The National Assembly also wrote a letter to Captain O’Connor saying that they were rejoiced in heart, and gave thanks.
Some exception was taken by the Tibetans to our building a house in Chumbi, and to the maintenance of the telegraph-line, both of which had been erected during the course of the Mission. But on the whole the intercourse was friendly, and these written and personal communications showed that the Tibetans had entirely reversed their former attitude of positively refusing all direct intercourse with us.
On the opposite side of Tibet, in that part not directly under the Lhasa Government, but inhabited by people of the Tibetan race and of the Lamaist religion, matters were, however, very different, and in the spring of 1905 serious troubles, including the massacre of both Chinese officials and Europeans, occurred.
Around Batang for years past the Tibetans had been very turbulent. In February, 1905, according to Chinese accounts, a Chinese official was forcibly robbed near Batang, and the Chinese Amban, Feng, sent a hundred Tibetans belonging to a regiment in Chinese employ to arrest the robbers. Thereupon great crowds from the surrounding country assembled in the neighbourhood of Batang, declaring that Feng had no right to establish his permanent residence there. Communication by water was cut off, and on April 2 the people, “in collusion with the Lama brigands of the Ting-lin monasteries, surrounded Batang.” The Roman Catholic Mission Chapel was burned, and subsequently Pères Mussot and Soulié were murdered here, and four others at Litang. The Chinese general was shot in the main hall of the Yamen, and Feng only escaped through a back gate. He was, however, followed up and surrounded in a house to which he had fled. He tried to escape from this also with seventy-three men, but of these only three escaped, and all the rest, including the Amban Feng himself, were killed.
A French priest of the Tibetan Mission, when informing Mr. Litton, our Consul at Teng-yueh, that the revolt appeared to be spreading to all the large lamaseries in North-West Yunan, thus analyzed the cause of the disorders.
For some two years past the Szechuan Government had been endeavouring to bring Batang and the adjacent country under the ordinary jurisdiction of the Chinese officials, which was violently resented by the Lamas.
The new Amban, or Assistant Amban, who was murdered, had been delaying his journey at Batang for some months, and his followers had been guilty of pillaging the Tibetans.
The considerable party which was still attached to the deposed Grand Lama had been active in intrigues against the Chinese officials, who, it was argued, had been proved by recent events quite incapable of safeguarding the privileges of the Lamaist body, and incompetent to exercise the rights of suzerain over Tibet—that is to say, the Lamas had realized the utter feebleness of the Chinese Government.
Before the outbreak at Batang the probably false rumour was spread about that the deposed Grand Lama had “descended from Heaven,” had arrived in Tachien-lu, and was about to return to Lhasa.