274 GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS OF THE TIBET MISSION. 



religion would be spoilt and he would die. I had to inform him, in 

 reply, of the delicate and painful position in which I was placed, 

 for if, on the one hand, I went on to Lassa I understood that his 

 holiness would die, while if I stayed where I was I would myself 

 die, as I would undoubtedly have my head cut otf if I failed to obey 

 the orders I had received and negotiate the treaty in Lassa itself. 

 Reluctant as I was to cause the premature demise of the Dalai Lama, 

 I felt I had no alternative, I informed the high chamberlain, but to 

 proceed to Lassa. 



Expectation was now at its height. Each corner we turned we felt 

 sure we should see Lassa. We hastened to the top of one rise after 

 another in the hopes of catching the first glimpse. The advance 

 patrols of mounted infantry, on their return, were eagerly questioned. 

 At length, on August 2, we rounded our last corner and saw the 

 golden roofs of the Potala of Lassa glittering in the distance, and on 

 the following di\j encamped beneath its walls. 



Here in a lovely valley covered with trees, rich with cultivation, 

 and watered by a river as broad as the Thames at Westminster, here 

 hidden away by range after range of snowy mountains, lay the mys- 

 terious Forbidden City which no living European had seen before. 

 To many who liad supposed, because it was so secluded, it must be a 

 land of dreamland city, it Avas, I dare say, disappointing, for it was, 

 after all, built by men, and not by fairies. Its streets were not paved 

 with gold, nor were its doors of pearls. The streets were, indeed, hor- 

 ribly muddy, and the inhabitants less like fairies than any I have so 

 far seen. 



But the Potala, the palace of the Grand Lama, was an imposing, 

 massive structure, very solidly built of masonry, and picturesquely 

 perched on a rocky eminence dominating the whole plain and the city 

 at its base. Numbers of the houses in the city were, too, well built and 

 solid, and often surrounded by shady trees. The rock-perched palace 

 and the strange city at its base would be striking anywhere, but set 

 in this beautiful valley, deep in the very heart of the mountains, 

 they gathered an additional impressiveness which all who saw them 

 recognized. 



It was, however, more to the inhabitants than to their buildings 

 that I had to devote my chief attention during my stay in Lassa. All 

 the leading men, both lay and ecclesiastical, here came before me, and 

 with them I reasoned and argued and chaffed day after day and week 

 after week* Appallingly ignorant and inconceivably unbusinesslike 

 they were. No one man had supreme authority or full responsibility 

 to negotiate with me. A council were supposed to be the chief execu- 

 tive authorities, but they could do nothing without the consent of the 

 national assembly, and they, without any presiding officer to control 

 them or any sense of responsibility, simply censured instead of 



