I added that after an Envoy had been kept waiting for a year, and had been attacked and shot at for two months, most rulers would have refused to allow their representative to negotiate till the capital had been captured. We were not, however, advancing with that object. They could see that here we were paying for all supplies we took, and the monastery immediately outside the camp was left unmolested. I was prepared to show like consideration on our arrival at Lhasa if we were unopposed, and I trusted His Holiness would appreciate this concession.
The delegates assured me again that the Dalai Lama was really anxious to make a settlement, that they had come in a peaceful manner, and had let the army they had with them a few days ago disperse to their homes. I had little difficulty in believing these assertions, for we had received accounts that the Tibetan army had scattered in a panic, the Kham levies looting in all directions. A peaceful settlement was undoubtedly, therefore, the sincere desire of the Dalai Lama, though turbulent monks might yet create a disturbance in Lhasa. As to the delegates being punished if we advanced to Lhasa, I said that I myself would be punished if we did not.
A discussion afterwards followed on the question of other foreigners coming to Tibet if we were allowed there. I told them it was the usual custom for neighbouring countries to have representatives at each other’s capital, and we would probably have avoided all the misunderstandings which led to the present troubles if we had had a representative at Lhasa and they had had one in Calcutta. We knew, however, their aversion to keeping a British agent at Lhasa; we were not, therefore, pressing the point, and were only insisting upon having trade agents at Gyantse and other marts. There would, however, in any case, have been no reason for other foreigners establishing an agent at Lhasa. Russia had declared that she had no intention of sending an agent to Tibet. The delegates replied that our establishing an agent even at Gyantse would be against their custom, and spoil their religion. I said that I understood, then, that they were not prepared even now to agree to our terms, and they informed me that they were only authorized to discuss them, and they would have to be considered in the National Assembly. “You expect me, then,” I said, “to remain out here in a half-desert place discussing terms. I have already remained for months together in desert places in Tibet, and can now negotiate in no other place than Lhasa.” I begged the Chamberlain as a practical man to accept this as inevitable, and to turn his mind now to insuring that there should be no more useless bloodshed on the way, and that we should be enabled by the speedy conclusion of the settlement to leave Lhasa at an early date.