The conduct of Great Britain in her relations with Tibet puts
me in mind of the dilemma of a big boy at school who submits to the
attacks of a precocious youngster rather than incur the imputation
of 'bully.' At last the situation becomes intolerable, and the big
boy, bully if you will, turns on the youth and administers the
deserved thrashing. There is naturally a good deal of remonstrance
from spectators who have not observed the byplay which led to the
encounter. But sympathy must be sacrificed to the restitution of
fitting and respectful relations.The aim of this record of an individual's impressions of the
recent Tibetan expedition is to convey some idea of the life we led
in Tibet, the scenes through which we passed, and the strange
people we fought and conquered. We killed several thousand of these
brave, ill-armed men; and as the story of the fighting is not
always pleasant reading, I think it right before describing the
punitive side of the expedition to make it quite clear that
military operations were unavoidable—that we were drawn into the
vortex of war against our will by the folly and obstinacy of the
Tibetans.The briefest review of the rebuffs Great Britain has
submitted to during the last twenty years will suffice to show
that, so far from being to blame in adopting punitive measures, she
is open to the charge of unpardonable weakness in allowing affairs
to reach the crisis which made such punishment
necessary.It must be remembered that Tibet has not always been closed
to strangers. The history of European travellers in Lhasa forms a
literature to itself. Until the end of the eighteenth century only
physical obstacles stood in the way of an entry to the capital.
Jesuits and Capuchins reached Lhasa, made long stays there, and
were even encouraged by the Tibetan Government. The first[1]Europeans to visit the city and leave an authentic record of
their journey were the Fathers Grueber and d'Orville, who
penetrated Tibet from China in 1661 by the Sining route, and stayed
in Lhasa two months. In 1715 the Jesuits Desideri and Freyre
reached Lhasa; Desideri stayed there thirteen years. In 1719
arrived Horace de la Penna and the Capuchin Mission, who built a
chapel and a hospice, made several converts, and were not finally
expelled till 1740.[2]The Dutchman Van der Putte, first layman to penetrate to the
capital, arrived in 1720, and stayed there some years. After this
we have no record of a European reaching Lhasa until the
adventurous journey in 1811 of Thomas Manning, the first and only
Englishman to reach the city before this year. Manning arrived in
the retinue of a Chinese General whom he had met at Phari Jong, and
whose gratitude he had won for medical services. He remained in the
capital four months, and during his stay he made the acquaintance
of several Chinese and Tibetan officials, and was even presented to
the Dalai Lama himself. The influence of his patron, however, was
not strong enough to insure his safety in the city. He was warned
that his life was endangered, and returned to India by the same way
he came. In 1846 the Lazarist missionaries Huc and Gabet reached
Lhasa in the disguise of Lamas after eighteen months' wanderings
through China and Mongolia, during which they must have suffered as
much from privations and hardships as any travellers who have
survived to tell the tale. They were received kindly by the Amban
and Regent, but permission to stay was firmly refused them on the
grounds that they were there to subvert the religion of the State.
Despite the attempts of several determined travellers, none of whom
got within a hundred miles of Lhasa, the Lazarist fathers were the
last Europeans to set foot in the city until Colonel Younghusband
rode through the Pargo Kaling gate on August 4, 1904.The records of these travellers to Lhasa, and of others who
visited different parts of Tibet before the end of the eighteenth
century, do not point to any serious political obstacles to the
admission of strangers. Two centuries ago, Europeans might travel
in remote parts of Asia with greater safety than is possible
to-day. Suspicions have naturally increased with our encroachments,
and the white man now inspires fear where he used only to awake
interest.[3]The policy of strict exclusion in Tibet seems to have been
synchronous with Chinese ascendancy. At the end of the eighteenth
century the Nepalese invaded and overran the country. The Lamas
turned to China for help, and a force of 70,000 men was sent to
their assistance. The Chinese drove the Gurkhas over their
frontier, and practically annihilated their army within a day's
march of Khatmandu. From this date China has virtually or nominally
ruled in Lhasa, and an important result of her intervention has
been to sow distrust of the British. She represented that we had
instigated the Nepalese invasion, and warned the Lamas that the
only way to obviate our designs on Tibet was to avoid all
communication with India, and keep the passes strictly closed to
foreigners.Shortly before the Nepalese War, Warren Hastings had sent the
two missions of Bogle and Turner to Shigatze. Bogle was cordially
received by the Grand Teshu Lama, and an intimate friendship was
established between the two men. On his return to India he reported
that the only bar to a complete understanding with Tibet was the
obstinacy of the Regent and the Chinese agents at Lhasa, who were
inspired by Peking. An attempt was arranged to influence the
Chinese Government in the matter, but both Bogle and the Teshu Lama
died before it could be carried out. Ten years later Turner was
despatched to Tibet, and received the same welcome as his
predecessor. Everything pointed to the continuance of a steady and
consistent policy by which the barrier of obstruction might have
been broken down. But Warren Hastings was recalled in 1785, and
Lord Cornwallis, the next Governor-General, took no steps to
approach and conciliate the Tibetans. It was in 1792 that the
Tibetan-Nepalese War broke out, which, owing to the
misrepresentations of China, precluded any possibility of an
understanding between India and Tibet. Such was the uncompromising
spirit of the Lamas that, until Lord Dufferin sanctioned the
commercial mission of Mr. Colman Macaulay in 1886, no succeeding
Viceroy after Warren Hastings thought it worth while to renew the
attempt to enter into friendly relations with the
country.
