Tibet

“ All north of Tibet is a region of marvels. Where you were careful to leave only the village blacksmith under his spreading chestnut-tree, or the innkeeper and his wife, for the sake of future travelers, let a century or two pass, and their descendants would be as the sea-sands for multitude; they would have founded a power, and be thundering down on an empire-smashing raid in Persia or China or India: Whether Huns, Sienpi, Jiujen, Turks, Tatars, Tunguses, Mongols, Manchus: God knows what all, but all destroyers. ”

“ Not greater is the contrast between the grassy slopes and deodar-clothed mountains of Kashmir and the flaming aridity of Lesser Tibet, than between the tall, dark, handsome natives of the one, with their statuesque and shrinking women, and the ugly, short, squat, yellow- skinned, flat-nosed, oblique-eyed, uncouth-looking people of the other. ”

“ I find it extremely difficult to describe in an adequate manner the extreme desolation of the most barren parts of Tibet, where no luxuriant forest or bright green herbage softens the nakedness of the mountains, but everywhere the same precipices, heaps of rocks, and barren monotonous deserts meet the eye. ”

“ On August 15, exactly twenty-one years had elapsed since I started on my first journey in Asia. What would the next year bring? the culminating point of my career or a retrogression? Would opposition still continue, or would the Tibetans prove more friendly than Europeans? I knew not: the future lay before me as indistinct as the Indus valley, where dark masses of cloud swept over the mountains and the rain beat on the tent canvas. We let it rain, and rejoiced to think that, if the precipitation extended far over Tibet, the pasturage would be richer and the springs would flow more freely. ”

“ The people of eastern Tibet are totally unlike the Chinese in appearance, though the extraordinary mixture of races produces a large variety of types. As a rule, the men are tall, very well made, with well-marked features, noses of European shape, and eyelids that are often quite free from the peculiarity which produces in many Eastern races the well-known appearance of an obliquity of the eyes. As specimens of vigorous, stalwart manhood they are much more noteworthy than the people of Lhasa and Central Tibet. They are born mountaineers and have healthy, well-bronzed faces. ”

“ From our elevated point of vantage we looked down on a sea of heads, a conglomeration of human beings, a mosaic of vivid glaring colours, an exhibition of national costumes, among which the Tibetan dress was certainly the most conspicuous, but where the eye lighted on figures hailing from Bhotan and Sikkim, Nepal and Ladak, while Chinese merchants, or soldiers and pilgrims from the grassy steppes of Mongolia, were easily distinguishable. ”

“ A people that tolerates either or both hardly deserves to be regarded as civilised.
The Chinese call Tibet the "roof of the world," and most of it is as barren as the roof of a house. Still the roof, though producing nothing, collects water to irrigate a garden. Tibet is the mother of great rivers, and she feeds them from her eternal snows. On her highlands is a lake or cluster of lakes which the Chinese describe as Sing Su Hai, the "sea of stars." From this the Yellow River takes its rise and perhaps the Yang-tse Kiang. ”

“ Tibet may be likened to a fortress surrounded by mighty ramparts. To the south the ramparts are double, the Himalayas and the Trans-Himalaya, and between the two is a moat partly filled with water—the Upper Indus and the Upper Brahmaputra. And Tibet is really a fortress and a defence in the rear of China. It is easily conceivable that a country surrounded by such huge mountain ranges must be very difficult of access, and the number of Europeans who have crossed Tibet is very small. ”

“ Over the past 60-odd years, Tibet has finished a course of historical journey that would normally take several centuries or even a millennium for the human society to complete. It has written a spectacular chapter in the history of mankind. At present, Tibet presents a picture mixing traditional and modern elements, featuring economic and political progress, cultural prosperity, social harmony, sound ecosystem and a happy and healthy life for the local people. ”

“ Tibet rises like a citadel in the heart of Asia; hence its defenders have guarded its approaches more easily than those of India, China, and Japan. The greater part of Tibet remains still unexplored. ... The great bulk of the inhabitants, apart from the Mongolo-Tartar Horsoks of Khachi and the various independent tribes of the province of Kham, belong to a distinct branch of the Mongolian family. ”

