India and Tibet : vol.1 / 59 ページ（カラー画像）

0059	India and Tibet : vol.1
インドとチベット : vol.1

0059

India and Tibet : vol.1

インドとチベット : vol.1

CHAPTER III

MANNING'S VISIT TO LHASA

Now when statesmen were most lukewarm about Tibet

the inevitable English adventurer came to the front. And

it is a curious circumstance that it was just when our

relations with the Tibetans were at their coldest that

the only Englishman who ever reached Lhasa before the

Mission of 1904 achieved this success. He was not an

accredited agent of Government sent to bring into effect

a deliberate policy such as that conceived by Warren

Hastings. He was a private adventurer, and he went up

in spite of, and against the wishes of, the Government of

the time.

His name was Manning. At Cambridge he was the

friend of Charles Lamb, and was of such ability that he

was expected to be at least Second Wrangler, but he was

of an eccentric nature, and had a strong repugnance to

oaths," and left the University without a degree. He

conceived, however, a passionate desire to see the Chinese

Empire. He studied the Chinese language in France and

England, afterwards made his way to Canton, remained there

three years, and in 1810 procured a letter of introduction

from the Select Committee of Canton to Lord Minto, then

Governor-General of India, asking him to give him every

practicable assistance in the prosecution of his plans. But

he received little or no aid from the Government, and was

left to his own resources, without official recognition of

any description.

Manning, attended by a Chinese servant, proceeded to

Tibet through Bhutan, and on October 21, 1811, arrived

at Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley. His descrip-

tion of the Jong then precisely corresponds with our own

33 3

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