INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. xxxix 



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 ex- 

 plorers whom I have named have been, it may be said 

 with hardly a jot of hyperbole, only travelling in his fo )t- 

 steps, — most certainly illustrating his geographical notices. 



If Wood and Gordon and Trotter have explored 

 Pamir, so did Messer Marco before them. Shaw, Hay- 

 ward, and Forsyth in Kashgar ; Johnson in Khotan ; 

 Cooper and Armand David on the eastern frontier of 

 Tibet ; Richthofen in Northern and Western China ; Ney 



a monastery in the Urat country, north of the Hoang-ho. This abbot 

 was rich, and having amassed 30,000 taels he devoutly determined to 

 make an offering of it to the Grand Lama at Lhassa. He set out, 

 accordingly, with a great retinue of monks. But these were excessively 

 averse to the idea of carrying all their silver to Lhassa ; probably they 

 chanted in Mongol something like the medieval Latin rhymes 

 Rome : — 



' О vos bursa: turgida: Lassam veniatis, 

 Lassac viget physica bursis constipatis I' 



So, in crossing a river, they pitched in their own living Buddha and 

 carried back the treasure. The abbot was, however, cast up on the 

 shore, and continued his journey to Lhassa, whence he had returned, 

 two or three years before P. David's visit, to his ancient convent. The 

 brethren, in the belief that their superior had quitted his former shell, 

 had duly selected a young Mongol as his re-incarnation. ' Their dis- 

 gust, therefore, was great to see their old chief reappear. The popular 

 feeling was in favour of the old abbot ; but the monks, with their ill- 

 gotten gear, were too strong, and the unlucky Gigeii was obliged to 

 retire to a remote monastf^rv. n-i-mrn bo livod as a simple Lama. 



