To Lhassa at Last

John Stuart Mill · en
Who can doubt that all the above-named are not now, in this month of
November 1904, writing for their lives, so as to produce at the earliest
opportunity the results of their scientific or literary labours in the
shape of books that will give valuable information to the serious
student, or prove a substantial contribution to literature?

Apart from the above enterprises, a flood of Blue-books, compiled by the
authorised political and military officials, will doubtless also shortly
appear, even though that appearance may in some cases be but a swift
transference from the printing-press to the pigeonhole.

Surely, then, for one who is not ordered by authority to compile a
Blue-book, who has no gospel of Tibetan scientific discoveries to
proclaim to the world, and who has no harvest--in the shape of letters
previously sent to the press and capable of republication--ready at hand
for reaping, to sit down and write a book on Tibet, merely because he
happens to have been to Lhassa and back, is a work of supererogation
which needs a word of apology.

My apology is that this book will be avowedly a book by a 'man in the
street'--a man, that is, who occupied an inconspicuous single-fly tent
in a back street of the brigade camp. As such it will throw no searching
light upon the subject, but may afford a simple but distinctive view of
it, and one uncaught by the searchlights of the official minute, the
scientist's lore, and the war correspondent's art.

But, my prospective reader, as you finger this slight volume at the
bookstall, I trust that this preface may at once catch your eye, so
that, if what you want to read about Tibet is an elaborate appreciation
or a collection of solid information, you may drop the book like the
proverbial hot potato before that jealous-eyed man behind the stall
makes you buy it as a punishment for fingering it, and may seize instead
upon one of those weightier tomes that are now racing it through the
press.

                               POWELL MILLINGTON.

  _November 1904._




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                       PAGE
          PREFACE                                  v

       I. THE WRITING ON THE WALL                  1

      II. PRELIMINARIES                            6

     III. THE BASE                                13

      IV. TO GNATONG                              18

       V. MOUNTAIN SICKNESS: GNATONG: WAYSIDE
               WITTICISMS                         25

      VI. OVER THE JALAP-LÀ: CHUMBI: BEARDS       32

     VII. TO PHARI                                42

    VIII. TO KANGMA                               51

      IX. NAINI: TIBETAN WARFARE                  59

       X. AT GYANTSE: FIGHTING: FORAGING:
               TIBETAN RELIGIOUS ART              67

      XI. THE START FOR LHASSA: A DIGRESSION
               ON SUPPLY AND TRANSPORT            77

     XII. TO RALUNG: MORE SUPPLY MATTERS:
               A VISIT TO A MONASTERY             92