i86 



NA TURE 



[Al'RIL 20, 1905 



There is no lack of literature dealing^ with Tibet, 

 literature dating from the early Jesuit and Capuchin 

 friars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to 

 the latter-day expeditions of the native explorers of 

 the Indian Sun-ey, to whose marvellous performances 

 in the field Mr. Landon is about the first writer to do 

 passing justice; but we have never vet had an in- 

 telligent and accurate representation' of the social 

 existence of the people, nor a careful exposition of 

 the weird eccentricities of that extraordinary 

 anachronism, the Government of Tibet, at all coni- 

 parable to that which Mr. Landon now gives us. 

 Nor is this all. The enthusiasm of the true explorer 

 pervades the book ; that nameless joy in treading new 

 and untouched fields; that absorbing interest in the 

 aspects of nature, in its lights and shadows, fields 

 and flowers, outline and colour; aspects which enchain 

 the imagination everywhere, but acquire fresher value 



the Himalayas can fill up the pictures with the grace 

 of nature's colouring from Mr. Landon's description 

 alone, although here and there his colour notes are 

 perhaps a little indefinite. What, for instance, are 

 "lightning greys"? But where colour reproduction 

 has not been left to the reader's imagination, and 

 has been attempted by some process of block printing, 

 the results are not so satisfactory. Tlie distances aVe 

 hard and obtrusive, and atmosphere has vanished 

 from the view. Even in Tibetan highlands there is 

 a certain amount of atmospheric influence, however 

 thin it may be, which aff^ects one's appreciation of 

 distance. 



To the great majority of readers Mr. Landon's de- 

 scriptions of the beautv of the Brahmaputra valley to 

 the south of Lhasa, of 'the glory of Tibetan sunsets, of 

 the splendour of the Turquoise Lake set in the midst 

 of the flower-strewn plain, of the vast impressiveness 





^ts&Ul 





Fig. I.— Part of ihe Potala Pala 



the buildings .it its base. It is built of granite and whitewashed 

 portion is crimson. Front Landon's " Lhasa." 



and larger interest the farther they arc removed from 

 the area of the well trodden world. Certainly there 

 must be many more beautiful landscapes than those 

 of the southern valleys of Tibet, the beauty of which 

 exists, so to speak, in scraps — large scraps, perhaps, 

 but scraps that are separated by wide intervening 

 spaces of stony desolation and dreary outlook. Yet 

 many of the best pages of the book arc full to the 

 brim with vivid descriptions of the beautv of Tibetan 

 scenery as Mr. Landon saw it in the basin of the 

 Brahmaputra River. 



The illustrations are excellent, and there is an added 

 value to them in the notes which are appended in- 

 dicating the general tones and local colour of each 

 view. If Mr. Landon has invented this method of 

 recording the principal rharin of Tibetan scenery for 

 the benefit of those who know not Tibet, he is much 

 to be congratulated thereon. .All who know and love 



vo. 185 I, VOL. 71] 



of the isolated city of mystery itself as it bursts on the 

 view from a mountain-ringed depression beyond the 

 Potala — the guardian sanctuary of its western gates — 

 all these things will be just as new and as surprising 

 as are the kindly amiability of its half barbarous people 

 and the friendliness of disposition which they evinced 

 towards the foreigner. Not that Mr. Landon is un- 

 duly optimistic. 'The extraordinarv contrasts between 

 barbarous magnificence and indescribable filth and 

 squalor are not missed. Where the sweet scent and 

 brightness of English flowers is noted as a passing 

 incident there is no lack uf intimation as 10 the 

 nature of the rotting filth from which they spring. 

 The interior of temples and dwelling houses, described 

 as often impressive in its ni.ignificence, and always 

 surprising in the character of its artistic decoration, 

 involve- an approach through knee-deep slush and 

 mud. lerminating in the ascent of a greasv stairway 



