266 GEOGEAPHICAL RESULTS OF THE TIBET MISSION. 



from India to Lassa. We unfortunately had to take our bodies there, 

 and for the human body Tibet and Sikkim, through which we had to 

 pass on the way into Tibet, are at certain seasons anything but 

 attractive. You, however, need go there in mind only, and for the 

 jnind I do not know, in the whole realm of nature, any greater glories 

 than Sikkim and Tibet afford. At the very outset of our travels was 

 the sight which in all the world I consider the supreme — the view of 

 ]vinchenjunga from Darjiling, described by many travelers before, 

 but by none better than by Mr. Douglas Freshfield in his recent book 

 on this region. We had then to pass through as superb tropical for- 

 ests as are anywhere to be met with, and emerging onto the high 

 Tibetan tableland it was our good fortune to live for a month in full 

 view of the magnificent panorama of 150 miles of the highest peaks in 

 the Himalayas, with the loftiest mountain in the world as the culmi- 

 nating object. Lastly, we had ever before us in the dim mysterious 

 distance the Sacred City, of which so little was known, and entrance to 

 which was barred by every obstacle which man and nature could 

 raise ; and while my military companions had constantly to think of 

 how best to overcome the resistance we might encounter, we of the 

 political service had continually with us the earnest desire and the 

 ambition to lessen by all our powers of reasoning and persuasion the 

 military resistance, and above all so to impress the people who were 

 now first making our acquaintance, that on our departure their dispo- 

 sition toward us should be one of friendliness rather than hostility, 

 and that they should no longer look upon us as people to be roughly 

 and rigidly excluded, but on the contrary respected and Avelcomed. 



What more inspiring task could any men be intrusted with? And 

 while this is not the place to speak of the military and political work 

 of the mission, I may at least say that our objects were attained, and I 

 may express my firm conviction that from this time onward all Euro- 

 pean travelers will be the gainers for what the British mission to Lassa 

 did in 1904. One only evil geographical result I foresee. This soci- 

 ety will have one less destination for the adventurous explorers of 

 Great Britain, and the Sven Hedins of the future, like a fast-expiring 

 race, will be driven back and back till they finally vanish from the 

 earth amid the arctic snows. But for this misfortune not ^^e only are 

 to blame, but also and chiefly one of your own gold medalists, the 

 great Viceroy of India, to whose initiative the whole enterprise was 

 due and without whose constant support it could scarcely have been 

 brought to a conclusion so disastrous for future explorers. 



Our start from Darjiling in June, 1903, was miserable enough. 

 The monsoon was' just bursting, the rain was coming down in cata- 

 racts, and all was shrouded in the densest mist. Few knew of the 

 enterprise upon which I was embarking, but a little knot of strangers 

 who had assembled in the porch of the hotel had got an inkling and 



