India and Tibet : vol.1 / Page 247 (Color Image)

0247	India and Tibet : vol.1

FETTERING RESULT OF PLEDGES 203

forwards between Lhasa and St. Petersburg, and served

therefore all the purposes required of those religious rela-

tions which it was very natural should subsist between the

Dalai Lama and Russian Buddhists, it does seem hard

that the Government of India, now at the climax of all

their efforts, should have been tied down through defer-

ence to the distant Power.

It is a remarkable coincidence, in this connection, that

while the Russians were making protests and representa-

tions upon a move of ours which was not within a thousand

miles of their frontier, the Chinese Vice-Minister, when

Sir Ernest Satow informed him* that we intended to

advance to Lhasa, received the news with perfect equa-

nimity, raised no objection, and remarked that the Dalai

Lama was ignorant and pigheaded.

I reached Chumbi on June 10, and spent the next few

days in discussing details of the advance with General

Macdonald. The change from the monotony of the

investment at Gyantse and from the barrenness and high

altitude of Tibet was refreshing in the extreme. I met

old friends again : Colonel J. M. Stewart, who had years

before relieved me when I had been arrested by the

Russians on the Pamirs ; Major Beynon, who had been

Colonel Kelly's Staff Officer in the Relief of Chitral ; and

my brother-in-law, Vernon Magniac, who was to accompany

me now as private secretary, and whose companionship

was the greatest relief in the midst of a host of the usual

official worries. The drop from 13,000 feet at Gyantse to

9,000 feet in Chumbi, and the change from constant risk

to absolute security, all eased the tension on me ; and the

joy of being once more amidst luxuriant vegetation, with

gorgeous rhododendrons, dense pine forests, roses, primulas,

and all the wealth of Alpine flowery beauty, was a soften-

ing and welcome relaxation.

At Phari, on my way to Chumbi, I had met the

Tongsa Penlop, now the Maharaja of Bhutan, who had

recently come to interview General Macdonald and myself.

* Blue-book, III., p. 19.

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