# Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet/Volume 1/Introductory Remarks

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
By Colonel H. Yule.
Within the last ten years the exploration of High Asia which, on our side at least, had long been languid, has revived and advanced with ample strides. So rapid, indeed, has been the aggression upon the limits of the Unknown that in the contemplation of a future historian of geographical discovery it may easily seem that the contraction of those limits in our age might fitly be compared to the rapid evaporation of the cloud with which the breath has tinged a plate of polished steel.
It is hardly a dozen years since our mapmakers had to rely for the most important positions in Chinese Turkestan on the observations of the Jesuit surveyors of the eighteenth century; and as late as the publication of that well-known work of the Messrs. Michell, 'The Russians in Central Asia,' the issue, in the appendix to that book, of a new and corrected transcript of those data, was regarded as of some geographical moment. The incidental notices contained in fragmentary extracts or translations from medieval Persian writers, and the details given in Chinese geographical works, often hard to understand, often themselves (like Ptolemy's Tables) only a conversion into written statement of the graphic representations of loose and inaccurate maps, were painfully studied by those who desired to enlarge or recompile the geography of the great Central basin which lies between the Himalya and the Thian Shan. Indeed, from Samarkand eastward to the caravan-track which leads from the Russian frontier at Kiakhta to the gate of the Great Wall at Kalgan, a space of 47 degrees of longitude, we were entirely dependent on ​such imperfect criticism of fragmentary sources as we have indicated. Almost the only scientific inroad on this immense territory, and that but trifling in its extent though high indeed in interest, was the excursion of Lieut. John Wood of the Indian Navy to the Great Pamir, in the winter of 1838. The scientific exploration and surveys of the Russians were indeed slowly though surely advancing the march of accurate knowledge from the north; but it was confined within the limits, vast indeed, of their own territory, and touched the Thian Shan only near the western extremity of that mountain region.
With ourselves, exploration, in any extensive sense, beyond our Indian frontier had almost ceased for a great many years after the calamities of Kabul; the only notable exceptions that I can call to mind being the advance of that accomplished botanist Dr. T. Thomson to the Karakorum Pass, and the journey of his colleague Capt. Henry Strachey, of the Bengal Army, across the western angle of Tibet Proper, from Ladak to Kumaon, in 1846. But like the Russians on their side, our survey officers had been gradually mastering the ground up to the limits of the states actually held by our feudatory the Maharaja of Jamu and Kashmir, and to those of the small Tibetan provinces near the Sutlej which fell to us as part of the Sikh dominions at the end of the first Punjab war. And so on both sides a base was secured for ulterior raids upon the Terra Incognita.
This Incognita was not indeed unknown in the sense in which Southern Central Africa was unknown before David Livingstone's first journey; such sources as those to which we have referred above gave some general idea of what the region contained. But even where the Jesuit surveyors left maps, they had left, so far as we know, no narrative or description of the regions in question. And of Tibet in particular we had so little accurate knowledge that the latitude of its capital, the 'Eternal Sanctuary,' the Vatican and holy city of half Asia, was uncertain almost to the extent of sixty minutes.
​The first memorable incursion into the territory in question was the journey of Huc and Gabet in 1845-46.
The later writings of Huc, pieces of pretentious and untrustworthy bookmaking, have thrown some shadow upon the original narrative; some of his own countrymen have been disposed to look on his work as half a fiction; and stories have even reached me from Russian sources which professed to recount confessions made by Huc of his having invented his own share in the narrative, and of his having received from Gabet on his deathbed, 'on board a boat in the Canton river,' or taken from his luggage after his death, the true journals on which the popular story of the Journey to Lhassa was founded. These stories are imaginative fabrications, as will be seen from the facts we are about to recapitulate. I confess, however, that, judging from the rubbish of Huc's later writings, my own impression long was that Gabet had been the chief author of the Souvenirs, and this was confirmed to me by a conversation with which the lamented M. Jules Mohl honoured me during his last visit to England. But his recollection, I now feel satisfied, had deceived him.
In the end of 1846, as Sir John Davis tells us, Mr. A. Johnston, his own secretary as Plenipotentiary in China, in proceeding from Hong Kong to Ceylon, found Père Joseph Gabet, then on his way to France, a fellow-passenger with him, and heard from him many particulars of the journey. Mr. Johnston found these so curious and interesting that he noted down the principal circumstances, and on rejoining his chief presented him with the MS., and Sir John sent it on to Lord Palmerston. 'Nothing more,' adds Sir John Davies, 'was heard of the matter till the appearance of Huc's two volumes' (i.e. in 1851). This is, however, a mistake, as I find by an examination, as careful as my time ​has allowed, of the volumes of the Annales de la Propagation de la Foi.
The first notice of the journey that I find in this periodical is in vol. xix. pp. 265 seqq. (1847). This, after some introductory matter regarding the origin of the Mission in Mongolia, gives a letter from Huc to M. Etienne, the Supt.-General of the Congregation of the Mission, dated Macao, December 20th, 1846, presenting a sketch of the journey up to their arrival at Lhassa, January 29th, 1846.
The next paper bearing on the subject is in the same volume, and is a Notice sur la Prière Bouddhique, by M. Gabet, 'qui vient de rentrer pour quelques mois en France.'
Vol. xx. (p. 5) contains a letter from Gabet to M. Etienne, dated Tarlané, June 1842. It had been mislaid, and thus was not published till 1848. It describes a journey to the Suniút country and the Great Kuren, i.e. Urga. This is the basis of the passages on that subject in the Souvenirs (vol. i. pp. 133 seqq.).
In the same volume, p. 118, we have an extract from a report by Gabet, which continues the narrative of Huc's letter in vol. xix. down to their exit from Tibet. It is vague and dull, and presents a great contrast to his comrade's vivacity. At p. 223 there is a fuller account by Gabet of their residence at Lhassa. It is curious that it does not contain a word of their swaggering conduct in presence of the mandarins, as described in the Souvenirs. Vol. xxi. (1849), and xxii. (1850), contain supplementary ​letters or papers by Huc, and this finishes the series. The Souvenirs were published in 1851.
Gabet had then apparently already been sent to the Brazils, where he died; and I have no doubt the Souvenirs were, as they purport to be, the work of Huc himself, based on the papers by both, of which extracts had been published in the Annales. I doubt whether even any extraneous aid of Parisian littérateurs was called in; Huc himself was an adept in that vein, as his letters show.
Colonel Prejevalsky several times finds fault with Huc's inaccuracy in details, a subject which will be briefly noticed presently. And in one of the letters which was sent to Russia during his journey, he even seems to imply a doubt of the genuine character of the narrative. Of this he has probably thought better, as the expression of suspicion is not repeated in the present work. Indeed, Colonel Prejevalsky's own plain tale is the best refutation of such suspicions. For it is wonderful, to the extent of the coincidence ​of their routes, how the representations of the glib French priest and the Russian soldier agree. Only Prejevalsky's picture of the scene before him is a photograph, careful in accuracy, but not displaying much power of selection as to light or point of view; Huc's is the painting of a clever, perhaps too clever, artist, but still coloured from nature. Artist he is indeed, and as far as may be from science, but, after reading Prejevalsky's narrative, I have felt, more than ever before, the charm of Huc's vivacious touches; more than ever, because the perusal of the Russian work convinced me that his pictures (I do not refer to the braggadocio, probably imaginary, of his conduct before Chinese officials) are true as well as clever. Who that has read the book,—though probably the generations that have risen since 1851, and that have had so much else to read may not have read them,—who can forget that inimitable picture of the yaks of the caravan, after fording the freezing waters of the Pouhain-gol, staggering under the load of icicles that depended from their shaggy flanks? or that other of the wild company of the same species, nipt by the frost in swimming across the head-waters of the mighty Yangtse, and there frozen hard in cold death, the whole hairy herd of them?
