Saturday, December 9, 2017

KILLING MACHINE “Slaughterbots” Kill “As much death as you want”

SOURCE:
 https://thebulletin.org/%E2%80%9C-much-death-you-want%E2%80%9D-uc-berkeleys-stuart-russell-%E2%80%9Cslaughterbots%E2%80%9D11328


              THIS WAS TO HAPPEN - THE BIBLE 





                     [MAKE IN INDIA]

                    KILLING  MACHINE


                      “Slaughterbots”


   “Kill As much death as you want”

    : UC Berkeley's Stuart Russell on

                  “Slaughterbots”


                                                                      By
  

                   Lucien Crowder
                                       [  https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA ]
5 DECEMBER 2017



Not many films advocating arms control will get hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube. But not every film advocating arms control comes with a title such as “Slaughterbots.”
At 7 minutes and 47 seconds, “Slaughterbots” is fast-moving, hyper-realistic, anxiety-laden, and deeply creepy. If you’ve never heard of swarming drones before, this is just the short film to turn you against them forever. If you never dreamed that those toy-like drones from off the shelf at the big-box store could be converted—with a bit of artificial intelligence and a touch of shaped explosive—into face-recognizing assassins with a mission to terminate you—well, dream it.

The set-up is simple enough. The CEO of something called StratoEnergetics takes to a stage and demonstrates to a live audience his company’s newest product: a tiny drone equipped with face recognition technology, evasive capabilities, and a deadly explosive charge. The drone, after showing off some tricks, blasts open the skull of a luckless mannequin. Things get much weirder from there.

The prime mover behind the film is Stuart Russell, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Here, Russell checks in with the Bulletin to explain how the film was made, how little stands between us and the drone apocalypse, and what the prospects are for banning autonomous weapons before they get truly out of hand.

LUCIEN CROWDER: The slaughterbot video was really well done. It's quite disturbing, as it was evidently intended to be. I won't be showing it to my 10-year-old son. How was that video put together?

STUART RUSSELL: It started with a thought that I had. We were failing to communicate our perception of the risks [of autonomous weapons] both to the general public and the media and also to the people in power who make decisions—the military, State Department, diplomats, and so on. So I thought if we made a video, it would be very clear what we were talking about.

So just to give you one example of the level of misunderstanding, I went to a meeting with a very senior Defense Department official. He told us with a straight face that he had consulted with his experts, and there was no risk of autonomous weapons taking over the world, like Skynet [the runaway artificial intelligence from the Terminator  movies
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340138/videoplayer/vi1249751321?ref_=tt_ov_vi       [google to open ]

 If he really had no clue what we were talking about, then probably no one else did either, and so we thought a video would make it very clear. What we were trying to show was the property of autonomous weapons [to] turn into weapons of mass destruction automatically because you can launch as many as you want.

So I wrote a one-page treatment of how I thought a short video would go. I happened to meet some people who were capable of producing the movie, and we exchanged a few ideas. Eventually they produced a script, and reiterated the script—I would say not much of my original treatment remained. The idea for the CEO presentation came entirely from the production company. So then once we had roughly agreed on how a script might look, we got funding from the Future of Life Institute, and then we did the production.


CROWDER: Well, it came out great. As you're aware, it can be very, very hard to communicate risk to the public in a way that really makes an impression, and I think this succeeded in a way that very few things do. Where did the name “slaughterbots” come from? That's catchy.

