Page:Lhasa and its mysteries.djvu/15

Rh men who, carrying their lives in their hands, are engaged in what Kipling calls "The Great Game," the exploration of the most savage and least known parts of the Trans-Himalayan valleys, and I heard from their lips the stirring narratives of their adventures.

To turn these hitherto neglected opportunities to best account, I set about learning the Tibetan language and collecting information wherever available. Awaking from my first surprise at finding how little is certainly known as to the religion of the country, and how unlike it is to the Buddhism of Burmah, from which I had freshly come, I undertook a comparison of the Tibetan beliefs and rites with those which pass under the Buddhist name in other lands, devoting much of my holiday leave to the prosecution of the enquiry in Ceylon, China, and Japan; whilst, with a view to acquire information of a more secular character, I tramped many hundreds of miles along the mountain tracks of the Tibetan frontier, at various points from Garhwal and Nepal in the west, to Assam in the east, where the valley of Central Tibet ends in that of the Brahmaputra River, often at great altitudes, sometimes sleeping in caves to evade the frontier guards, and on several occasions penetrating some days' journey into the territory of the Lhasa Government, eliciting information about the tribes, topography, and natural history of those regions. Although my attempt to reach the mystic citadel in disguise in 1892 failed, yet during these years of preparation I had accumulated such accurate pictures of the land that my ultimate entry into its capital, when it came, seemed but the realisation of a vivid and long-cherished dream.

The reader will, I trust, excuse these personal references, which are made in no boastful way, but merely to explain