INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xiii 



letters or papers by Hue, and this finishes the series. The 

 Souvenirs were published in 1851. 



Gabet had then apparently already been sent to the 

 Brazils, where he died ; • and I have no doubt the Souve- 

 nirs were, as they purport to be, the work of Hue himself, 

 based on the papers by both, of which extracts had been 

 published in the Annalcs. I doubt whether even any 

 extraneous aid of Parisian litterateurs was called in ; Hue 

 himself was an adept in that vein, as his letters show. 



Colonel Prejevalsky several times finds fault with Hue's 

 inaccuracy in details, a subject which will be briefly noticed 

 presently. And in one of the letters which was sent to Rus- 

 sia during his journey, he even seems to imply a doubt of 

 the genuine character of the narrative.'^ Of this he has 

 probably thought better, as the expression of suspicion is 

 not repeated in the present work. Indeed, Colonel Preje- 

 valsky's own plain tale is the best refutation of such suspi- 

 cions. For it is wonderful, to the extent of the coincidence 



' Hue's manner of mentioning the fact is vague, and names no 

 date. It is in the Preface to his second work, The Chinese Empire, 

 which is itself dated in May 1854. 



"^ ' In Koko-nor and Tsaidam the great caravan which Hue pro- 

 fesses to have accompanied to Lhassa is perfectly well remembered, 

 and it is somewhat astonishing that nobody has any recollection of the 

 presence of foreigners among its members. Hue further asserts that 

 he passed eight months at Gumbum {KoiDiboiun of Hue ; properly 

 sKii-bum, V. p. xxxiv. infra] ; but I saw many lamas who had resided in 

 that temple for thirty or forty years, and all solemnly assured me that 

 there had never been a foreigner amongst them. On the other hand, 

 in the Ala-shan country, the presence of two Frenchmen at Ninghia 

 twenty-five years ago was distinctly remembered.' (In Pr. R. G. S., 

 xviii. 83.) It is to be recollected that Hue and Gabet were disguised 

 as lamas, and probably their real character was known to few. 



And on the other hand, Prejevalsky himself (i. p. 135) mentions hav- 

 ing seen, at one of the R. С missions in Mongoha, Samdadehiemba, 

 the servant of Hue and Gabet, whom their readers remember as well as 

 we remember Sancho or Sam Weller. ' He is of mixed Mongol and 

 Tangutan race. He is fifty-five years of age, and enjoys excellent 

 health ; he related some of his adventures to us, and described the 

 different places on the road.' Here there is no insinuation that Sam- 

 dadchiemba's stories were inconsistent with Hue's. Mr. Ney Elias 

 was also acquainted with Samdadehiemba. 