RUSSELL: We were casting around because we kept calling them, for want of a better word, “drones”—even though we know that a drone is a remotely piloted vehicle and it upsets the American [government and military] terribly when we use the word “drones” to refer to autonomous weapons. The Americans, I guess for good reason, do not want their remotely piloted drones to be caught up in this whole treaty discussion at all. We just thought and thought and thought, and we came up with dozens of different ideas for what they might be called [once] they're already in common use. I think “slaughterbots” came from the production team, but it was one of 10 or 15 names that we came up with.
CROWDER: Well, I think you chose the right one. The slaughterbot shown in the opening scene, the one that recognized and killed the mannequin—how was that done? I imagine that it was a remote-control drone and not an AI-enabled device—is that right?
RUSSELL: It's completely computer-generated.
CROWDER: There was no physical flying vehicle at all? Well, it was quite realistic.
RUSSELL: No, they did a great job. Even the one that sits in [the CEO’s] hand, it's all computer-generated.
CROWDER: My goodness. Now, you say in the coda to the video that the dystopia it describes is still preventable. What part of the slaughterbot technology package isn't available yet? I imagine it would be the AI, because the rest of it seems relatively simple.
RUSSELL: Well, the AI is basically available as well. All the bits [one would need to] do, we know how to do. It's probably easier than building a self-driving car chip, partly because [slaughterbots have] a much lower performance requirement. A slaughterbot only has to be 90 percent reliable, or even 50 percent would be fine. So the technology is already essentially feasible. I think it would still take a good engineering effort to produce something like what you see in the movie, but it doesn't require research breakthroughs. People who say "Oh, all this is decades in the future" either don't know what they're talking about or are deliberately saying things they don't believe to be true.
I think at the moment it would take a good team of PhD students and post docs to put together all the bits of the software and make it work in a practical way. But if I wanted to do a one-off—a quadcopter that could fly into a building, find a particular person based on visual face recognition, and give them a rose or something like that—I think we could do that in a few months. And if you wanted to produce [something] high-quality, miniaturized, mass-produced, and weaponized, [you] would also probably want to have evasive maneuvers and the ability for many of them to attack an individual at once if necessary, and that kind of thing. So it would be more work, but—if you think about a wartime crash project like the Manhattan Project—I would guess [it would take] less than two years.

CROWDER: Well, that's not very encouraging to hear.
RUSSELL: It's not very encouraging. [But it doesn’t make sense to argue that a treaty on autonomous weapons] is completely pointless—that all you would achieve with the treaty is [to] put the weapons in the hands of the bad guys and not the good guys.

