36 
President's Address. 
[Feb. 
is still forbidden ground, and apparently awaits the advent of Colonel 
Prejevalski, or some other adventurous traveller from the distant regions of 
Northern Asia, to trace out the upper waters of the rivers that irrigate 
British India. We can but hope that it will not long remain a national 
reproach to us that we have less knowledge of the rivers of India than of 
those of Africa, and that the sources of the Nile and Congo have been 
explored before those of the Brahmaputra and Irawadi. There is no lack 
of willing and able explorers, but as the opposition in this case comes not 
from savage tribes or individuals, but from a fairly civilized Government, it 
can only be overcome by the action of the ruling power in India. There is 
no subject at the present time in which more general interest is taken than 
in the progress of geographical exploration. That there are difficulties in 
the road of research is unquestionable, but whatever may be the case in 
politics, it is certain that difficulties in science are not conquered by ‘ mas¬ 
terly inactivity.’ 
It is not likely that Tibet will long remain untrodden by European 
feet. Colonel Prejevalski, far from being discouraged by his two previous 
failures, failures, however, which have contributed more to our knowledge 
of Central Asia than any other recent travels, is again about to set out for 
Lhassa. Nor is he the only traveller who is endeavouring to reach the 
centre of Mongolian Buddhism, for an Austrian, Count Szechenyi, is about 
to leave Pekin for Tibet under peculiarly favourable conditions. But we 
hear of no British exploration, and we can only regret that the Government 
of Great Britain appears desirous of leaving the examination of countries 
almost within sight of its own mountains to Russian or German travellers. 
It is impossible that the inhabitants of the country should not contrast 
Russian energy with British apathy, and the result can scarcely be 
favourable to the diplomatic reputation of our own Government. 
Although Tibet has not been explored nor even entered by any Euro¬ 
pean, something has again been added to our knowledge of its geography 
by the employment of trained natives, and a step in advance has been made 
by the determination of the quantity of water passing down the different 
Assam rivers in the dry season, for the purpose of ascertaining which receives 
the drainage of the Tibetan plateau. The measurements have been made 
by Lieut. Harman, R. E., of the Great Trigonometrical Survey, and serve 
to shew clearly that the Tibetan river cannot be the Subansiri, and that it 
is probably the Dihong. I have just been informed by Genl. Walker that a 
native sent by Lieut. Harman to Tibet for the purpose of endeavouring to 
trace the Sanpo to the eastward, had returned after having followed the 
river to a point where its course turned southward nearly north of the 
spot where the Dihong emerges from the mountains into the Assam valley. 
