The conversation now turned to the question of trade. The Tashi Lama said that, owing to the recent wars in Nepal and Bhutan, trade between Bengal and Tibet was not flourishing, but that, as for himself, he gave encouragement to merchants, and in Tibet they were free and secure. He enumerated the different articles which went from Tibet to Bengal—"gold, musk, cow-tails (yak-tails), and coarse woollen clothes"—but he said the Tibetans were afraid to go to Bengal on account of the heat. In the previous year he had sent four people to worship at Benares, but three had died. In former times great numbers used to resort to Hindustan. The Lamas had temples in Benares, Gaya, and several other places; their priests used to travel thither to study the sacred books and the religion of the Hindus, and after remaining there ten, twenty, or thirty years, return to Tibet and communicate their knowledge to their countrymen; but since the Mohammedan conquest of India the inhabitants of Tibet had had little connection with Bengal or the southern countries.
Bogle assured him that times were now altered, that under the Company in Bengal—and it must be remembered that when he was speaking our rule did not extend beyond Bengal on that side of India—every person’s property was secure, and everyone was at liberty to follow his own religion.
The Lama said he was informed that under the Fringies the country was very quiet, and that he would be ashamed if Bogle were to return with a fruitless errand. He would therefore consult his officers and some men from Lhasa, as well as some of the chief merchants, and after informing them of the Governor’s desire to encourage trade, and of the encouragement and protection which the Company afforded to traders in Bengal, “discuss the most proper method of carrying it on and extending it.”
The following day the Lama told Bogle that he “had written to Lhasa on the subject of opening a free commercial communication between his country and Bengal.” “But,” says Bogle, “although he spoke with all the zeal in the world, I confess I did not much like the thoughts of referring my business to Lhasa, where I was not present, where I was unacquainted, and where I had reason to think the Ministers had entertained no favourable idea of me and my commission.”
Later on, at the request of the Tashi Lama, two deputies from Lhasa came to visit Bogle. They said the English had shown great favour to the Lama and to them by making peace with the Bhutanese and restoring their country. Bogle replied that the English were far from being of that quarrelsome nature which some evil-minded persons represented them to be, and wished not for extent of territories. They were entrusted with the management of Bengal, and only wished it should remain in tranquillity. The war with the Bhutanese was of their own seeking. The deputies might judge whether the Company had not cause for alarm when eight or ten thousand Bhutanese, who had formerly confined themselves to their mountains, poured into the low country, seized the Raja of Kuch Behar, took possession of his territories, and carried their arms to the borders of Bengal. The deputies could judge for themselves whether the Company were not in the right in opposing them. In the course of the war some of the Bhutan territory was taken from them, but was immediately restored at the request of the Tashi Lama, and so far from desiring conquest, the boundaries of Bengal remained the same as formerly.
The Lhasa deputies said the Lama had written to Lhasa about trading, but that the Tibetans were afraid of the heat, and proceeded, therefore, only as far as Phari, where the Bhutanese brought the commodities of Bengal and exchanged them for those of Tibet. This was the ancient custom, and would certainly be observed.
Bogle stated that besides this there was formerly a very extensive trade carried on between Tibet and Bengal; Warren Hastings was desirous of removing existing obstacles, and had sent him to Tibet to represent the matter to the Tashi Lama, and he trusted that the Lhasa authorities would agree to so reasonable a proposal. They answered that Gesub Rimpoche (the Regent at Lhasa) would do everything in his power, but that he and all the country were subject to the Emperor of China.
“This,” says Bogle, “is a stumbling-block which crosses me in all my paths.” And in the paths of how many negotiators since has it not stood as a stumbling-block! The Tibetans are ready to do anything, but they can do nothing without the permission of the Chinese. The Chinese would freely open the whole of Tibet, but the Tibetans themselves are so terribly seclusive. So the same old story goes on year after year, till centuries are beginning to roll by, and the story is still unfinished. When in the Audience Hall of the Dalai Lama’s Palace at Lhasa itself I had obtained the seals of the Dalai Lama, of the Council, of the National Assembly, and of the three great monasteries, to an agreement, and had done all this in the presence of the Chinese Resident, I thought we had at last laid that fiction low for ever. But it seems to be springing up again in all its old exuberance, and showing still perennial vitality.