Tibet

“The following pages contain first the story of the journey, unfortunately attended with tragic results, which I performed with my leader and friend, the late M. Dutreuil de Rhins, across an almost inaccessible region. I have been to no pains to embellish or in any way to distort it, nor have I ever endeavoured to astonish the reader’s imagination by displaying things through magnifying-glasses or to flatter the prevailing taste for romantic exoticism which disguises the true character of countries and men under a conventional veneer.

“Far from exaggerating them, however, I have rather extenuated them, knowing how greatly he detested anything at all resembling advertisement and how bent he was upon not appearing to solicit the admiration or pity of others.

“The second part of this volume comprises an account of the manners and customs, the social and economic life and the political condition of Tibet, one of the most curious and least-known of countries, which is on the verge of losing a notable part of its originality. This account, although dating some years back, has lost none of its novelty. Of the explorers who came after us — Littledale, Welby, Deasy, Bonin, Kozlof, Sven Hedin, of whom each was very remarkable in his way, while the last stands in the first rank from the geographical point of view — not one was in a position to make a thorough study of Tibetan society. Two men alone — the Hindu pundit Sarat Chandra Das and the Buriat Tsybikoff, a Russian subject t — have brought us any fresh information in this respect. Among recent travellers who went before us, I must mention, as being in the first rank of those who have added to our knowledge of the people of Tibet, Pfere Desgodins, of the Foreign Missions! and, above all, Mr. W. W. Rockhill, who is to-day the most competent man in this matter. I have been careful not to lay stress upon points which they already had sufficiently elucidated.” — Extracted from Author’s Preface.