121 
there are now seen only images of Tsong- k'apa (or = Buddha ?). It 
would be poren | to learn the cause of this chan 
I was anxious to see what could be ascertain from the leaves 
brought back by Mr. Rockhill. An application to my friend b 
Sargent, at Harvard, procured me the follwing Kiaka letter 
1914 N Street, December 23, 1893. 
My x SARGENT, 
regards the famous Kum-Bum tr ree, I - not permitted, i 
any of ds visits to in. to touch the tree, but I got a lot of leaves fallen 
from it, some of w gave to the British Museum (Department. of 
Ethnology), | where jeu or Read would, I doubt not, be pleased to 
show xem er. 
Fro iM the people at Kum-Bum told me, especially in vie 
of their reference to the big buuches of violet flowers, I thought the 
tree might prove to be a 
The turns up on the trunk like that of a birch. Kreitner is 
responsible for the identification of this * white sandal-wood ” with the 
Philadelohus 
cori 
The roots cd sad the trees I saw were growing look very old, 
how old I cannot say, being ignorant in all such matters, the live stems 
are pase not over 15 to 20 feet in height, and 4 to irae: i her 
at the root, and some of them look very healthy. It may be that 
Hue and Gabet visited this place (in 1842, I believe) the original tratik 
was yet alive. 
hey say that “three men could. not stretch around the trunk," but 
he adds that it was not over 8 feet high. He must refer to an o 
trunk, out of which shoots were gowing. f this is not the case, we 
eannot have seen the same tree; that is all there is about it. 
As to the “odeur exquise et qui a ies a ae de celle de la 
cannelle," this must be hearsay, and jolie i pular belief that 
the tree is a sandal-wood, or else is a dive simile for the odour of 
lilacs 
The large red flowers Huc also refers to may be violet ones. Mongol 
is not so precise a language, in’ fact certain colours which we would call 
violet are pent # called red by A 
Hue mentions the curling up of th 
On thé ^wholé , I am inclined to think that here as abt do his 
book, Huc's reminiscences of facts and hearsay have misled him. He 
certainly could not sée the image on the leaves or bark, for even the 
Kum-Bum lamas, to whom I mentioned my inability to detect anything 
on the leaves they had given me, assured me that faith was necessary— 
“as one's faith is so is the clearness of the i image on the leaf.” 
I hope the leaves will assist in throwing some light on the question. 
Ever sincerely yours, 
(Signed) W. W. Rocknirr. 
* When Lieutenant Kreitner visited this Lees pite the images on the leaves 
were as at the present time, See “ Im Fernen Osten," p. 707. The Arab traveller, 
bn Batuta, saw in the fourteenth epi at.De Deh Fa stan, « on the Malabar coast, 
ree call 
pe 
formula “ There is no God but God; and Mohammed is the aves of God.’ 
inhabitants used it to cure disease (see e Ibn Batutah, Defrémery's Transl., iv. 85). 