“ They lurk in the secret fastnesses of Tibet, which is a very unexplored part of the world, large enough to hide a good many things, even things that do not exist. They know a lot, but what dribbles out of them is very commonplace when it is not pompously silly. They inhabit higher planes of life than our greatest saints and sages, but somehow they have done nothing for Tibet, which is one of the poorest, dirtiest, and most degraded countries on earth. ”

“ Tibet proper, chiefly inhabited by a settled population. Chang-la-Pod-la is, then, the pass between the northern tableland of the nomads and the country to the south having drainage to the sea. It is this property of a boundary between these two regions which renders the Trans-Himalaya of such prime importance, and therefore there are many passes called Chang-la-Pod-la. Often and often I was told that a pass, whatever might be its especial name, was a Chang-la-Pod-la when it lay on the watershed between the inland drainage of the north and the river basin of the Tsangpo in the south. ”

“ Then, avoiding the Lung Mountains, they passed over the valley of the Hoangho and crossed the Chinese border on the Tibet side.
Tibet consists of high table-lands without vegetation, with here and there snowy peaks and barren ravines, torrents fed by glaciers, depressions with glittering beds of salt, lakes surrounded by luxurious forests, with icy winds sweeping over all. ”

“ The founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 marked Tibet's entry into modern civilization. After a series of important historical stages, from its peaceful liberation and democratic reform to the establishment of the autonomous region and the reform and opening-up drive, Tibet has steered itself into a fast lane of development together with the rest of China. Half a century later, Tibet is a world totally different from its old self before the 1950s. The Tibetan people have gained freedom, equality and dignity, and are fully enjoying the fruits of modern civilization. ”

“ Tibet may be said to be menaced by three countries—England, Russia and Nepāl, for China is at present a negligible quantity as a factor in determining its future. The question is which of the three is most likely to become master of that table-land. ”

“ The Chinese would freely open the whole of Tibet, but the Tibetans themselves are so terribly seclusive. So the same old story goes on year after year, till centuries are beginning to roll by, and the story is still unfinished. When in the Audience Hall of the Dalai Lama’s Palace at Lhasa itself I had obtained the seals of the Dalai Lama, of the Council, of the National Assembly, and of the three great monasteries, to an agreement, and had done all this in the presence of the Chinese Resident, I thought we had at last laid that fiction low for ever. ”

“ CHAPTER LXX THE EXPLORATION OF TIBET
Perhaps no land in the world has in modern times exercised a greater influence over the imagination of men than the mysterious country of Tibet. From the days of Herodotus to those of Younghusband, travellers of all times and nations have tried to explore this unknown country, so jealously guarded from Europeans. Surrounded by a "great wilderness of stony and inhospitable altitudes" lay the capital, Lhasa, the seat of the gods, the home of the Grand Lama, founded in 639 A.D., mysterious, secluded, sacred. ”

“ Our knowledge of Tibet has till recently been of a very fragmentary nature, and the veil of mystery that hung over that secluded land until it was partially torn away by Lord Curzon's Lhasa expedition, and by such enterprising travellers as Sven Hedin, has prevented us from realising how far the Tibetans are from being a homogeneous race. ”

“ And if he sits and meditates, drinks, and washes his head, hands, and legs, and has sufficient faith, then he finds gold coins and precious stones at the bottom of the well. The sick man who bathes his whole body in the miraculous water becomes strong again. It is a Lourdes in miniature. While my men were engaged in their ablutions I sat at the edge of the well and listened to the mystical music of the fluttering prayer-streamers, and found this fascinating Tibet more enigmatical at every step. ”

“ It has proved in the result that the Tibetans are not really the seclusive people we had believed. By nature they are sociable and hospitable and given to trade. They are jealous about their religion, but as long as that is not touched they are ready enough for political relationship, for social intercourse, and for commercial transactions. The present obstacle to neighbourly intercourse is the suspicion of the Chinese. There is some reason to think that from the first they have instilled into the Tibetans the idea of keeping themselves secluded. ”

