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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India and Tibet : vol.1 | |
インドとチベット : vol.1 |
250 THE ADVANCE TO LHASA
city of Lhasa unless in attendance on an officer. The
Tsarong Sha-pé asked me to give them a written agree-
ment to this effect. I said I would, provided they would
give me a written agreement that traders from the city
would not be prevented from coming to sell things to the
soldiers in camp, as the Gyantse traders had done. The
Tsarong Sha-pé said that this would be impossible without
the consent of the National Assembly. I told him that I
could not in that case give them the written agreement,
and I rose at once and closed the Durbar.
The final effort to stop us had failed, and on August 3
we set out on our last march. The eventful day, to
which we had so long looked forward, had at length
arrived. We marched up a well-cultivated valley two
or three miles broad, bounded by steep snow-capped
mountains, and with a rapid river as wide as the
Thames at Windsor running through it. We passed
numbers of little hamlets and groves of poplars and
willows. And then we saw, rising steeply on a rocky
prominence in the midst of the valley, a fort-like domi-
nating structure, with gilded roofs, which we knew could
be none other than the Potala, the palace of the Dalai
Lama of Lhasa.
The goal of so many travellers' ambitions was actually
in sight ! The goal, to attain which we had endured and
risked so much, and for which the best efforts of so many
had been concentrated, had now been won. Every obstacle
which Nature and man combined could heap in our way
had been finally overcome, and the sacred city, hidden so
far and deep behind the Himalayan ramparts, and so
jealously guarded from strangers, was full before our
eyes.
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