We have a chemical weapons treaty. Chemical weapons are extremely low-tech. You can go on the web and find the recipe for pretty much every chemical weapon ever made, and it's not complicated to make them—but the fact that we have the Chemical Weapons Convention means that nobody is mass-producing chemical weapons. And if a country is making small amounts and using them, like Syria did, the international community comes down on them extremely hard. I think the chemical weapons treaty has been successful [even though] it is not hard for bad guys to make chemical weapons. The whole point is you keep large quantities off the market, and that has a huge impact. The same would be true with these kinds of weapons.
CROWDER: It seems to me it would be reasonably straightforward to enforce a ban against autonomous weapons in the hands of national militaries, but regulating against slaughterbots in civilian hands would be a different issue—but I guess you just answered that?
RUSSELL: As time goes by, it will become easier for non-state actors to make autonomous weapons, at least in small quantities. But if you're making small quantities, you may as well pilot them yourself. There is no real reason to make them autonomous. For the time being, human pilots are going to be more effective, and if you're only doing a few dozen, you may as well have human pilots. So it's only when you want to scale up, and go to tens of thousands, that you can't use human pilots and you have to make them autonomous.
CROWDER: I see. Now wouldn't one approach for lethal autonomous weapons in private hands be to include safeguards in commercially available drones? I saw a reference to this in a report on autonomous weapons by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The report suggested that you could include hardware features that limited the devices’ functions, or software that allowed the devices to be de-activated. Do you think that sort of thing would be effective?
RUSSELL: Well, all computer security measures can be defeated, but it is still useful to have them. Geo-coding, so [a device] can't go outside the country where you bought it, for example, would be good. Because you certainly want to prevent them from being used to start wars. And the kill switch is something that the Federal Aviation Administration is talking about requiring. I don't know if they have actually done it yet, but they're talking about requiring it for all drones above a certain size in the US. As with the Chemical Weapons Convention, you would want industry cooperation, so [companies] would be required to verify the bona fides of customers, and they would be required to report orders above a certain quantity, and so on.
CROWDER: They would be required to verify the identities of customers?
RUSSELL: [Yes, as with] chemical companies—if someone orders 500 tons of some chemical that is a precursor of a chemical weapon, they can't just ship it to them. They have to find out who they are.
CROWDER: That makes sense.
RUSSELL: So in some sense, [industry is a] party to the [Chemical Weapons Convention], and that was very important in its success. That wasn't true for the Biological Weapons Convention—in fact, a big weakness was a lack of verification and a lack of requirements for industry cooperation.
CROWDER: I see. Now, the CEO in the video says that these devices can evade pretty much any countermeasure and can't be stopped. But military history, it seems to me, is pretty much a story of measures and countermeasures and further countermeasures, and weapons eventually becoming obsolete. Do you agree with what the CEO said, or were you having him engage in a bit of salesmanship?
RUSSELL: Well, of course, he would say that—wouldn't he? But to my knowledge, there aren't any effective countermeasures. There is a laser weapon the Navy is using that can shoot down one fixed-wing drone at a time. It seems that it has to be a fairly large fixed-wing drone, and [the laser] has to focus energy on it for quite a while to do enough damage to bring it down. But I suspect that would not be effective against very large swarms. People talk about electromagnetic pulse weapons [as countermeasures], but I think you can harden devices against that. And then we get into stuff that is classified, and I don't know anything about that. I know that [the Defense Department] has been trying for more than a decade to come up with effective defenses and I'm not aware of any.
CROWDER: Now, is it implausible for me to think that if you were talking about two militaries, they could simply deploy drone swarms against each other—sort of like miniature air forces—and they could fight it out in the air?
RUSSELL: As a form of anti-swarm defense?
CROWDER: Yes, more or less. The same way that fighter planes go after bombers.
RUSSELL: Yeah, I mean that's a possibility, but it means you kind of have to have them prepositioned pretty much everywhere that someone might attack.
CROWDER: Right.
RUSSELL: It [also] doesn't fill me with confidence [when] some people say "Oh, yeah, we will just have personal anti-swarm defenses that we will carry around with us."
CROWDER: I don't particularly want to have to do that myself.
RUSSELL: No.
CROWDER: Now, in the coda to the video, you mention that artificial intelligence has enormous potential to benefit humanity, even in defense. I wonder if you were referring to the idea, which some people propose, that robotic soldiers might behave better in battle than humans do—more ethically, so to speak—because they lack emotions. Or were you talking about something else?
RUSSELL: No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that [artificial intelligence] can help with surveillance [and] analysis of intelligence data… . It can help with logistical planning, tactics, strategy, and defensive weaponry [that] even current antimissile defense systems use. I mean, they are simple forms of AI, but they're pretty effective. The [Defense Department] has been using AI already, in many of these areas, for a long time.
Some people mistake our goal as [banning] AI in the military, or even [banning] AI, and we're not saying any of those things. We're just saying [that] once you turn over the decision to kill to the machine… . Just like Google can serve a billion customers without having a billion employees—how does it do that? Well, the software has a loop in it that says “for i = 1 to 1 billion, do.” And if you need more hardware, you just buy more hardware. It's the same with death. Once you turn over the ability to kill to the machine, you can have as much death as you want.
CROWDER: That's a vivid way of putting it. Last month, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons held its first talks on autonomous weapons via a group of governmental experts. My impression is that basically they agreed to keep talking about it, though members of the Non-Aligned Movement came out in favor of a ban on autonomous weapons. Is that roughly accurate?
RUSSELL: Yes, I think that's right. Some people are disappointed. I think it depends on how optimistic you were in the first place. I think some people were worried that various nations might just throw a spanner in the works and prevent the talks from moving ahead at all. The way that the [Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons] works, you kind of require a consensus from everyone in order to move ahead. So the fact that everyone agreed to continue the talks next year is a small victory, and certainly the Non-Aligned statement was pretty positive. In the normal scheme of how things move in the diplomatic process, I think we could say that progress was satisfactory. One would hope that over time, it will just become more and more the norm of international dialogue that countries will support a ban, or something resembling a ban. France and Germany actually tried to get agreement on what they called a political declaration—not a treaty, but a kind of statement of principle that people can sign up to, saying essentially that there has to be meaningful human control over lethal attacks. I don't think that they got much momentum with that, but again, their goal was to avoid scaring off some of the countries that were not necessarily in favor of a treaty, so that things can keep moving forward.
CROWDER: Could you name the countries that are the prime suspects for throwing a spanner in the works?
RUSSELL: I think you would have to say, at the moment, Russia—based on some of the things they were saying. You got the sense that they didn't really want this process moving forward, that they wanted the right to develop whatever weapons they felt like developing. Of course, they don't always just say it like that. [They say], well, “we want to make sure that a treaty doesn't infringe on peaceful uses of AI, which could be very beneficial to humanity.” Which of course is kind of nonsense. We have a Biological Weapons Treaty, but that hasn't stopped us from doing research on biology for the benefit of humanity. Experts [on artificial intelligence] do not feel that a treaty would be a threat to their own research.
CROWDER: All right, then, let me ask one final question. How do you see the prospects for a treaty banning autonomous weapons—or, if not a ban treaty, an effective international instrument that would improve security?
RUSSELL: I would say that, if I was a betting person, I think the odds of having a ban in place within the next decade are less than 50/50. I could see something weaker than that, which could amount to sort of an informal moratorium, where nations could adopt something similar to what the US already has in Directive 3000.09 [a Defense Department policy statement declaring that “Autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems shall be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force”]. There are [also] confidence-building measures, like notifying each other of new weapon systems, and that kind of stuff. There's a whole continuum of measures that you can have. I think that we may see some of that, and it may be enough to give us time to work toward a treaty. A treaty may not be a total ban. It may be a partial ban—for example, a ban on antipersonnel weapons. But it might allow for autonomy in submarine warfare or aerial combat, where the weapon-of-mass-destruction characteristic doesn't apply so much.