Headquarters of the Mission at Lhasa.
The Macaulay Mission incident was the beginning of that
weak and abortive policy which lost us the respect of the Tibetans,
and led to the succession of affronts and indignities which made
the recent expedition to Lhasa inevitable. The escort had already
advanced into Sikkim, and Mr. Macaulay was about to join it, when
orders were received from Government for its return. The withdrawal
was a concession to the Chinese, with whom we were then engaged in
the delimitation of the Burmese frontier. This display of weakness
incited the Tibetans to such a pitch of vanity and insolence that
they invaded our territory and established a military post at
Lingtu, only seventy miles from Darjeeling.We allowed the invaders to remain in the protected State of
Sikkim two years before we made any reprisal. In 1888, after
several vain appeals to China to use her influence to withdraw the
Tibetan troops, we reluctantly decided on a military expedition.
The Tibetans were driven from their position, defeated in three
separate engagements, and pursued over the frontier as far as
Chumbi. We ought to have concluded a treaty with them on the spot,
when we were in a position to enforce it, but we were afraid of
offending the susceptibilities of China, whose suzerainty over
Tibet we still recognised, though she had acknowledged her
inability to restrain the Tibetans from invading our territory. At
the conclusion of the campaign, in which the Tibetans showed no
military instincts whatever, we returned to our post at Gnatong, on
the Sikkim frontier.After two years of fruitless discussion, a convention was
drawn up between Great Britain and China, by which Great Britain's
exclusive control over the internal administration and foreign
relations of Sikkim was recognised, the Sikkim-Tibet boundary was
defined, and both Powers undertook to prevent acts of aggression
from their respective sides of the frontier. The questions of
pasturage, trade facilities, and the method in which official
communications should be conducted between the Government of India
and the authorities at Lhasa were deferred for future discussion.
Nearly three more years passed before the trade regulations were
drawn up in Darjeeling—in December, 1903. The negociations were
characterized by the same shuffling and equivocation on the part of
the Chinese, and the same weak-kneed policy of forbearance and
conciliation on the part of the British. Treaty and regulations
were alike impotent, and our concessions went so far that we
exacted nothing as the fruit of our victory over the Tibetans—not
even a fraction of the cost of the campaign.Our ignorance of the Tibetans, their Government, and their
relations with China was at this time so profound that we took our
cue from the Chinese, who always referred to the Lhasa authorities
as 'the barbarians.' The Shata Shapé, the most influential of the
four members of Council, attended the negociations on behalf of the
Tibetans. He was officially ignored, and no one thought of asking
him to attach his signature to the treaty. The omission was a
blunder of far-reaching consequences. Had we realized that Chinese
authority was practically non-existent in Lhasa, and that the
temporal affairs of Tibet were mainly directed by the four Shapés
and the Tsong-du (the very existence of which, by the way, was
unknown to us), we might have secured a diplomatic agent in the
Shata Shapé who would have proved invaluable to us in our future
relations with the country. Unfortunately, during his stay in
Darjeeling the Shapé's feelings were lacerated by ill-treatment as
well as neglect. In an unfortunate encounter with British youth,
which was said to have arisen from his jostling an English lady off
the path, he was taken by the scruff of the neck and ducked in the
public fountain. So he returned to Tibet with no love for the
English, and after certain courteous overtures from the agents of
'another Power,' became a confirmed, though more or less
accidental, Russophile. Though deposed,[4]he has at the present moment a large following among the
monks of the Gaden monastery.In the regulations of 1893 it was stipulated that a trade
mart should be established at Yatung, a small hamlet six miles
beyond our frontier. The place is obviously unsuitable, situated as
it is in a narrow pine-clad ravine, where one can throw a stone
from cliff to cliff across the valley. No traders have ever
resorted there, and the Tibetans have studiously boycotted the
place. To show their contempt for the treaty, and their
determination to ignore it, they built a wall a quarter of a mile
beyond the Customs House, through which no Tibetan or British
subject was allowed to pass, and, to nullify the object of the
mart, a tax of 10 per cent. on Indian goods was levied at Phari.
