They then made further reference to their religion being spoilt if we went to Lhasa, and I asked them to make more clear to me in what way precisely their religion would be spoilt. I said we were not intolerant of other religions, as they themselves were. They had yesterday told me that, though there were some Mohammedans in Lhasa, yet they were not allowed to practise their religious rites. We had no such feelings towards other religions. On the contrary, we allowed the followers of each to practise their religious observances as they liked.
The delegates said that they were not so intolerant to the Mohammedans: they merely forbade building mosques, and prevented any new Mohammedans coming into their country. I said that at any rate some were there, and apparently they had not spoilt the religion of the Tibetans. They replied that the ancestors of these had come many, many years ago, and the Tibetans had become accustomed to them; to which my rejoinder was that if Mohammedans had lived among them practising their religious rites for all these years—apparently for centuries—without spoiling the religion of Tibet, I could not believe that the fact of our going to Lhasa for a few weeks only could have any permanent ill-effect on the religion of Tibet.
They then remarked that if we now went to Lhasa all the other nations would want to go there, and see the sights, and establish agents there. I told them I had not the smallest wish to see the sights of Lhasa. I had already travelled in many different lands, and seen finer sights than they could show me at Lhasa; and as to stationing an agent there, we had no such intention. Could they tell me if any other nation wished to? They replied that the Russians would be wanting to send an agent to Lhasa. I told them they need not be in any fear on that score, for the Russian Government had assured our Government that they had no intention of sending an agent to Tibet. I added that, though we had no intention of establishing a political agent at Lhasa, we desired to open a trade-mart at Gyantse on the same conditions as the trade-mart at Yatung had been opened—that is, with the right to send a British officer there to superintend the trade.