                     SAMPLES OF 

                “Slaughterbots”


StratoEnergetics introduces new Slaughterbot autonomous weapon

Looking like an iPhone rollout or creepy TED Talk, this sci-fi PSA from the group Stop Autonomous Weapons looks at a possible near future of autonomous drones trained to kill a specific human target.
They even set up a creepy StratoEnergetics manufacturer website:
It's created by Stop Autonomous Weapons, a group dedicated to bringing pressure to update the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) to explicity include autonomous weapons:
Representatives from more than 70 states are expected to attend the first meeting of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems on 13-17 November 2017, as well as participants from UN agencies such as UNIDIR, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
This is not the first time that nations have discussed this topic at the CCW. In 2014-2016, the CCW held three informal meetings of experts, each approximately one week long, to discuss lethal autonomous weapons systems. At their last meeting in April 2016, states agreed for the first time on recommendations for future action, proposing the establishment of an open-ended Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) to move deliberations to the next level. At the CCW’s Fifth Review Conference last December, states established the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapons systems and scheduled for it to meet twice in 2017.
Visit autonomousweapons.org to learn more about efforts to ban these weapons.
























Posted by at No comments:

Friday, December 8, 2017

TIBET : FIELD FORCE TO LHASA 1903-04

SOURCE:
http://intotibet1903-04.blogspot.in/2009/11/co-of-wa-ravenkill-esq-caranpera.html






FIELD FORCE TO LHASA 1903-04






FRIDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 2009


C/o of WA Ravenkill Esq Caranpera, November 12 1904

My Dear Delia,

At last I have time and opportunity to again write to you. I can't remember when I last wrote to you but I think it must have been from Chumbi so I had better begin from there. We left on October 22nd and had a fairly good nine days march to Selling arrived on the 30th. The worst march was the one over the Talap Pass which was covered with snow. I had the greatest difficulty in getting my Enteric Fever cases carried - in fact near the top I had to get him carried and put him on a mule with two men holding him on either side. We did not get in to camp at Gnatong until 6pm and we had started at 7am.

Next day we left the snow and coming down 5000 feet got in to almost tropical vegetation and fine scenery. We now began to feel the heat rather and had to begin marching at 6am which meant getting up at 4am. At Kalinpang we came across sfddsf again for the first time and one of the Gunners and I dined at the Forrest Officers bungalow that evening and met some ladies. In our beards and stained khaki uniforms we must have looked awful ruffians but we had a most cordial reception everywhere.

On arriving at Siligore I found orders for me and my hospital to entrain at 2 am the next morning so I spent the remainder of the day handing over my ambulance mules to the Commissariat, paying off my Tibetan Doolie bearers and getting rid of my sick. At Silinger Railway Station we finely enjoyed our meals at the refreshment place and as we were about 30-40 officers together we had a great dinner that evening.


