Younghusband
was sent as an envoy extraordinary--very extraordinary--for,
with 2,500 British soldiers, he was instructed to make a treaty
of commerce and good will with the Grand Lama of Thibet, and his
orders were to stay at Lhassa until the treaty was negotiated
and as much longer as was necessary to compel the Thibetans to
respect its terms and carry out its stipulations. That means the
permanent occupation of Lhassa by a British army and the opening
of an unknown and mysterious region to trade.

Thibet is the unknown, mysterious country of the world, a land
of desert and mountains inhabited by a primitive and bigoted
people, who have for many years been under the protection of
China, and paid tribute to the emperor until the late war with
Japan in 1895. After the result of that conflict became known
they seemed to lose their respect for and confidence in their
protectors and have sent no envoys or money to Peking since.
We know very little about Thibet. Foreigners are not permitted
to enter the country, and only a few venturesome explorers have
endured the hardships and faced the dangers of a visit to that
forbidden land. Indeed, it is so perilous an undertaking that
a skeptical public frequently takes the liberty to doubt the
statements of the men who have gone there. But all agree that it
is the hermit of nations, and its people are under the control of
cruel and ignorant Buddhist priests, who endeavor to prevent them
from acquiring any modern customs or ideas. One of the objects of
Colonel Younghusband's expedition is to change this situation
and persuade the ignorant and bigoted ecclesiastics who govern
Thibet to open their gates and admit foreign merchants and foreign
merchandise into that benighted country. There is considerable
commerce, however. Parties of Thibetan traders are continually
coming across the frontier into Darjeeling with all sorts of
native products and may be seen in the market that is held every
Sunday morning and during the weekdays in the bazaars of the city.
After selling their goods they buy cottons, drugs, groceries,
hardware and other European goods and take them back into their
own country; but foreigners are not allowed to pass the line,
and practically all of the trade of Thibet is monopolized by
the Chinese, who sell the natives large quantities of cotton
fabrics and other imported merchandise as well as tea, silk and
other Chinese goods. This trade is supposed to be worth many