religion would be spoilt and he would die. I had to inform him, in reply, of the delicate and painful position in which I was placed, for if, on the one hand, I went on to Lassa I understood that his holiness would die, while if I stayed where I was I would myself die, as I would undoubtedly have my head cut off if I failed to obey the orders I had received and negotiate the treaty in Lassa itself. Reluctant as I was to cause the premature demise of the Dalai Lama, I felt I had no alternative, I informed the high chamberlain, but to proceed to Lassa.

its height. Each corner we turned we felt

Expectation was now at sure we should see Lassa. We hastened to the top of one rise after another in the hopes of catching the first glimpse. The advancepatrols of mounted infantry, on their return, were eagerly questioned. At length, on August 2, we rounded our last corner and saw the golden roofs of the Potala of Lassa glittering in the distance, and on the following day encamped beneath its walls.

Here in a lovely valley covered with trees, rich with cultivation, and watered by a river as broad as the Thames at Westminster, here hidden away by range after range of snowy mountains, lay the mysterious Forbidden City which no living European had seen before. To many who had supposed, because it was so secluded, it must be a kind of dreamland city, it was, I dare say, disappointing, for it was, after all, built by men, and not by fairies. Its streets were not paved with gold, nor were its doors of pearls. The streets were, indeed, horribly muddy, and the inhabitants less like fairies than any I have so far seen.

But the Potala, the palace of the Grand Lama, was an imposing, massive structure, very solidly built of masonry, and picturesquely perched on a rocky eminence dominating the whole plain and the city at its base. Numbers of the houses in the city were, too, well built and solid, and often surrounded by shady trees. The rock-perched palace and the strange city at its base would be striking anywhere, but set in this beautiful valley, deep in the very heart of the mountains, they gathered an additional impressiveness which all who saw them. recognized.

It was, however, more to the inhabitants than to their buildings that I had to devote my chief attention during my stay in Lassa. All the leading men, both lay and ecclesiastical, here came before me, and with them I reasoned and argued and chaffed day after day and week after week. Appallingly ignorant and inconceivably unbusinesslike they were. No one man had supreme authority or full responsibility to negotiate with me. A council were supposed to be the chief executive authorities, but they could do nothing without the consent of the national assembly, and they, without any presiding officer to control them or any sense of responsibility, simply censured instead of

indorsing what the executive council did, while these latter were prohibited from attending meetings of the national assembly to argue their case in person. A more hopelessly inapt organization for dealing with a crisis in their foreign affairs it would be difficult to imagine. But ignorant, bigoted, and apparently immovable as they were, they had their good points. They were almost invariably polite, and they were genial. The humblest little joke was enough to set them off laughing, and I do not recall separating at the close of a single interview of all the many we had at Lassa with any feeling of ill temper. I must confess to a feeling of exasperation sometimes when I reflected that my convention had to be got through in so short a time, and no ray of daylight was for so long visible through the dreary clouds of obstruction; but these poor Tibetans do deserve credit for never having really irritated me. It was, after all, their business to make as good a bargain as they could with me, and pertinacity is a trait which need not be caviled at. Still, it was heavy, weary work. Eight or ten of them would come together. Each one had to have his say, so that when he returned home he could boast that he had for his part spoken up to the British commissioner. Each one I listened to patiently and each one I answered. In this way, as every day produced a few fresh men, I worked through most of the leading men in Lassa, while Captain O'Connor, whose trials were still greater than mine, tackled even larger numbers in his pri

vate room.

On the whole, I formed a low estimate of their mental caliber. It is impossible to regard them as much else than children. My talks with them were not only about the business in hand, but about general affairs and about religion. The Ti Rimpochi, with whom the Dalai lama left his seal in his flight for Lassa a few days before our arrival, held the chair of divinity in the Gaden monastery, and was universally reverenced as the leading lama in Lassa. He was recognized as regent, and was the principal in the negotiations with me. But even he, pleasant, benevolent, genial old gentleman as he was, had really very little intellectual power, and but a small modicum of spirituality. In both he was very distinctly inferior to the ordinary Brahmin in India. He liked his little jokes, and we were always on the best of terms. But he was firmly convinced the earth was triangular. His intellectual attainments did not amount to much more than a knowledge by rote of prodigious quantities of verses from the sacred books. Discussion with him upon the why or the wherefore of things ended in bald quotations from the scriptures, and his religion chiefly consisted in ceremonial. The general run of abbots of monasteries and leading lamas had even less to recommend them. One monastery at Lassa contained no less than 10,000 monks, and another had 7,000. But I do not think anyone saw these monks without remarking what

a degraded, nasty, sensual looking lot they were. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that in Tibet is to be found a pure and lofty form of Buddhism. Buddhism and Chinese civilization certainly have raised the rough tribes who, six or seven centuries ago, inhabited Tibet into something very much higher than they were before these appeared. But intellectual and spiritual life is stifled by the rigorous monastic rule. All foreign ideas and individual originality have so far been trampled down. And the result is a people of inflexible rigidity, wholly unable to adapt themselves to altering conditions, and without any intellectual force or spiritual impetus. We sought for, but did not find, the wonderful Mahatmas, who would lead us to more lofty peaks of light and wisdom than ever we had trod before. And while I would not deny that Buddhism has done much to tame and civilize a barbarous race of demon worshipers in Tibet, I would warn those who would look to Lassa for any kind of higher intellectual or spiritual guidance, to seek nearer home for what they need. Imbued, as the Tibetans are, with much of that impassive contentment inculcated by Buddha, they are still, to all intents and purposes, demon worshipers. Their religion is grotesque, and is the most degraded, not the purest, form of Buddhism in existence.

Happily we were able to entirely overcome that feeling of obstruction which the heads of Tibetan Church had so far shown to outsiders. Through Mr. Wilton's influence with the Chinese officials, and Mr. White's connection of many years' standing with the Tibetan lamas in Sikkim, and his tactful suasion, we were able to gain access to all the monasteries and temples, and before we left Lassa British officers went in and out with as little concern as they would to St. Paul's. I insisted upon having the convention signed in the Potala, and in the finest hall in it, and once the lamas saw no harm resulted, and we invariably treated them with consideration, they entirely withdrew their obstruction, and when, just before leaving Lassa, I paid a formal visit to the great cathedral called Jo Khang, I was surprised to find them actually pressing me to come inside the railings and walk round the magnificent image of Buddha-a freedom I have never had accorded me in any temple in India.

I fear I have not sufficient time to adequately describe these monasteries and temples. Outside they were solid and massive, though hardly beautiful. Inside they were weird and quaint, and sometimes grotesque. I carried away with me an impression of immense impassive figures of Buddha forever gazing calmly and tranquilly downward, of walls painted with grotesque demons and dragons, of highly decorated wooden columns and roofs, of general dirt and griminess, and of innumerable bowls of butter burning night and day, as candles are burnt in Roman Catholic churches before figures of the saints.