IIIFカラー高解像度
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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| IIIFカラー高解像度 |
| India and Tibet : vol.1 | |
| インドとチベット : vol.1 |
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引用情報
ADVANCE TO GURU
175
sponsible negotiators would meet us. Anyhow, the time
for further parleying here was gone. The moment for
advance had arrived. I would give them a quarter of an
hour after their return to their lines within which to make
up their minds. After that interval General Macdonald
would advance, and if the Tibetans had not already left
their positions blocking our line of advance, he would
expel them by force.
All this was interpreted to them by Captain O'Connor
with his inimitable suavity and composure. But we might
just as well have spoken to a stone wall. Not the very
slightest effect was produced. After all, our numbers were
not very overwhelming. The Tibetans had charms against
our bullets, and the supernatural powers of the Great
Lama in the background. Whether they had any lurking
suspicions that perhaps, after all, these might not be
efficacious I know not. But, anyhow, all had to obey the
orders from Lhasa. Those orders were not to let us
proceed farther, so stop us they must, and that was all
they were concerned with. They had formed no plan of
what they should do if we did advance contrary to the
Great Lama's orders. But for that there was no need ;
the Laina would provide. Such were their ideas. It was,
of course, an impossible situation.
The Generals and their following returned to their
camp. The quarter of an hour of grace elapsed. And
now the great moment had arrived. But I wished still
to give them just one last chance, in the hope that at
the eleventh hour, and at the fifty-ninth minute of
the eleventh hour, they might change their minds. I
therefore asked General Macdonald to order his men not
to fire upon the Tibetans until the Tibetans first fired on
them. In making this request I well knew the responsi-
bility I was incurring. We were but a handful of men—
about 100 Englishmen and 1,200 Indians—in the face of
superior numbers of Tibetans, in the heart of their country,
15,000 feet above the sea, and separated from India by
two high passes ; and the advantage our troops possessed
from arms of precision and long-range fire I took from
them.
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