MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 3,000 Copies Daily. THURSDAY, SEPT. 22, 1904. COLONEL YOUNG HUSBAND'S MISSION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7915, 22 September 1904, Page 4

MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 3,000 Copies Daily. THURSDAY, SEPT. 22, 1904. COLONEL YOUNG HUSBAND'S MISSION.

The cable news on Monday reported that the Anglo-Tibetan treaty had been signed at Lhassa. The accomplishment of the object of Colonel Younghusband's mission recalls some interesting facts in relation to it. It was on December 18th, 1908, that the mission crossed the Jelap Pass into Tibet. Its orders were to march no further than Gyangtse, and to use no force unless attacked. The advance was made to Phari and thence to Tuna, where the expedition halted for more than two month's,. ?As? neither the Tibetan envoys nor'the.Chinese.Amban put in an appearance, a march-on Gyangtse was commenced by BrigadierGeneral Macdonald, with 4000 troops of all amis. This was in March of this year. A_massive fortress of stone, comi manding , Gyangtse, .was . brilliantly stormed by the Ghurkas and Sikhs with, then* British officers. t From "the halfway house," as Gyangtse has been called," the army stormed and crossed the Earola—a pass lying at. the stupendous altitude of over sixteen thousand feet* Thence it descended to the vast expanse of the celebrated Yamdok Lake, crossing ;at one stage along a causeway between two arms of its blue waters. Convinced at e ,iast by the terrible losses repeatedly inflicted • upon them that it was in vain to resist the progress of the British column, the Tibetans now allowed it to thread through passes and gorges, where a hand- j ful of troops scientifically directed and armed with weapons of precision, could have held at' bay a far larger force than General Macdonald's.' Beyond ; the Yamdok Lake, the." expedition looked down at last upon the magnificent scene of the great valley," framed' in. mountain peaks, sprinkled with orchards, through which flows the Tsang River, whose unique course, lorig one of the greatest mysteries of Asiatic geography, runs for a thousand miles behind the Himalayas, and then breaks through that titanic rampart in a mighty curve, and sweeps down to the Indian plains under the name.of the Brahmaputra,, to merge its wide-rolling ~ current with the Ganges. The great, river of Tibet was then crossed, and on August 3rd the expedition reached the Secret City. Colonel Younghusband's mission had marched where the -foot of no living white man had ever trod; and had seen .what no European eye -for.- several generations had • been allowed to witness. In the course of its "adventurous history, the. British ;Army has been called upon to march over more of this planet than

any. other army, whether of the modern or ancient.world. It has fought in .all the five continents from the Rhine to the Crimea, from Syria to Pekin, from Hudson's Bay to Patagonia, from Egypt to the,. Cape, and in the Australasian seas from New Guinea to New Zealand. But the ascent of tho Himalayas and the march to Lhassa surpass, in purely picturesque fascination, everything -in British military anrials.

In spite of all the curses and incantations known to the Tibetan priests; in spite, too, of their vigorous opposition by force of arms, we have marched to Lhassa, have shown tho Lamas thenweakness and our strength and have brought about provisions for the restoration of peace and the establishment of ' reasonable relations between India and Tibet. The refusal of the Grand Lama to negotiate honestly upon the frontier has brought not ambassadors but battalions to the; Secret City itself. The result is that Lhassa must be closed to all European influence and interference; Colonel Youngliusband has effected an arrangement satisfactory to the Indian Government, and a lesson has been im-: printed upon the memory of, the. Lamas that will,not easily be effaced., A very necessary step to secure the safety of the Indian Empire has also been taken.