which the curious reader will find in the interesting pages of the Abbé Duhalde.

The Tipa, having tasted the sweets of power, was determined not to lose it without an effort, and he looked about him to see who could render him aid. Even before he was discovered he had negotiated a treaty with Galdan, then at the height of his power and more than holding his own against the Chinese. It looks as if it were the discovery of their correspondence that first made Kanghi dubious of the Tipa's good faith. But although Galdan was not at all unwilling to profit by the success of the Tipa, he was not in a position to render him any definite support, and without external support it was soon made evident that the Tipa could not maintain his position. The lamas looked to China, and the suppression of their religious head was not at all to their liking. When Kanghi wrote that the true Dalai Lama must be found, they quickly fixed upon the suitable child. The Tipa fell from his seat of power, and was promptly dealt with as an insubordinate officer. No difficulty was found in getting rid of him. One of his own lieutenants, to whom, as a reward for the deed, was given the title of Latsan Khan, killed him at the first opportunity.

The death of Galdan while these occurrences were going on produced a lull in the march of rival policies in Central Asia. The Chinese, satisfied with tranquillity, took no steps, while the new king of the Eleuths hesitated as to the direction in which he should turn his energy. This potentate was Tse Wang Rabdan, and in extenuation of his restless turbulence it must be allowed that the Chinese armies under their Manchu leaders had advanced far into the Gobi desert, crushed the Khalkas on the Kerulon, and threatened to overrun Kashgaria and Kuldja. The offensive measures of Tse Wang Rabdan might then be justified on the ground that in a strict sense they were really defensive. In the time of Galdan the struggle had been carried on chiefly round the modern town of Urga. The new turn of the political wheel brought Tibet into prominence. Tse Wang Rabdan determined to put an end to Chinese influence in that country by capturing the Dalai Lama and carrying him off to Ili. The scheme was a bold one, and it would undoubtedly have succeeded if the young Dalai Lama, discovered as a child in 1698 or 1699, had been left at Lhasa. His timely removal to Sining was the sole cause of the failure of the Eleuth King in accomplishing his main object.

Before we take up the description of the military expedition, the facts that have been mentioned suggest a few pertinent observations on the present situation, that has so much practical interest for us and for the people of India. In a debate in the House of Lords on the 26th of February Lords Ripon and Rosebery made speeches in which the dominant note was incredulity as to the feasibility of Russian intervention in Tibet. The former appealed to the natural difficulties described by Dr. Sven Hedin, the latter questioned the likelihood

of any convention having been signed between Russians and Tibetans. Both were disposed to represent that any apprehensions of outside interference in Tibet, other, of course, than Chinese, rested on an illusory foundation. We may refer these statesmen to the history of Tibet from, let us say, 1690 to 1710. Lord Ripon will see that Chereng Donduk with an army at his back was a more successful traveller than Sven Hedin. Lord Rosebery will admit that, if an Eleuth prince could not merely conclude an arrangement with Tibet but send an army to Lhasa to enforce it, the same achievement is not beyond the capacity of a European State in possession of practically the same base-viz. the major part of the old Eleuth country, while dominating beyond any possible disputation the rest.

To return to Tse Wang Rabdan. The Emperor Kanghi believed that the death of Galdan meant a more tranquil time on the side of Central Asia. He had no real love for those costly enterprises in the desert beyond the Great Wall. He recognised the ability of Galdan, but he counted on the balance of chances that his successor would not be his equal, for it is rarely in the world's history that ' Amurath to Amurath succeeds.' It happened, however, that the new chief of the Eleuths was no less ambitious and scarcely less able than his predecessor. But whereas Galdan had thought that the Chinese armies were to be driven back in the deserts of Mongolia, Tse Wang Rabdan came to the conclusion that the master-stroke might be dealt to Chinese influence and fame in Tibet. For this reason he recalled the treaty that the Tipa had concluded with his uncle, and resolved on exacting vengeance for the murder of his family's ally.

