NOTES ON THE ETHNOLOGY OF TIBET. 673 



US that the present civilization and rather advanced degree of culture 

 is entirely borrowed from China, India, and, I may add, possibly Turke- 

 stan, and that Tibet has only contributed the simple arts of the tent- 

 dwelling herdsman. What history has partially disclosed to us will 

 be more fully demonstrated by an examination of the Museum's Tibetan 

 collections, and by a comparison of the habits and customs of the 

 country with those of the people living beyond its eastern and southern 



borders. 



II. 



CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE. 



Tibet is naturally divided into three parts, according to the altitude 

 of the country above sea level and the trend of the valleys: 



(1) The northern plateaux, extendiug over more than 12° of lougi- 

 tude (from east longitude 80° to 92°) and over 0° of latitude (from oOo 

 north to 30°), which are over an average altitude of 15,000 feet above 

 sea level and are inhabited by a scanty population of seminomadic 

 pastoral tribes called Drupa {Hbrog-pa.) 



(2) Valleys which run either parallel to the southern edge of this 

 great northern i^lateau or which, having their heads on its eastern 

 edge, trend in an easterly direction for a few hundred miles, and which 

 nowhere descend below an altitude of 10,000 feet above the level of 

 the sea. 



(3) Valleys trending approximately north and south in the eastern 

 portion of this country and which descend to an altitude of 0,000 feet 

 above the level of the sea. 



In the country comprised in these last two regions permanent habi- 

 tations and cultivation are found up to an average altitude of about 

 13,500 feet, which is also apijroximately the height of the timber line 

 in this latitude. 



The northern and southern trend of the valleys in the eastern portion 

 of this third region, opposing no barrier to the moisture-laden clouds 

 driven by the southwest monsoon, the region around the Kokonor 

 and all the country to the southwest of it has probably a much heavier 

 rainfall than any other i)art of Tibet, and the lower portions of all 

 the valleys in this region are consequently much more fertile than 

 others of the same altitude, but trendin g east and west, along the 

 northern slope of the Himalaya. 



All these natural conditions have exercised marked influence on the 

 degree of culture and on the ijeopling of the different sections of this 

 country, and must not be lost sight of in any study of the inhabitants 

 and their relationship and intercourse with other tribes and peoples. 



With the exception of the extreme northern and northeastern por- 

 tions of the region here called Tibet, the population belongs essentially 

 to one race, and, as elsewhere mentioned, the purest representatives of 

 this stock are to be found among the pastoral tribes, or Drupa, which, 

 H. Mis. 184, pt. 2^ 43 



