well as European, has caused some thoughtless writers to question the good faith or acumen of Father Huc and earlier travellers who attest the friendliness of the Tibetans as contrasted with the rigidity of their Chinese advisers. The explanation is not far to seek. China, being more exposed, first felt the shock of European aggression. Since the time of Father Huc, the Tibetans have learned from happenings on their western and southern frontier something of the danger to native states which arises from the smallest opening left to the coming-in either of the European or of his subject native races. Bhutan, Sikkim, and Nepal, rough mountain states on Tibet's northern border, have been forced to admit British residents at their capitals. How far-extended might be the influence thus gained no one, except the principals, could at any time know. That their neighbours would have preferred complete independence was, of course, a fair presumption for the Tibetans. But whether the ruler of either, at any particular time, was or was not, through bribery or fear, ready to lend his power to the ever-growing British-Indian Empire, could only be surmised.
The Goorkhas, masters in Nepal, were not related to the Tibetans by blood or religion, and were thus the more readily suspected. When, in 1854, Tibet was again attacked by the Goorkha-Nepalese, who hoped for better luck than had been met in 1792, the Chinese and the Tibetans might well suppose that their neighbours were receiving aid and comfort from the "protecting" power, which particularly watches over the foreign relations of its charges,
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