friendships.

The means I have recommended are living personalities rather than dry treaties, and what Warren Hastings and Lord Curzon wanted—an agent at Lhasa—is to me also the one true means of achieving our purpose.

I am fully conscious of having made mistakes in that part of the conduct of these affairs which fell to me to discharge. The exactly true adjustment of diplomatic with military requirements, and of the wishes of men in England with the necessities of the situation in Tibet, could only be made by a human being arrived at perfection. Not yet having arrived there, I doubtless made many errors. I can only assume that, if I had never made a mistake, I should never have made a success. Likewise, in my recommendations for the future, I may often be in error in detail, but in the main conclusion of substituting intimacy for isolation and effecting the change by personality, I would fain believe I shall prove right.

What I say has no official inspiration or sanction, for I have left the employment of Government, and am seeking to serve my country in fields of greater freedom though not less responsibility; but, in compiling the narrative of our relations with the Tibetans, I have made the fullest use of the four Blue-books which have been presented to Parliament. These contain information of the highest value, though in the very undigested form characteristic of Parliamentary Papers. Beyond personal impressions I have added nothing to them, but merely sought to deduce from them a connected account of events and of the motives which impelled them. To Sir Clement Markham’s account of Bogle’s Mission and Manning’s journey to Lhasa, to Captain Turner’s account of his Mission to Tibet, and to Perceval Landon’s, Edmund Candler’s, and Colonel Waddell’s accounts of the Mission of 1904, I am also indebted, as well as to Mr. White, Captain Bailey and Messrs. Johnston and Hoffman for photographs.

I lastly desire to acknowledge the trouble which Mr. John Murray has so kindly taken in correcting the proofs.

September 7, 1910.

P.S.—Too late to make use of it, I have received the just published reprint from the T’sung Pao of Mr. Rockhill’s “The Dalai Lamas of Lhasa and their Relations to the Manchu Emperors of China.” The conclusion of this famous authority on Tibet, that the Tibetans have no desire for total independence of China, but that their complaints have always been directed against the manner in which the local Chinese officials have performed their duties, is particularly noteworthy.