THE ADVANCE TO LHASSA. 359 



he would be guilty of ignoring the extraordinary ap- 

 preciation on the part of Great Britain of the "majesty 

 of custom"! At the end of each fresh move it is our 

 custom to ignore all that has happened in the interim, 

 and to return to our original starting-point ; so having 

 reached Gyangtse, we sent a polite invitation to the 

 Tibetans to negotiate, as if nothing had ever happened ! 

 June 25 was fixed as the date up to which delegates 

 would be received as peace-bearers, and to June 25, 

 and indeed for some days longer, — for we gave them 

 a few extra days' grace, — the mission patiently waited, 

 while the Tibetans, whose peaceful envoys it was 

 awaiting, directed a continual storm of bullets and 

 shell upon it from the commanding position of the 

 jong ! And there are those in England itself who 

 would accuse us of wantonly provoking hostilities ! 



But custom had been obeyed in another respect ; for, 

 according to precedent, the operations were commenced 

 with a force that was wholly inadequate to complete 

 them, so that while the mission was awaiting the peace 

 envoys from Lhassa, it was also awaiting reinforce- 

 ments from India ! The reinforcements duly arrived, 

 as did also the envoys, though the latter were a few 

 days behind their time. This slight lack of punctu- 

 ality might have been disregarded had they proved 

 competent plenipotentiaries, but once more were the 

 representatives of Great Britain befooled ; and since 

 little material progress towards a satisfactory settle- 

 ment was effected by the religious reflections on the 

 situation which formed the gist of the Dalai-Lamas 

 latest despatch, nothing remained but to begin the 

 advance to Lhassa. 



This was actually done on July 14, the peaceful 

 intentions ot Great Britain, and the desire of the 

 Government to give to Tibet a further opportunity 