Every attempt was made by Sheng Tai, the late Amban, to induce the
Tibetans to substitute Phari for Yatung as a trade mart. But, as an
official report admits, 'it was found impossible to overcome their
reluctance. Yatung was eventually accepted both by the Chinese and
British Governments as the only alternative to breaking off the
negociations altogether.' This confession of weakness appears to me
abject enough to quote as typical of our attitude throughout. In
deference to Tibetan wishes, we allowed nearly every clause of the
treaty to be separately stultified.The Tibetans, as might be expected, met our forbearance by
further rebuffs. Not content with evading their treaty obligations
in respect to trade, they proceeded to overthrow our boundary
pillars, violate grazing rights, and erect guard-houses at Giagong,
in Sikkim territory. When called to question they repudiated the
treaty, and said that it had never been shown them by the Amban. It
had not been sealed or confirmed by any Tibetan representative, and
they had no intention of observing it.Once more the 'solemn farce' was enacted of an appeal to
China to use her influence with the Lhasa authorities. And it was
only after repeated representations had been made by the Indian
Government to the Secretary of State that the Home Government
realized the seriousness of the situation, and the hopelessness of
making any progress through the agency of China. 'We seem,' said
Lord Curzon, 'in respect to our policy in Tibet, to be moving in a
vicious circle. If we apply to Tibet we either receive no reply or
are referred to the Chinese Resident; if we apply to the latter, he
excuses his failure by his inability to put any pressure upon
Tibet.' In the famous despatch of January 8, 1903, the Viceroy
described the Chinese suzerainty as 'a political fiction,' only
maintained because of its convenience to both parties. China no
doubt is capable of sending sufficient troops to Lhasa to coerce
the Tibetans. But it has suited her book to maintain the present
elusive and anomalous relations with Tibet, which are a securer
buttress to her western dependencies against encroachment than the
strongest army corps. For many years we have been the butt of the
Tibetans, and China their stalking-horse.The Tibetan attitude was clearly expressed by the Shigatze
officials at Khamba Jong in September last year, when they openly
boasted that 'where Chinese policy was in accordance with their own
views they were ready enough to accept the Amban's advice; but if
this advice ran counter in any respect to their national
prejudices, the Chinese Emperor himself would be powerless to
influence them.' China has on several occasions confessed her
inability to coerce the Tibetans. She has proved herself unable to
enforce the observance of treaties or even to restrain her subjects
from invading our territory, and during the recent attempts at
negociations she had to admit that her representative in Lhasa was
officially ignored, and not even allowed transport to travel in the
country. In the face of these facts her exceedingly shadowy
suzerainty may be said to have entirely evaporated, and it is
unreasonable to expect us to continue our relations with Tibet
through the medium of Peking.
Chorten.
Panorama of a Convent.
It was not until nine years after the signing of the
convention that we made any attempt to open direct communications
with the Tibetans themselves. It is astonishing that we allowed
ourselves to be hoodwinked so long. But this policy of drift and
waiting is characteristic of our foreign relations all over the
world. British Cabinets seem to believe that cure is better than
prevention, and when faced by a dilemma have seldom been known to
act on the initiative, or take any decided course until the very
existence of their dependency is imperilled.In 1901 Lord Curzon was permitted to send a despatch to the
Dalai Lama in which it was pointed out that his Government had
consistently defied and ignored treaty rights; and in view of the
continued occupation of British territory, the destruction of
frontier pillars, and the restrictions imposed on Indian trade, we
should be compelled to resort to more practical measures to enforce
the observance of the treaty, should he remain obstinate in his
refusal to enter into friendly relations. The letter was returned
unopened, with the verbal excuse that the Chinese did not permit
him to receive communications from any foreign Power. Yet so great
was our reluctance to resort to military coercion that we might
even at this point have let things drift, and submitted to the
rebuffs of these impossible Tibetans, had not the Dalai Lama chosen
this moment for publicly flaunting his relations with
Russia.The second[5]Tibetan Mission reached St. Petersburg in June, 1901,
carrying autograph letters and presents to the Czar from the Dalai
Lama. Count Lamsdorff declared that the mission had no political
significance whatever. We were asked to believe that these Lamas
travelled many thousand miles to convey a letter that expressed the
hope that the Russian Foreign Minister was in good health and
prosperous, and informed him that the Dalai Lama was happy to be
able to say that he himself enjoyed excellent health.It is possible that the mission to St. Petersburg was of a
purely religious character, and that there was no secret
understanding at the time between the Lhasa authorities and Russia.
