'5. No Customs stations to be established on the route between the Indian frontier and the three marts mentioned above, where officials shall be appointed to facilitate diplomatic and commercial intercourse.
'6. Tibet to pay an indemnity of £500,000 in three annual instalments, the first to be paid on January 1, 1906.
'7. British troops to occupy the Chumbi Valley for three years, or until such time as the trading posts are satisfactorily established and the indemnity liquidated in full.
'8. All forts between the Indian frontier on routes traversed by merchants from the interior of Tibet to be demolished.
'9. Without the consent of Great Britain no Tibetan territory shall be sold, leased, or mortgaged to any foreign Power whatsoever; no foreign Power whatsoever shall be permitted to concern itself with the administration of the government of Tibet, or any other affairs therewith connected; no foreign Power shall be permitted to send either official or non-official persons to Tibet--no matter in what pursuit they may be engaged--to assist in the conduct of Tibetan affairs; no foreign Power shall be permitted to construct roads or railways or erect telegraphs or open mines anywhere in Tibet.
'In the event of Great Britain's consenting to another Power constructing roads or railways, opening mines, or erecting telegraphs, Great Britain will make a full examination on her own account for carrying out the arrangements proposed. No real property or land containing minerals or precious metals in Tibet shall be mortgaged, exchanged, leased, or sold to any foreign Power.
'10. Of the two versions of the treaty, the English text to be regarded as operative.'
The ninth clause, which precludes Russian interference and consequent absorption, is of course the most vital article of the treaty.
The next day in durbar a scene was enacted which reminded one of a play before the curtain falls, when the characters are called on the stage and apprised of their changed fortunes, and everything ends happily. Among the mutual pledges and concessions and evidences of goodwill that followed we secured the release of the political captives who had been imprisoned on account of assistance rendered British subjects. An old man and his son were brought into the hall looking utterly bowed and broken. The old man's chains had been removed from his limbs that morning for the first time in twenty years, and he came in blinking at the unaccustomed light like a blind man miraculously restored to sight. He had been the steward of the Phalla estate near Dongste; his offence was hospitality shown to Sarat Chandra Das in 1884. An old monk of Sera was released next. He was so weak that he had to be supported into the room. His offence was that he had been the teacher of Kawa Guchi, the Japanese traveller who visited Lhasa in the disguise of a Chinese pilgrim. We who looked on these sad relics of humanity felt that their restitution to liberty was in itself sufficient to justify our advance to Lhasa.