ght get 'ome then.'

LHASA,
_August --._

We had been in Lhasa nearly three weeks before we could discover where
the Dalai Lama had fled. We know now that he left his palace secretly in
the night, and took the northern road to Mongolia. The Buriat, Dorjieff
met him at Nagchuka, on the verge of the great desert that separates
inhabited Tibet from Mongolia, 100 miles from Lhasa. On the 20th the
Amban told us that he had already left Nagchuka twelve days, and was
pushing on across the desert to the frontier.

I have been trying to find out something about the private life and
character of the Grand Lama. But asking questions here is fruitless; one
can learn nothing intimate. And this is just what one might expect. The
man continues a bogie, a riddle, undivinable, impersonal, remote. The
people know nothing. They have bowed before the throne as men come out
of the dark into a blinding light. Scrutiny in their view would be vain
and blasphemous. The Abbots, too, will reveal nothing; they will not and
dare not. When Colonel Younghusband put the question direct to a head
Lama in open durbar, 'Have you news of the Dalai Lama? Do you know where
he is?' the monk looked slowly to left and right, and answered, 'I know
nothing.' 'The ruler of your country leaves his palace and capital, and
you know nothing?' the Commissioner asked. 'Nothing,' answered the monk,
shuffling his feet, but without changing colour.

From various sources, which differ surprisingly little, I have a fairly
clear picture of the man's face and figure. He is thick-set, about five
feet nine inches in height, with a heavy square jaw, nose remarkably
long and straight for a Tibetan, eyebrows pronounced and turning upwards
in a phenomenal manner--probably trained so, to make his appearance more
forbidding--face pockmarked, general expression resolute and sinister.
He goes out very little, and is rarely seen by the people, except on his
annual visit to Depung, and during his migrations between the Summer
Palace and the Potala. He was at the Summer Palace when the messenger
brought the news that our advance was inevitable, but he went to the
Potala to put his house in order before projecting himself into the
unknown.

His face is the index of his character. He is a man of strong
personality, impetuous, despotic, and intolerant of advice in State
affairs. He is constantly deposing his Ministers, and has estranged from
himself a large section of the u