IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| India and Tibet : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
VISIT 'l'O TIBETAN CAMP 163
I was heartily tired of this fencing about at a dis-
tance ; I wanted to get in under their reserve. And I
thought that if we could meet and could tell them in an
uncontentious and unceremonious manner what all the
pother was about, we might at any rate get a start—get
what the Americans call a move on." It was worth
while, it seemed to me, to make a supreme effort to get
this intrinsically small matter settled by peaceful means,
even if a very considerable risk was incurred in the
process ; and I wished particularly to see them, and to
judge of them, in their own natural surroundings. I was
constantly being called upon by Government to give my
opinion upon the probable action of the Tibetans, but so
far I had only seen them in our own camps, arid they had
steadily refused to admit me into theirs. I therefore
determined on the following morning, without any for-
mality, without any previous announcement, and without
any escort, to ride over to their camp, about ten miles
distant, at Guru, and talk over the general situation—
not as British Commissioner, with a list of grievances for
which he had to demand redress, but as one who wished
to understand them, and by friendly means to effect
a settlement. I was only too well aware that such an
attempt was likely to be taken by the Tibetans as a sign
of weakness ; still, when I saw these people so steeped in
ignorance of what opposing the might of the British
Empire really meant, I felt it my duty to reason with
them up to the latest moment, to save them from the
results of their ignorance.
Captain O'Connor and Captain Sawyer, of the 23rd
Pioneers, who was learning Tibetan, accompanied me, but
we did not take with us even a single sepoy as escort.
On our way we were met by messengers, who had come
to say that the Tibetan chiefs would not come to see me
at Tuna, and I was all the more pleased that I had left
Tuna before the message arrived.
On reaching Guru, a small village under a hill, we
found numbers of Tibetan soldiers out collecting yak-
dung in the surrounding plain ; but there was no military
precaution whatever .taken, and we rode straight intà the
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