ABSTRACT
After my meeting with the Cabinet I returned to Sonam’s dwelling, there to await further developments. Three days later I obtained my first glimpse of the Dalai Lama. He was far too frightened to grant me a public audience lest it be made the basis of agitation against him, but his curiosity had been aroused, and he arranged for a secret interview, so secret, in fact, that even my servants and Sonam knew nothing about it. In the evening a messenger arrived and told me I was to accompany him to the Kashak, but after turning a comer I was led by him along another street which runs from the city of Lhasa to the great Potala palace.