“ Tibet is so remote and rude a land that it is a surprise to learn that it has a voluminous literature and further that much of this literature, though not all, is learned and scholastic. The explanation is that the national life was most vigorous in the great monasteries which were in close touch with Indian learning. Moreover Tibetan became to some extent the Latin of the surrounding countries, the language of learning and religion. ”

“ Many say that we do not want anything at all. They argue that the Tibetans live at the back of a stupendous range of snowy mountains, and we had much better leave them alone. Some go so far as to say that it was actually wicked of us forcibly to enter Tibet in 1904. The Mission was styled in the House of Commons “an ignoble little raid,” and even the then leader of the Opposition, after its successful conclusion, said that it had “lowered our prestige.” ”

“ To any one acquainted with Tibet, it is a well-known fact that, except in the larger towns, nearly all people besides brigands and Lamas are absolutely poor, while the monks themselves and their agents live and prosper on the fat of the land. The masses are maintained in complete ignorance, and seldom is a layman found who can write or even read. ”

“ Great Tibet is broadly divisible into a western region, in which there is a considerable preponderance of tableland over hill and mountain and of lake basins over river basins, and an eastern region, in which the reverse holds good and the surface of the ground is so greatly corrugated that the natives call it rong-rtsub, " a rough country full of ravines." ”

“ Women and men formed a ring round us. I was particularly struck, not only in this encampment but in all others, by the small number of women to be seen in Tibet. This is not because they are kept in seclusion. On the contrary, the ladies of the Forbidden Land seem to have it all their own way. They are actually in a minority, the proportion being, at a rough guess, backed by the wise words of a friendly Lama, from fifteen to twenty males to each female in the population. ”

“ It is universally believed in Tibet that after two hundred years the Tashi lama will retire to Shambala, the Utopian city of the Buddhists, [181] and will not return to Tibet, and that in the mean time the whole world will succumb to the power of the Phylings (Russians and English) . Neither the Emperor of China nor the combined legions of gods and demi-gods who reside round the golden mount of Rirab (Sumeru) will be able to arrest the progress of their arms or the miracles of their superior intellect. ”

“ Does the Nien-chen-tang-la run right through Tibet in a westerly and north-westerly direction to the north of the Tsangpo and the upper Indus? No European and no pundit had hitherto ventured on this problem; but Hodgson, Saunders, and Atkinson had many years before laid down a hypothetical range on their maps of Tibet. Did it actually exist? Or was a labyrinth of ranges hidden under the white space, or a comparatively flat plateau, on which foundation isolated snowy peaks and chains were based? Hypotheses are absolutely worthless compared to proved facts. ”

“ Who are entitled to be called pure Tibetans—if such people exist—and who should be regarded as of hybrid or alien race, are therefore questions not very easily determined. All the country west of the Ta Tu river and the Chien-ch'ang valley may rightly enough be designated Tibetan Ssuch'uan or Chinese Tibet, if the name does not mislead us into supposing that the natives of the king of Chala's state, for instance, are of the same type as the inhabitants of Lhasa. But as these tribes are certainly not Chinese, what are we to call them if Tibetan is, strictly speaking, a misnomer? ”

“ The present political boundary between China Proper and Tibet is to the west of Bathang and the Kin-sha Kiang, but till the beginning of last century it lay much further east, near Ta-t’sien-lu, or, as the Tibetans appear to call it, Tartsédo or Tachindo, which a Chinese Itinerary given by Ritter makes to be 920 li, or 11 marches from Ch’êng-tu fu. In Marco’s time we must suppose that Tibet was considered to extend several marches further east still, or to the vicinity of Yachau. ”

“ U-tsang or Tibet proper, divided into several districts. The capital, Lassa, situated in the district U, is the residence of the Great Lama, the government of Tibet, and of the Amban, the Chinese Ambassador. The number of the inhabitants of this part of Tibet is reckoned at 130,000 families, who are, of all the Tibetan races, the most industrious, skilful, and polite.
2. The second or Eastern Division of Tibet is Kham-yul or Great Tibet; the east is bordered by China and subdivided into many small principalities. ”