Lhasa

“ Just before dusk there was generally a storm in the valley, which only occasionally reached the city; but the breeze stirred the poplars, and the silver under the leaves glistened brightly against the background of clouds. Often a rainbow hung over the Potala like a nimbus.
On the Lingkhor, or circular road, which winds round Lhasa, we saw pilgrims and devotees moving slowly along in prayer, always keeping the Potala on their right hand. The road is only used for devotion. One meets decrepit old women and men, halting and limping and slowly revolving their prayer-wheels and mumbling charms. ”

“ At Ari I am fifty miles from Darjeeling, on the road to Lhasa.
On June 21 I set my face to Lhasa for the second time. I took another route to Chumbi, viâ Kalimpong and Pedong in British Bhutan. The road is no further, but it compasses some arduous ascents. On the other hand it avoids the low, malarious valleys of Sikkim, where the path is constantly carried away by slips. There is less chance of a block, and one is above the cholera zone. ”

“ All the roads that lead down into Lhasa from the neighbouring mountains are full of monks hurrying to the capital, some on foot, some on horseback, some riding asses or lowing oxen, all carrying their prayer-books and culinary utensils. In such multitudes do they come that the streets and squares of the city are encumbered with their swarms, and incarnadined with their red cloaks. ”

“ All my future enterprises should have the object of making as thorough a scientific investigation of the Trans-Himalaya as could possibly be accomplished by one man in a single journey. Yes, this 291 task was so tremendous that my former longing for Lhasa died away like the red of even in the Tsangpo valley, this gigantic colonnade of granite, this royal highway of Buddha, which, breaking through the mountains and becoming hazy in the far east, leads direct to the mouth of the Lhasa valley, while we now glide along on its floor of liquid emerald to the holiest town of Lamaism. ”

“ On the road he met some of the muleteers of the Dongtse Dahpon Phala, who were proceeding to Lhasa with barley, butter, and meat for the use of Bangye-shag, Phala’s residence.
Ugyen inquired of them about the state of the road to Lhasa, and the best time to make the journey there. They told him that winter was the best season to travel to Lhasa, for then there was no rain, and one could easily ford the streams and get across the Tsang-po; moreover, feed was cheap, and meat, barley, and wine obtainable everywhere. ”

“ To-morrow, when we enter Lhasa, we will have unveiled the last mystery of the East. There are no more forbidden cities which men have not mapped and photographed. Our children will laugh at modern travellers' tales. ”

“ The meaning of the word Lhasa itself is indeed absolutely inappropriate; it signifies the ‘ground of deities,’ and therefore supposedly a place of purity. As Panden Aṭīsha remarked, a place in Tibet is really a city of devils, who subsist on vile substances. I have often heard of the filthy condition of the streets in Chinese cities, but I hardly believe they can be as filthy as the streets in Lhasa, where the people live in utter defiance of all rules of hygiene and even decency. ”

“ All the devotees are poor and ragged, and many blind. It seems that the people of Lhasa do not begin to think of the next incarnation until they have nothing left in this. [Pg 267]
When one leaves the broad avenues between the walls of the groves and pleasure-gardens, and enters the city, one's senses are offended by everything that is unsightly and unclean. Pigs and pariah dogs are nosing about in black oozy mud. The houses are solid but dirty. It is hard to believe that they are whitewashed every year. ”

“ Although so large a number of ponies and men is hardly necessary for the Envoy, who only brings presents of precious things of little bulk, the party avails itself of the privilege for the carriage of personal property and merchandise to and from Lhasa. As the mission passed by, we heard the people remark that all this splendour and ostentation was at the expense of the Government of Lhasa, and to the ruin of the poor people of Tibet. ”

“ But putting aside the question of vigilance, our prestige requires that there should be a British Resident in Lhasa. That we have left an officer [Pg 302] at Gyantse, and none at Lhasa, will be interpreted by the Tibetans as a sign of weakness.
Then, again, diplomatic relations with Tibet can only continue a farce while we are ignorant of the political situation in Lhasa. Influences in the capital grow and decay with remarkable rapidity. The Lamas are adepts in intrigue. ”

