ABSTRACT
In the years immediately the Sikkim campaign of 1861 the advantages of Sikkim as a trade route between Bengal and Tibet had received considerable publicity. The hopeful tone of Ashley Eden’s report on the conclusion of the Sikkim Campaign suggested that a flourishing trade might spring up between Indian and Tibet through Sikkim without any reference to the Chinese at Peking. The Indian Government at the period and right up to the 1880s tended to overestimate the Chinese strength in Tibet, just as it later on was disposed to ignore unduly the influence in Tibetan politics of the Amban. T. T. Cooper, who described himself as a ‘pioneer of commerce’, set out from Shanghai in early 1868, with the knowledge and support of the British merchant community there, to travel overland to India by way of Burma or Tibet. He failed to complete the journey by either route, but he did penetrate some way into Eastern Tibet.