Yet the fact that the mission was despatched in direct
contradiction to the national policy of isolation that had been
respected for over a century, and at a time when the Tibetans were
aware of impending British activity to exact fulfilment of the
treaty obligations so long ignored by them, points to some secret
influence working in Lhasa in favour of Russia, and opposed to
British interests. The process of Russification that has been
carried on with such marked success in Persia and Turkestan, Merv
and Bokhara, was being applied in Tibet. It has long been known to
our Intelligence Department that certain Buriat Lamas, subjects of
the Czar, and educated in Russia, have been acting as
intermediaries between Lhasa and St. Petersburg. The chief of
these, one Dorjieff, headed the so-called religious mission of
1901, and has been employed more than once as the Dalai Lama's
ambassador to St. Petersburg. Dorjieff is a man of fifty-eight, who
has spent some twenty years of his life in Lhasa, and is known to
be the right-hand adviser of the Dalai Lama. No doubt Dorjieff
played on the fears of the Buddhist Pope until he really believed
that Tibet was in danger of an invasion from India, in which
eventuality the Czar, the great Pan-Buddhist Protector, would
descend on the British and drive them back over the frontier. The
Lamas of Tibet imagine that Russia is a Buddhist country, and this
belief has been fostered by adventurers like Dorjieff, Tsibikoff,
and others, who have inspired dreams of a consolidated Buddhist
church under the spiritual control of the Dalai Lama and the
military ægis of the Czar of All the Russias.These dreams, full of political menace to ourselves, have, I
think, been dispelled by Lord Curzon's timely expedition to Lhasa.
The presence of the British in the capital and the helplessness of
Russia to lend any aid in such a crisis are facts convincing enough
to stultify the effects of Russian intrigue in Buddhist Central
Asia during the last half-century.The fact that the first Dalai Lama who has been allowed to
reach maturity has plunged his country into war by intrigue with a
foreign Power proves the astuteness of the cold-blooded policy of
removing the infant Pope, and the investiture of power in the hands
of a Regent inspired by Peking. It is believed that the present
Dalai Lama was permitted to come of age in order to throw off the
Chinese yoke. This aim has been secured, but it has involved other
issues that the Lamas could not foresee.And here it must be observed that the Dalai Lama's
inclination towards Russia does not represent any considerable
national movement. The desire for a rapprochement was largely a
matter of personal ambition inspired by that arch-intriguer
Dorjieff, whose ascendancy over the Dalai Lama was proved beyond a
doubt when the latter joined him in his flight to Mongolia on
hearing the news of the British advance on Lhasa. Dorjieff had a
certain amount of popularity with the priest population of the
capital, and the monks of the three great monasteries, amongst whom
he is known to have distributed largess royally. But the
traditional policy of isolation is so inveterately ingrained in the
Tibetan character that it is doubtful if he could have organized a
popular party of any strength.It may be asked, then, What is, or was, the nature of the
Russian menace in Tibet? It is true that a Russian invasion on the
North-East frontier is out of the question. For to reach the Indian
passes the Russians would have to traverse nearly 1,500 miles of
almost uninhabited country, presenting difficulties as great as any
we had to contend with during the recent campaign. But the
establishment of Russian influence in Lhasa might mean military
danger of another kind. It would be easy for her to stir up the
Tibetans, spread disaffection among the Bhutanese, send secret
agents into Nepal, and generally undermine our prestige. Her aim
would be to create a diversion on the Tibet frontier at any time
she might have designs on the North-West. The pioneers of the
movement had begun their work. They were men of the usual
type—astute, insidious, to be disavowed in case of premature
discovery, or publicly flaunted when they had prepared any ground
on which to stand.Our countermove—the Tibet Expedition—must have been a
crushing and unexpected blow to Russia. For the first time in
modern history Great Britain had taken a decisive, almost
high-handed, step to obviate a danger that was far from imminent.
