226 R. Hoernle —Three further Collections of [No. 4, 
source of this error, Captain Godfrey writes to me in a letter dated 
the 18th July, 1897 :— 
“ I am personally ignorant of the language of Tibet, but having 
heard that old manuscripts of alleged Tibetan origin were occa¬ 
sionally found in the Central Asian deserts by excavation, I 
requested certain merchants trading with countries to the North and 
• _ 
North East of Leh to endeavour to procure me any of which they 
might hear. These merchants were under some obligations to 
myself, and they promised to do their best. On their return journey 
they brought me the old papers which are now in your hands. You 
are probably aware that the Chinese authorities of the New Domi¬ 
nions do not regard the excavations of old ruins with favour. 
They are said to believe that archaeological interest is merely a 
pretext, and that a search for buried treasure is the main object. 
However this be, the merchants referred to were anxious that their 
names should not appear, and sent me little information beyond a 
statement that the manuscript was very old, that it was of Tibetan 
origin, and that it was dug up near some old buried city in the 
vicinity of Kuchar. These merchants trading in Chinese territory 
had obvious reasons for not causing displeasure to the Chinese 
authorities. The crushed lumps of paper were transmitted to me 
sewn up in shin as though the packet were a sample of cams” 
Specimens of these manuscripts are figured on Plates VIII to XIV. 
A glance at them will show that there is nothing Tibetan about them. 
There are various styles of character used in Tibetan writings, but they 
are all of a different type from that occurring in these manuscripts. 
The fact also that they were dug up near Kuchar militates against 
their being Tibetan. Further reasons against the Tibetan theory will 
appear later on. In fact there is no evidence whatever to connect them 
in any way with Tibet. 
Captain Godfrey’s description of the original appearance of these 
manuscripts as a parcel of caras gives a good idea of them. When 
they came into my hands, they were a mass of pieces of flimsy, and 
apparently rotten paper, crumbled up into a large number of shapeless 
lumps. The first thing to be done was to open out these lumps, flatten 
them, and fix them between panes of glass. This had to be done most 
carefully ; and was a very tedious and laborious work, consuming a 
good deal of time. However, it was done successfully, and practically 
the whole by the deft fingers of my wife. 
It now was seen that there were seventy-one pieces of manuscript. 
With the exception of four or five, all these pieces are mutilated. They 
hre of several entirely different sizes and shapes, and may be distributed 
into several sets. 
