The first event of importance after our arrival at Tuna was the receipt, on January 12, of a message from the Lhasa officials, saying that they wished for an interview. At noon, the time I had appointed, several hundreds of men appeared on the plain below the village. They halted there, and asked that I should come out and meet them halfway. Perhaps unnecessarily, I refused this request. It was bitingly cold in the open plain, and I thought the Tibetan leaders might have come into my camp, where I had said I would receive them, and where a guard of honour was ready. However, I sent out the indispensable and ever-ready Captain O’Connor to hear what they had to say, and on his return he replied that they once more urged us to return to Yatung, but afterwards stated that they were prepared to discuss matters there, at Tuna.
This constituted a distinct improvement on the attitude adopted by them at Phari, and their general demeanour was much more cordial, according to Captain O’Connor. But they told him that if we advanced and they were defeated, they would fall back upon another Power, and that things would then be bad for us. In conversation with the Munshi they said that they would prevent us from advancing beyond our present position, and they repudiated our treaty with the Chinese, saying they were tired of the Chinese, and could conclude a treaty by themselves.
CHUMALHARI
Encouraged by the fact that they showed some little signs of a desire to discuss matters, I determined now to make a bold move to get to close quarters with them. I was heartily tired of this fencing about at a distance; I wanted to get in under their reserve. And I thought that if we could meet and could tell them in an uncontentious and unceremonious manner what all the pother was about, we might at any rate get a start—get what the Americans call a “move on.” It was worth while, it seemed to me, to make a supreme effort to get this intrinsically small matter settled by peaceful means, even if a very considerable risk was incurred in the process; and I wished particularly to see them, and to judge of them, in their own natural surroundings. I was constantly being called upon by Government to give my opinion upon the probable action of the Tibetans, but so far I had only seen them in our own camps, and they had steadily refused to admit me into theirs. I therefore determined on the following morning, without any formality, without any previous announcement, and without any escort, to ride over to their camp, about ten miles distant, at Guru, and talk over the general situation—not as British Commissioner, with a list of grievances for which he had to demand redress, but as one who wished to understand them, and by friendly means to effect a settlement. I was only too well aware that such an attempt was likely to be taken by the Tibetans as a sign of weakness; still, when I saw these people so steeped in ignorance of what opposing the might of the British Empire really meant, I felt it my duty to reason with them up to the latest moment, to save them from the results of their ignorance.
Captain O’Connor and Captain Sawyer, of the 23rd Pioneers, who was learning Tibetan, accompanied me, but we did not take with us even a single sepoy as escort. On our way we were met by messengers, who had come to say that the Tibetan chiefs would not come to see me at Tuna, and I was all the more pleased that I had left Tuna before the message arrived.
On reaching Guru, a small village under a hill, we found numbers of Tibetan soldiers out collecting yak-dung in the surrounding plain; but there was no military precaution whatever taken, and we rode straight into the village. About 600 soldiers were huddled up in the cattle-yards of the houses. They were only armed with spears and matchlocks, and had no breech-loaders. As we rode through the village they all crowded out to look at us, and not with any scowls, but laughing to each other, as if we were an excellent entertainment. They were not very different in appearance from the ordinary Bhutia dandy-bearers of Darjiling or the yak-drivers we had with us in camp.
We asked for the General, and on reaching the principal house I was received at the head of the stairs by a polite, well-dressed, and well-mannered man, who was the Tibetan leader, and who was most cordial in his greeting. Other Generals stood behind him, and smiled and shook hands also. I was then conducted into a room in which the three Lhasa monks were seated, and here the difference was at once observable. They made no attempt to rise, and only made a barely civil salutation from their cushions. One object of my visit had already been attained: I could from this in itself see how the land lay, and where the real obstruction came from.
The Lhasa General and the Shigatse Generals—we had become accustomed to calling them Generals, though the English reader must not imagine they at all resembled Napoleon—took their seats on cushions at the head of the room and opposite to the monks. We were given three cushions on the right, and two Shigatse Generals and another Shigatse representative had seats on the left. Tea was served, and the Lhasa General, as the spokesman of the assembly, asked after my health.
After I had made the usual polite replies and inquiries after their own welfare, I said I had not come to them now on a formal visit as British Commissioner, or with any idea of officially discussing the various points of difference between us; but I was anxious to see them and know them, and to have an opportunity of freely discussing the general situation in a friendly, informal manner. So I had ridden over, without ceremony and without escort, to talk matters over, and see if there was no means of arriving at a settlement by peaceful means. I said that I had been appointed British Commissioner on account of my general experience in many different countries, that I had no preconceived ideas upon this question and no animus against them; from what I had seen of them, I was convinced there was no people with whom we were more likely to get on, and I hoped now we had really met each other face to face we should find a means of settling our differences and forming a lasting friendship.