Page:Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet.djvu/11

vi, minutes of conversations, and official despatches. No commencement had been made of a work intended for publication. The whole of this voluminous mass of papers had to be carefully read through and annotated before any attempt could be made to arrange a consecutive narrative of the mission. My object has been to keep the author constantly in the foreground, and to avoid any sign of editorial intrusiveness, and, as the journal was fragmentary, and it was necessary to supplement it occasionally with extracts from letters and other materials, there were some difficulties in adhering to this plan. They have, however, been overcome, and a connected history of the Mission to Tibet is now presented to the world. It must, however, be remembered that Mr. Bogle had not prepared any of his materials for the press, that they are submitted in a more or less crude form a century after they were written, and that, therefore, it would be unfair to judge of them as of a work completed and revised by its author.

Mr. Manning appears to have hastily jotted down his first impressions, day by day, in a rough note-book, which was copied out fair by his sister, and has since remained in manuscript. He was a man of learning and great ability, and was well able to have written a good account of his remarkable journey. He never did so. But, through the kindness of his nephew, the Rev. C. K. Manning, Kector of Diss, in Norfolk, I have had the rough journal placed in my hands. Thus an account of the visit to Lhasa of the only Englishman who ever entered that famous city, is presented to the world. It must be remembered that Manning's narrative is from the hasty and desultory jottings of a note-book. We are fortunate to have obtained this relic, and must make the most of it. Good or bad, it stands alone. No other countryman of ours has ever followed in Manning's footsteps. And, for those who know how to find it, there is much wheat to be gathered from amongst Mr. Manning's chaff.

In my introduction, I have attempted, in a narrative form