In 1709 he organised his forces for a protracted expedition. Organising meant for him the collection of a sufficient number of camels, and he advanced at the head of his army to Lob Nor or its neighbourhood. Here he learnt that the young Dalai Lama had been carried off for safety to Sining on the borders of Shensi, and as his main object was to capture the person of the priest ruler of Tibet, he decided to divide his army into two bodies, leading one himself against Sining, and entrusting the other to the command of his brother or cousin Chereng Donduk for the express purpose of capturing Lhasa. The available authorities are uncertain as to the relationship between the Eleuth prince and Chereng or Zeren Donduk, but the probability is that they were only cousins. It will be convenient to mention at this point that Tse Wang Rabdan's attack on Sining was repulsed, or at all events that it failed of success, and thus the Dalai Lama personally escaped from the consequences of the capture and plunder of his capital.

The force with which Chereng Donduk marched from Lob Nor to Lhasa did not exceed 6000 men, and it is stated that it was accompanied by several thousand camels. Some of these carried swivel guns, which were discharged from their backs, but the bulk of them conveyed the provisions of the army. Unlike modern travellers,

the expedition made little of the difficulties encountered on the route. In the narrative of Chereng Donduk, as preserved by Gospodin Unkoffsky, there are no striking pictures of salt deserts or sandstorms, which makes one suspect that neither Colonel Prjevalsky nor Dr. Sven Hedin discovered the best route from the north into Tibet. The Eleuth army reached the district south of Tengri Nor without loss and in good condition. At some point between that lake and the capital it found the Tibetan forces drawn up to oppose its progress.

The Tibetan army of that day was not more formidable in a military sense than its antitype is now, but Latsan Khan-the Talai Han of Duhalde-had collected in some way or other a body of 20,000 men. Many of these were mercenaries from Mongolia or the Himalayas, and probably the bulk of those present were civilians or priests, ignorant of the use of arms, and brought there for the day merely to make a show. The advance of the Eleuth camel corps, and the noise if not the execution of the swivel guns, put the whole of the Tibetan force to the rout. It became a general sauve qui peut, and in the confusion Latsan Khan, the Tibetan generalissimo, lost his life, probably at the hands of some of his own followers. Thus completely defeated at the first encounter, the Tibetan army never reassembled. Military resistance to the Eleuth invaders was not again so much as attempted.

A few days after the fight near Tengri Nor the Eleuths reached and entered Lhasa. They entered without firing a shot, the pagodas and lamaseries were pillaged, an immense spoil was taken in the residence of the Dalai Lama at Potola, and then, having plundered several other towns in the valley which are not named, the Eleuth army prepared to return to Ili. In addition to the loot taken the Eleuths carried off a considerable number of lamas as prisoners. Duhalde affirms, with a certain degree of satisfaction at the troubles of rival priests, whom he calls elsewhere idolaters, that all the lamas who could be found were put in sacks and strung across the backs of camels and thus carried off to Tartary.'

Two minor incidents in this campaign may be mentioned. The Eleuths found at Lhasa a Tartar (really Kirghiz) princess and her son, who had come, with the permission of the Russians, from their home in the Astrachan district to make the pilgrimage to the holy city of Tibet. She was the sister-in-law of Ayuka, the Tourgouth chief who had fled from Chinese territory, and whose grandson returned later on with his people to China, as described by De Quincey in his brilliant essay 'The Flight of a Tartar Tribe.' The presence of these interesting pilgrims is in its way evidence of the ease with which Lhasa could be reached from Russian territory. The second incident was the narrow escape from the invaders of the 'lama missionaries,' as Duhalde calls the Christian converts of his order, who were employed on the collection of the materials for the great map of Tibet, with which

the name of D'Anville was subsequently associated. They had only quitted Lhasa a few days when the Tartar hordes burst in upon it.

Unkoffsky, the Russian envoy to Tse Wang Rabdan, who visited his camp or capital in 1722, states that on this expedition the Eleuths suffered little or no loss. But their attack on Sining was repulsed, and the failure to secure the person of the Dalai Lama converted their daring invasion of Tibet into a mere plundering raid. But that does not diminish the value, as an object-lesson for the present day, of their capture of Lhasa.

