Tue negotiations at Sikkim have been brought to rather humdrum conclusion, and we are not to have a march on Lhasa after all. Until we have further details it is impossible to say whether this result is to be considered satisfactory or the reverse. In any case it is disappointing that Tibet remains as closely sealed to ingress as ever. Indian civi-lions commonly enough have crossed the frontier line but not one has succeeded in penetrating for any distance into the country, so closely has the cordon been maintained. From the Chinese side also several well judged attempts by qualified travellers during recent years have met with the same unvarying failure. And even going back beyond our own time it is doubtful if more than one solitary Englishman has ever reached the capital of Tibet.
The first European in Lhasa was prey Friar Odoric of Pordenone.
lo was making his way back from China through Shensi and Szechuan and across Tibet some time between 1316 and 1330, when he chanced on the strange city where the animals were allowed to die of old age and the people were ruled by a pope called in their strange language Abassi.
Then comes a blank for four centuries until Warren Hastings sends a. British m in 1774 under Bogle. The mission was successful beyond expectations, and Bogle was able to form a most interesting friendship with the Teshu Lama but the Dalai Lama he never saw. But in 1811 Thomas Manning, the son of norfolk clergyman, took it into his head togotoChina. Hewas a curious, ecceutric man, a great friend of Charles Lamb, with whom he was in correspondence. He reached Lhasa after an arduous journey and has left a querulousnarrative of his adventures. The surprising thing is that the result of his labours is so small. But Manning had no sense of proportion, and often devoted a meagre line or two to information which would have borne generous amplification, while a squabble with his " boy " is related at length.
After a short stay at Lhasa he obtained an interview with the Grand Lama, to whom he reverently kowtowed and presented his shaven head for the child's benediction. "The Lama'sbeautiful and interesting face (he relates) and manner cad almost all my attention. He was at that time about seven years old; had the simple and unaffected manners of a well educated and princely child. His face was, I thought, poetically and affectingly beautiful. He was of a gay and cheerful disposition, his beautiful mouth perpetually unbending into a graceful smile which illuminated his whole countenance."
Poor little Lama; he was shortly to go the way of all incarnations of Buddha whose presence on earth interfered with the regent's rule. There is little doubt that he was poisoned, and for sixty years afterwards each of his successors perish ed before the age of eighteen. The present occupant of the sacred throne, who rejoices in the name of Ngag Dbang Blo Byang Thub-loan Rgyamtsho, was born in 1874. No white man has seen him; but the pundit Chandra Das, who paid a visit to Shanghai a few years ago en route for Peking, saw the lad in 1881. He described him as being of a bright and fair complexion, with rosy cheeks and large and penetrating eyes. He is now approaching the age which proved fatal to so many of his predecessors, Absit omen!
After Manning comes the versatile Abbé Hue who, accompanied by the learned Pere Gabet, set out for Lhasa in 1844 with the lively hope of converting the Dalai Lama to Christianity. The reverend fathers reached their goal and indeed resided in Lhasa for six weeks, but without being permitted to see the sacred boy. They gleaned, however, much interesting information and also some curious details about an Englishman called Mooreroft who was reported to have travelled in liber disguised as a Mussulman. The evidence is far from satisfying; but Huc considered it established that Moorcroft had gone to Lhasa in 1826, that he had resided there for twelve years, and that he was afterwards assassinated on the road to Ladak from Lhasa. If so, he makes the fourth European who has visited Lhasa since the beginning of the century.
An attempt was made by the Indian Government to forward a second mission to Tibet four year ago; but we don't do these sort of things so well now. A regular force was organised and one of the "politicals" of the Indian Civil Service was chosen as leader of the mission. The Hon. Colman Macaulay was anxious that his light should not be hid under a bushel. He appeared at Peking to obtain his passport with servants and baggage and advertised himself so well that the Chinese took fright, and the mission was finally abating by the Burma-China Convention of 1886.
This is the greatest blow that the enterprise has yet received. Yo enter from the Indian side is hopeless, unless we force our way in at the head of an armed force. On the other side the suspicions of China have been fully aroused, and whatever she may protest to the contrary she can and will prevent any future mission. There is only one way remaining untried, and it is the only way likely to be successful. first essential is a man who has resided for a considerable time in Western Svechuan, He must adopt the Chinese dress and perfect himself in the language. Then some fine day in the train of a caravan let him slip quietly over the border, and if good fortune smile on him pure his way to Lhasa, A forlorn hope but still a hope, and if we way hazard a guess, a missionary will be the man who will lead it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.