We entrained at 11 am in a siding and travelled all next day arriving at Calcutta at 7am on November 1st. We found carts awaiting us to take our baggage to the camping ground at the station hospital Calcutta, After reporting my arrival and seeing my tent pitched I have breakfast with one of my RAMC fellows stationed there and drove to Kings where I picked up some boxes of coats and kits and drove to the Grand Hotel and took rooms. I found several of the officers returning from Tibet already there and we had a most jovial time altogether. I spent a week there altogether going up to the hospital every morning and "demobilising" and spending the rest of the day gadding about. I called on my old Mess there the 2nd Q0 Rajput LF and dined with them on guest night on Friday. I also dined out with an old gunner pal of mine and his wife - old Dover pals - and with some of my own Fellows did 4 theatres and did no end of shopping - so my time was pretty well occupied.



The last 4 days I had to tackle my heavy kit - get rid of some - send some around to Bombay to await the transport, and some to go with me. I found this a very big job and thought I should never finish it. I finally demobilised the dear old Hospital on November the 7th and took round flying "Fox" my pony to the Auction rooms to be sold as a Lhassa Winner. He was to have been sold on Thursday last but I have not heard the result yet.

On Wednesday evening the night - I and four other fellows travelled up here by the Punjab Mail leaving at 9.30pm and arrived here on Thursday at 5pm and received a most cordial reception from Ravenhill an old Fatahyaah pal of mine. I am having a nice rest here now. Last night I met Major and Mrs Hawkins, you remember old pals of mine at the Club - and we all retired after Tennis to the Club for oysters - being Friday Oyster Night!!! I ate 2 and a half dozen - so had nothing to complain about. Tonight Mr Ravenskill and I are dining with them and I am going to take them to an amateur performance at the theatre here. This afternoon we play tennis again. I shall probably leave for Talahyaah on Monday or Tuesday the 14/15th and stay four to five days there go on to Raoakee to see B. Mrs Young is staying at Fatahaya on a visit and I will luckily see her too.Captain and Mrs Young for the last year have been living at Simla.

No letters from you for the last fortnight as they have been unable to catch up with me but I shall get them at Raoakee as I expect this was the only permanent address I could leave at Calcutta. However I hope you are all well and going strong. I sent you a group of the officers of the Lhassa column taken by Claude White - it is not very good, it was taken at Lhassa. Well much love to all and I am finally enjoying my holiday and living like a Fighting Cock. I enquired about my Gyantsee parcels at the dead letter office at Calcutta but got no satisfaction on the way down all the parcels were lost for weeks in an open shed - got thoroughly rotted by the rain and practically destroyed labels addresses everything and now nothing can be deciphered. I expect there will be an enquiry as some officers spent R90 to R100 on postage alone. I spent R30. But the P.O. says it was the General's fault because he wouldn't provide Transport.

Your affectionate brother

Cecil Mainprise



Ends
POSTED BY AT  1 COMMENT:  

WEDNESDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2009


Chumbi October 20th 1904


My dear Delia,

Well at last we have got back safely to Chumbi. We were fortunately the first column so did not meet with the snow blizzard between Phari and Tuna which the second column experienced however we received the snow in camp here. The night we arrived it began to rain and at 11pm when all were asleep turned in to snow. We slept unconsciously until the weight of the snow brought down our tents and there was everyone of us suffocated by the weight of the snow on our chests and then there was the dreadful ordeal of having to crawl out in to the blizzard and try to erect our tents again - as the poles were mostly broken this was an impossibility and several men had to walk about all night.

Of course everything in the tent became wet and it was impossible to dry anything as it continued to pour all next day and the camp was running in slush and water - one got soaked every time one left the tent and could not even reach the Battery for one's meals. However with a tin of biscuits and soup made out of a Soup Tablet I managed to survive the day. All of us agreed that it was the worst day that all of us had ever spent. This was how Chumbi greeted us. It finished off an Enteric case who had been lingering here for the last four months, a Fusilier whom I left behind when we advanced. Poor fellow we buried him yesterday

We march again the day after tomorrow on our last march to Silingor where we arrive on the 30th. I tried to write to you yesterday 'Sailing December 15th' as this would also mean that I have arrived here safely but the snow has brought down the telegraph wires and we are cut off from India. The march from Gyantsee was fairly comfortable except for the early mornings when we occasionally had 25 degrees frost. I am much looking forward to my leave until I am back - if I get it. There is much to do after arriving at Calcutta, demobilising the hospital, handing in my equipment and squaring up the business but after a few days I should be able to get off. I am wondering what my kit stored for the last year at Kings my agent in Calcutta will look like - I hope they have not all been eaten up by white ants.

