CENTRAL ASIAN EXPLORATION 
5 
nourishment to the countries which surround it. Many 
important problems in physical geography still await their 
solution in Tibet and in the Desert of Gobi, each of 
which would be a distinct gain to science. In a strictly 
geographical sense, Tibet is one of the least known 
regions in the world. Even the maps of Africa cannot now 
show a white patch of such vast extent as occurs under 
the name of Tibet on our maps of Central Asia. In this 
respect the Polar Regions alone are comparable with 
Tibet. The itineraries furnished by the Roman Catholic 
missionaries, at a period when the country was more easily 
accessible than it is at the present time, cannot be followed 
on the map with absolute certainty, and from a geographi- 
cal standpoint are often of little value. 
But even this country, jealously closed as it is by 
fanaticism, has been compelled to open its doors to 
the persistency of European inquiry. The western and 
eastern parts in particular have been traversed by English, 
Russian, and French travellers. In modern times the only 
explorers who have gained entrance to Lhasa (Lassa) have 
been a few Indian pundits, trained by British officers. 
The jealous apprehensions of the Chinese Government, 
the religious fanaticism of the Tibetans, and the wild 
nature of their country — these are the factors which have 
kept Tibet in isolation longer than any other country in 
Asia. At a time when the influence of neither Russia 
nor England was so great as it is now, more than one 
European succeeded in crossing the country, and even 
m reaching the capital. The first European to enter 
Lhasa was a monk, Odorico di Pordenone, who travelled 
from China to Tibet in the first half of the fourteenth 
century. In 1624 the Spanish Jesuit Antonius de 
Andrade went from India to Tibet; and in 1661 the 
two Jesuit missionaries, Grueber and D’Orville, made 
their remarkable journey from Peking to Lhasa by way 
of Koko-nor (Koko-nur), Tsaidam, and the country of the 
Tanguts. They remained in the capital for two months, 
and then returned by way of Nepal to Agra, and thence 
to Europe. In the eighteenth century the mysterious 
