Manning, attended by a Chinese servant, proceeded to Tibet through Bhutan, and on October 21, 1811, arrived at Phari, at the head of the Chumbi Valley. His description of the Jong then precisely corresponds with our own experiences in Tibet on many an occasion since: “Dirt, dirt, grease, smoke. Misery, but good mutton.”
A Chinese Mandarin arrived there about the same time, and Manning gave him two bottles of cherry-brandy and a wineglass. This, and probably Manning’s very original manners, evidently unfroze his heart, for he asked him to dinner, and promised to write immediately to the Lhasa Mandarin for permission for him to proceed. Manning also received applications to cure soldiers, and his medicines “did wonderfully well, and the patients were very grateful.” They even petitioned for him to go with the Mandarin towards Gyantse, and the Mandarin granted their request.
Altogether, Manning made a very favourable impression on the Chinese who, he remarked, lorded it in Tibet like the English in India, and made the Tibetans stand before them. And he considered then that there were advantages in having the Chinese in this superior position. “Things are much pleasanter now the Chinese are here,” he says; “the magistrate hints about overtures respecting opening a commercial intercourse between the Chinese and the English through Bhutan. I cannot help exclaiming in my mind (as I often do) what fools the Company are to give me no commission, no authority, no instructions. What use are their Embassies when their Ambassadors cannot speak to a soul, and can only make ordinary phrases pass through a stupid interpreter? No _finesse_, no _tournure_, no compliments. Fools, fools, fools, to neglect an opportunity they may never have again!”
Poor Manning experienced very severe cold, and travelled to Gyantse in great discomfort, and felt these discomforts acutely, so that the greater part of his diary is filled with quaint denunciation of his Chinese clerk; of a vicious horse which kicked and bit him; of the “common horse-furniture,” which was “detestable”; of the saddle which was so high behind and before that he sat in pain unless he twisted himself unequally; of another pony “which sprang forward in a full runaway gallop, with the most furious and awkward motion he ever experienced”; of yet another that was “so weak, so tottering, and so stumbling, and which trembled so whenever he set his foot on a stone, which was about every other step,” that he could “hardly keep up with the company”; of his being “so eaten up by little insects” that he had to sit down in the sunshine and get rid of as many as he could, for he “suffered a good deal from these little insects, whose society he was not used to”; of his at last finding “a very pleasant-going horse with a handsome countenance,” which he was tempted to buy, “but was checked by the prudent consideration that he might encumber me at Lhasa,” and too much disencumber his lean purse. Strange that the first Englishman ever to visit Lhasa should have been incommoded for want of a five-pound note with which to buy a rough hill pony.