国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
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India and Tibet : vol.1 | |
インドとチベット : vol.1 |
12 BOGLE'S MISSION, 1774
the constituencies, overburdened with the great affairs
with which they have to deal, will, by the sheer force and
weight of circumstances, see the advantages of leaving
more to the men on the spot. They will probably insist
on agents being more carefully selected. They will require
them to keep in much closer personal contact with head-
quarters. They will expect, too, that politicians who
control should already be personally acquainted, or make
themselves personally acquainted, with the countries they
control. But with these conditions fulfilled they will, it
may be hoped, be able to leave more to the men on the
spot, removing them relentlessly if they act wrongly, but
while they are acting, leaving them to act in their own way.
Bogle, with these free instructions and this ample sup-
port, set out from Calcutta in the middle of May, 1774,
that is, less than two months from the date of the despatch
of the Tashi Lama's letter from Shigatse, so that Warren
Hastings, if he had left ample leisure to his agent to carry
out his purpose, had himself acted with the utmost
promptitude, even in so important a matter as sending a
mission to Lhasa with the possibility of establishing there
a permanent resident. Rapidity of communication has
not resulted in the rapidity of the transaction of public
affairs, and the consideration of despatching a mission
to Lhasa nowadays takes as many years as weeks were
occupied in the days of Warren Hastings.
During his passage through Bhutan, Bogle found
many obstacles placed in his way ; but he eventually left
the capital in the middle of October, and on the 23rd
of that month reached Phari, at the head of the Chumbi
Valley, up which we marched to Lhasa 130 years later.
Here he was received by two Lhasa officers, and farther
on, at Gyantse, where the Mission of 1904 was attacked
and besieged for nearly two months, he was entertained
by a priest, " an elderly man of polite and pleasant
manners," who sat with him most of the afternoon, and
drank above twenty cups of tea." Crowds of people
appear to have assembled to look at him, but beyond
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