LHASA

LHASA
Landon, Percival
An Account Of The Country And People Of Central Tibet And Of The Progress Of The Mission Sent There By The English Government In The Year 1903-4. London, 1905, Hurst and Blackett, First U.K. Edition. Two volume set, xix, 414 pp; xi, 426 pp. Titles in red & black, with half-title in Vol. II only. 2 frontispieces, Portraits, 7 maps & plans (4 in colour of which 1 is folding), 24 photogravures, 13 coloured plates, 4 B&W plates and numerous text illustrations, (many full-page, a few in colour). Tissue guards with legends. Account of the 1903-04 British expedition to Tibet led by Lieut.-Col. Francis Edward Younghusband. Landon accompanied the expedition as special correspondent of the 'Times'. Dispatched on the orders of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, and prompted by the Russian presence in Tibet, the Tibet Frontier Commission was officially instructed to establish diplomatic relations with the government of Tibet and to resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and British-held Sikkim. Escorted by a large military force led by Brigadier-General J.R.L. Macdonald, the expedition amounted to a de facto invasion. Armed conflicts erupted, in one instance resulting in the massacre of hundreds of poorly armed and poorly trained Tibetan soldiers, who proved to be no match for a professional army equipped with modern rifles and Maxim machine guns. Some five thousand Tibetans lost their lives as opposed to only five British casualties. Original cloth decorative boards, slightly faded in places, light foxing to outer leaves, unobtrusively blindstamped on rear board both volumes, otherwise tight and clean, a handsome set. No DJ, VG.