202 Tibet and Turkestan
freely admitted to Tibet at that time. Nothing could have been pleasanter than the reception given to Turner by the regent who acted for the Teshoo lama, a babe of eighteen months, successor to him who had begun the correspondence with Hastings, and who had warmly received Bogle. One who writes of Tibet now is tempted to make large borrowings from the cheerful text which Turner gives us. His business did not call him to Lhasa, and it is stated, moreover, that the Chinese, even then, interposed some objection to his progress thither. Whatever may have been the causes, neither he nor Bogle reached the sacred city. The Teshoo lama has his seat to the westward of the capital, and here Turner saw much and intimately of Tibetan life, which he described with critical but sympathetic observation. It will be but the beginning of justice to quote from this Englishman, for comparison with present-day representations, the following words : "The Tibetans are a very humane, kind people," and again : " Humanity and an unartificial gentleness of disposition are the constant inheritance of a Tibetan."
The Nepal war ended, there followed years of peace for Central and Eastern Tibet. But another attack from India had to be repelled in 1846, and again the enemy was an ally of the British. There is no evidence that the attack of the Goorkhas in 1791 was incited by the English, for the Goorkhas were then bound to Calcutta only through a commercial treaty. Nor can it be said that the attack of the Jammu-Kashmir army upon Ladak and sub-
I Even the semi-official Times correspondent with the recent expedition finds a good word for the peasants. See Appendix P.
IIIFカラー高解像度
