The Chinese Minister, who called on me to-day, told me, in the course of conversation, that several of my colleagues had been making enquiries of him respecting a pretended text of Agreement between Russia and China in regard to Tibet, which had appeared in several continental as well as Russian newspapers. He said that he had first seen this apocryphal text in the Chinese newspapers, and that its very form and wording showed that it could not be of Chinese origin. He asked me if it could possibly have been credited as genuine by Sir Ernest Satow. I said that I did not think that Sir E. Satow attached much credit to it, and probably regarded it as a "ballon d'essai," started in non-official Russian quarters, but that the text had undoubtedly been circulated and had reached the Indian Government, and that the Chinese Government would no doubt easily be able to satisfy themselves that the Indian Government would certainly not be indifferent to any alteration in the present status and relations of a country so near to their frontiers as Tibet.
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