There were thus two parties in Tibet pulling against each other, but both in different ways hostile to our interests. The Dalai Lama and Dorjieff favoured a departure from the traditional Tibetan policy in favour of Russia. The Tsong-du and the Lamaist hierarchy in general were all for exclusion, but in their wilfulness declined to observe treaties or behave with neighbourly honesty. This internal strife, which alone made possible the success of our expedition, also made its dispatch inevitable, for neither party was prepared to listen to any argument but force. Few enterprises have ever been undertaken by Britain more unwillingly, and her decision was only arrived at under the compulsion of stark necessity. There were many who reprobated what they assumed to be a violation of the sacred places of an ancient, pure, and pacific religion. But there was no need for compunction on that score, since Lamaism was the grossest perversion of Buddhism in all Asia. Spiritually it had more kinship with the aboriginal devil-worship of Tibet than the gentle creed of Gautama. Practically it was a political tyranny of monks, who battened upon a mild and industrious population and ruled them with coarse theological terrors. Our reception by the monasteries was sufficiently gruff; but to the common people we came rather in the guise of friends. In July, 1903, Colonel Younghusband, as he then was, Mr. White, and Captain O'Connor went to Khamba Jong, a place in Southern Tibet, just north of Sikkim. There they met the Abbot of Tashilhunpo and certain emissaries from Lhasa, but nothing could be done; and, with the concurrence of the Indian Office, it was arranged that a Mission should go to Gyangtse, the chief town of Southern Tibet, accompanied by a small escorting force. While troops were being collected, the Commissioner, Colonel Younghusband, went to Tuna, on the bleak plain above the Tang La, where he waited through three weary winter months. Meanwhile General Macdonald, a soldier who had had a distinguished record in Central Africa, took up his quarters at Chumbi, while Major Bretherton, the chief transport and supply officer, accumulated stores in that valley and prepared the line of communications. Those were anxious months of waiting for the Mission, for the Tibetans were in force in the neighbourhood, and daily threatened to attack the small post; but nothing happened till the escort joined them in the end of March, 1904, and all things were ready for the advance. [Illustration: The Expedition to Lhasa.]