​The specific charges which Prejevalsky brings against Huc's narrative are the following:—
1. His description of the ford of the Pouhain-gol, a river flowing into the Koko-nor Lake from the westward, as an extremely difficult passage of a stream broken up into twelve branches; whereas it forms but a single stream where the Lhassa road crosses it, and that only 105 feet wide, with a depth of one or two feet. (See this work, vol. ii. p. 158, and Huc, ii. p. 200.)
2. His entire omission to mention the high chain south of the Koko-nor.
3. His depicting the Tsaidam country as an arid steppe, whereas it is a salt-marsh, covered with high reeds.
4. His omitting to mention the Tsaidam river, though it is twenty-two times as wide as the Pouhain-gol.
5. What he says regarding the gas on the Burkhan Bota mountain 'is very doubtful,' says Col. Prejevalsky.
6. His representing the Shuga chain as very steep, whereas its gradients would, even as they are, bear a railway.
7. The chain of the Baian-kara-ula, 'about which Huc relates marvellous stories,' is only a succession of low elevations, never exceeding 1,000 feet above the plains that lie to the north, and only a little steeper towards the Murui-ussu. 'There is here no pass' (i.e. I presume no col to be crossed), 'and the road follows a stream down to the Murui-ussu.'
8. Huc speaks only of crossing the Murui-ussu (or Upper Yangtse), after passing the Baian Kara; but the Lhassa road lies along its banks the whole way up to its source in the Tang-la mountains, a distance of some 200 miles.
Now, Nos. 4 and 6 are, as Mr. Ney Elias has already pointed out, mistakes of Col. Prejevalsky 's own. Huc does mention the Tsaidam river; he does not represent
​the Shuga range as very steep: 'Le mont Chuga était peu escarpé du côté que nous gravissions' (ii. 213). The great trouble in passing it was owing to a strong icy wind and deep drifts of snow, in which they had to pitch their tent and dig for argols.
As regards No. 7 I can find in Huc no marvellous stories. He speaks, indeed, of the terrors of avalanches, though probably meaning only the perils of snow-drifts. The snow lay very deep when he passed, and it is conceivable, pace Col. Prejevalsky, that the course of a ravine may not have been the path adopted under such circumstances.
As regards No. 8 there is nothing I think in Huc absolutely inconsistent with his having followed up the great river after crossing it. But Prejevalsky himself is, according to his countryman Palladius, not quite correct in saying that the road in question follows the river to its source. And moreover there are three roads on towards Lhassa from the point where the river is crossed.
In cases 1 and 2 it is probable that Huc was filling up a mere skeleton diary from memory, and the experience of many will recognise that in such a process natural features will sometimes exchange characteristics in the recollection. This has, possibly, been the case with the Pouhain-gol and the Tsaidam river in Huc's narrative; whilst it is by no means made certain that there are not routes, more or less diverse, and parallel to one another, which are adopted according to circumstances. Altogether Col. Prejevalsky's criticisms are a little too much in the vein of Huc's countryman: Je ne crois pas aux tigres, moi, parceque je n'en ai pas vu!'
As for No. 5, 'the gas on the Burkhan Bota,' it is absurd to make even the suggestion of bad faith in regard to this; ​it is only an instance of Huc's exceeding ignorance of nature, with all his cleverness. The passage is so curious in this light as to be worth quotation. At the foot of the mountain he says:—
'The whole caravan halted awhile, as if to question its own strength... A subtle and light gas was anxiously indicated, which they called pestilential vapour, and all the world seemed to be downcast and discouraged. After having taken the prophylactics which tradition enjoins, and which consist in munching two or three cloves of garlick, at last we began to clamber up the flanks of the mountain. Soon the horses refused to carry their riders; we began to go afoot with short steps; insensibly all faces grew pale; the action of the heart was felt to be waning; the legs would no longer do their duty; presently we lay down, got up, and made a few steps in advance, then lay down again; and in this deplorable fashion it was that the famous Burkhan Bota was crossed.'
All this is a vigorous description of the occasional effects of rarefied atmosphere on a person using bodily exertion. The very phrase used, les vapeurs oestilentielles, is a translation of the term Bish ka hawa, or 'poison-air,' by which the pains of attenuated atmosphere are indicated on the Indian side of the Himalya. Even the cloves of garlick, mentioned by Huc, are the ancient Asiatic antidote used in such circumstances. Benedict Goës, in describing the passage of Pamir, speaks of the custom of using garlick, leeks, and dried fruits as 'an antidote to the cold,' which was so severe that animals could scarcely breathe it. Faiz Bakhsh and the Mirza both mention the use of dried fruits;and Mr. Matthew Arnold refers to a variety of the same, I have no doubt with good authority. ​But then Huc goes on to talk foolishness about 'the carbonic acid gas which we know is heavier than atmospheric air'—and so forth, and to tell how this carbonic acid gas caused a difficulty about lighting a fire. Marco Polo mentions the latter fact, but, belonging to the pre-scientific age, he attributes it to the great cold.
In a Chinese Itinerary through Tangut and Tibet, already cited, I find a perfect explanation of Huc's strange talk. At a great many stations on both sides of the Murui-ussu (or Upper Yangtse), it is noted that there are 'noxious vapours' at the camping-ground; so no doubt Huc merely accepted and embellished the phrase of his travelling companions.
A more amusing illustration of this notion is given in Dr. Bellew's recent book, 'Kashmir and Kashgar,' where an Afghan follower, to whom he had given chlorate of potash, says: 'Yes! I'll take this, and please God it will
​cure me. But this dam is a poisonous air, and rises out of the ground everywhere. If you walk ten paces it makes you sick, and if you picket your horse on it, it spurts from the hole you drive your peg into, and knocks you senseless at his heels.'
Huc, whatever his cleverness as a painter of striking scenes, was not only without science, but without that geographical sense which sometimes enables a traveller to bring back valuable contributions to geographical knowledge, even when without the means of making instrumental observations.
A succession of political events during the last twenty years has greatly changed the state of things in Upper Asia, and has tended to the rapid widening of geographical knowledge. The chief of these events have been the revolt of the Mahommedan subjects of China in Eastern Turkestan and Dzungaria, followed by the advance of Russian authority into the basin of Ili, and by our own communications with the new authorities in the Kashgar Basin; the results of war with China in the establishment of Europeans at Peking, and the gradual abatement of the barriers that excluded them from the exploration of the interior provinces of China Proper; and, lastly, the rapid spread of Russian power over Western Turkestan.
The journey of the unfortunate Adolphus Schlagintweit to Kashgar, where he was barbarously murdered in 1857, was the first achieved from the Indian side.
