EUROPEAN VISITORS 9
mission in India was pushed forward and four fathers
were sent to make a settlement in Lhasa. Elsewhere
I have sketched the career of this ill-fated hospice. For
the moment it is only necessary to say that it was persecuted
by the Jesuits and eventually abandoned in 1745.
Brother Orazio della Penna of this mission acquired a
perfect knowledge of the Tibetan language. He wrote
an account of the country, which is a somewhat bald
aggregation of facts and fancies.. To him is probably
due our knowledge of the mineral wealth of the country,
and a certain light upon its internal dissensions during
the first quarter of the eighteenth century. His summary
of the chief features of Lamaism is coloured by the
scholasticism of his own religion.
Hippolito Desideri and Manuel Freyre, Jesuit spies,
reached Lhasa in 1716, and stayed there thirteen years,
until they were recalled by the Pope. The manuscripts
of the former are still unpublished, but, contrary
to general belief, they have been thoroughly examined,
and full extracts have from time to time been made
from them for private use. About this time the famous
survey of China was made under the auspices of the
Jesuit colony in Peking. So much of it as affects our
route is reproduced over the page.
One Samuel Van der Putte was the next visitor. He
was a shrewd, adventurous Dutchman, and twice succeeded
in making his way to Lhasa. But the anti-
foreign prejudices of the Tibetans were fermenting.
Van der Putte was obliged to travel between China and
India in disguise, and during the whole of his stay in
Tibet and China— a period of about twelve years, 1724-
1725— was unable to compile any connected narrative
owing to the danger which surrounded him. He made