charge that the troubles from which Tibet was suffering
were due to the fact that bribes of European money had
been unlawfully accepted by Tibetan officials.
On the 3rd or 4th of October, it was asserted that
150 Russian rifles* were brought to the Potala by
Dorjieff. At this time the latter’s influence reached its
highest point, and it was regretfully admitted in Lhasa
that even the Shapes themselves were obliged to curry
favour with him to get anything done or even listened
to by the Dalai Lama. About this time, owing to
the direct intervention of Dorjieff, the Dalai Lama took
the arbitrary and high-handed step to which we have
referred. On the 13th of October he sent for and imprisoned
at Norbu-ling the four ministers of state and
the representatives of the Three Monasteries. He
accused the Shata Shape of having taken bribes ; the
other members were charged with having concealed from
the Dalai Lama important facts connected with the
boundary dispute, with having taken money from Ugyen
K a z if on the occasion of the presentation of an elephant,
with being behindhand in their biennial reports, and, in
general, with disobedience to his Holiness, and with
attempting to carry on the business of the country contrary
to his intentions and orders. In order to carry
through this coup-de-main, he once again threatened
* It was believed in Lhasa that weapons were continually arriving in camel loads,
but it is more probable that they were barrels only. The Tip arsenal across the river
was working at high pressure, and even during our brief experience of Tibetan munitions
of war it was possible to observe a very distinct improvement in the manufactured
cartridges; the rifles here made consisted, as a rule, of a local Martini lock adjusted
somewhat carelessly to an old European-made barrel of some discarded pattern.
t Ugyen Kazi, horsedealer and diplomatist, is the most conspicuous figure on the
Tibetan frontier. He was used by the Indian Government in 1902 as the bearer of the
letters to the Dalai Lama which were returned unopened to Lord Curzon. A commanding
presence and a quick humour also has this man who might use Elizabeth’s
scratching on the Hatfield window for his motto.
to resign and adopt the meditative life unless his action
were endorsed. He was completely successful.
Almost the last act ~ of these unhappy men was a
refusal to attend the annual review on the plain between
Sera and Lhasa on the day when the Emperor of China
is customarily saluted by obeisance made towards the
The Ta Lama. He is the chief executive member of the Hierarchy under the
Dalai Lama.
east. It is probable that they refused to attend this
yearly ceremony in order to avoid offending either the
Emperor or the Dalai Lama, either by abandoning or
persisting in the old custom which the latter seems now
to have forbidden for the future, and it is not without
significance that, in order to save themselves from
internal treachery, the four deposed Shapes had bound
themselves by an oath to stand or fall together.