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INTRODUCTORY.

sacred city. Of the travellers of later times who have dared to enter this dark land, after scaling its frontiers and piercing

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View into S.W. Tibet
(from Tang-kar La Pass, 16,600 ft.).

its passes, and thrusting themselves into its snow-swept deserts, even the most intrepid have failed to penetrate farther than the outskirts of its central province.^[1] And the information, thus perilously gained, has, with the exception of Mr. Rockhill's, been

↑ The few Europeans who have penetrated Central Tibet have mostly been Roman missionaries. The first European to reach Lhāsa seems to have been Friar Odoric, of Pordenne, about 1330 a.d. on his return from Cathay (Col. Yule's Cathay and the Road Thither, i., 149; and C. Mabkham's Tibet, xlvi.). The capital city of Tibet referred to by him with its "Abassi" or Pope is believed to have been Lhāsa. In 1661 the Jesuits Albert Dorville and Johann Gruher visited Lhāsa on their way from China to India. In 1706 the Capuchine Fathers Josepho de Asculi and Francisco Marie de Toun penetrated to Lhāsa from Bengal. In 1716 the Jesuit Desideri reached it From Kashmīr and Ladāk. In 1741 a Capuchine mission under Horacio de la Penna also succeeded in getting there, and the large amount of information collected by them supplied Father A. Giorgi with the materia' for his Alphabetum Tibetanum, published at Rome in 1762. The friendly reception accorded this party created hopes of Lhāsa becoming a centre for Roman missionaries; and a Vicae apostolicus for Lhāsa is still nominated and appears in the "Annuario pontificio," though of course he cannot reside within Tibet. in 1811 Lhāsa was reached by Manning, a Friend of Charles Lamb, and the only Englishman who seems ever to have got there; for most authorities are agreed that Moorcroft, despite the story told to M. Hue, never reached it. But Manning unfortunately left only a whimsical diary, scarcely even descriptive of his fascinating adventures. The subsequent, and the last, Europeans to reach Lhāsa were the Lazarist missionaries, Huc and Gabet, in 1845. Huc's entertaining account of his journey is well known. He was soon expelled, and since then China has aided Tibet in opposing froeign ingress by strengthening its political and military barriers, as recent explorers: Prejivalsky, Rockhill, Bonvalot, Bower, Miss Taylor, etc., have found to their cost; though some are sainguine that the Sikhim Trade Convention of this year (1894) is probably the thin edge of the wedge to open up the country, and that at no distant date Tibet will be be prevailed on to relax its jealous exclusiveness, so that, 'ere 1900, even Cook's tourists may visit the Lāmaist Vatican.

[1] The few Europeans who have penetrated Central Tibet have mostly been Roman missionaries. The first European to reach Lhāsa seems to have been Friar Odoric, of Pordenne, about 1330 a.d. on his return from Cathay (Col. Yule's Cathay and the Road Thither, i., 149; and C. Mabkham's Tibet, xlvi.). The capital city of Tibet referred to by him with its "Abassi" or Pope is believed to have been Lhāsa. In 1661 the Jesuits Albert Dorville and Johann Gruher visited Lhāsa on their way from China to India. In 1706 the Capuchine Fathers Josepho de Asculi and Francisco Marie de Toun penetrated to Lhāsa from Bengal. In 1716 the Jesuit Desideri reached it From Kashmīr and Ladāk. In 1741 a Capuchine mission under Horacio de la Penna also succeeded in getting there, and the large amount of information collected by them supplied Father A. Giorgi with the materia' for his Alphabetum Tibetanum, published at Rome in 1762. The friendly reception accorded this party created hopes of Lhāsa becoming a centre for Roman missionaries; and a Vicae apostolicus for Lhāsa is still nominated and appears in the "Annuario pontificio," though of course he cannot reside within Tibet. in 1811 Lhāsa was reached by Manning, a Friend of Charles Lamb, and the only Englishman who seems ever to have got there; for most authorities are agreed that Moorcroft, despite the story told to M. Hue, never reached it. But Manning unfortunately left only a whimsical diary, scarcely even descriptive of his fascinating adventures. The subsequent, and the last, Europeans to reach Lhāsa were the Lazarist missionaries, Huc and Gabet, in 1845. Huc's entertaining account of his journey is well known. He was soon expelled, and since then China has aided Tibet in opposing froeign ingress by strengthening its political and military barriers, as recent explorers: Prejivalsky, Rockhill, Bonvalot, Bower, Miss Taylor, etc., have found to their cost; though some are sainguine that the Sikhim Trade Convention of this year (1894) is probably the thin edge of the wedge to open up the country, and that at no distant date Tibet will be be prevailed on to relax its jealous exclusiveness, so that, 'ere 1900, even Cook's tourists may visit the Lāmaist Vatican.

[1]