TURNER AND MANNING 17
on the 22nd of September, 1783. Turner, however,
found that the centre of Government had been transferred
to Lhasa ; the new Tashi Lama was an infant,
and the Dalai Lama showed no disposition whatever
to allow his visitor even to discuss the object of his
mission. After formally congratulating the Tashi-
lhunpo hierarchy upon the speedy and successful reincarnation
of the deceased primate, he took his leave.
On his return to England, Turner embodied the result
of his observations in a sumptuously printed volume,
illustrated with steel engravings, which for a long time
remained the only English printed record of Great
Tibet, and we owe a deep debt of gratitude to Sir
Clements Markham for having given to the world, in
1875, the somewhat more interesting and reliable account
written by Turner’s predecessor at the Tashi court.
The third, and last, name of these three, Mr.
Manning, presents one of the most curious psychological
studies in the whole history of travel. That
he was a man eccentric in his habits and tastes throughout
his life may be fairly argued from his behaviour
during his last years, but it is difficult to reconcile the
extraordinary energy, courage and fixity of purpose
which enabled him successfully to carry through, at the
utmost personal risk, the most dangerous expedition
that any man in his day could attempt, with the utter
vacuity of the only record which he has left of his
great and successful enterprise. It is not too much to
say that on no single point did the recent expedition
glean a fact or an opinion of the slightest use from
the record left by a man who, presumably for the
purpose of observation, had travelled over a route to
Lhasa which for the most part was identical with that
v o l . 1. 2