Yet Manning confirmed what Bogle and Turner had also noticed—that, while the Tibetans dreaded the Chinese, they disliked them intensely. He says that the Chinese were very disrespectful to the Tibetans. Only bad-charactered Chinamen were sent to Tibet, and he could not help thinking that the Tibetans "would view the Chinese influence in Tibet overthrown without many emotions of regret, especially if the rulers under the new influence were to treat the Grand Lama with respect; for this is a point in which those haughty Mandarins are somewhat deficient, to the no small dissatisfaction of the good people of Lhasa." These words would be very fairly applicable to the situation at the present day.
After Manning, no Englishman, in either a private or official capacity, visited Lhasa till the Mission of 1904. This seems to show want of enterprise on the part of Englishmen in India; but some did make the attempt, and many more would have if they could have obtained the necessary leave from all the authorities concerned. British officers in India are keen enough to go on such adventures, but leave can very rarely be obtained. I had myself planned out such a journey in 1889. I had interviewed the Foreign Secretary, now Sir Mortimer Durand, and not only obtained permission, but even some pecuniary assistance, when, at the last moment, I was refused permission by the Colonel of my regiment. Such restrictions must, I know, have prevented many another besides myself. Still, efforts were made by individual officers, unsupported by Government, to explore Tibet, and, if possible, reach Lhasa. Moorcroft explored Western Tibet, and, according to some reports, actually reached Lhasa and died there; Richard and Henry Strachey visited the sources of the Brahmaputra and the Sutlej; Carey, Littledale, Bower, Wellby, Deasy, and Rawling explored in Northern Tibet; and native surveyors mapped even Lhasa itself, to which point Sarat Chandra Das also penetrated at great risk and brought back most valuable information.
These and other efforts to explore the country by the Russian travellers Prjevalsky, Pievtsoff and Kozoloff; by the Frenchmen Huc and Gabet, Bonvalot, Prince Henri d’Orléans, Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard; and by that indefatigable and courageous Swedish traveller, Sven Hedin, have all been brought together by Sir Thomas Holdich in his recent work on exploration in Tibet. It is not necessary here to do more than refer to the fact that efforts to gain a knowledge of the country were almost continuously being made through the second half of last century; my object is rather to describe the effort, not so much to explore the country, as to regularize and foster the intercourse which already existed with its people.
CHAPTER IV
THE BENGAL GOVERNMENT’S EFFORTS, 1873–1886
It was not till a century had elapsed since Warren Hastings had begun his attempts to form a friendship with the Tibetans that the Government in India again made any real effort to come into proper relationship with their neighbours. For a century they were content to let things take their course, in spite of their informality, and in spite of the fact that Indian subjects were having all the worst of the intercourse, for while Tibetans were allowed to come to India when and where and how they liked, to trade there without duty and without hindrance, to travel and to reside wherever they wished, on the other side, obstructions of every kind were placed in the way of Indians, and still more of British, trading, travelling, or residing in Tibet. But in the year 1873 the Indian Government began to stir, and take stock of the position, and to reflect whether this one-sided condition of affairs might not be changed to the advantage of Indians and Europeans without hurting the Tibetans.
In that year the Bengal Government addressed the Government of India a letter, a copy of which was sent to the Royal Geographical Society, in which they urged that the Chinese should be pressed “for an order of admittance to Tibet,” and that “the authorities at Peking should allow a renewal of the friendly intercourse between India and Tibet which existed in the days of Bogle and Turner.” The Bengal Government said that the Government of India and the Secretary of State had repeatedly expressed the great interest which they took in this subject, and the wish that no favourable opportunity should be neglected of promoting the development of commercial intercourse between British India and those trans-Himalayan countries which were then practically closed to us. If only the Chinese and Tibetans would remove the embargo at present imposed upon the entry of our trade, there were, by routes under our own control, no serious difficulties or dangers of any kind to overcome, and none of the risks of collision which existed elsewhere.
Tibet, the Bengal Government said, was a well-regulated country with which our Hillmen were in constant communication. When Europeans went to the frontier and tried to cross it, there was no display of violence or disturbance. They were civilly turned back, with an intimation that there were orders not to admit them. All the inquiries of the Lieutenant-Governor led to the belief that the Tibetans themselves had no objections to intercourse with us. The experiences of the great botanist, Sir Joseph Hooker, who in 1849 had travelled to the Tibetan border, and Blanford among the recent travellers, and of Bogle and Turner in the past, were singularly at one upon this point. The Commandant of Khamba Jong, who had met Mr. Blanford on the frontier in 1870, assured him that the Tibetans had no ill-will to foreigners, and would, if allowed, gladly receive Europeans. The fact appeared to be, the Lieutenant-Governor said, that “the prohibition to intercourse with Tibet is part of the Chinese policy of exclusion imposed on the Tibetans by Chinese officials and enforced by Chinese troops stationed in Tibet.” He fully sympathized with the Chinese desire to keep out foreigners in China. “But,” he said, “in Tibet there is not wealth enough to attract many adventurers; there is room only for a moderate and legitimate commerce;” and among a people so good and well regulated as the Tibetans there would be no such difficulties as existed in China. If the road were opened, it would be used only by fair traders and by responsible Government servants or travellers under the control of Government.
In seeking to press the Chinese for admittance to Tibet, he said, the most emphatic declaration might be made that, having our natural and best boundary in the Himalayas, we could not, and would not in any circumstances, encroach on Tibet, and we might offer to arrange that none save Hillmen or classes domiciled in Tibet should be allowed to go in without a pass, which would be given under such restrictions that Government would be responsible for the conduct of the holders.