VIU INTRODUCTION. 



obstinacy, but their refusal to receive letters or to enter into negotiations 

 with us soon be^jan to produce an alarming effect in Sikhira. When 

 called upon to visit Darjeeling for the purpose of conferring with the 



Lieutenant-Governor concerning the affairs of his 

 _^ Auitude of Sikiim gt^te, the Raja of Sikhim, after exhausting the 



standard Oriental excuses, replied in so many 

 words that he and his people had in 1886 signed a treaty declaring 

 that Sikhim was subject onhj to China and Tibet. He was therefore 

 unable to come to Darjeeling without the express permission of the 

 Tibetan Government. The history of this treaty is curious. It is 

 alleged that in 1880 one of the Tibetan Secretaries of State, accom- 

 panied, by a Chinese military officer, went to Paro, in Bhutan, for 

 the purpose of settling some local distui'bance. On their return 

 to Phari, in Tibet, an attempt, at that time unsuccessful, was 

 made to extract a similar agreement from Sikhim. Six years later, 

 when our influence in Sikhim had begun to wane, the subject was 

 reopened, and a formal treaty was signed at Galing, in Tibet, bv 

 the Raja, on behalf of the "people of Sikhim, priests and laymen." 

 The treaty, which is couched in the form of a petition to the two 

 Chinese Residents at Lhassa, set forth that some Europeans, after 

 petitioning the great officers of China, liave, to the detriment of 

 TheGalin Treat religion, got an order to enter Tibet for trade. 

 a ing reay. " Pjom the time of Chogel Penchoo Namgua}' (the 

 first Raja of Sikhim), all our Rajas and other subjects have obeyed the 

 orders of China. . . . You have ordered us by strategy or force 

 to stop the passage of the Rishi river between Sikhim and British 

 territory; but we are small and the sarJcar (British Government) is 

 great, and we may not succeed, and may then fall into the mouth of 

 the tiger-lion. In such a crisis, if j'ou, as our old friends, can make 

 some arrangements, even then in good and evil we will not leave the 

 shelter of the feet of China and Tibet. . . . We all, kino- and 

 subjects, priests and laymen, honestly promise to prevent persons 

 from crossing the boundary." 



The ultimate aim of this singular document, in which we are 

 referred to under the form of one of those composite animals familiar 

 to students of Tibetan chronology, is illustrated and made clear by a 

 very remarkable map found by a man of the Derbyshire Regiment in a 

 house at Rinchingong, where a Tibetan General and Secretary of State 

 were so nearly surprised by our troops that the tea they had been drink- 

 ing was still hot in the cups when the house was entered. This map 

 purports to show the tract of country extending from Phari to Darjeelino-. 

 At the latter place, temples, houses, trees, and a locomotive puffing smoke 

 at the railway station, are depicted with much display of accuracy. 