We had all the best cards in our hands. Russia's designs in Lhasa
became obvious at a time when we could point to open defiance on
the part of the Tibetans, and provocation such as would have goaded
any other European nation to a punitive expedition years before. We
could go to Lhasa, apparently without a thought of Russia, and yet
undo all the effects of her scheming there, and deal her prestige a
blow that would be felt throughout the whole of Central Asia. Such
was Lord Curzon's policy. It was adopted in a half-hearted way by
the Home Government, and eventually forced on them by the conduct
of the Tibetans themselves. Needless to say, the discovery of
Russian designs was the real and prime cause of the despatch of the
mission, while Tibet's violation of treaty rights and refusal to
enter into any relations with us were convenient as ostensible
motives. It cannot be denied that these grievances were valid
enough to justify the strongest measures.In June, 1903, came the announcement of Colonel
Younghusband's mission to Khamba Jong. I do not think that the
Indian Government ever expected that the Tibetans would come to any
agreement with us at Khamba Jong. It is to their credit that they
waited patiently several months in order to give them every chance
of settling things amicably. However, as might have been expected,
the Commission was boycotted. Irresponsible delegates of inferior
rank were sent by the Tibetans and Chinese, and the Lhasa
delegates, after some fruitless parleyings, shut themselves up in
the fort, and declined all intercourse, official or social, with
the Commissioners.[6]At the end of August news came that the Tibetans were arming.
Colonel Younghusband learnt that they had made up their minds to
have no negociations with usinsideTibet. They had decided to leave us alone at Khamba Jong, and
to oppose us by force if we attempted to advance further. They
believed themselves fully equal to the English, and far from our
getting anything out of them, they thought that they would be able
to force something out of us. This is not surprising when we
consider the spirit of concession in which we had met them on
previous occasions.At Khamba Jong the Commissioners were informed by Colonel
Chao, the Chinese delegate, that the Tibetans were relying on
Russian assistance. This was confirmed later at Guru by the Tibetan
officials, who boasted that if they were defeated they would fall
back on another Power.In September the Tibetans aggravated the situation by seizing
and beating at Shigatze two British subjects of the Lachung Valley
in Sikkim. These men were not restored to liberty until we had
forced our way to Lhasa and demanded their liberation, twelve
months afterwards.The mission remained in its ignominious position at Khamba
Jong until its recall in November. Almost at the same time the
expedition to Gyantse was announced.[7]In the face of the gross and deliberate affront to which we
had been subjected at Khamba Jong it was now, of course, impossible
to withdraw from Tibetan territory until we had impressed on the
Lamas the necessity of meeting us in a reasonable spirit. It was
clear that the Tibetans meant fighting, and the escort had to be
increased to 2,500 men. The patience of Government was at last
exhausted, and it was decided that the mission was to proceed into
Tibet, dictate terms to the Lamas, and, if necessary, enforce
compliance. The advance to Gyantse was sanctioned in the first
place. But it was quite expected that the obstinacy of the Tibetans
would make it necessary to push on to Lhasa.Colonel Younghusband crossed the Jelap la into Tibet on
December 13, meeting with no opposition. Phari Jong was reached on
the 20th, and the fort surrendered without a shot being fired.
Thence the mission proceeded on January 7 across the Tang Pass, and
took up its quarters on the cold, wind-swept plateau of Tuna, at an
elevation of 15,300 feet. Here it remained for three months, while
preparations were being made for an advance in the spring. Four
companies of the 23rd Pioneers, a machine-gun section of the
Norfolk Regiment, and twenty Madras sappers, were left to garrison
the place, and General Macdonald, with the remainder of the force,
returned to Chumbi for winter quarters. Chumbi (10,060 feet) is
well within the wood belt, but even here the thermometer falls to
15° below zero.
Tuna Village.