In the last twelve years Col. Montgomerie has been indefatigable in his organisation of expeditions into the Unknown region by trained Pundits. First Yarkand was reached; then Lhassa; and a variety of other geographic raids were made upon Tibetan territory by this kind of scientific light-horse. But much as they have done to fill up blanks upon our maps, and to amend their accuracy, it is impossible for us to regard these vicarious achievements with the same satisfaction that we derive from geography conquered by the daring and toil of ​European travellers of the old stamp. These, however, have not been lacking either on the Russian side or on our own, nor, as we shall see, have France and Germany failed to contribute to the series of modern explorations in High Asia. Shaw and Hayward and Johnson were the pioneers of British exploration in Eastern Turkestan; and these have been followed by the less perilous journeys of Sir D. Forsyth and his companions, by the ride of the latter across Pamir, and by their success in connecting, at least by preliminary survey, our own scientific frontier with that of Russia. Cooper's two daring attempts to traverse the formidable barriers which man, even more than nature, has set between India and China, are hardly within the field that we are contemplating.
Since 1865-66 Armand David, like Huc and Gabet a Lazarist priest, but very unlike them in his zeal for natural science, has made a variety of adventurous journeys within the eastern borders of this little-known region. On one of these expeditions (1866) he devoted ten months to the study of the natural history of the Mongolian plateau in the vicinity and to the westward of Kwei-hwa-cheng or Kuku Khoto. In 1868 he visited the province of Szechwan, and advanced into the independent and hitherto entirely unknown Tibetan highlands on its NW. frontier, and thence into the eastern part of the Koko-nor territory. On this and previous journeys he claims to have discovered forty new species of mammals, and more than fifty of birds. Among the former are two new monkeys, living in very cold forest regions of the hill country just mentioned, and a new white bear. There has as yet been no publication in extenso of the journeys of this ardent and meritorious traveller.
Baron Richthofen, whose explorations of China have been at once the most extensive and the most scientific of our age, has traversed only a small part of the Mongolian plateau; but from his remarkable power of apprehending, and of indicating in a few words, the most characteristic features of structure and geography, he has ​thrown more light on the physical character of the region, so far as he saw it, than any other traveller.
Our countryman, Mr. Ney Elias, who has shown a remarkable combination of a traveller's best gifts with singular modesty in their display, has carried a new line of observations along the vast diagonal of Mongolia from the Gate at Kalgan to the Russian frontier on the Altai, through Uliassutai and Kobdo, a distance of upwards of 2,000 miles. To him these remarks are often indebted.
Dr. Bushell and Mr. Grosvenor have also passed the Wall at Kalgan to visit Dolon-nor, and Shangtu, the desolate site of the summer-palace of the great Kublaï.
We cannot attempt to recall even the chief names in the history of exploration from the Russian side, though I should be loath to leave unspecified the successful journey of that accomplished couple, Alexis and Olga Fedchenko, to the Alai Steppe, which is in fact a northern analogue of Pamir, separated from the southern plateaux, so called, by the mighty chain to which Fedchenko gave the name of Trans-Alai, the Kizil-yurt of our own Anglo-Indian travellers. But of all modern Russian incursions on the tracts that we have designated as the Unknown, Lieut.-Col. Prejevalsky's has been the boldest, the most persevering, and the most extensive.
The scene of his explorations was that plateau of Mongolia of which we have so often spoken, and that region which rises so far above it, the terraced plains, and lofty deserts of Northern Tibet, which spread out at a level equal to that of the highest summits of the Bernese Oberland, whilst the ranges which buttress the steps of the ascent rise considerably higher.
Captain (now Lieut.-Col.) Prejevalsky was already known as an able explorer, when, in 1870, he was deputed by the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, under the sanction of the War Department, to conduct an exploration into Southern Mongolia. With his companion he left Kiakhta on November 29, 1870, for Peking, where they remained till the spring.
​The time was unfavourable for such a journey as was proposed; for the Mahommedan rebellion in NW. China and the adjoining regions was in full blaze. Singanfu, the capital of Shensi, and famous capital of China in ancient times, had in the spring of 1870 been invested, and an invasion of Shansi, perhaps of Pechihli itself, had only just been barred by a timely check of the rebels at Tung-kwan, on the great south-west elbow of the Yellow River, a point often, and in all ages of Chinese history, the key of important campaigns. About midsummer the strong frontier town of Kuku Khoto (or Kwei-hwa-cheng), in the border-land north of the Great Wall, was entirely blockaded from the side of Mongolia, whilst raids were frequently made into its suburbs. In October Uliassutai had been attacked, and the open part of the town burnt, and so greatly were the Chinese alarmed for Urga itself that they allowed it to be protected by a Russian garrison.
Prejevalsky himself does not (in this work at least) state these sufficient reasons for delaying his expedition; he rather seems to leave us to infer that the delay was part of the programme; but we borrow the details from a notice by Mr. Ney Elias, who was himself in North China and cognisant of the circumstances.
It was impracticable, however, in such a state of things to carry out the journey projected, and in the meantime Colonel Prejevalsky determined on undertaking a preliminary and experimental journey to the busy town of Dolon-nor and the salt lake of Dalai-nor in Eastern Mongolia. Returning to Kalgan, he reorganised his little caravan, and on May 15 again ascended the Mongol table-land, and travelled westward parallel to its southern margin, and through the Tumet country, till they struck the western ​extremity of the Inshan mountains on the northern bank of the Hoang-ho. Thence they descended to Bautu, on the left bank of the river, and crossed into the dreary plains of the Ordos.
Their course lay now for nearly 300 miles westward, and parallel to the southern bank of the river, where it forms that great northern bend, familiar to all who have been in the habit of consulting maps of China. In all our maps the river is here represented as forming a variety of branches, but the main stream as constituting the most northerly of these. This bed still remains, but the river now flows in the most southerly of the channels, some thirty or forty miles farther south than it did in former times.
At the town of Ding-hu (called on former maps by the Mongol name Chaghan-subar-khan), the travellers crossed to the left bank of the Yellow River, and here they were in the province of Ala-shan, of which we have from Prejevalsky for the first time some distinct account. It forms a part of ​Marco Polo's Tangut, and probably a part, at least, of Ala-shan is identical with his district of Egrigaia, of which the chief town was called Calashan.
Twelve days' journey to the south-east brought the party to Din-yuan-ing (Wei-ching-pu of maps), the present capital of the principality, where they were well received by the Prince and his family, who has a deep impression of the greatness of the White Khan, i.e. of the Czar. This reception Col. Prejevalsky notes as the only hospitable welcome that they had met with; and he hardly records any recurrence of the like.
From this place they made an excursion into the mountainous region of Ala-shan, which rises boldly from the valley of the Hoang-ho; its highest summit, which they visited, reaching to 10,650 feet above the sea.
These wooded mountains afforded the traveller ample booty in his especial pursuit as a sportsman and zoologist. On returning from their excursion to the capital of Ala-shan, they found their means all but exhausted, and were compelled reluctantly to turn their faces Peking-wards; on this journey keeping entirely to the left bank of the river, and of its old deserted bed, and following in great part, I have no doubt, the route of Marco Polo on his first approach to the Court of the Great Khan.
