are concerned, a record of interesting and picturesque
failure. That exception was the visit of two Jesuit
Fathers, Evariste Hue and Joseph Gabet. Travelling
by the south-western route from China, through Sining,
these two adventurous priests reached Lhasa in
January, 1846. After a stay of less than seven weeks
they were expelled by the Amban, and returned to
China by the eastern route through Tachienlu. The
book which Hue wrote upon his travels in Eastern
Asia is fluent and vivacious, and the picture which he
draws of his own experiences in Lhasa is graphic and
true ; but of the natural and architectural features he
says almost nothing, and there was wanting in him a
realisation of the intense importance, as well as interest,
of his travels. It is true that many of his statements,
which at the time were received with undisguised incredulity,
have since received corroboration from later
travellers, but Hue cannot be said to have added very
much to our scientific knowledge of the countries
through which he passed, and, though his narrative
possesses a racy charm of its own which will always
make it a popular classic in the history of missionary
effort, it is greatly to be regretted that he did not use his
unique opportunities in a steadier and better informed
record of the national and physical peculiarities of this
almost virgin country.
As has been said, the record of all other travel to
Lhasa has been a record of failure.* In the whole
* Hue gives a curious account of the supposed visit of an Englishman, Moorcroft,
to Lhasa. Briefly stated, his assertion is that, though William Moorcroft is supposed
to have died in 1825 at “ Andkou,” he really reached Lhasa in 1826, and lived there
for twelve years undetected. Even his own servant believed him to be a Kashmiri.
He was assassinated by brigands on his return journey, and the discovery of elaborate
maps upon h is person after death was the first indication to the Lhasans of his nationality.
It must be remembered that Hue had this story direct from the Regent in Lhasa only
eight years afterwards. The authority for the fact of his death in 1825 is a letter
written by Trebeck, his companion. Trebeck himself died a few days later.
history of exploration, there is no more curious map
than that which shows the tangled fines of travellers
routes towards this city, coming in from all sides, north,
south, east and west, crossing, interlocking, retracing, all
with one goal, and all baffled, some soon after the journey
had been begun, some when the travellers might almost
believe that the next hill would give them a distant
glimpse of the golden roofs of the Potala. It has often
been remarked to the writer that this consistent failure
to reach a known spot, barely 200 miles from our own
frontier, across a thinly-inhabited region, has never
yet been accounted for. As a matter of fact, the reason
is, I think, clear enough when that region has been
visited. Roughly stated, there is in Tibet only one
way of going from one place to another, whether the
necessity lies in the nature of the ground or in the inability
to obtain food, fuel and fodder elsewhere, and
that in itself effectually reduces the chance of travelling
without attracting observation. Thanks to the extraordinary
system of Chinese postal relays, it is absolutely
impossible for a traveller to prevent the news
of his arrival reaching Lhasa. The population of Tibet
is, it is true, small, and it might be thought that therefore
a traveller enjoyed greater opportunities of escaping
detection. It is a fact that one may go, not for hours
only, but for days, along a well-known trade route
without meeting a soul more than half a mile from the
nearest village. But this very scantiness of population
is the undoing of the trespasser ; every face is as well
known to the Tibetan villager as the face of the local
Chinese official, to whom, under horrible penalties,
the presence of a stranger, in whatever guise, must be at
once reported. The merchants who pass up and down