A more miserable place to winter in than Tuna cannot be
imagined. But for political reasons, it was inadvisable that the
mission should spend the winter in the Chumbi Valley, which is not
geographically a part of Tibet proper. A retrograde movement from
Khamba Jong to Chumbi would be interpreted by the Tibetans as a
sign of yielding, and strengthen them in their opinion that we had
no serious intention of penetrating to Gyantse.With this brief account of the facts that led to the
expedition I abandon politics for the present, and in the
succeeding chapters will attempt to give a description of the
Chumbi Valley, which, I believe, was untrodden by any European
before Colonel Younghusband's arrival in December,
1903.I was in India when I received permission to join the force.
I took the train to Darjeeling without losing a day, and rode into
Chumbi in less than forty-eight hours, reaching the British camp on
January 10.
Chumbi,January13.
From Darjeeling to Lhasa is 380 miles. These, as in the
dominions of Namgay Doola's Raja, are mostly on end. The road
crosses the Tibetan frontier at the Jelap la (14,350 feet) eighty
miles to the north-east. From Observatory Hill in Darjeeling one
looks over the bleak hog-backed ranges of Sikkim to the snows. To
the north and north-west lie Kinchenjunga and the tremendous chain
of mountains that embraces Everest. To the north-east stretches a
lower line of dazzling rifts and spires, in which one can see a
thin gray wedge, like a slice in a Christmas cake. That is the
Jelap. Beyond it lies Tibet.
There is a good military road from Siliguri, the base station
in the plains to Rungpo, forty-eight miles along the Teesta Valley.
By following the river-bed it avoids the two steep ascents to
Kalimpong and Ari. The new route saves at least a day, and conveys
one to Rungli, nearly seventy miles from the base, without
compassing a single tedious incline. It has also the advantage of
being practicable for bullock-carts and ekkas as far as Rungpo.
After that the path is a 6-foot mule-track, at its best a rough,
dusty incline, at its worst a succession of broken rocks and frozen
puddles, which give no foothold to transport animals. From Rungpo
the road skirts the stream for sixteen miles to Rungli, along a
fertile valley of some 2,000 feet, through rice-fields and
orange-groves and peaceful villages, now the scene of military
bustle and preparation. From Rungli it follows a winding mountain
torrent, whose banks are sometimes sheer precipitous crags. Then it
strikes up the mountain side, and becomes a ladder of stone steps
over which no animal in the world can make more than a mile and a
half an hour. From the valley to Gnatong is a climb of some 10,000
feet without a break. The scenery is most magnificent, and I doubt
if it is possible to find anywhere in the same compass the
characteristics of the different zones of vegetation—from tropical
to temperate, from temperate to alpine—so beautifully
exhibited.
At ordinary seasons transport is easy, and one can take the
road in comfort; but now every mule and pony in Sikkim and the
Terai is employed on the lines of communication, and one has to pay
300 rupees for an animal of the most modest pretensions. It is
reckoned eight days from Darjeeling to Chumbi, but, riding all day
and most of the night, I completed the journey in two. Newspaper
correspondents are proverbially in a hurry. To send the first wire
from Chumbi I had to leave my kit behind, and ride with
poshteen[8]and sleeping-bag tied to my saddle. I was racing another
correspondent. At Rungpo I found that he was five hours ahead of
me, but he rested on the road, and I had gained three hours on him
before he left the next stage at Rora Thang. Here I learnt that he
intended to camp at Lingtam, twelve miles further on, in a tent
lent him by a transport officer. I made up my mind to wait outside
Lingtam until it was dark, and then to steal a march on him
unobserved. But I believed no one. Wayside reports were probably
intended to deceive me, and no doubt my informant was his
unconscious confederate.
Outside Rungli, six miles further on, I stopped at a little
Bhutia's hut, where he had been resting. They told me he had gone
on only half an hour before me. I loitered on the road, and passed
Lingtam in the dark. The moon did not rise till three, and riding
in the dark was exciting. At first the white dusty road showed
clearly enough a few yards ahead, but after passing Lingtam it
became a narrow path cut out of a thickly-wooded cliff above a
torrent, a wall of rock on one side, a precipice on the other. Here
the darkness was intense. A white stone a few yards ahead looked
like the branch of a tree overhead. A dim shapeless object to the
left might be a house, a rock, a bear—anything. Uphill and downhill
could only be distinguished by the angle of the saddle. Every now
and then a firefly lit up the white precipice an arm's-length to
the right. Once when my pony stopped panting with exhaustion I
struck a match and found that we had come to a sharp zigzag. Part
of the revetment had fallen; there was a yard of broken path
covered with fern and bracken, then a drop of some hundred feet to
the torrent below. After that I led my beast for a mile until we
came to a charcoal-burner's hut. Two or three Bhutias were sitting
round a log fire, and I persuaded one to go in front of me with a
lighted brand. So we came to Sedongchen, where I left my beast dead
beat, rested a few hours, bought a good mule, and pressed on in the
early morning by moonlight. The road to Gnatong lies through a
magnificent forest of oak and chestnut. For five miles it is
nothing but the ascent of stone steps I have described. Then the
rhododendron zone is reached, and one passes through a forest of
gnarled and twisted trunks, writhing and contorted as if they had
been thrust there for some penance. The place suggested a scene
from Dante's 'Inferno.' As I reached the saddle of Lingtu the moon
was paling, and the eastern sky-line became a faint violet screen.