Prejevalsky, benefiting by the experience acquired on these journeys, employed himself for two months in preparing for a third expedition; and himself acquiring at the same time, by practice at the Russian Observatory, some acquaintance with practical astronomy. A third start from Kalgan was made in March 1872.
They reached Din-yuan-ing on May 26, and some days later having joined a Chinese caravan travelled with it through Kansuh to the Lama monastery of Chobsen, about forty miles north of Sining-fu, a month's journey in all. From this point the Russians diverged to the mountains bordering on the Tatung river for the sake of collections in natural history; and these were very abundant, affording 46 new species of birds, 10 species of mammalia, and 431 ​plants. They also investigated de visu, for the first time it is believed in modern days, the famous rhubarb plant in its native region. With a view to its cultivation in Russian territory, a quantity of seed was collected.
The traveller had, even at this point, become sensible that his means were inadequate to carry the party to Lhassa, and had, with a sore heart, to accept the inevitable. But he determined not the less to explore the basin of the great lake Koko-nor, and the Tsaidam region to the SW. of it.
At this time Sining-fu, Tatung, and Suhchau were in the hands of the Tungani or Chinese Mahommedan insurgents. Kanchau and Lanchau, with several other cities, were held by the Imperialists. The whole country between the two parties was continually scoured by bands of free-booters, who carried on their devastations beneath the very noses of the Chinese troops.
The fame of the rifles and skill of the Russians kept the Tungani from all attempts to meddle with them; and on September 23 they left Chobsen for the Koko-nor, passing right across the country haunted by the rebels. On the march they came on a large body of Tungani, but by putting a bold face on the encounter the little body of Russians utterly discomfited the robbers, who turned tail and fled ignominiously. At last on October 14 they arrived in the basin of the Koko-nor, and pitched their tents on its shores, at some 10,000 feet above the sea. The steppe here is fertile and well peopled with both men and cattle. The people are both Mongol and Tangutans, respecting whom a few words will be found in the Supplementary Notes to Volume II.
After purchasing some camels there remained but some forty pounds in pocket. But sure of maintenance from their guns, Prejevalsky resolved to push on.
A high range of mountains was crossed in quitting the basin of the lake; and the travellers then entered the region of Tsaidam, which he describes as a vast salt-marsh, covered with reeds, as if recently the bed of a great lake. ​This marshy hollow is said by the Chinese to stretch W, and N. to Lake Lob. Here a sore temptation presented itself to Prejevalsky, as at once traveller, zoologist, and sportsman, to diverge to the westward for a new species of game,—the Wild Camel.
This is a somewhat interesting subject; for disbelief in the existence of the Wild Camel has been strongly expressed,—and indeed not long since by one of the greatest of scholars as well as geographical authorities on Central Asia. It is worth while, therefore, to observe that its existence by no means rests on the rumour heard by Prejevalsky. There is much other evidence; none of it, perhaps, very strong taken alone, but altogether forming a body of testimony which I have long regarded, even without recent additions, as irresistible.
The following are the testimonies of which I have re- tained memoranda, but I believe there are several others in existence:—
I. Shah Rukh's ambassadors to China (A.D. 1420) midway in the Great Desert between Kamul and Shachau, or thereabouts, fell in with a wild camel.—II. The Persian geography called Haft Iklím ('The Seven Climates'), probably quoting from Haidar Razi, says of the Desert of Lob: 'This Desert contains wild camels, which are hunted.'—III. In Duhalde we find the following from Chinese sources: 'Both wild and tame camels are found in the countries bordering on the north of China . . . at present wild camels are only to be met with in the countries north-west of China.'—IV. In the Journal of the 'As. Soc. of Bengal,' ix. 623, I see that Sir Proby Cautley quotes Pallas as arguing, on Tartar evidence, that the wild camel is found in Central Asia. Cuvier ascribes this to the Buddhist custom of giving liberty to domestic animals. This may have been the origin of the breed, as of the wild horses of S. America and Queensland. But we see above ​that they have been known for at least 450 years. — V. 'Izzat Ullah, who travelled as a 'Pundit' in the employment of Moorcroft, mentions that Khotan is said to abound in wild asses, wild camels, cattle, and musk-deer.—VI. Mr. R, Shaw, in his 'High Tartary': 'The Yoozbashee says they (lyre-horned antelopes), go in large herds, as do also wild camels (?) in the great desert eastward' (p. 168). — VII. Sir Douglas Forsyth, in a letter which he wrote to me from Shahidullah, on his last mission to Kashgar, mentioned that the officer who met them there had shot the wild camel in the Desert of Turfàn. It was a good deal smaller than the tame camel. — VIII. The same gentleman in the printed report of his mission gives more detailed evidence, apparently from another native informant, which I quote below. IX. Mr. Ney Elias also received strong and repeated evidence of the existence of wild camels north of the Thian Shan 'from intelligent Chinese travellers, as well as from the native Mongols . . . Many of the former, who declared they had seen these animals between Kobdo and Ili, Uliassutai and Kuchen, I questioned as to their being really wild, or having become so subsequent to domestication; but the answers were always emphatically that they had never been tame . . . . Moreover, the wild camels were always ​described to me as smaller in size and much darker in colour than tame ones,'—X. Dr. Bellew says: 'The deserts on the east of this territory, in the vicinity of Lob . . . . are the home of the wild camel. It is still, as of old, hunted there, and is described as a very vicious and fleet animal, and of small size, not much larger than a large horse. A Kirghiz shepherd, who had resided for some years at Lob, told me that he had frequently seen them at graze, and had himself joined in many hunting expeditions against them for the sake of their wool, which is very highly prized for the manufacture of a superior kind of camlet.'—XI. The Russian Father Hyacinthe, in his memoirs on Mongolia, speaking of Middle Mongolia, says that there are found wild camels, wild mules, wild asses, wild horses, and wild goats, especially on the more westerly steppes.—XII. Captain Valikhanoff says that Chinese works very often speak of wild camel hunts, which formed one of the amusements of the rulers of the cities of Eastern Turkestan in past ages, though he could not get information regarding the animals.—XIII. Several additional testimonies will be found cited by Ritter (iii. 341, 342).
We have indulged in that digression after wild camels, which Prejevalsky denied himself. He passed on into the lofty and uninhabited desert of Northern Tibet, which extends for a width in latitude of some 500 miles, at an altitude of 14,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea, and reached ​the upper stream of the Great Yangtse, known there to the Mongols as the Murui-ussu or Winding Water. In this region, uninhabited by man, wild animals abound; wolves, argali or wild sheep, antelopes of various sorts, and above all the wild yak, are found in vast numbers. These last our traveller estimates to exist in millions; strange, if it be true, that such a vast amount of flesh can derive nourishment and growth from those bleak and scanty pastures. For the individual animal also is of enormous bulk, an old male reaching to a weight of 1,600 lbs., measuring six feet to the hump, and eleven feet in length without the tail.
Their guns thus provided them with animal food in abundance, supplemented only with barley-meal and brick-tea. But their camels were utterly worn out and their funds exhausted, and thus within less than a month's journey of Lhassa they were compelled, with bitter regret, to turn their backs on that almost unvisited city. And the same causes compelled the travellers to leave unattempted an expedition to the mysterious Lob-nor, though the way was open, and a guide procurable.