I received another English mail yesterday, letters from Lady Hapwood. Bertie, I am sorry to hear that you have received so few letters from me while at Lhassa - it is quite possible they have been stolen for the stamps because I wrote dozens of letters while I was there. It is bad news to hear that things on the Stock Exchange are as bad as ever. B tells me that he has already sent you £20 - as his share of the rent for the next year - and I will send you my £20 directly I have arrived in Indiaand have time to look about and unpack. You might like to tell Grandma that her cheque for £10 will arrive the end of the month. A week before I left Lhassa I sent you £2 for a certain purpose. I hope this letter has not been stolen - It was a cheque an 19th September. Your letter received yesterday spoke of your good time at Waybridge on Holt where you were staying. You mustn't worry too much about the illnesses of the youngsters - babies are often ailing but pick up again rapidly.
Well no more I am very fit. Much love to all
Your affectionate brother
Cecil Wilmot Mainprise.
POSTED BY AT  NO COMMENTS:  
LABELS: , , , , , 

FRIDAY, 9 OCTOBER 2009


Kolatso October 12 1904


My dear Delia,

I don't think I have written to you since leaving Lhassa but we have been doing nearly double marches every day and do not get in to camp until 4pm when one is too tired to write. We are now only five days march from Chumbi where we halt for about four days and then we have nine days march to Siligueri and then India - one month's leave and home for England on December 15 by the "Assaye". You have probably already heard of this from Bertie to whom I wrote from Gyantsee.
We have not had bad marches up to date - the only discomfort has been turning out at 6am in 15-20 degrees frost - also the evenings are very cold. We are carrying a good number of men in our Ambulance Mules as the long march blisters their feet rather. The two cases of Enteric fever I have been carrying from Lhassa are also doing well though it is difficult to arrange about feeding when on the march. My Tibetan Doolie bearers have carried them splendidly. Some of the places or passes through which we have had to pass were so narrow that the Doolies could scarcely pass. We have had quite fine weather up to date, no snow has fallen - the hills around however are all covered with snow which makes the wind so cold.
It will be good getting home about the first week in January. I do hope I can get some leave. Directly I have demobilised this hospital in Calcutta I will take leave and have a round of visits. I ought to get away about the 7th. Having picked up stores at Gyantsee we are now feeding much better. We have been doing well with English letters lately as we are going towards the post and the post towards us. I am remarkably fit and well though my nose has not an atom of skin on it and my lips are sorely cracked. Hoping that you have enjoyed your little summer jaunt to Waybridge. Do you remember I went there for a dance and had a day's boating on that river with people whose names I forget. We march tomorrow to Lachan near Guari.

Much love to all

Your affectionate brother Cecil
POSTED BY AT  NO COMMENTS:  
LABELS: 

Gyantsee October 8th 1904

My dear Bertie

We arrived here safely the day before after a pretty stiff march from Lhassa. We were mostly doing double marches and this with my hospital full of sick and carrying two Enteric patients was no joke. However we were glad to arrive here and receive our parcels full of luxuries, we have been denied so long. Many thanks for your 400 Cigarettes safely received. I also received from No 19 a warm Comforter which the Mater had commenced and Grandma finished - in it was enclosed some raisins for use on the March, I also received your letter from Simla telling me of your good time there but evidently you have not run across the Youngs there yet.
I have been so busy since leaving Lhassa that even when we arrived here I had no time to write. I have been busy writing my medical report on the hospitals work up here and then there is the hospital to square up - taking stock and striking off deficiencies. I yesterday received my orders for sailing, 'Tour Expired'. I am to leave India by the SS Assaye leaving on December 15th - this is good news is it not? I will probably have demobilised the hospital at Calcutta by the first week in November and then I shall apply for leave until the Date of Embarkation and come up to pay you a visit, I shall spend some of my leave at Fatehyark Cacaspue, probably look up a pal of mine at Allahabad (Miss Richards that was) and also the Youngs - a Grand Tour of my friends in fact. If I don't take some of the privileged leave due to me before I embark it will lapse though I still hope to get some more leave when I get home.