In a few minutes Kinchenjunga and Kabru on the north-west caught
the first rays of the sun, and were suffused with the delicate rosy
glow of dawn.
I reached Gnatong in time to breakfast with the 8th Gurkhas.
The camp lies in a little cleft in the hills at an elevation of
12,200 feet. When I last visited the place I thought it one of the
most desolate spots I had seen. My first impressions were a
wilderness of gray stones and gray, uninhabited houses, felled
tree-trunks denuded of bark, white and spectral on the hillside.
There was no life, no children's voices or chattering women, no
bazaar apparently, no dogs barking, not even a pariah to greet you.
If there was a sound of life it was the bray of some discontented
mule searching for stray blades of grass among the stones. There
were some fifty houses nearly all smokeless and vacant. Some had
been barracks at the time of the last Sikkim War, and of the
soldiers who inhabited them fifteen still lay in Gnatong in a
little gray cemetery, which was the first indication of the
nearness of human life. The inscriptions over the graves were all
dated 1888, 1889, or 1890, and though but fourteen years had
passed, many of them were barely decipherable. The houses were
scattered about promiscuously, with no thought of neighbourliness
or convenience, as though the people were living there under
protest, which was very probably the case. But the place had its
picturesque feature. You might mistake some of the houses for
tumbledown Swiss châlets of the poorer sort were it not for the
miniature fir-trees planted on the roofs, with their burdens of
prayers hanging from the branches like parcels on a
Christmas-tree.
These were my impressions a year or two ago, but now Gnatong
is all life and bustle. In the bazaar a convoy of 300 mules was
being loaded. The place was crowded with Nepalese coolies and
Tibetan drivers, picturesque in their woollen knee-boots of red and
green patterns, with a white star at the foot, long russet cloaks
bound tightly at the waist and bulging out with cooking-utensils
and changes of dress, embroidered caps of every variety and
description, as often as not tied to the head by a wisp of hair. In
Rotten Row—the inscription of 1889 still remains—I met a subaltern
with a pair of skates. He showed me to the mess-room, where I
enjoyed a warm breakfast and a good deal of chaff about
correspondents who 'were in such a devil of a hurry to get to a
God-forsaken hole where there wasn't going to be the ghost of a
show.'
I left Gnatong early on a borrowed pony. A mile and a half
from the camp the road crosses the Tuko Pass, and one descends
again for another two miles to Kapup, a temporary transport stage.
The path lies to the west of the Bidang Tso, a beautiful lake with
a moraine at the north-west side. The mountains were strangely
silent, and the only sound of wild life was the whistling of the
red-billed choughs, the commonest of theCorvidæat these heights. They were
flying round and round the lake in an unsettled manner, whistling
querulously, as though in complaint at the intrusion of their
solitude.
I reached the Jelap soon after noon. No snow had fallen. The
approach was over broken rock and shale. At the summit was a row of
cairns, from which fluttered praying-flags and tattered bits of
votive raiment. Behind us and on both sides was a thin mist, but in
front my eyes explored a deep narrow valley bathed in sunshine.
Here, then, was Tibet, the forbidden, the mysterious. In the
distance all the land was that yellow and brick-dust colour I had
often seen in pictures and thought exaggerated and unreal. Far to
the north-east Chumulari (23,930 feet), with its magnificent white
spire rising from the roof-like mass behind, looked like an immense
cathedral of snow. Far below on a yellow hillside hung the Kanjut
Lamasery above Rinchengong. In the valley beneath lay Chumbi and
the road to Lhasa.