“ A thought occurs to me: shall we travel on to the mouth of the Ki-chu and thence go up to Lhasa on foot? We can travel by night, and hide ourselves during the day; and Tibetan is Rabsang’s mother-tongue. But it passes away as quickly as the eddies beside the boat. In Lhasa I could add nothing to the knowledge acquired by Younghusband’s expedition two years before; my hopes were fixed on the friendship of the Tashi Lama. ”

“ It must be the most hidden city on earth. The Chagpo Ri rises bluffly from the river-bank like a huge rock. Between it and the Potala hill there is a narrow gap not more than thirty yards wide. Over this is built the Pargo Kaling, a typical Tibetan chorten, through which is the main gateway into Lhasa. The city has no walls, but beyond the Potala, to complete the screen, stretches a great embankment of sand right across the valley to the hills on the north. ”

“ For more than eighty years we had now had an agent at Khatmandu, a capital the isolation of which from foreign intrusion had been guarded hardly less jealously than that of Lhasa itself, and that by a people whose prowess had been proved in our own armies. The hostilities which preceded the first appointment of a British Minister at Peking, under the treaty of 1860, were also far more serious than any opposition which had so far been encountered, or was likely to be met with, on the way to Lhasa. ”

“ The civilian population of Lhasa scarcely exceeds 10,000 persons, about two-thirds of them women, although the number may seem greater on account of the proximity of two large monasteries, the many transient visitors, and the gatherings of worshipers from lamaite countries. ”

“ The part of Tibet under the rule of Lhasa, by far the largest and wealthiest, includes the central province of Ü, Tsang, Nari and a number of large outlying districts in southern and even in eastern Tibet. The central government of this part of the country is at Lhasa; the nominal head is the Dalai lama or grand lama. The Tashi lama or head of the monastery of Tashilhunpo near Shigatse is inferior to the Dalai lama in secular authority, of which, indeed, he has little—much less than formerly—but he is considered by some of his worshippers actually superior to him in religious rank. ”

“ The delegates' attitude of non possumus was not assumed. Though these men were the highest officials in Tibet, they could not guarantee that any settlement they might make with us would be faithfully observed. There seemed no hope of a solution to the deadlock except by absolute militarism. If the Tibetans had fought so stubbornly at Gyantse, what fanaticism might we not expect at Lhasa! Most of us thought that we could only reach the capital through the most awful carnage. We pictured the 40,000 monks of Lhasa hurling themselves defiantly on our camp. ”

“ In the meanwhile, imagine the Pioneers and Gurkhas, too cold to wash or shave, shivering in a dirty Tibetan fort, half suffocated with smoke from a yak-dung fire. Then there is the transport officer shut up in some narrow valley of Sikkim, trying to make half a dozen out of three with his camp of sick beasts and sheaf of urgent telegrams calling for supplies. He hopes there will be 'a show,' and that he may be in it. Certainly if anyone deserves to go to Lhasa and get a medal for it, it is the supply and transport man. But he will be left behind. ”

“ LINGMATHANG,
February.
Before entering the bare, unsheltered plateau of Tibet, the road to Lhasa winds through seven miles of pine forest, which recalls some of the most beautiful valleys of Switzerland.
The wood-line ends abruptly. After that there is nothing but barrenness and desolation. The country round Chumbi is not very thickly forested. There are long strips of arable land on each side of the road, and villages every two or three miles. The fields are terraced and enclosed within stone walls. ”

“ Peking is eight or ten months’, and Silling (Hsi-ning) four months’ journey from Lhasa, yet the Tibetans carry on a brisk trade with these and other noted cities of China in tea, silk, wooden furniture, and other commodities. The Government of Lhasa sends every year two or more caravans to purchase goods for the State from the commercial centres on the borders of China. An escort of 500 soldiers accompanies each caravan, for it is not unusual for mounted bands of robbers, from 200 to 300 strong, to attack the caravans. ”

