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In November, 1911, the Chinese garrison in Lhassa, in sympathy with the revolutionary cause in China, mutinied against Amban Lien-yu, a Chinese Bannerman, and a few months later the Tibetans, by order of the Dalai Lama, revolted and besieged the Chinese forces in Lhassa till they were starved out and eventually evacuated Tibet. Chinese troops in Kham were also ejected.
In conformity with established custom, every disciple or lama who visits Lhassa makes a gift of one or several copies, from the scrolls there, to the convent to which he belongs. Our gonpa, among others, possesses already a great number, which I read in my leisure hours.
As for the biographies of our saints, they are collected in Lhassa. There are even great cloisters which have not had the time to procure them. Before coming to this gonpa, I was for several years in a great convent on the other side of Ladak, and have seen there thousands of books, and scrolls copied out of various books by the lamas of the monastery."
This latter discovery made me feel quite confident that I was on the highroad to Lhassa. About eight miles off to the north-north-west were high snowy peaks, and as we went farther we discovered a lofty mountain range, with still higher peaks, three miles behind it.
A man called Ando, who styled himself a Gourkha, but wore the garb of the Tibetans, came to visit us in our tent, and promised to bring several ponies for sale the next morning. He also undertook to sell a sufficient quantity of food to enable us to reach Lhassa.
From Calcutta my route was northward to Thibet, to reach, if possible, its capital city of Lhassa, residence of the Grand Lama of the Booddhists the pontifical sovereign of Eastern Asia. My journey thither was planned by the way of Sikkim, and thence through the Cholah Pass in the Himalaya range.
Rice at Lhassa, when cheap, sells at 2 shillings for 5 lbs.; it is, as I have elsewhere said, all bought up for rations for the Chinese soldiery. The Bhotanese are more industrious than the Lepchas, and better husbandmen; besides having superior crops of all ordinary grains, they grow cotton, hemp, and flax. The cotton is cleansed here as elsewhere, with a simple gin.
The monks were busy repairing the part devoted to worship, which consists of a large chamber and vestibule of the usual form: the outside walls are daubed red, with a pigment of burnt felspathic clay, which is dug hard by. Some were painting the vestibule with colours brought from Lhassa, where they had been trained to the art.
China wants nothing more than the re-establishment of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, with recognition of the autonomy of the territory immediately under the control of the Lhassa Government; she is agreeable to the British idea of forming an effective buffer territory in so far as it is consistent with equity and justice; she is anxious that her trade interest should be looked after by her trade agents as do the British, a point which is agreeable even to the Tibetans, though apparently not to the British; in other words, she expects that Great Britain would at least make with her an arrangement regarding Tibet which should not be any less disadvantageous to her than that made with Russia respecting Outer Mongolia.
A few expeditions had travelled in the northern part of Tibet, as the country was there practically uninhabited. They had met with no one to oppose their march save, perhaps, a few miserable nomads. No one, since Tibet became a forbidden country to strangers, had been able to penetrate in the Province of Lhassa the only province of Tibet with a comparatively thick population.
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