162 NATURE'S IDEAL 



mental characteristic. I obtained my best con- 

 ception of it on the evening I left Lhasa at the con- 

 clusion of my Mission to Tibet in 1904, when I 

 had an experience of such value for determining 

 Nature's ideal, and, for me at any rate, so convinc- 

 ingly corroborative of the conclusions which others 

 who have had similar experiences have drawn from 

 them as to Nature's ideal, that I hope I may be 

 excused for relating in some detail the circum- 

 stances in which it came to me. 



These circumstances, though not the experience 

 itself, were somewhat exceptional . I was at that par- 

 ticular moment at the highest pitch of existence — 

 that is to say, of my own existence. I had had 

 an unusually wide experience of the wild countries 

 of that most interesting and varied of the continents 

 — Asia, and for that reason had been specially 

 selected for the charge of a Mission to Tibet. 

 However ill-qualified I might be for other tasks, for 

 this particular business of establishing neighbourly 

 relations with a very secluded and seclusive Asiatic 

 people, difficult of approach both on account of their 

 natural disposition and of the mighty mountain 

 barrier which stood between them and the rest of 

 the world, I was esteemed to have peculiar qualifi- 

 cations. My comrades were also men selected for 

 their special qualifications — one for his knowledge 

 of the Tibetans, another for his knowledge of the 

 Chinese, another for his knowledge of geology, and 

 so on. The troops engaged were selected for their 

 experience in frontier warfare, and each man had 

 had to pass a medical test. We were at the top of 

 our physical fitness and ripe in experience. 



