pposed there could he no sort of
objection to them. We asked him if, in speaking thus, he proposed to us
advice or command. "Both the one and the other," he replied, coldly.
"Since it is so, we have first to thank you for the interest which you
seem to have in our welfare, in telling us that this country is cold and
miserable. But you must know, that men such as we, do not regard the
goods and conveniences of this world; were it not so, we should have
remained in our own kingdom of France. For know, there is not anywhere a
country comparable with our own. As for the imperative portion of your
words, this is our answer: 'Admitted into Thibet by the local authority,
we recognise no right in you, or in any other person, to disturb our
abode here.'" "How! you who are strangers, presume still to remain
here?'" "Yes, we are strangers, but we know that the laws of Thibet are
not like those of China. The Peboun, the Katchi, the Mongols, are
strangers like us, and yet they are permitted to live here in peace; no
one disturbs them. What, then, is the meaning of this arbitrary
proceeding of yours, in ordering Frenchmen from a country open to all
people? If foreigners are to quit Lha-Ssa, why do you stay here? Does
not your title of Kin-Tchai (ambassador) distinctly announce that you
yourself are but a foreigner here?" At these words, Ki-Chan bounded on
his velvet cushion. "I a foreigner!" cried he, "a foreigner! I, who
bear the authority of the Grand Emperor, who, only a few months' since,
condemned and exiled the Nomekhan." "We are acquainted with that affair.
There is this difference between the Nomekhan and us, that the Nomekhan
came from Kan-Sou, a province of the empire, and we come from France,
where your Grand Emperor is nobody; and that the Nomekhan assassinated
three Tale-Lamas, while we have done no injury to any man. Have we any
other aim than to make known to men the true God, and to teach them the
way to save their souls?" "Ay, as I have already said to you, I believe
you to be honest people; but then the religion you preach has been
declared wicked, and prohibited by our Grand Emperor." "To these words,
we can only reply thus: The religion of the Lord of Heaven does not need
the sanction of your Emperor to make it a holy religion, any more than
we, of its mission, need it to come and preach in Thibet." The Chinese
ambassador did not think it expedient to continue this discussion; he
drily dismissed u