On August 24 the Abbot again came to see me, and said that after his previous visit he had gone to the Lhasa delegates and urged them to negotiate at Khamba Jong, instead of at Giagong. But they had replied that, just as my orders were to negotiate at the former place, so their orders were to negotiate at the latter, and they could not agree to anything different. The Abbot, therefore, now came to say that there were several hundred Tibetan troops near by, but he would get those withdrawn if I would send away my escort. He thought that then the Lhasa Government would probably consent to negotiations at Khamba Jong. I told him that I had not the slightest objection to the presence of the Tibetan troops, but it surprised me that, when they had so many hundreds near, they should have any objection to the small number which I myself had.
The innocent-minded Abbot then asked if I would send away half, and he would himself remain with us as a hostage. He explained that the Tibetans thought we had come with no friendly intent, as we had forced our way into the country, and a reduction of our escort would appease them. I told the Abbot I could not acknowledge that we had forced our way into Tibet, as I had up to now ignored the presence of Tibetan soldiers inside the treaty frontier, who had no business to be where they were; and I repeated my old arguments in regard to the strength of my escort.
The Abbot very politely apologized for all the trouble he was giving me by making so many requests. I told him he might make requests to me all day long, and he would always find me ready to listen to him and give him what I, at any rate, considered reasonable answers. I much regretted the inconvenience which was being caused to the Tashi Lama, and I felt sure that if the conduct of these negotiations rested with His Holiness and the polite and reasonable advisers of his whom he had sent to me, we should very soon come to a settlement.
I advised the Abbot to get the Tashi Lama to represent matters directly to Lhasa. He replied they were not allowed to make representations against the orders of the Lhasa Government. Nevertheless, he would again, that very day, go to the Lhasa delegates, tell them how he had once more tried to induce me to go back to Giagong, and would ask them to make a request to Lhasa to open negotiations at Khamba Jong, and he said he would even go so far as to undertake to receive in their stead any punishment which the Lhasa Government might order upon the delegates for daring to make this request.
He then asked me what we wanted in the coming negotiations. I told him that I had set our requirements forth fully in a speech I had made on my first arrival, a copy of which I would very gladly give him. But he was well acquainted with it, and asked me what was meant exactly by opening a trade-mart. I explained that we wanted a proper trade-mart, which would not be closed with a wall behind it, as Yatung had been—a mart where Indian traders could come and meet Tibetan traders; a mart such as we had in other parts of the Chinese Empire, and had formerly had in Shigatse itself.
The Abbot himself was a charming old gentleman. Whatever intellectual capacity he may have had was not very apparent to the casual observer, and he corrected me when I inadvertently let slip some observation implying that the earth was round, and assured me that when I had lived longer in Tibet, and had time to study, I should find that it was not round, but flat, and not circular, but triangular, like the bone of a shoulder of mutton. On the other hand, he was very sociable and genial. He would come and have lunch and tea with us, and would spend hours with Captain O’Connor and Mr. Bailey, playing with gramophones, typewriters, pictures, photographs, and all the various novelties of our camp.
THE SHIGATSE ABBOT.
But the situation now began to grow worse. On August 31 I was informed by a trustworthy person, who had exceptional sources of information, that he was convinced that the Tibetans would do nothing till they were made to and a situation had arisen. They were said to be quite sure in their own minds that they were fully equal to us, and, far from our getting anything out of them, they thought they would be able to force something out of us. Some 2,600 Tibetan soldiers were occupying the heights and passes on a line between Phari and Shigatse. My informant did not think, however, that they would attack us for the present, though they might in the winter, when our communications would be cut off. Their immediate policy was one of passive obstruction. They had made up their minds to have no negotiations with us inside Tibet, and they would simply leave us at Khamba Jong, while if we tried to advance farther, they would oppose us by force. They were afraid that if they gave us an inch we would take an ell, and if they allowed us at Khamba Jong one year we should go to Shigatse the next, and Lhasa the year after. So they were determined to stop us at the start.
The Shigatse Abbot had, I heard, done his best to make the Lhasa officials take a more reasonable view, but without success. The Lhasa officials were entirely ruled by the National Assembly at Lhasa, and this Assembly was composed chiefly of Lhasa monks.