To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd

The fact that the Viceroy of India was sending telegrams about the fate of frontier livestock to the Secretary of State (and hence the Cabinet) shows the flimsiness of the justifications he was putting forward for invading Tibet. To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd. It shows the way Curzon was willing to use almost any excuse to obtain sanction for a further advance into Tibet, so certain was he that the Russian bear needed to be checked.

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 193

Just shake them up and tell them for God’s sake remember they are Englishmen

The world of officialdom sent him a memorandum in February outlining a proposal to withdraw representation from Chitral altogether. ‘One feels inclined to go up to these people who invent such timid counsels,’ he spluttered to Nellie, ‘and just shake them up and tell them for God’s sake remember they are Englishmen.’

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 107

One man was defined not by his rank or his manner of death, but simply with the bald words: ‘A Wykehamist’

[in Dharamsala] Streams of sunlight shot through the stained glass windows behind him, and ton to the stone tablets which remembered earlier members of the congregation; soldiers, traders and tea planters, dead from dysentery or fever . A lieutenant has been ‘mauled by a bear’. While a captain had died with his ‘faithful servant’ by his side. One man was defined not by his rank or his manner of death, but simply with the bald words: ‘A Wykehamist’

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 21