Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/47

Rh 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