lity to restrain the Tibetans from invading our territory. At the
conclusion of the campaign, in which the Tibetans showed no military
instincts whatever, we returned to our post at Gnatong, on the Sikkim
frontier.

After two years of fruitless discussion, a convention was drawn up
between Great Britain and China, by which Great Britain's exclusive
control over the internal administration and foreign relations of Sikkim
was recognised, the Sikkim-Tibet boundary was defined, and both Powers
undertook to prevent acts of aggression from their respective sides of
the frontier. The questions of pasturage, trade facilities, and the
method in which official communications should be conducted between the
Government of India and the authorities at Lhasa were deferred for
future discussion. Nearly three more years passed before the trade
regulations were drawn up in Darjeeling--in December, 1903. The
negociations were characterized by the same shuffling and equivocation
on the part of the Chinese, and the same weak-kneed policy of
forbearance and conciliation on the part of the British. Treaty and
regulations were alike impotent, and our concessions went so far that we
exacted nothing as the fruit of our victory over the Tibetans--not even
a fraction of the cost of the campaign.

Our ignorance of the Tibetans, their Government, and their relations
with China was at this time so profound that we took our cue from the
Chinese, who always referred to the Lhasa authorities as 'the
barbarians.' The Shata Shape, the most influential of the four members
of Council, attended the negociations on behalf of the Tibetans. He was
officially ignored, and no one thought of asking him to attach his
signature to the treaty. The omission was a blunder of far-reaching
consequences. Had we realized that Chinese authority was practically
non-existent in Lhasa, and that the temporal affairs of Tibet were
mainly directed by the four Shapes and the Tsong-du (the very existence
of which, by the way, was unknown to us), we might have secured a
diplomatic agent in the Shata Shape who would have proved invaluable to
us in our future relations with the country. Unfortunately, during his
stay in Darjeeling the Shape's feelings were lacerated by ill-treatment
as well as neglect. In an unfortunate encounter with British youth,
which was said to have arisen from his jostling an English lady off the
path, he was taken by the scruff of the neck and ducked in the