Retracing their steps over the plains of Tsaidam and the Koko-nor, they again devoted some weeks of spring to extending their zoological collections in the moist region of the Kansuh mountains; and then, after much toil and suffering in crossing the desert tract of Ala-shan, they again reached Din-yuan-ing, where their pockets, not too soon, were replenished by a remittance from General Vlangali, at Peking. So worn and ragged were they, that as they entered the town the Mongols bestowed on them what Prejevalsky evidently regards as one of the most opprobrious of epithets; they called them 'the very image of Mongols'!
Whilst sending out their camels for three weeks' grazing, they renewed their zoological explorations of the ​adjoining mountain region; and then started on a journey never before attempted by any European, the direct route from Ala-shan across the Gobi to Urga.
This arduous journey had to be accomplished in the height of summer, and occupied from July 26 to September 17. 'This desert,' the author says, speaking of the depressed basin on their route called the Galpin Gobi (3,200 feet), 'is so terrible that in comparison with it the deserts of Northern Tibet may be called fruitful. There, at all events, you may often find water and good pasture-land in the valleys; here there is neither the one nor the other, not even a single oasis; everywhere the silence of the Valley of Death.' Finally, after a week's repose at Urga, the travellers re-entered their country's frontier at Kiakhta, on October 1, 1873.
Their toil had extended over three years, during which they had travelled upwards of 7,000 miles, of which they had laid down about half in routes surveyed for the first time, and accompanied by very numerous observations for altitude by the aneroid first, and afterwards by boiling point. The route surveys were checked by eighteen determinations of latitude; and a meteorological record was kept throughout the journey. The plants collected amounted to 5,000 specimens, representing upwards of 500 species, of which a fifth are new. But especially important vas the booty in zoology, which is Prejevalsky's own specialty, for this included 37 large and 90 smaller mammals, 1,000 specimens of birds, embracing 300 species, 80 specimens of reptiles and fish, and 3,500 of insects. The journey and its acquisitions form a remarkable example of resolution and persistence amid long-continued toil, hardship, and difficulty of every kind, of which Russia may well be proud.
A defect in the constitution of the expedition which forces itself on the observation of a reader was evidently the want, not only of any sufficient knowledge of the languages in use, but of any competent interpreter,—indeed, on a large part of the journey, it would seem, of anyone ​whatever worthy to be called an interpreter,—combined, as Mr. Elias has remarked, with a 'general inexperience of Chinese human nature.' The traveller himself is inclined to indulge somewhat strongly in contemptuous and inimical judgments of the people among whom he found himself; but this very contempt and hostility, with its sure reaction in ill-will from the other side, was certain to be aggravated by the difficulties of communication. The absence also, of a good interpreter renders it necessary to reject or doubt a good many of Col. Prejevalsky's interpretations of names.
Before closing these remarks it may be well to notice one or two points on which comment may be made more conveniently here than in the Notes appended to these two volumes.
One of the most novel and remarkable circumstances that come out in this narrative is the existence of an intensely moist mountain region in Kansu, to the north of the Hoang-ho, and on the immediate east of Koko-nor. This tract constitutes there what Prejevalsky calls the 'marginal range,' a feature everywhere characteristic of the plateau of Mongolia, i.e. a belt of mountain following and forming the rim of the plateau and the descent from it, but also rising considerably above the level of the plateau itself. In this range, after a short and easy ascent from the side of the table-land, at a distance of only twenty-seven miles from the arid desert of Ala-shan, the travellers found themselves on a fertile soil, abounding in water, where rich grass clothed the valleys, dense forests darkened the steep slopes of the mountains, and animal life appeared in great abundance and variety. The rains, during their stay of some weeks in these mountains, in June and July, were incessant, and the humidity in their tents excessive. The facts are not very clearly brought out in the narrative, and the scientific records of the journey have not yet ​been published. But we are told (ii. 102) that the most southerly chain of these mountains, viz. that which rises directly from the plain of Sining-fu, is without forest, at least on its southern slopes, and its alpine zone almost without a flora,—expressions which seem to indicate the humid and fertile mountain region as isolated between two arid tracts. Our information as to the mountain regions still further south is very scanty indeed; but the brief account of Père Armand David's visit to the highlands on the south-east of the Koko-nor region, and nearly in the same meridian as that of which we have been speaking, describes a similar, but even moister climate. ' The atmosphere was so charged with moisture that it sufficed to precipitate this in rain, if several men joined in making a loud noise and firing off their guns.' The mountains were perpetually clothed in mist, which favoured the growth of conifers and rhododendrons; of the last no less than sixteen species were collected. Further south, again, on the same meridian, we have Mr. Cooper's account of his journey from Ching-tu-fu into Eastern Tibet; and here also we have a picture of heavy rains between July and September (see pp. 219, 367, 395). We are here approaching the Irawadi valley and the mountains that bound Bengal on the east, where the summer rain is so heavy and regular. So that these Kansuh Alps, with their heavy rains and abundant vegetation, seem to fall within the north-western limit of a vast area over which the heavy summer rains, which in India accompany what we call the south-west monsoon, are the rule, presenting so strong a contrast to the dry summers and wet winters of the sub-tropical zone of Europe.'
Another subject which seems to require notice here consists of those characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism to which allusions frequently occur in Prejevalsky's narrative, ​especially that of the so-called 'incarnate Buddhas.' Prejevalsky's allusions to the subject are somewhat crude and loose, insomuch that, hard matter as it is to grasp, and especially to put briefly, I must make the attempt, by aid of Koeppen's admirable book.
'Lamaism,' says Koeppen, 'is the Romanism of the Buddhist Church. The thorough-going development of the priestly power, both in itself and in its relations towards the laity, and, closely bound up with that, the erection of an outward, visible, and sovereign Church and ecclesiastical State, exercising rule over people and provinces;—these form the essential character by which Romanism is distinguished from the older Christianity, and by which Lamaism is distinguished from the old Buddhism of India. Wherever these have in other respects departed from the earlier forms, whether in religious practice, in discipline, or in worship, these departures have been, in the one case as in the other, but as means to an end.'
The similarities between Lamaism and Roman Catholicism, moreover, extend so far beyond general characteristics of this kind, run into so many particulars, are often so striking, and sometimes so grotesque, that they have been contemplated with some dismay and perplexity by zealous missionaries of the Roman Church, from the Middle Ages downwards to our own. Indeed, it has been alleged,—but, be it said, it is an allegation which I have endeavoured to verify without success,—that Père Huc himself, who had noted some of the superficial resemblances with his usual neatness of expression, was, on his return to Europe, astonished to find his book in consequence registered in the Index Prohibitorum of an ungrateful Congregation.
The details of resemblance between those peculiarities of Roman Catholicism which seem to persons outside of its pale to have so little in common with the spirit of the New Testament, and the peculiarities of this other system, which, perhaps under analogous influences, ​has deviated so far from the original form of Sâkya's doctrine, would be worthy of more careful study than they have yet received. And this study might, possibly, suggest wholesome considerations to some well-meaning persons among our countrymen just now.