Your account of your meeting Mrs Younghusband was very amusing. There has been a lot of friction between the Garrison and the Mission Staff. We start off again to Chumbi which we are to reach in 9 marches - mostly double marches again. We march this time with the first Column - the 1st Royal Fusiliers and the Mountain Battery. We shall be pretty tired by the time we arrive. However we shall live much better on the march as the Mess have picked up here any amount of stores that have been accumulating since we left here for Lhassa. Keep any stamps marked Lhassa you have received on my letters -they are worth R/-8 each I understand in Calcutta. No time to write more though I shall probably have time to write on the march to Chumbi - you had better send this along to Delia as I am not writing to her.

Your Affectionate Brother Cecil.

I am sending along some photos but they are poor prints.
POSTED BY AT  NO COMMENTS:  

FRIDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2009


Tsabonang , Tibet 38 miles from Lhassa September 26th 1904




My dear Delia,

Just a line, We are really on the march back, Though the very night before we started on Thursday a special messenger arrived with a message from Government wanting us to remain up for a few more weeks n order to alter the treaty in some way or other. We have just finished our third days march and though it has rained the last two evenings during the march, it has been fine. I was pleased to receive by the mail last night, a letter from you August 26th which had been mislaid somewhere and had not come up with the other English letters. We are all looking forward to receiving a few parcels tomorrow as we have received none since leaving Gyantsee on July 17 and for the last week I have not even had a Bazaar Cigarette to smoke even.

Much love. Am very fit.

Your affectionate brother Cecil.
POSTED BY AT  NO COMMENTS:  

Lhassa Tibet September 16th 1904


My dear Delia,

It is now practically decided that we leave here now on the 23rd and that we ought to be at Siliguor by November 10th. This allows for two halts by the way - one for a week at Gyantsee and one for a few days at Chumbi. We are going on much the same way here. Yesterday we had the usual Thursday afternoon Gymkhana which passed the afternoon nicely and we have also finished up a Football Tournament to keep the troops fit and healthy. We used to have route marching occasionally but the boots of the men are so worn out and there are no more available so these had to be given up.

We are all rather badly for clothes although I think mine will do fairly well until I get back now. My underlinen is the worse for the native troops and followers they have more to get some Tibetan blankets and clothes of sorts but they would be too rough for us. I received a good english mail last time, two letters from Bertie, one from you Daisy Amy and Mrs Young of . I was glad to have you all well at home and that you had much enjoyed your trip to Plymouth.

It is getting colder every day up her and we are all hoping that we shall not find it very cold on our return journey. We have had heaps of congratulatory letters from the king Viceroy and Commander in Chief on our successful arrival in Lhassa and I am keeping them copied out in my diary as a good advertisement when I am out of a job. Well no more various news, Much love to all your affectionate brother Cecile.

PS I hear that Tibetans curios at Christie's are fetching large prices, The Tibetan scroll like the one I have sent to you fetched £20 so you had better see what you can get for any of them.
POSTED BY AT  NO COMMENTS:  
LABELS: , , , 

SUNDAY, 6 SEPTEMBER 2009


Lhassa, Tibet September 8th 1904

My dear Delia

Since my last letter to you I have seen a good deal of Lhassa . We are now allowed to make up parties to go in to the city to shop. We had a great morning a few days ago. We found a bazaar or marketplace situated in a road which runs practically in a circle though the City. The best shops below to the Chinese or the Cashmere people but there are lots of stalls in the ordinary asdfsd exactly like the East End - on which are displayed all kinds of rubbish, old iron-ware, bead necklaces or vegetables, skin and leatherware. By entering the shops however and rooting out boxes and drawers we managed to find a few things to purchase. Anything of value however the people ask the most exorbitant prices for.

The inhabitants as a rule were very quiet and inoffensive but here and there are met with a truculent salesman who would hardly answer your question as to prices at all and appeared absolutely indifferent as to whether we bought anything or not.

