A little over a hundred years ago, on 18 July 1903 to be exact, Francis Younghusband, preceded a few weeks earlier by a small band of officials and an escort of 500 men, crossed the forbidding 17,500 feet high Kangra la and quartered at Khamba Jong, an odd 25 miles inside Tibet. His ostensible objective, to negotiate with officials from the Dalai Lama's administration and those of the Chinese Amban in Lhasa. A number of minor irritants on the Sikkim frontier and alleged Tibetan impediments to cross-border trade were the principal issues that needed to be sorted out. A bipartite conference with the Tibetans, with the Chinese acting as facilitators, it was reasoned, would help find a solution.