“ I had advanced to Gyantse, but still no negotiators had arrived, and instead, I was treacherously attacked at night. Now the Viceroy had ordered me to advance to Lhasa to negotiate there. Those orders I had to obey, but I had no desire to create disturbances in Lhasa or interfere with the religion of the country, and as soon as I had obtained his seal to the Convention I had been instructed to negotiate, I would retire from Lhasa. No religious places which were not occupied by Tibetan soldiers would be occupied by British soldiers ”

“ I said, with reference to the contention which had been made by the military authorities that it would be impossible to keep troops at Lhasa after the autumn, that in my opinion “an effort should be made to quarter troops at Lhasa for the winter, for if we retired to Chumbi in November, we risked the loss of all the results of our present efforts, and the Tibetans would be still more obstructive.” I computed that the Lhasa and Gyantse valleys would support 1,000 men each. ”

“ It is not very sensible of the Pontiff to get his meat from such a distant place, while he lives in the city of Lhasa; but he takes another view. Lhasa is too near to his palace for the slaughter of animals, and he does not want to have it thought that the animals are killed for him. He desires to get his meat without being responsible for giving the order to kill the animals. ”

“ As Lhasa is not only the nucleus of a cluster of vast monastic establishments, which attract students and aspirants to the religious life from all parts of Tibet and Mongolia, but is also a great place of pilgrimage, the streets and public places swarm with visitors from every part of the Himalayan plateau, [2] and from all the steppes of Asia between Manchuria and the Balkhash Lake. Naturally a great traffic arises quite apart from the pilgrimage. ”

“ At Nagartse we came across the great Yamdok or Palti Lake, along the shores of which winds the road to Lhasa. Nagartse Jong is a striking old keep, built on a bluff promontory of hill stretching out towards the blue waters of the lake. In the distance we saw the crag-perched monastery of Samding, where lives the mysterious Dorje Phagmo, the incarnation of the goddess Tara. ”

“ As the political and religious center of Tibet, its sanctuaries an attraction for numerous worshipers, Lhasa becomes an important business place, as well as the connecting link in the commerce between India and northern Tibet and China with the East.
The market place is located around the central or temple section, where all the ground floors of buildings and open spaces in the streets are occupied by stores and small exhibits of merchandise. Women are preeminently the sales people, although in the stores of the Kashmiris and Nepalese men do the selling. ”

“ We have left a trade agent at Gyantse with an escort of fifty men, as well as four or five companies at Chumbi and Phari Jong, at distances of 100 and 130 miles. But no vigilance at Gyantse can keep the Indian Government informed of Russian or Chinese intrigue in Lhasa. Lhasa is Tibet, and there alone can we watch the ever-shifting pantomime of Tibetan politics and the manœuvres of foreign Powers. If we are not to lose the ground we have gained, the foreign relations of Tibet must stand under British surveillance. ”

“ In this division of darkness and light the Potala stands out like a haven, not flaming now, but faintly luminous with a restful mystic light, soothing enough to rob Buddhist metaphysics of its pessimism and induce a mood, [Pg 261] even in unbelievers, in which one is content to merge the individual and become absorbed in the universal spirit of Nature.
No wonder that, when one looks for mystery in Lhasa, one's thoughts dwell solely on the Dalai Lama and the Potala. I cannot help dwelling on the flight of the thirteenth incarnation. It plunges us into medievalism. ”

“ We were ready to go on to Lhasa the next day. If they were really in earnest and had power to make a settlement, I was prepared to negotiate with them. If they were not empowered to make a settlement, we would advance to Lhasa forthwith. Had they proper credentials?
The Grand Secretary replied, on behalf of the Ta Lama, that we had come by force into the country, and occupied Chumbi and Phari, and though the Tibetan soldiers at Guru had strict orders not to fire on us, we had fired on them and had killed all the high officials. ”