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0320 Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1
Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 / Page 320 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000231
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208   Tibet and Turkestan

customary when the lion is negotiating with the lamb. The agent claimed duress and the treaty was disallowed by the Governor-General, who then resorted to the more familiar and convincing arguments applicable to such cases.

An army was sent in, and of course modern rifles always enforce justice against matchlocks. Bhutan was taught that an envoy could be overridden in Calcutta and that the "prestige" of Great Britain demands that the arguments of its representatives shall always prevail. I think the doctrine true. It often applied to dealings between the United States and various Indian tribes, but the prestige in question is one for power—not always for justice, as understood between individuals. It cannot be supposed that the lesson of such an incident would be lost upon the Tibetans, whose relations with the Nepalese, Sikkimites, and Bhutanese have immemorially been closer than with any other peoples save the Chinese.

Followed next (1865 et seq.) many internal troubles, rising to the dignity of revolution. This serious disturbance throve while China was herself rent by the Taiping rebellion, which, in turn, was itself caused (in large part) by popular wrath against a dynasty that had failed to repel the aggressive European. It was about this time that the Abbé Desgodins-, French missionary, was forced to abandon an attempt to maintain mission work in Tibet. He has left a most uncharitable series of letters to immortalise his disappointment. He denies the pleasant description of the Tibetans given by Huc, who calls them "frank and loyal," and is hard pressed to find