Yesterday was a great day - the day for the signing of the treaty at the Potala or Dalai Lama's palace. The Hall in which the ceremony was to take place, being a small one - only a few Officers from every unit up here could be allowed to attend. I and my two assistant surgeons on the score of the length of time with the Force were luckily allowed to be present for everything. The road and entrance to the Potala were lined with Troops through which the General Mission Staff and those allowed to witness the ceremony passed. On arriving at the top of the Potala (no mean ascent) we passed through a passage lighted only by wicks floating in Oil, in to the Audience Chamber where were assembled all the chief Tibetans, Chinese, Bhuttanese Nepalese notabilities. The first thing that struck one was the huge throne of the absent Dalai Lama - covered up with curtains.

After refreshments of tea, dried fruits cakes, etc had been passed round - a speech was made by Captain O'Connor, interpreter, stating for what reason we had come here and what was now to take place. Being in the Tibetan "lingo", at least, this is what we believed him to be saying. The Treaty document was then opened and glanced at curiously by all present and then Colonel Younghusband said he wished those authorised to do so to sign. Then there was a great bustle and fuss as the secretaries of the different notabilities produced various gaudy colonial boxes in which their seals and paints were kept and all began a "mix up" of paints. When they were ready, O'Connor the Mission Secretary with a pencil showed each one where exactly to place his mark. The attitudes and demeanour of the various powers during this process was very funny to note. Some came up at once and made their mark, while others notably the Regent who had been put up in the place of the absent Dalai Lama - would not come up at all. In fact he looked the unhappiest man there - and didn't seem to be liking it one little bit. After the "Council of Four", the Heads of all the Chief Monasteries in Tibet had signed, Colonel Younghusband advanced and signed and sealed and then the Chinese Amban - Nepalese, Bhutanese residents signed. In fact I believe everyone who was important in Lhassa has signed the blooming document to make it all square. At all events they were signing for about 3 hours during which I took a stroll around the room.

In the side of it was cut off by huge iron rails or rather doors looking through which one saw hundreds of images and Buddhas - on a kind of altar place. Some of these idols were beautifully made and carved. On the other side of the room was a fine frescoed wall, the room itself was the usual pillared room with a gallery running round the sides like all the monasteries. After the signing of the document, more refreshments and cigarettes were handed round, and then Colonel Younghusband made his speech sentence by sentence in English - which was interpreted by O'Connor to the Tibetans and by another interpreter to the Chinese Amban and his entourage!! The sum of which was that we had been found by them very bad enemies but that if they kept the treaty they would find us as good friends. One of the Council of Four then made his speech which was shortly that they were very pleased that the treaty had been signed and now it was all over. And here the proceedings terminated and we went home at a hard gallop as it was about 6pm. Today all prisoners have been released and each has been given R5/-.

Your last home letters told of your comfortable journey and visit to Plymouth. With Grandma also wrote and said what pleasure your visit was giving her. I am glad you had the outing will do you all good, Still nothing definite about our return. I wrote a long letter to Grandma by the last post which I hope she will send on to you. I am keeping fit, my knee is alright again now, with much love your affectionate brother Cecil.


LhassaTibet

My dear Delia

Every week one of the Battery Officers gets copies or cuttings from the English papers about the doings of the Force and I see the Daily Mail and the Globe give the best account of our work - so I hope you will get them at all events the Daily Mail which Candler represents. I received your long letter last night, also Tim's telling me about the Anglo French Exploration Co - please thank him for this and say I am sorry I forgot to mention about his former letter which I did receive safely. I am not really nervous about my investing but it was because I received a Circular about the Anglo French Co which made me think it must concern the shares that I held, otherwise why had they sent me the prospectus . I am glad that Sheila (My Granny) had such a happy birthday. I am sorry I forgot about it but it is hard to remember in time to reach you on the proper date. I think there is no doubt that we shall start on Friday next, the 23rd. I have written Bertie a long letter that I hope he will forward on to you although I see from your letter yesterday he often forgets to enclose them. No more - don't forget about the papers.

Your affectionate brother

Cecil

PS I am enclosing a cheque for £2 please keep for yourself and have a little bust on it, The other please put in the plate for me at Church as a small thanksgiving for all God's many mercies to me and for my safe arrival here and I hope safe return. If you know any deserving person give it to her instead if you like - it will be the same thing.

Cecil
PPS: I have sent you home - note at the top of the letter. I am bringing much better things. Am enclosing telegrams so please keep for me.
POSTED BY AT  NO COMMENTS:  
LABELS: , , ,, , , , ,, , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)