The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-11-15
THEY REACHED LAssA.

The Sacred City of I4assa, the capital
city of Tibet, hitherto a forbidden city
to all foreigners, has been entered re-
Gently by three daring young japanese
explorers. They are Captain Yosiflteru
Marta, Horoshi Nomi and Keikai
Kawaguchi, a Buddhist priest of Hon
ganji, Kyoto. Captain Y. Marta is
promising young soldier and a son of
a Samurai of the Satsuma clan. He
went to China several years ago, stay
ing in that country for several months
while he was preparing for his arduous
expedition. After many dangers and
hardships he succeeded in reaching
Lassa, having taken several years to
accomplish his self-appointed task. He
stayed in the Holy City for eighteen
days. and then returned to Japan
about two months ago. About the
same time that Captain Martha visited
Lassa Mr.. Hiroshi Nomi reached the
interior Of Tibet. There has been no
news from him for some time, and he
is supposed to be on his way home. He
is very young man, but brave and
cool and quiet in his ways. Mr.. Keikai
Kawaguchi, the third of the Japanese
explorers, had the hardest experience,
He went by way of the Himalaya
Mount aims, and suffered a severe at
tack of blindness. He was total
ly blind for some time, but has entirely
recovered from this mountain disease.
Once he was mistaken for robber by
the Tibetans, who came very near
making him pay the penalty, which is
in Tibet to put the robber on a horse
and then shoot him, Mr.. Kawaguchi,
who is a. Buddhist priest, at last sue
ceeded in reaching Lassa, and is still
residing in that city.
These achievements, remarkable in
themselves. are significant in another
way. In the first place, they show the
tremendous energy and indomitable
bearing of the Japanese. It will be
found, in the case of others who have
tried to reach Eassa, that they were
men who had fitted themselves by long
study and experience for the attempt,
and who made the final effort under the
most favorable conditions possible. All
of them, with one or two rare excep-
tons, failed lamentably. Missionaries,
who had won the confidence of the I'll
betans, and who had learned their Ian
guage, failed to penetrate even to the
vicinity of the sacred city. Some sue
ceeded in getting within days march,
and were tortured and turned back, or
killed. Even the most accomplished
explorer of modern times, Sven Hedin,
the Incompatible Swede, who had fitted
himself for his work by years Of study
and travel, could not pass the Tibetans
guards that protected the sacred pre-
cincts of Lassa. Yet these Japanese,
young and untried adventures, with
the exception of Captain Marta, who
prepared for his expedition by living in
China for several months. succeeded in
attaining goal that has been denied
to the most daring and experienced
travellers in the world.
But the chief significance of these re-
markable achievements is in the rela-
ton of new force and energy in the
world oe action. 1t reveals an awak-
ening in Japan such as occurred in
Spain when there dawned upon her
early greatness, and when she was pre-
pairing to send forth into the world her
explorers and onquerors--Columbus
Cortez, Pizarro de Soto; or, in Eng
land, when Drake and Howard and
Hawke led the way to the glories of
England on sea and land, and trans
formed her into world-explorer and
ld-conqueror. 1t reveals the birth
of tremendous national energy and an
indomitable national spirit. Japan is
no longer group of islands, a collec-
ton Of people. but a nation. possessed
by fiery national spirit. These things
reveal it, just as it was revealed by
the greater things of the war with
China, and by the splendid heroism of
her soldiers in the advance on Picking,
and by their more than splendid chiv-
airy and courtesy toward the con-
quered Chinese.
We must now look to Japan for the
Spekes, Burtons, Majellans, Living
stones Cooks, Marco Polos. We find
some of these hardy and daring ex-
plorers penetrating into portions of
China forbidden to foreigners for CEN
turtles; we find more of them passing
the cordons Of Tibetan guards around
Lassa, and calmly residing within the
holy limits of the capital of Lamaism,
mistaken and afraid, while the English
| explorers still find the Himalaya the
bounds of their explorations from their
neighboring possessions in India; and
we may soon find them penetrating to
the North Pole with the same noncha-
lance with which they advanced to the
walls of Tien-tsin and Picking under
fire, scaled the walls of Ping Yang, or
sank the Chinese warships in the har-
Dor of Wei-hai-wei. A new nation has
been born into the world.-Japan and
America.
| ,~.pp. AT