Page:Three Years in Tibet.djvu/538

composed of people who are quite godly — a very rare thing in this world of give and take, where selfishness is a guiding motive. Is it not more reasonable and safer to interpret those repeated acts of outward friendship as coming from her ambitious design to place a snare before Tibet and finally to absorb the country? Such ideas are, I say, confined to only a very limited section, and are exchanged in whispers between confidential friends. They do not seem to have reached the ears of the Dalai Lama and the Senior Premier. But those ideas already contain in them a germ of a dangerous nature, which at some favorable opportunity may develop into a powerful anti-Russian movement. Russia therefore will experience a keen disappointment if she considers her footing in Tibet firmly planted beyond any fear of shaking, and neglects to keep watch over the state of affairs in that country. If she neglects this, all the gold she has disbursed in the shape of presents and bribes will prove so much mere waste.

 

---