An apology is needed for the length of this book. When it was passing through the press, a Parliamentary Blue-book appeared containing much important information as to recent developments, and what I had intended as only the account of our relations with Tibet up to the return of the Mission of 1904 I thought with advantage might be extended to include our relations to the present time. The whole forms one connected narrative of the attempt, protracted over 137 years, to accomplish a single purpose—the establishment of ordinary neighbourly intercourse with Tibet. The dramatic ending disclosed is that, when that purpose had at last been achieved, we forthwith abandoned the result.
The reasons for this abandonment have been—firstly, the jealousy borne by two great Powers for one another; and, secondly, the love of isolation engrained in us islanders. I have suggested that our aim should be to replace jealousy by co-operation, and, instead of coiling up in frigid isolation, we should expand ourselves to make and keep friendships.
The means I have recommended are living personalities rather than dry treaties, and what Warren Hastings and Lord Curzon wanted—an agent at Lhasa—is to me also the one true means of achieving our purpose.
I am fully conscious of having made mistakes in that part of the conduct of these affairs which fell to me to discharge. The exactly true adjustment of diplomatic with military requirements, and of the wishes of men in England with the necessities of the situation in Tibet, could only be made by a human being arrived at perfection. Not yet having arrived there, I doubtless made many errors. I can only assume that, if I had never made a mistake, I should never have made a success. Likewise, in my recommendations for the future, I may often be in error in detail, but in the main conclusion of substituting intimacy for isolation and effecting the change by personality, I would fain believe I shall prove right.
What I say has no official inspiration or sanction, for I have left the employment of Government, and am seeking to serve my country in fields of greater freedom though not less responsibility; but, in compiling the narrative of our relations with the Tibetans, I have made the fullest use of the four Blue-books which have been presented to Parliament. These contain information of the highest value, though in the very undigested form characteristic of Parliamentary Papers. Beyond personal impressions I have added nothing to them, but merely sought to deduce from them a connected account of events and of the motives which impelled them. To Sir Clement Markham’s account of Bogle’s Mission and Manning’s journey to Lhasa, to Captain Turner’s account of his Mission to Tibet, and to Perceval Landon’s, Edmund Candler’s, and Colonel Waddell’s accounts of the Mission of 1904, I am also indebted, as well as to Mr. White, Captain Bailey and Messrs. Johnston and Hoffman for photographs.
I lastly desire to acknowledge the trouble which Mr. John Murray has so kindly taken in correcting the proofs.
FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND.
September 7, 1910.
P.S.—Too late to make use of it, I have received the just published reprint from the T’sung Pao of Mr. Rockhill’s “The Dalai Lamas of Lhasa and their Relations to the Manchu Emperors of China.” The conclusion of this famous authority on Tibet, that the Tibetans have no desire for total independence of China, but that their complaints have always been directed against the manner in which the local Chinese officials have performed their duties, is particularly noteworthy.

This book is an account of our relations with Tibet, but many still wonder why we need have any such relations at all. The country lies on the far side of the Himalayas, the greatest range of snowy mountains in the world. Why, then, should we trouble ourselves about what goes on there? Why do we want to interfere with the Tibetans? Why not leave them alone? These are very reasonable and pertinent questions, and such as naturally spring to the mind of even the least intelligent of Englishmen. Obviously, therefore, they must have sprung to the minds of responsible British statesmen before they ever sanctioned intervention. The sedate gentlemen who compose the Government of India are not renowned for being carried away by bursts of excitement or enthusiasm, nor are they remarkable for impulsive, thoughtless action. They have spent their lives in the dull routine of official grind, and by the time they attain a seat in the Viceregal Council they are, if anything, too free from emotional impulses. Certainly, the initiation of anything forward and interfering was as little to be expected from them as from the most rigorous anti-Imperialist. The head of the Government of India at the time of the Tibet Mission was, it is true, a man of less mature official experience, but he happened to be a man who had studied Asiatic policy in nearly every part of Asia, besides having been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and even supposing he had been the most impulsive and irresponsible of Viceroys, he could take no action without gaining the assent of the majority of his colleagues in India, and without convincing the Secretary of State in England. India is not governed by the Viceroy alone, but by the Viceroy in Council. On such a question as the despatch of a mission to Tibet, the Viceroy would not be able to act without the concurrence of three out of his six councillors, and without the approval of the Secretary of State, who, in his turn, as expenditure is incurred, would have to gain the support of his Council of tried and experienced Indian administrators and soldiers, besides the approval of the whole Cabinet.
It is, then, a very fair presumption at the outset that if all these various authorities had satisfied themselves that action in Tibet was necessary, there probably was some reasonable ground for interference. What was it that influenced these sedate authorities, alike in India and in England, to depart from the natural course of leaving the Tibetans alone, to behave or misbehave themselves as they liked? What was it that persuaded these gentlemen that action, and not inaction, intervention, and not laissez-faire , were required, and that we could no longer leave this remote State on the far side of the mighty Himalayas severely alone? There must have been some strong reason, for it was not merely a matter of permitting an adventurous explorer to try and reach the “forbidden city.” After thirty years of correspondence what was eventually sanctioned was the despatch of a mission with an escort strong enough to break down all opposition. What was the reason?
The answer to this I will eventually give. But to make that answer clear we must view the matter from a long perspective, and trace its gradual evolution from the original beginnings. And, at the start, I shall have to emphasize the point that there has always been intercourse of some kind between Tibet and India, for Tibet is not an island in mid-ocean. It is in the heart of a continent surrounded by other countries. That it is a mysterious, secluded country in the remote hinterland of the Himalayas most people are vaguely aware. But that it is contiguous for nearly a thousand miles with the British Empire, from Kashmir to Burma, few have properly realized. Still less have they appreciated that this contact between the countries means intercourse of some kind between the peoples inhabiting them, even though it has to be over a snowy range. The Tibetans drew their religion from India. From time immemorial they have been accustomed to visit the sacred shrines of India. Tibetan traders have come down to Bengal, Kashmiri and Indian traders have gone to Tibet. Tibetan shepherds have brought their flocks to the pastures on the Indian side of the range in some parts. In other parts the shepherds from the Indian side have taken their sheep and goats to the plateaux of Tibet. Sometimes the Tibetans or their vassals have raided to valleys and plains of India, sometimes Indian feudatories have raided into Tibet. At other times, again, the intercourse has been of a more pacific kind, and intermarriages between the bordering peoples and interchanges of presents have taken place. In a multitude of ways there has ever been intercourse between Tibet and India. Tibet has never been really isolated. And, as I shall in due course show, the Mission to Lhasa of 1904, was merely the culmination of a long series of efforts to regularize and humanize that intercourse, and put the relationship which must necessarily subsist between India and Tibet upon a business-like and permanently satisfactory footing.