In its older forms Lamaism was a kind of Buddhism corrupted, on the one hand by the aboriginal Shamanism, and on the other hand by Sivaite magic and mysticism. It also allowed, at least in certain cases, of the marriage of priests, under varying conditions and limitations, kindred to those which strictly belonged to the character of the pure Brahman. Thus, certain of the hierarchy were allowed to live in the married state until an heir was born; others until the son also had an heir. And the sacred dignities were thus often hereditary in the literal sense.
In the middle of the fourteenth century arose the great reformer of Lamaism in the person of Tsongkaba, born in the province of Amdo, at the spot now marked with consequent sanctity by the great monastery of Kunbum. Tsongkaba was a reformer, manifestly, not in the spirit of Luther or Calvin, but rather in that of Francis or Dominic; but we are not in a position to indicate very clearly the scope of his reforms. He did, however, evidently make some considerable effort to revert to the original practices of Buddhism. And the most visible and external of his reforms, the substitution of the yellow cap and robe for the red which had characterized the older Lamas, was an instance of this. Such also was the more important measure of recalling the priesthood to a strict and universal profession of celibacy. The old Indian Buddhism did recognise wedded persons under certain secondary vows as lay brothers and lay sisters, but knew no such persons as married sramanas, or full members of the Church. Tsongkaba also greatly checked, or strove to check, the intervention of magical practices among the faithful. These were excessively prevalent among the older Lamas,—as, ​indeed, we may see from Marco Polo's repeated allusions to the diabolical arts of the sorcerer Bakshis of Tebet and Keshemir. The reform did not, apparently, prohibit all magic, but only its grosser arts, distinguishing, as Koeppen felicitously expresses it, between white magic and black; forbidding necromantic incantations, with regular sorcery and witch-broth-cookery, as well as vulgar tricks like fire-breathing, knife-swallowing, and the pretended amputation of the limbs,—or even the head,—of the performer by his own hand. These were all pet practices of the old red unreformed Lamas, and still remain so. Tsongkaba's reform had great swing, and has long been predominant in numbers and power.
He was, of course, canonized among his followers, and is generally regarded as having been an incarnation of the Dhyâni Buddha of the present world-period, Amitâbha, though sometimes also of the Bodhisatvas,—or Buddhas designate,—Manjusri and Vajrapâni. His image is found in all the temples of his Yellow Church, often between those of its two Pontiffs, the Dalai Lama of Lhassa, and the Lama Panchhan Rinbochhi of Tashilunpo.
The reforms of Tsongkaba led to, or at least culminated in, a new development of Lama doctrine and order; from one point of view, in the establishment of a regular papacy,—though dual or bicephalous; from another point of view, in that of a peculiar system of succession such as has, probably, no parallel on earth.
Thus there exist since his time two chief prelates and pontiffs of the Yellow Church, exercising both spiritual and temporal power,—two popes, in fact, each within his own dominion; the one at Lhassa, the Dalai Lama, as he is best ​known to us, by a Mongol term, signifying 'The Ocean;' the other at Tashilunpo ('The Hill of Grace') or Digarchi, styled in Tibetan the Panchhan Rinbochhi, or 'Most Excellent Jewel.' In rank, sanctity, and spiritual dignity these may be regarded as equal; but in extent of temporal dominion the Lhassa Pontiff vastly surpasses his colleague.
These two Princes of the Church are in a manner indefeasible. Whenever one or other shuffles off this mortal coil he proceeds to resume it again under the form of a child born to succeed to the dignity, and indicated by miraculous signs as the reincarnation of the departed Pontiff. This is the system of supernatural succession of those reborn saints whom the Mongols term Khubilghân.
The history of its institution is buried in obscurity; but the old Red-cap hierarchy, at least in some of its sects, had established the hereditary character of the higher ecclesiastical dignities. To preserve this was impossible under the celibate enforced by Tsongkaba; and the system of succession by pretended reincarnation may have been a scheme artfully devised to preserve union among the Yellow sect, who might easily have been split by the discords and intrigues of an elective papacy, as those causes again and again split the Catholic world, until it came under the compressive force exercised upon it by the existence of seceding Churches. However that may be, it came to pass, sooner or later, that not only those two chief pontiffs, but also the secondary and tertiary dignitaries of the hierarchy came to hand on their succession in the same supernatural manner.
The transmigration of souls, or what is most simply described by that expression, is well known to be a prominent doctrine of all Buddhism. Among the northern Buddhists also, after many centuries, had arisen a doctrine (derived probably from the Hindu Avatâras) which represented the Bodhisatvas (i.e. potential or designate Buddhas, awaiting in a celestial repose the time of their accomplished Buddhahood) as occasionally and voluntarily assuming human form. Thence by a third step Lamaism evolved its ​climax in this doctrine of continuous incarnations, maintaining the succession to high spiritual dignity on earth.
The Buddhas of the past,—those culminations of spiritual progress who have attained and accomplished their day in that supreme position, vanish in Nirvana and return no more. But the Bodhisatvas, for the weal of mankind, become thus repeatedly embodied on earth. This voluntary incarnation is a different thing from the ordinary re-birth of metempsychosis. The latter is a fate incumbent on every living soul till it be freed from all impurity. But voluntary incarnation is the peculiar privilege of those sin-free souls alone which have wrought their way out of the toils of transmigration. Transmigration, in short, from a Buddhist point of view, is a natural, whilst reincarnation is a supernatural process.
This doctrine, no doubt, had early seeds, but it expanded to its full development only in the fifteenth century, and in the Yellow Church of Tsongkaba.
The Dalai Lama of Lhassa is always looked on as the incarnation of the Bodhisatva Avalokite^vara, the special guardian of Tibet. The Panchhan Rinbochhi is regarded immediately as the re-born Tsongkaba, but therefore ultimately as the Dhyani Buddha Amitâbha. So that, as regards the spiritual rank and doctrinal authority that he represents, the latter would, perhaps, stand highest; but he of Lhassa preponderates in temporal dominion, and consequently in ecclesiastical influence.
It is very obscure how this double popedom arose; but the most probable deduction from the fragmentary facts accessible is that the Lhassa pontificate is somewhat the oldest, going back to very near the age of Tsongkaba, and that the Panchhan Rinbochhi dates from the foundation of the great monastery of Tashilunpo, circâ 1445-47. We know that in 1470 both existed, for both in that year received seals and diplomas from the Chinese Emperor.
For a considerable time the two were only the arch-priests of the Yellow sect, and were so regarded by the chiefs of the Reds, who held an analogous position. But ​since the invasion of Tibet in 1643, by the Mongol Gushi Khan, who depressed the Reds, and established the Dalai Lama as temporal sovereign of the greater part of Tibet, no such equality exists. The chief prelates of the Red sects in Tibet Proper, in Bhotan, and in Ladak, have now long been in a kind of dependence on the Yellow papacy, and are, both in Lhassa and in Peking, counted among the Khutukhtus or Monsignori of the Lamaitic hierarchy. I have no doubt that Rome, so fertile in analogies with Lamaism, could furnish a perfect parallel; but the nearest that occurs to my scanty knowledge is the position of the priests of the Greek rite in Sicily, or that which a high Catholic prelate was recently alleged to have desired to recognise in certain would-be deserters of the Church of England.
