222 Tibet and Turkestan
satisfaction of the ghoulish dogs whose bellies are the tombs of Tibetan dead.
It is harrowing. Yet after all, death is for all; the cutting off of even ten thousand shepherds at an average of say fifteen years before disease and age would claim them, is not a large sacrifice for humanity to make in keeping an empire's peace. But the sacrifice would not end with the death-rattle in ten thousand throats. There would be, yea, to-day there is, and for many morrows there will be, bitterness in a million hearts. That is evil; not measurable, but great. And there is, beyond all else, a wounding of ideals all the world over—unless it be very clear to the world that some greater evil has been forefended, or some great good established by the myriad rotting corpses, and that reasonable inquiry found no other protection from the evil, no other instrument for the good than in the killing of many innocent men. That, indeed, is the crux of the matter. Given the possibility of Russian desire to attack the British-Indian establishment, we must question then the amount of harm that might reach English interests if Tibet had been left in her isolation.
Two lines of effort would be considered by the Russians, if in any way Tibetan territory were to be used in the game. The first would be by military occupation, with the view of descending upon India from Tibet ; and the second would be by stirring up, through intrigue, the Tibetans, in coalition with the Nepalese or Bhutanese, to strive unaided against the British power. To accomplish the first, Russia must have forced or cajoled the Chinese
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