CO129-330 - Public Offices - 1905 — Page 434

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Mission, although it has a station in Batang, has not yet been able to gain a footing in Litang. I stayed in the yamen of the Commissary, whither the lamas came along with the owners of the animals and dictated the amount I had to pay for transport, It and they urged the people to decline to supply horses for the use of my escort. was only after the Commissary had ordered the instruments of punishment to be brought in that his demand was complied with. The lamaseries, too, are the trade monopolists of this part of the country. There are a few insignificant shops in Litang and Batang, but the food supply of the people is almost entirely in the hands of the lamaseries, which deal only when and on such terms as they please. They are great trade storehouses. The Litang Plain is exceedingly rich in gold, but the lamas will not allow the metal to be exploited. They are also the money-lenders, and gradually acquire control over the land and the people who cultivate it.

Travelling in Chala is perfectly safe; but in the Litang and Batang States brigandage is common, especially in the vicinity of the passes. The northern road to Thibet, by way of Dawo and Dergé, is much safer, for the simple reason that the caravans can insure themselves against attack at the lamaseries, which play the rôle of insurance offices in much the same way as caravans in Manchuria could insure against raids by the Hung-hu-tzu. This explains, to a certain extent, why the trade by the northern road is much greater than by the official road through Litang and Batang. The brigands are said to be young tent-dwellers who hanker after some diversion to At a Thibetan village at which I stayed, a relieve the monotony of their pastoral life. tea caravan was raided overnight two days before my arrival and sixteen animals carried off. I asked the owner what he proposed to do, and whether he had lodged a complaint with the nearest Chinese authority. He replied that unless the animals were recovered by the villagers, who were making a pretence of scouring the country, he had no hope of seeing them again, and that any complaint to the authorities would be fruitless. The latter is perfectly true, for the States of Litang and Batang have each a garrison of only eighty-three soldiers, including the men at the courier stations, scattered throughout the State, and some of these men who usually formed part of my escort from place to place preferred to return to their stations by night in order to avoid being observed and robbed by brigands during the day. In a word, the troops at the disposal of the Chinese authorities are inefficient and altogether inadequate for the protection of the trade with Thibet.

I have, &c. (Signed) ALEX. HOSIE.

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