In consequence of the Eleuth invasion, and the proof it afforded that the Tibetan lamas were unable to protect themselves, the Emperor Kanghi sent a Chinese garrison to Lhasa, and there was no further invasion of Tibet until 1790, when the Goorkhas entered the country and plundered Teshu Lumbo. The circumstances of that campaign, including the Chinese invasion of Nepaul and the imposition of a humiliating treaty on the Goorkhas near Khatmandu, are fairly well known.

Less well known is the contest between the Eleuths and the Russians that followed. Chereng Donduk therein gave further proof of the military skill with which he had conducted the march to Lhasa. The early relations of Russia and China are full of interesting matter. In the seventeenth century the Emperor of China styled himself 'the Czar's elder brother.' When the fort of Albazin was razed to the ground, and its residents-101 in number, with their priest, Maxime Leontieff-were carried off to Peking to found there the still existing colony, and to build the first Greek church in 1695, no one anticipated the complete inversion in their positions that has occurred within the last twenty years. Baffled on the Upper Amour, the next forward movement of the Russians was in the Kirghiz region towards the possessions of Tse Wang Rabdan. The gold-seeking mission of Prince Gagarine was followed by the establishment of several petty forts or blockhouses. His lieutenant, Bukholz, founded one of the more important of these, named Fort Yamishewa, on the stream Priasnukha, and Tse Wang Rabdan, finding its proximity irksome, sent Chereng Donduk to demolish it, and to expel or capture the foreigners. The Russians suffered some loss, but discreetly abandoned their fort and established themselves at a safer distance from the Eleuth ruler. This event happened in 1715 or 1716, and the mission of Unkoffsky was sent with the object of establishing more neighbourly relations.

On the principle that what has once been accomplished may be repeated, this brief record of a half-forgotten, or at least obscure, historical event may convince the British public that a Russian invasion of Tibet, by diplomatic missions in the first place and by armed force later on, is not the fantastic or impossible undertaking that so many persons have represented it to be.

DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER.

1904

ISCHIA IN JUNE

harvest of a quiet eye? The driving and driven

IN these days of fevered excitement, the full can but seldom be reaped and gathered in. twentieth century is always finding excuse for telephoning and telegraphing after us 'Hurry up!' One single fortnight, which is all that I was able to spend this summer at the Bagni di Casamicciola, in the island of Ischia, gives me but scant right to describe this paradise. When I say ' paradise,' I mean literally a garden; for such was our first and last impression of the island. Following the road up the hill from the landing-place in the direction of the principal hotels, past the little villas of Casamicciola, we were always struck anew by the rich luxuriance of vines, of orange and lemon trees; roses, carnations, and cactuses; and the brilliance of many a red geranium, tumbling in cataract adown the tier-planted terrace walls. In the early morning, the falls of deep blue convolvuli, escaping from the flower-beds over the wall, showed masses of blossoms, larger and finer than I have ever seen elsewhere. It is curious that whatever blossoms in this little island attains to larger size and richer colour. Soil and sun are exceptionally favourable. Ferns and flowers, some of them rare, grow wildly everywhere. I was told of a work I have not seen, which contains an account in Latin of the flora of the island, and mentions two or more plants belonging to tropical regions, but finding a congenial home in chasms near the fumeoli, whence issue hot vapours from the labouring furnaces below. For this garden rests on the bosom of a volcano. It is a child of the volcano, which, besides bestowing so rich a gift of fertile soil, is also so greatly beneficent in yielding the miraculously healing mineral waters, known and used by suffering humanity for more than two thousand years. Analyses of the various waters, or accounts of their curative action, may be found in a long line of authors, from Strabo down to Dr. Cox and his later confrères. The wellappointed Stabilimento di Bagni of Signor Manzi at Casamicciola (who, by the by, speaks English fluently, and whose wife is from Scotland) leaves nothing to be desired, and has been recently rearranged. There are other bathing-houses of a cheaper sort, and on the seashore is a large house of charity, 'Monte della Misericordia,' for sick