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TIBET. 
fitted out, at an immense expence, for the purpose of visiting unknown 
regions, and navigating distant seas. Men of learning and of science 
embarked on these occasions, to whom the desire of acquiring and dif¬ 
fusing knowledge, were sufficient inducements to attempt the most 
hazardous and laborious enterprises. In these voyages, lands had been 
discovered, and nations explored, of which neither history, nor tra¬ 
dition, supplied the slightest information; and navigators, by publish¬ 
ing to the world their observations, and their accounts of these newly- 
discovered countries, had communicated much curious and important 
knowledge. Hence followed a succession of queries and remarks, 
which it would be endless to repeat. 
Their own geographical knowledge was very limited. I could not 
form, with any degree of precision, an idea of the ancient extent of the 
kingdom of Tibet, or of the age of their religious institutions: for neither 
of us could recognize places, from the names by which they were 
known to the other; and dates were equally obscure, since they have 
no specific sera, from which they begin to reckon the lapse of time. 
The cycle of twelve years is in use here, as it is in western Tartary. 
But for my better information on these topics, they promised me an 
abridged history of Tibet, from their own annals. 
This I afterwards received ; but my knowledge of the language was 
not sufficient to enable me to avail myself of the information it con¬ 
tained; and my residence amongst them, though I had the aid of a 
preceptor, was too short to admit of my making any considerable pro¬ 
ficiency in the dialect of Tibet. 
The present was an opportunity too favourable to be neglected, and 
