The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-12-27
By
Thomas F.
Millard

no Russian can have permission to travel on any of the
roads of Naktchu and nwards as far as my kingdom
Watch the frontiers of Naktsang 1t is absolutely
essential to guard strictly every part of the country
1t is entirely. unnecessary that any European shall
enter into the kingdom of the holy books and spy out
the land. In your provinces they have nothing what
soever to do If they say they have then know they
must not travel toward Lhasa And if they do travel
then shall you lose your head. See to it that they
turn back by the way they came"
Once he turned his back upon Lhasa, DR.. Hedn
and his Tbetan escort were on the best OF terms and
they exerted themselves to add to his comfort,
would they accept pay for the large quantities of pro-
visions and the animals which they gave him.
The region generally included in the land called
Tibet is vast plateau roughly estimated at about
one-fth the size of the United States, embraced by
the Himalaya Kuen-lun and Altyn-tagh ranges of
mountains, the centre of the great continent of
Asia. This plateau has elevation of 10000
to II 900 feet above level Although the latitude
of the most popuous part of the land is about the
Florida the climate is almost Arctic in rigor owing
to the great altitude.
Very little verdure and only few of the most hardy
cereals grow, and these in the deeper valleys Of
Southern Tibet. Hundreds of lakes, many of them
of great extent dot the landscape which has never
been fully surveyed. The greater part of Northern
Tibet has vegetation, the soil of the plains and
valleys resembling mud, caked into solidity by the
cold AS if the mountain ranges, the most lofty in
the world did not offer sufficient barrier the northern
and Western frontiers can be approached only across
the Tarm and Cobb deserts: Recent explorations of
the mountain ranges that wall the country reveal the
existence of hundreds of peaks with estimated alt-
tudes of than 10000 feet while the passes
exceedingly difficult at all seasons, owing to the in
tense cold and In this region originate nearly
all the great rivers of Eastern and Southern Asia,
including the Yellow, Yangtse, Brahmaputra, Indus
and Sutlej, which fed by the perpetual
The beginning of the present policy of exclusion
really dates from the annexation of Tibet to the
Chinese empire. 1t the spread of Chinese influence
at Lhasa rather than the desire of the
Dala Lama, that closed the doors to
Europeans. China acquired formal sover- ]
eighty over Tibet just at a time when -
her statesmen were beginning to realize, *
through the pressure being gradually "
exerted upon the empire, well the N
advance of British conquest in India, that | I'm
the aggression of Western nations in M
Asia must be checked. The geographical wv
situation of Tibet combined with the WI
character of the country, made it a natural jEM,-
buffer state, and to preserve its isolation NISAS
became canon of Chinese diplomacy. KNYNN
A Chinese resident was established in 9NIVN
Lhasa in 1920, and since then Tibet has &eIKY
been compelled to pay annual tribute II Kb
to China, and every FIVE years a special NjM
envoy visits Picking in behalf of the Dalia (AR
Lama. Twice within the last two humid >SES
red years China has defended Tibet from %A
the assaults of the Ghurkans, the last time