CHAPTER VII
THE TIBET EMBASSY AND THE RISHI-LA, 1886
In 1885 the late Mr. Coleman Macaulay, then Secretary to the Govern¬ ment of Bengal, after an expedition to the frontier of Sikkim of which he published an account, thought that the time seemed favourable for doing what Warren Hastings had attempted more than a century before, namely, to negotiate a treaty of commerce with Tibet. The Tibetan traders had always said that there was nothing they would like better than a free exchange of products, but that they were prevented from doing so by their suzerain, China. Macaulay first came to England to see how far the Government would support his endeavours, and finding Lord Randolph Churchill, who was then Secretary of State for India,* very favourable to the scheme, he went to Pekin to try to overcome the diffi¬ culties which were made by the Chinese Government. He was accom¬ panied by a clever Bengali Babu named Sarat Chandra Das, who had visited Lhasa two years before on his own initiative in order to study the Buddhist religion at its headquarters and who, after suffering many hard¬ ships on the journey, came back speaking Tibetan more or less fluently. During his stay at Pekin Sarat Chandra Das was entertained at the Tibetan monastery. Through the influence which Sarat Chandra Das exercised on the Tibetan lamas and through the ability which Macaulay showed in his negotiations, a formal consent was obtained during the late autumn of 1885 to the despatch of a Mission from the Indian Government to Lhasa. When Macaulay was in England earlier in 1885 he consulted Sir J. Hooker as to the selection of a naturalist to accompany the Mission, and the result was that he proposed that I should go with him in this capacity. When, therefore, I received a letter from him at Pekin saying that all was arranged, and that the expedition would start early in 1886, I thought it was best to arrange matters with the India Office without delay, so that I might be ready to join the Mission in India before it started. At an interview with Lord Randolph Churchill it was settled that I was to travel at my own expense to India and back, receiving my out-of-pocket expenses only during the time the Mission lasted. I was naturally much pleased to have such an opportunity as this of visiting a place which no European had seen under what seemed such favourable conditions, especially as I was the only man on the Mission not in Government service. As I had sufficient knowledge both of wool and of tea, which might be the two principal articles of commerce with Tibet, I endeavoured to learn all that was possible in the time so as to fit myself for reporting on the past history and probable future prospects of the Tibetan trade, as well as on the natural history of the country.
To my surprise, however, Macaulay, instead of going straight back to Calcutta, and organising the expedition as quickly as possible, came to England again, ostensibly with the object of purchasing the presents which we were to carry with us, and for which a sum of 30,000 rupees
- June, 1885–January, 1886.
86
