RUSSIAN INTRIGUE WITH TIBET. 221 



mission in the Ohumbi valley, devoid of a distinct 

 significance.^ 



The southern regions of Chinese Turkestan, while 

 as much probably at the mercy of Russia as the less 

 important province of Kulja, have the supreme attrac- 

 tion, not possessed by the latter, of lying in contact 

 with the semi-independent States which border upon 

 the Indian Empire ; and the possibility of controlling 

 what Mr Chirol describes as " a great politico-religious 

 orsfanisation, whose influence can and does make itself 

 appreciably felt all along the north-eastern borderland 

 of India," is far more likely to appeal to the imagina- 

 tion of the chauvinist statesmen of Russia than an 

 advance into a part of the Chinese Empire which could 

 scarcely be deemed either necessary or advantageous, 

 as likely to lead, for the present at any rate, to any 

 further advancement in a policy of territorial aggran- 

 disement and acquisition. 



1 The following passage from Prince Ukhtomski's account of the travels 

 of the Tsesarievitch in the East, is of considerable interest in this con- 

 nection. Speaking of the Buddhists in Eussia he says : " Every year 

 thousands of them go on pilgrimage to Mongolia and to the centres of 

 Tibetan learning. Pioneers of Russian trade and Eussian good fame, 

 representatives of the Eussian name in the depths of the yellow East, 

 are these simple little men in their worn garments, with their shaggy little 

 horses and their camels. These nameless natives march on to . . . the 

 mysterious Tashe-Llunpo and the highlands adjoining India, with as much 

 ease and briskness as we do in our suburban excursions. Everywhere 

 this intelligent element . . . quietly bears into this Asiatic wilderness 

 ideas of the White Tsar and the Muscovite people. . . . These sturdy 

 travellers bear also the idea, vague as yet, that the Christian West is 

 called on to regenerate through us the effete civilisation of the East. 

 Scarce any one in Eussia guesses as yet what a valuable work is being 

 carried on by the modest Eussian Lamaites, at a distance of hundreds 

 .of miles from the Russian frontier." 



