But there is a power behind the throne,
and the town is really governed by the Chinese officials, for it is the
key to the country to the west, and the Imperial Government has long
been awake to the importance of controlling the great trade and military
road to Lhasa. What the effect of the Revolution will be upon the
relations of China and Tibet remains to be seen. Already Chao Erh Feng,
the man who as Warden of the Marches had made Chinese rule more of a
reality in Lhasa than ever before, has fallen a victim to Manchu
weakness; hated by Chinese and Tibetan alike, he met his death at the
hands of a rebellious soldiery in January, 1912.

[Illustration: A VIEW OF TACHIENLU]

[Illustration: TIBETANS]

Between Tachienlu and Lhasa lie many hundred miles of barren, windswept
plateaus and perilous mountain passes. There are, I believe, at least
ten of these passes higher than Mont Blanc. Connection between the two
places is over one of the most difficult mountain roads in the world,
yet it was by this route that the Chinese finally conquered Tibet in the
eighteenth century, and to-day most of the trade goes the same way.
Those who deny the Chinese all soldierly qualities must have forgotten
their achievements against the Tibetans, let alone the still more
extraordinary military feat of their victory over the Gurkhas of Nepal,
when a force of seventy thousand men of the Middle Kingdom crossed the
whole width of the most inaccessible country in the world, and, fighting
at a distance of two thousand miles from their base, defeated the crack
warriors of the East.

The China Inland Mission has a station at Tachienlu, but to my
disappointment the two missionaries were away at the time of my visit,
and although their Chinese helpers made me welcome, providing a place
for me in one of the buildings of the mission compound, I felt it a real
loss not to talk with men who would have had so much of interest to
tell. Moreover, I had been looking forward to meeting my own kind once
more after two weeks of Chinese society. Fortunately another traveller
turned up in Tachienlu about the time I did, an English officer of the
Indian army, returning to duty by a roundabout route after two years'
leave at home. As he too was installed in the mission compound we soon
discovered each other, and I had the pleasure of some interesting talk,
and of really dining again. Eating alone in a smelly Chinese inn cannot
by any stretch be called dining. I