APPENDIX J
Pages 118 and 119 of "Papers Relating to Tibet, 1904."
Letter from the Government of India, in the Foreign Department, to the Right Honourable Lord George F. Hamilton, His Majesty's Secretary of State for India, dated Simla, the 25th July, 1901. (Received the 12M August, 1901.)
(Extract)
In despatch dated the 8th December, 1899, Your Lordship approved of the measures which we had adopted with the object of establishing direct communication with the Tibetans. We have now the honour to forward correspondence which shows the further action taken in the matter. When our despatch dated the 26th October, 1899, was written, we were awaiting the return of Ugyen Kazi, the Bhutan Vakil, from Tibet and the outcome of a letter which he had undertaken to deliver to the Dalai Lama. That letter having met with an unfavourable response, we decided to defer making any further attempt to obtain access to the Dalai Lama by the Sikkim route, and to seek some new channel of communication. Enquiries were accordingly instituted as to the possibility of despatching a suitable emissary to the Tibetan capital either through Yunnan, or through Nepal, or by way of Ladakh. Our resident in Nepal, who was verbally consulted, advised against any attempt being made to reach Lhasa via Nepal, except with the knowledge and consent of the Nepalese Darbar, to whom we were not prepared to refer. The agent whom we suggested to the Government of Burma as a possible emissary for the mission through Yunnan was reported to be unsuitable. The proposal to communicate through Ladakh, however, seemed to offer some prospect
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