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
236 THE ADVANCE TO LHASA
itself in communication with us. The fear of our going
to Lhasa might have more effect than our actual presence
in the place. The mere dread of our advance might make
them agree to our terms, while if we actually advanced to
their sacred city we might find that the most determined
defence had been reserved for the capital ; and that we
had put our heads into a hornets' nest, and irritated 20,000
monks into buzzing about our ears. This was an eventu-
ality on which I had to count, and of which I had been
warned by speeches by responsible men in England which
did little to encourage me in my task. An ex-Prime
Minister, Lord Rosebery, had said in February in the
House of Lords that this Mission bore in its circum-
stances so melancholy a resemblance to that first war in
Afghanistan, which we conducted under the late Lord
Lytton, that it must give all those whose minds and
memories recurred to the past serious grounds of mis-
givings when they saw once more His Majesty's Govern-
ment proceeding in the same direction to an end which
they could not see themselves." A future Prime Minister,
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in pressing for the recall
of the Mission, had said in the House of Commons in
April that we had had experience before, and the associa-
tions connected with the name of Cavagnari did not seem
to invite us to undertake a similar policy again."
If we pressed on to Lhasa, into this swarm of fanati-
cally hostile monks, we might all share the fate of
Cavagnari, while if we simply held up the threat of
advancing we might get the treaty through. It was an
alternative which I had to consider ; but I felt fairly sure by
now that I had rightly taken the measure of the 'Tibetans,
so I sent a verbal intimation by the messenger that 1
would be glad to receive the delegates, but that I could
not consent to defer my advance to Lhasa. And, in reply
to the letter of the National Assembly, 1 wrote to the
Dalai Lama that more than a year ago I had arrived at
Khamba Jong, which he had approved as a meeting-place
for the negotiations, but that the appointed delegates
refused to negotiate. I had advanced to Gyantse, but
still no negotiators had arrived, and instead, I was
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