CHAPTER I

THE CAUSES OF THE EXPEDITION

PAGES

A retrospect--Early visitors to Lhasa--The Jesuits--The Capuchins--Van der Putte--Thomas Manning--The Lazarist fathers--Policy of exclusion due to Chinese influence--The Nepalese invasion--Bogle and Turner--The Macaulay Mission--Tibetans invade Indian territory--The expedition of 1888--The convention with China--British blundering--Our treatment of the Shata Shapé--The Yatung trade mart--Tibetans repudiate the convention--Fiction of the Chinese suzerainty--A policy of drift--Tibetan Mission to the Czar--Dorjieff and his intrigues--The Dalai Lama and Russian designs--Our great countermove--Boycotted at Khamba Jong--The advance sanctioned--Winter quarters at Tuna 1-21