The Khutukhtus, — Monsignori, as I have just called them, or perhaps Cardinals, as Père Huc himself calls them, — form the second order in the hierarchy, and in Tibet Proper, like the Roman cardinals up to 1870, they hold the civil administration of the provinces in their hands. They also are counted among reincarnate saints. The best known of them is that patriarch of Mongolia who, since 1604, dwells at Urga, the most powerful and revered of all the Lama hierarchy after the Two Jewels of Central Tibet. Next to him is the second Mongolian patriarch, dwelling at Kuku Khoto; whilst a third represents Lamaism at the Court of Peking.
After these come the commoner herd of re-incarnates, who are numerous, insomuch that a great many monasteries in Mongolia and Tibet have an incarnate saint, or 'Living Buddha,' as they are sometimes called by travellers, for their abbot. These are the Chaberons of Huc; the Gigens of Prejevalsky. And the Red-caps themselves, who in former times admitted of succession by natural descent, have now adopted this supernatural system.
​Till the end of last century the designation of the successor to all posts in the hierarchy, by this alleged reincarnation, lay in the hands of the ecclesiastics, who pulled the wires, however varied the manner in which the play of identification was played. But for many years past the Court of Peking has been the practical determiner of this mystic succession.
Enough of introduction. I add but one word more. In looking back to the cursory review of recent exploration with which these remarks were commenced, I cannot but note, with some feeling of self-vindication in regard to time and labour heretofore spent in the elucidation of the great Venetian traveller of the Middle Ages, that all the explorers whom I have named have been, it may be said with hardly a jot of hyperbole, only travelling in his footsteps, — most certainly illustrating his geographical notices.
If Wood and Gordon and Trotter have explored Pamir, so did Messer Marco before them. Shaw, Hayward, and Forsyth in Kashgar; Johnson in Khotan; Cooper and Armand David on the eastern frontier of Tibet; Richthofen in Northern and Western China; Ney ​Elias and Bushell in Mongolia; Paderin at Karakorum; Prejevalsky in Tangut; all have been tracking his steps and throwing light, consciously or unconsciously, on his Herodotean chapters. And yet what a vast area that he has described from personal knowledge remains beyond and outside of the explorations and narratives of these meritorious travellers!
There remains but to add that the engagement to assist Mr. Morgan in the production of this work was made, some eighteen months ago, under circumstances which afforded leisure for the task. The promise has had to be kept under very different circumstances of place and occupation; and this must be the apology for some oversights, and perhaps some repetitions, in the Notes and Introduction.
H. YULE. London : February 23, 1876.
* ↑ M. Mohl told me an anecdote of his visiting, about the time of Huc's publication, one of the vicars apostolic from the Eastern Missions,—I think Monseigneur Pallegoix from Siam. The new book was lying on the table, and the bishop apologised, saying he ought to have left it in his bedroom; 'a bishop ought not to be caught reading romances.'
* ↑ Among many other passages the following is unmistakably in the style of the Souvenirs: 'Tolon-noor est comme une monstrueuse pompe pneumatique à faire le vide dans les bourses Mongoles.' It is characteristic, too, of the clever but pretentious abbé that he says the name Djao-naiman-soumé, applied to the town of Tolon-noor on the maps (since D'Anville's), is 'également inconnu et incompris des Tatares et des Chinois.' Huc professes familiarity with Mongol, yet he is unable to interpret this name (applied, indeed, not properly to Tolon-noor, but to the site of Kublaï's summer palace at Shangtu, twenty-six miles to the north of it). The words mean simply 'the hundred and eight temples.'
* ↑ Huc's manner of mentioning the fact is vague, and names no date. It is in the Preface to his second work, The Chinese Empire, which is itself dated in May 1854.
* ↑  'In Koko-nor and Tsaidam the great caravan which Huc professes to have accompanied to Lhassa is perfectly well remembered, and it is somewhat astonishing that nobody has any recollection of the presence of foreigners among its members. Huc further asserts that he passed eight months at Gumbum [Kounboum of Huc; properly sKu-bum, v. p. xxxiv. infra]; but I saw many lamas who had resided in that temple for thirty or forty years, and all solemnly assured me that there had never been a foreigner amongst them. On the other hand, in the Ala-shan country, the presence of two Frenchmen at Ninghia twenty-five years ago was distinctly remembered.' (In Pr. R. G. S., xviii. 83.) It is to be recollected that Huc and Gabet were disguised as lamas, and probably their real character was known to few.   And on the other hand, Prejevalsky himself (i. p. 135) mentions having seen, at one of the R. C. missions in Mongolia, Samdadchiemba, the servant of Huc and Gabet, whom their readers remember as well as we remember Sancho or Sam Weller. 'He is of mixed Mongol and Tangutan race. He is fifty-five years of age, and enjoys excellent health; he related some of his adventures to us, and described the different places on the road.' Here there is no insinuation that Samdadchiemba's stories were inconsistent with Huc's. Mr. Ney Elias was also acquainted with Samdadchiemba.
* ↑ 'Les bœufs à longs poils étaient de véritables caricatures; impossible de figurer rien de plus drôle; ils marchaient les jambes écartées, et portaient péniblement un énorme système de stalactites qui leur pendaient sous le ventre jusqu'à terre. Ces pauvres bêtes étaient si informes et tellement recouvertes de glaçons qu'il semblait qu'on les eût mis confire dans du sucre candi' (ii. 201).
* ↑ 'Au moment où nous passâmes le Mouroui Oussou sur la glace, un spectacle assez bizarre s'offrit à nos yeux. Dejà nous avions remarqué de loin, pendant que nous étions au campement, des objets informes et noirâtres, rangés en file en travers de ce grand fleuve. Nous avions beau nous rapprocher de ces ilôts fantastiques, leur forme ne se dessinait pas d'une manière plus nette et plus claire. Ce fut seulement quand nous fûmes tout près, que nous pûmes reconnaitre plus de 50 bœufs sauvages incrustés dans la glace. Ils avaient voulu, sans doute, traverser le fleuve à la nage, au moment de la concrétion des eaux, et ils s'étaient trouvés pris par les glaçons, sans avoir la force de s'en débarrasser, et de continuer leur route. Leur belle tête, surmontée de grandes cornes, était encore à découvert; mais le reste du corps était pris dans la glace, qui était si transparente, qu'on pouvait distinguer facilement la position de ces imprudentes bêtes; on eêt dit qu'elles étaient encore à nager. Les aigles, et les corbeaux leur avaient arraché les yeux' (ii. 219).
* ↑ I derive these particulars from a Chinese Itinerary published by Father Palladius in Russian, and kindly translated for me by Mr. Morgan.
* ↑ Huc, after quitting the shores of Koko-nor, travelled for six days to the westward, with very little southing, before reaching the Pouhain-gol. This indicates quite a different part of the river from that crossed by Col. Prejevalsky close to the lake.
* ↑   'But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk-snow; Winding so high, that, as they mount, they pass Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, Chok'd by the air, and scarce can they themselves Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries— In single file they move.' ... Sohrab and Rustum. The authority for the 'sugar'd mulberries' is, as Mr. Arnold himself has kindly informed me, Alex. Burnes. It is a pity that this vivid and accurate picture is a little marred to an Anglo-Indian ear by the misplaced accent of Kābŭl (as it ought to be). It was told characteristically of the late Lord Ellenborough that, after his arrival in India, though for months he heard the name correctly spoken by his councillors and his staff, he persisted in calling it Căbōol till he met Dost Mahommed Khan. After the interview the Governor-General announced as a new discovery, from the Amir's pronunciation, that Cābŭl was the correct form.
