THE TOPMOST COUNTRY OF THE EARTH. 529 



returned regularly to India with valuable information. The suspicion 

 of the Thibetans was, however, at last aroused, and a pundit sent in 

 1879 was not allowed to reach Lassa, but, some of his words having 

 been overheard and his mission divined, he was compelled to flee, leav- 

 ing most of his baggage behind him. An imperfect map of the coun- 

 try was made in the beginning of the eighteenth century, by order of 

 the Emperor of China, with the aid of the Roman Catholic mission- 

 aries, but its data rest upon report rather than upon the results of 

 actual observation. It has been, however, the foundation on which all 

 our maps of the region have had to rest. 



The Thibetan legend of the origin of the people is that, in the 

 beginning, only one man and his three sons lived on the table-land. 

 They had no houses or tents, but led a migratory life, without being 

 troubled with the cares of existence, for the land was not then desert, 

 or poor, or cold. Trees were growing which afforded choice fruits, 

 rice flourished without man having to labor to raise it, and the tea- 

 plant thrived in the fields that Buddha afterward changed into stony 

 places. Thibet was then all the more a fortunate, rich land, because 

 these four men, then the only living creatures in the world, knew 

 nothing of war and contention, but lived in unity and peace. At last 

 the father suddenly died. Each of his sons wanted his body, to dis- 

 pose of it in his own way. This was the first dispute. The corpse 

 lay for some days on a large rock, and the sons avoided one another. 

 At last the eldest son made a proposition : " Why should we be 

 alienated because a misfortune has happened to us all in common ? 

 Let us be agreed, and divide the body." They all accepted the 

 proposition. The corpse was divided into three parts, and each son 

 took a part. The eldest son got the head. He went away toward the 

 east, and became the father of the Chinese, who excel in craft and 

 have great skill in trade. The second son was satisfied with his dead 

 father's limbs. He also left his home and settled where the great 

 Desert of Gobi gives his posterity, the Mongols, plenty of room ; 

 their characteristic is restlessness. The youngest son received the 

 breast and bowels. He remained in Thibet, and from him are de- 

 scended the Thibetan people, who are distinguished in ordinary inter- 

 course by good nature, openness, and cordiality, in war by courage and 

 enthusiasm. 



The knowledge that Ptolemy had of the country consisted of ob- 

 scure sketches which were closely connected with stories of the Chinese 

 capital. Herodotus tells something of the wealth of the land in gold. 

 He says that the gold was found by ants and collected by them into 

 large heaps which were guarded by griffins ; and he also tells that a 

 number of Hindoos once got into the country at night when the 

 guardians were asleep, gathered up as much gold as they could carry 

 away on their shoulders, and went back to their homes rich. 



The expedition of> Count Szechenyi, to which I was attached as a 

 vol. xxi. 34 



