se, one Dorjieff, headed the so-called
religious mission of 1901, and has been employed more than once as the
Dalai Lama's ambassador to St. Petersburg. Dorjieff is a man of
fifty-eight, who has spent some twenty years of his life in Lhasa, and
is known to be the right-hand adviser of the Dalai Lama. No doubt
Dorjieff played on the fears of the Buddhist Pope until he really
believed that Tibet was in danger of an invasion from India, in which
eventuality the Czar, the great Pan-Buddhist Protector, would descend on
the British and drive them back over the frontier. The Lamas of Tibet
imagine that Russia is a Buddhist country, and this belief has been
fostered by adventurers like Dorjieff, Tsibikoff, and others, who have
inspired dreams of a consolidated Buddhist church under the spiritual
control of the Dalai Lama and the military aegis of the Czar of All the
Russias.

These dreams, full of political menace to ourselves, have, I think, been
dispelled by Lord Curzon's timely expedition to Lhasa. The presence of
the British in the capital and the helplessness of Russia to lend any
aid in such a crisis are facts convincing enough to stultify the effects
of Russian intrigue in Buddhist Central Asia during the last
half-century.

The fact that the first Dalai Lama who has been allowed to reach
maturity has plunged his country into war by intrigue with a foreign
Power proves the astuteness of the cold-blooded policy of removing the
infant Pope, and the investiture of power in the hands of a Regent
inspired by Peking. It is believed that the present Dalai Lama was
permitted to come of age in order to throw off the Chinese yoke. This
aim has been secured, but it has involved other issues that the Lamas
could not foresee.

And here it must be observed that the Dalai Lama's inclination towards
Russia does not represent any considerable national movement. The desire
for a rapprochement was largely a matter of personal ambition inspired
by that arch-intriguer Dorjieff, whose ascendancy over the Dalai Lama
was proved beyond a doubt when the latter joined him in his flight to
Mongolia on hearing the news of the British advance on Lhasa. Dorjieff
had a certain amount of popularity with the priest population of the
capital, and the monks of the three great monasteries, amongst whom he
is known to have distributed largess royally. But the traditional policy
of isolation is so inveterately ingrained in the Tibetan character that
it is