INTRODUCTION. XUl 



that if the English persisted in crossing the frontier, the throats of its 

 guardians would assuredly be cut. So clearly, indeed, was the defini- 

 tion of the frontier understood by the Tibetans in 1849, that when 

 Dr. Campbell was seized by the Sikhim people just below the Chola, 

 the Tibetan guard, though remonstrating, could not interfere, because 

 their jurisdiction ended at the crest of the pass. It may be added 

 that the Tibetan Namguay, the "mad Minister" who was banished 

 from Sikhim by the treaty of 1861, never ventured, at any rate in his 

 jDubiic journeys, to cross the water-parting of the range, but invari- 

 ably stopped on the Tibetan side. Within a few years all this was 

 changed. In theory, at least, the placards were advanced to the Rishi, 

 and nice scruples as to the exact location of the frontier gave place to 

 a daring attempt to remove a peaceful neighbour's landmark. 



One asks, almost in vain, what spell thus transformed the 

 scene ? Did some strange wave of religious fanaticism sweep over 

 Tibet, overwhelming on one side the Roman Catholic Missions of 

 Bathang, and on the other stirring the monks of Gryantsi and Tashe- 

 Ihunpo to organise an attack on Sikhim ? The pointed reference to 

 religion in the Galing treaty reads as if something of the sort had been 

 in the air; and indications are not wanting of a tendency to resist 

 Chinese interference, and to struggle against the policy which seeks 

 to make Lhassa a Chinese Avignon, and to utilise the spiritual autho- 

 rity of the Dalai Lama as a check on possible Tartar outbreaks in 

 Central Asia. On the other hand, the missionaries themselves, who 

 might be expected to be the first to recognise a religious revival, 

 do not appear to have observed any such movement. They affirm, 

 with admirable frankness, that it was the Tibet Mission of 1886, or 

 possibly the abandonment of the Mission, that troubled the pulitical 

 waters, and encouraged the monastic party in Tibet to persecute the 

 rival Cliurch in Bathang, and to interfere in the affairs of Sikhim. 

 No doubt Monseigneur Biel at Ta-tsien-lu and Father Desgodins at 

 Pedong are entitled to speak with much authority as to the political 

 springs of action in Tibet; but one is inclined to question whether 

 things Tibetan move so quickly as their theory would require. A 

 cycle of Cathay, whether better or worse than twenty years of 

 Europe, is certainly less fruitful of results ; and it may be doubted 

 whether any cause that only began to operate in 1886 could possibly, 

 in the region of Tibetan politics, have produced a tangible effect 

 by 1887. It seems, indeed, more probable that we must look fui'ther 

 back for the real cause of the present difficulties: that the making 

 of the Jelap road roused a feeling of suspicion which went on quietly 

 spreading, and needed only some slight stimulus from our side to 

 translate itself into action. Such a stimulus may have been given by 

 the Tibet Mission, or by exaggerated rumours of the strength of the 