There is a descent of over 4,000 feet in six miles from the
summit of the Jelap. The valley is perfectly straight, without a
bend, so that one can look down from the pass upon the Kanjut
monastery on the hillside immediately above Yatung. The pass would
afford an impregnable military position to a people with the
rudiments of science and martial spirit. A few riflemen on the
cliffs that command it might annihilate a column with perfect
safety, and escape into Bhutan before any flanking movement could
be made. Yet miles of straggling convoy are allowed to pass daily
with the supplies that are necessary for the existence of the force
ahead. The road to Phari Jong passes through two military walls.
The first at Yatung, six miles below the pass, is a senseless
obstruction, and any able-bodied Tommy with hobnailed boots might
very easily kick it down. It has no block-houses, and would be
useless against a flank attack. Before our advance to Chumbi the
wall was inhabited by three Chinese officials, a dingpon, or
Tibetan sergeant, and twenty Tibetan soldiers. It served as a
barrier beyond which no British subject was allowed to pass. The
second wall lies across the valley at Gob-sorg, four miles beyond
our camp at Chumbi. It is roofed and loop-holed like the Yatung
barrier, and is defended by block-houses. This fortification and
every mile of valley between the Jelap and Gautsa might be held by
a single company against an invading force. Yet there are not half
a dozen Chinese or Tibetan soldiers in the valley. No opposition is
expected this side of the Tang la, but nondescript troops armed
with matchlocks and bows hover round the mission on the open
plateau beyond. Our evacuation of Khamba Jong and occupation of
Chumbi were so rapid and unexpected that it is thought the Tibetans
had no time to bring troops into the valley; but to anyone who
knows their strategical incompetence, no explanation is
necessary.
Yatung is reached by one of the worst sections of road on the
march; one comes across a dead transport mule at almost every
zigzag of the descent. For ten years the village has enjoyed the
distinction of being the only place in Southern Tibet accessible to
Europeans. Not that many Europeans avail themselves of its
accessibility, for it is a dreary enough place to live in, shrouded
as it is in cloud more than half the year round, and embedded in a
valley so deep and narrow that in winter-time the sun has hardly
risen above one cliff when it sinks behind another. The privilege
of access to Yatung was the result of the agreement between Great
Britain and China with regard to trade communications between India
and Tibet drawn up in Darjeeling in 1893, subsequently to the
Sikkim Convention. It was then stipulated that there should be a
trade mart at Yatung to which British subjects should have free
access, and that there should be special trade facilities between
Sikkim and Tibet. It is reported that the Chinese Amban took good
care that Great Britain should not benefit by these new
regulations, for after signing the agreement which was to give the
Indian tea-merchants a market in Tibet, he introduced new
regulations the other side of the frontier, which prohibited the
purchase of Indian tea. Whether the story is true or not, it is
certainly characteristic of the evasion and duplicity which have
brought about the present armed mission into Tibet.
Chinese General Ma.
On the Road to Gautsa.
To-day, as one rides through the cobbled street of Yatung,
the only visible effects of the Convention are the Chinese Customs
House with its single European officer, and the residence of a lady
missionary, or trader, as the exigencies of international diplomacy
oblige her to term herself. The Customs House, which was opened on
May 1, 1894, was first established with the object of estimating
the trade between India and Tibet—traffic is not permitted by any
other route than the Jelap—and with a view to taxation when the
trade should make it worth while. It was stipulated that no duties
should be levied for the period of five years. Up to the present no
tariff has been imposed, and the only apparent use the Customs
House serves is to collect statistics, and perhaps to remind Tibet
of the shadowy suzerainty of China. The natives have boycotted the
place, and refuse to trade there, and no European or native of
India has thought it worth while to open a market. Phari is the
real trade mart on the frontier, and Kalimpong, in British Bhutan,
is the foreign trade mart. But the whole trade between India and
Tibet is on such a small scale that it might be in the hands of a
single merchant.
The Customs House, the missionary house, and the houses of
the clerks and servants of the Customs and of the headman, form a
little block. Beyond it there is a quarter of a mile of barren
stony ground, and then the wall with military pretensions. I rode
through the gate unchallenged.
At Rinchengong, a mile beyond the barrier, the Yatung stream
flows into the Ammo Chu. The road follows the eastern bank of the
river, passing through Cheuma and Old Chumbi, where it crosses the
stream. After crossing the bridge, a mile of almost level ground
takes one into Chumbi camp. I reached Chumbi on the evening of
January 12, and was able to send theDaily
Mailthe first cable from Tibet, having completed
the journey from Darjeeling in two days' hard riding.
