In 1841, a force of 5,000 Dogras, mountaineers from Kashmir, invaded western Tibet, but were defeated by the Tibetans and almost exterminated. A battle was fought at 15,000 feet above sea level in the depths of winter, and the great cold contributed largely to the defeat of the Dogras.
Another Gurkha invasion occurred in 1855, and this was more successful. The resulting treaty empowered the Gurkhas to estab lish an Agency in Lhasa and other centres, gave them an annual subsidy of ten thousand rupees, the right of free trade in Tibet, and the right of extra-territoriality. In return the Gurkha Govern ment undertook to aid Tibet if the latter were attacked by an other nation.
There is no gradual blending of the climates and physical con ditions of India and Tibet, such as would tend to promote inter course between the inhabitants of these neighbouring regions. On the contrary, there are sharp lines of demarcation, both in the mountain barrier which is scalable at comparatively few points, and also in the social aspects and conditions of life on either side. No great armies have ever crossed Tibet to invade India.
Jesuit and Capuchin Visitors.—It was no easy matter for the early European travellers to explore Tibet. Friar Odoric of Pordenone is supposed to have reached Lhasa c. 1328, but this visit is doubtful. The Jesuit Antonio de Andrada, a native of Por tugal (158o-1634), travelling from India, appears to have entered Tibet on the west, in the Manasarowar Lake region. In 1661 Grueber and D'Orville, as mentioned before, reached Lhasa. The extracts from Grueber's narrative, given by Athanasius Kircher in his China illustrate (Amsterdam, 1667), are accompanied by a good drawing of the Potala. During the first half of the 18th century various Capuchin friars appear to have passed freely between Calcutta and Lhasa (1708), by way of Nepal. They even founded a mission in Lhasa, which, after failing at first, was more firmly established in 1715.
In 1716 two Jesuits, P. Ipolito Desideri, of Pistoia, and P. Freyre, a Portuguese, reached Lhasa by way of Kashmir. The long journey from Kashmir was taken by Lake Manasarowar and the valley of the Tsango-po. Desideri 'remained at Lhasa till April
1721, witnessing the capture of Lhasa successively by Dzungar and Chinese. Of the moderation of the latter, and their abstinence from all outrage or plunder, he speaks highly. He left a large MS. volume of his observations. The next European visitor was Samuel Van de Putte, of Flushing, an LL. D. of Leiden, whose thirst for travel carried him through India to Lhasa (173o), where he is said to have resided a long time.
In 1745 the Capuchin mission finally collapsed after a revival had been attempted in 1741 by a party under Orazio della Penna The collapse appears to have been due to lack of funds rather than Tibetan opposition. We possess some of the results col lected by this mission in an excellent short treatise on Tibet by P. Orazio himself, as well as in the Alphabetum Tibetanum of the Augustine monk A. Georgi (Rome, 1762). Some fifty volumes, the relics of the mission library, were in 1847 recovered from Lhasa by Brian Hodgson, through the courtesy of the Dalai Lama himself, and were transmitted as an offering to Pope Pius IX. First English Visitation.—The first Englishman to enter Tibet was George Bogle, a writer of the East India Company, in 1774, on an embassy from Warren Hastings to the Tashi Lama.
In 1783 Lieut. Samuel Turner was despatched on a mission similar to that of Bogle, and reached Shigatse. In 1811-1812, an English traveller, Thomas Manning, reached Lhasa. Having re sided some years at Canton, Manning went to Calcutta, bent on reaching the interior of China through Tibet, since from the sea board it was sealed. After reaching Lhasa he stayed there about five months, and had several interviews with the Dalai Lama, but was compelled to return to India. He never published any thing regarding this journey, but some years after his death extracts from his scanty and eccentric private diary were pub lished. These, however, do not yield much information.
The Abbe Huc states that William Moorcroft, an Englishman who made a journey into Tibet in the neighbourhood of Lake Manasarowar in 1812, and another into Kashgar in 1824, lived in Lhasa for twelve years disguised as a Muslim.