* ↑ Another medieval antidote to the effects of attenuated atmosphere at great heights seems to have been the application of a wet sponge to the mouth. It is mentioned by Sir John Maundevile in speaking of Mount Athos; and by a contemporary of his, John de' Marignolli, in reference to a lofty mountain in 'Saba,' probably Java. His accuracy of expression is remarkable: 'From the middle of the mountain upwards the air is said to be so thin and pure that none, or at least very few, have been able to ascend it, and that only by keeping a sponge filled with water over the mouth.' Drs. Henderson and Bellew, in crossing the high plateau to Kashgar, found chlorate of potash to be of great value in mitigating the symptoms of distress.
* ↑ Pro. R. Geog. Soc., vol. xviii. p. 76.
* ↑ Regarding this country of the Tumet, Mr. Ney Elias affords an interesting anecdote:—'While at Tientsin last spring, one J——— G———, a tide-waiter in the Customs service, and formerly a sailor, told me that every winter, when the river was closed by ice, he was in the habit of going on a shooting excursion into Mongolia, beyond the Kou-pe-Ko pass, "but last winter," he coolly added, "I went to Tibet". This assertion somewhat surprised me, and led to a cross-examination, by means of which I elicited, among other matters relating to his excursion, the following:—He had passed the Great Wall at Kalgan, and had ridden a seven or eight days' journey towards the west, when he arrived in a mountainous country, where there were yaks. He had "read in books" that yaks were found in Tibet. The natives called the country Tibet, and so did his Chinese coxswain, who accompanied him. The people were "something like the Mongols," but spoke differently. Thinking he was mixing up his reading and experience for my special benefit and instruction, I left him, and thought no more of his story until some two months afterwards, at Kwei-hwa-cheng, I remarked that the Chinese pronounced the name of the Mongol tribe in that district Tümet or Timet, instead of Toumet, and the truth of G———'s story at once flashed across my mind . . . and that he saw yaks there I have not the slightest doubt, for I have seen them in the same neighbourhood . . . . though of course not indigenous, as he apparently supposed. 'Having read of Tibet, and never having either read or heard of the Toumet Mongols, he easily picked up the Chinese pronunciation of the latter, and confusing the m and the b, told a story that would have earned for a preaching friar of the fourteenth century some very hard names.'—Letter dated Sept. 29, 1873.)"
* ↑ See Cathay and the Way Thither, i. cc.
* ↑ Notices et Extraits, &c., xiv. pt. i. 474.
* ↑ English folio cd. ii. 225.
* ↑ J. R. As. Soc., vii. 319.
* ↑ 'The wild animals of Lob are the wild camel. . . . I have seen one which was killed. . . . It is a small animal, not much bigger than a horse, and has two humps. It is not like a tame camel; its limbs are very thin, and it is altogether slim built, I have seen them in the desert together with herds of wild horses. They are not timid, and do not run away at the sight of a man. They do nothing unless attacked; they then run away, or else they turn and attack the huntsman; they are very fierce, and swift in their action as an arrow shot from the bow; they kill by biting and trampling under foot, and they kick too like a cow. They are hunted for the sake of their wool, which is very highly prized, and sold to the Turfàn merchants.'—Rep. on Mission to Yarkand in 1873, p. 53. The word applied to the wild horse mentioned here is Kulan, which is the Turki name of the Tibetan Kyang, more properly a species of wild ass. This équivoque is probably at the bottom of the many mentions of wild horses; but I would not say so positively.
* ↑ Proc. R. Geog. Soc., xviii. 80.
* ↑ Kashmir and Kashgar, p. 348.
* ↑ Denkwürdigkeiten über die Mongolei, p. 110.
* ↑ Russians in Central Asia, p. 141.
* ↑ Ritter (ii. 241), speaking of the ancient Turks of the Gobi, says:—'Their prisoners of war were compelled, like the Roman prisoners among the Germans, to act as their herdsmen. Sheep, oxen, asses, horses, and camels constituted their wealth. These last have also existed in those tracts from the most ancient times in a mild state, so that we must believe this to be their natural habitat, and in all probability they were first tamed by the Turk nomads.' I cannot find that Ritter has authority for the words which I have italicised; perhaps they only represent his own impression.
* ↑ The true position of this lake, as well as its character, is very doubtful. See remarks in Marco Polo (2nd ed. i. 204), and by Mr. Ney Elias in the Proc. R. Geog. Soc. xviii. 83.
* ↑ See vol. ii. p. 111.
* ↑ See vol. ii. ch. iii.
* ↑ Here Col. Prejevalsky was able to study the real rhubarb plant on its native soil,—the first European who had seen it there, I believe, since Marco Polo.
* ↑ Bull. de la Soc. Géog. for 1871, pt. i., p. 465.
* ↑ Indeed, it would seem, of the western shores of both continents. The area affected by these summer monsoons, or sea-winds precipitating moisture, appears to embrace Manchuria, the coast of the Gulf of Okhotsk, and the Amur region up to the Baikal. (See Dr. Wojeikoff, in Petermann's Mittheilungen for 1870.)
* ↑ sKu-bum (pronounced Ku-bum, or Kun-bum), 'the 100,000 images,' some thirty or forty miles south of Sining.
* ↑ The Dhyâni Buddhas (or Buddhas of contemplation) belong to the complex subtleties of northern Buddhism. The human Buddha performing his work upon the earth has a celestial reflexion, or representative, in the world of forms, who is a Dhyâni Buddha. A Bodhisatva is one who has fulfilled all the conditions necessary to the attainment of Buddahood (and its consequent Nirvâna), but from charity continues voluntarily subject to reincorporation for the benefit of mankind.
* ↑ See Prejevalsky, i. pp. 11-13. This is the personage whom Huc calls Guison Tamba.
* ↑ P. Armand David tells a curious story of the 'living Buddha' of a monastery in the Urat country, north of the Hoang-ho. This abbot was rich, and having amassed 30,000 taels he devoutly determined to make an offering of it to the Grand Lama at Lhassa. He set out, accordingly, with a great retinue of monks. But these were excessively averse to the idea of carrying all their silver to Lhassa; probably they chanted in Mongol something like the medieval Latin rhymes Rome: — 'О vos bursæ turgidæ Lassam veniatis, Lassae viget physica bursis constipatis!' So, in crossing a river, they pitched in their own living Buddha and carried back the treasure. The abbot was, however, cast up on the shore, and continued his journey to Lhassa, whence he had returned, two or three years before P. David's visit, to his ancient convent. The brethren, in the belief that their superior had quitted his former shell, had duly selected a young Mongol as his re-incarnation. Their disgust, therefore, was great to see their old chief reappear. The popular feeling was in favour of the old abbot; but the monks, with their ill-gotten gear, were too strong, and the unlucky Gigen was obliged to retire to a remote monastery where he lived as a simple Lama.
* ↑ Almost along with the revised proofs of these pages I have received Mr. Markham's publication of the journeys of Bogle and Manning; not in time to benefit by it, unless by a few minor insertions in the Supplementary Notes.