1907.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of BengaL Ixxxiii 



absorbed the chief interest. Nari on Western Tibet, some seven 

 hundred miles away, across the JVlarjum Pass, lay outside the im- 

 mediate sphere of operations still less known and unexplored. 

 Yet it is here where British and Tibetan relations come into 

 actual physical contact that the effects of the Mission will pro- 

 bably be most apparent in the near future. To this interesting 

 country on the British Borderland Mr. Sherring has devoted his 

 attention. As Deputy Commissioner of Almora, he has had un- 

 rivalled opportunities for acquiring information concerning all 

 that relates to the Frontier, and the knowledge so gained he has 

 recently supplemented by a tour to Western Tibet of which the 

 interesting and informing book under review is the result. 



Until two years ago few Europeans had crossed the Border 

 into Western Tibet and fewer still had penetrated as far as Gar- 

 tok its summer capital. In 1812 Hearsey and Moorcroft, travelling 

 disguised as ascetics on a pilgrimage had reached the Man- 

 sarovur Lakes, but from that time onward until the present day, 

 the jealousy with which the Tibetans guarded their mysterious 

 bond against the foreigner well nigh completely prevented further 

 exploration. It was not until the famous Treaty was signed at 

 Lhasa on September 5th, 1904, that the first gap was made in the 

 barrier of exclusiveness with which Tibet had been so long sur- 

 rounded. Trade marts were to be opened at Gyantse, Yatung and 

 Gartok, and the last named lying in the practically unknown 

 country of Western Tibet, it was resolved to send out a small ex- 

 pedition as an offshoot of the Mission to report upon its suitability 

 and possibilities as a trading centre. It thus happened that the 

 first authorised entry of a British force into "Western Tibet took 

 place from the east, a two months' journey from Gyantse to 

 Gartok, and not from the British Borderland which lies only some 

 eighty miles from the summer capital. Somewhat in the nature of 

 an experiment to prove how far the Tibetan authorities were pre- 

 pared to carry out the terms of the Treaty, the expedition, so 

 graphically described by Captain Rowling, was successfully carried 

 through, opening out new possibilities in the relations between 

 India and Western Tibet. 



Mr. Sherring gives a fascinating account of this little known 

 Borderland, From an ethnographical point of view, it is full of 

 interest. It is a sacred country both to the Buddhists and to the 

 Hindus. To Mount KaQas towering over twenty-one thousand feet 

 heavenwards, the Tibetan looks as the home of his gods and the 

 axis of the universe. For Kedamath and Badrinath the Hindu 

 cherishes equal veneration as the places where Shiva dwelt, and 

 Krishna himself lived as an ascetic ; while to Mount Kailas he, 

 too, lifts his eyes as the heaven of Sun and the summit of all 

 happiness. The surrounding world of eternal snow and giant 

 mountain peaks, making their magnificent appeal to the imagina- 

 tion, is well calculated to inspire respect and veneration. Within a 

 radius of some thirty miles rise no less than eighty peaks over 

 twenty thousand feet high. It is a scene unsurpassed for gran- 

 deur. Here on this side the Border rises the great Nonda Devi, 



