of the sacred soil of the city by the erection of a heretical
place of worship. Things became so serious that the
regent of Tibet himself issued a proclamation affirming
that the cause of the late floods had been declared by the
head of the Sam-ye monastery to be not the erection
of this chapel, but the sins and wickedness of the
Tibetans themselves. The little church was finished
and eleven Christians were present at its consecration ;
of this number four or five were, of course, accounted
for by the monks themselves, and by the admission
of Della Penna himself, the majority of the eleven were
Newaris— that is, half-caste Nepalese, whose previous
religion was almost certainly Mahommedanism. It is even
said that the Grand Lama himself visited the chapel.
Some years before, the Jesuits in Rome, with their
proverbial jealousy, had prevailed upon the Propaganda
to send two of their number, for no other purpose than
that of spying upon the work of the mission in Lhasa.
It can be imagined what effect was caused by the presence
together in Lhasa of rival representatives of two
Christian communities, who could not carry on the
sacred work with which they were entrusted without
betraying to the inhabitants the unfortunate dissensions
of their Christian visitors. Ippolito Desideri, with a
Eurasian companion, Manuel Freyre, arrived in Lhasa
for this purpose on March 18th, 1716, and although a
kind of armed neutrality subsisted between the two
factions, it was probably a relief to all concerned when
Pope Clement sent a peremptory order in 1721 that
Desideri and his companion should leave the country.
After a long stay in India he returned to Rome and he
set forth the case for the prosecution. The Propaganda,
however, after four years’ deliberation, decided in favour
of the Capuchins, but this was only twelve months before
the flame of Christianity again flickered out in Lhasa in
the year 1733.
In 1740, as the result of a direct appeal to Rome by
Father Della Penna, this worthy man again set out with
one Cassiano Beligatti, of Macerata, and reached Lhasa
on the 5th of January, 1741. The old buildings were
re-occupied, but the opposition of the lamas was destined
to achieve its end, and on April 20th, 1745, after four
years of dispiriting ill-success, that fine old warrior,
Della Penna, with tears in his eyes, turned his back for
the last time upon Lhasa and the darling project of his
life. It was the death of the poor old man, who three
months later was laid to rest in the little cemetery of
Pathan.
B y anyone who has seen the place there can hardly
be conceived a more despairing and disheartening
field for missionary effort than that provided by
Lhasa.
Lhasa, it has been said, must be conceived as a town
of low uninteresting houses herded together in an aimless
confusion, but beyond question the most ragged and
disreputable quarter of all is that occupied by the famous
tribe of Ragyabas, or beggar-scavengers. These men
are also the breakers up of the dead. It is difficult to
imagine a more repulsive occupation, a more brutalised
type of humanity, and, above all, a more abominable
and foul sort of hovel than those which are characteristic
of these men. Filthy in appearance, half-naked, half-
clothed in obscene rags, these nasty folk live in houses
which a respectable pig would refuse to occupy. A
photograph is appended of a characteristic h u t ; it is
about four feet in height, compounded of filth and the
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