GEORGE BOGLE 13
countries. A thin current of merchandise filtered down
over the passes into India, its owners exchanging the
musk, wool and turquoises of Tibet for the rice and
hardware of India, but it is not likely that Warren
Hastings had any very definite intention to open up a
thoroughfare to India from the north and east. Many
years were needed to consolidate the British rule in
Bengal, and he had difficulties enough in India proper
to contend with without in any way inviting the interference
of outside tribes or nations. It is probable that
his chief aim was to secure information. Nothing
whatever was known of this particular route between
India and Tibet; the very names of the towns, the
nature of the country, the disposition of its inhabitants,
its products, its government, all were alike unknown,
and George Bogle was set a task by Hastings which
might well have daunted a diplomatist more experienced
than the young and unknown writer 27 years of age.
But from first to last he carried through his mission
with unfailing tact, and, so far as it was possible, with
complete success. His object was not Lhasa. The
Dalai Lama was then a boy of 15, and the virtual government
of the country lay in the hands of the Tashi Lama.
This man, whose name was Jetsun Poldan Ye She, has
remained the most distinguished figure in all the list
of re-incarnate Grand Lamas. He was a man of commanding
personality, of wide-minded sympathy and
toleration, and remarkable, even beyond the confines
of his country, for his courtesy and wisdom. To him,
therefore, Bogle was sent, and making his way through
Bhutan, he arrived at Tashi-lhunpo without serious
delay in December, 1774. His diary and the official
report which he sent to Warren Hastings, by that time