A REMARKABLE CITY

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2221, 2 October 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A REMARKABLE CITY-

In a short time the mysterious capital of mysterious Thibet will be a mystery no longer. Recent despatches tell of the expedition, with botanists, topographers, surveyors, and other inquiring persons, which is preparing at Darjeeling, on the borders of the Himalayas, to travel through Sikkim and Thibet toLhasoa, on a mission from the Empress of India to the Grand Lama. Mr Col man Macaulay, its lender, will no doubt gaze upon the face of this divine being, and thus he blessed as no European of this generation bas been. How securely the "Abode of Snow," as Thibet has been called, has been closed against the outer world is evident from the fact that no European alive has ever seen the Great city of Lhassa, and no Englishman except one has ever seen it. The Jesuit missionaries, with their ardour, their indomitable courage, and their contempt of danger, frequently visited Thibet between the beginmg of the seventeenth and the middle of the present century ; the Abbt? Hue, who resided there for a short time in 1846, was the last European who saw Jjhassa, and he has left us an account of the city in his remarkable story of his travels. Subsequently, one of the native explorers trained by the Indian Survey department, who have long wandered through Indiau geography in a spectral fashion, with initials or numbers in place of names, visited Lhassa twice in disguise, once in 1866 and again in 1874. " A." as this explorer was styled, wbo died in 1882, and is now generally known as the Pun- [ dit Nain Singh, is our principle authority !on the geography of Thibet ; up to his time even the latitude and longitude of I Lhassa was uncertain ; its population is still unknown, and is variously estimated at anything between forty thousand and eighty thousand. Nevertheless, in almost every point of view, it is perhaps the most remarkable of Central Asian cities. It is situated in a valley 12,000 ft above the level of the sea ; it is therefore the moat elevated city in the world, and it is probably also, on account of the lofty mountains which surround it, the most difficult of access. It is also one of the most important trading centres, between China and the Caspian, for it is the entrepot of the trade of the whole ea»tern part of Central Asia, and is the goal of traders from Yunnan and Szcchu'au, from Cashmere, Ncpanl, and Bhutan, and from Western Mongolia, aud the whole of Thibet. Moreover, if priests made holiness, Lhassa would be the holiest city that ever existed, for it is a huge monastery, or rather a congeries of monasteries, some of which contain thousands of priests or lamas. In eleven of these lamasseries in and around Lhassa there are, according to recent'authorities 20,400 monks ; and as these are supposed to be celcbate, there is an air of truth about the Chinese adage that Lhassa is inhabited by lamas, strumpets, and dogs. This holy character attaching to the city has made it a Central Asian Mecca, and at certain seasons of the year it is crowded by the pilgrims of a hundred tribes and races. It is, therefore, the more surprising that only a single Englishman has ever succeeded in reaching it ; and the present is a favourable opportunity for recalling this journey of three-quarters of a century ago. Thomas Manning was the son of a Norfolk clergyman, and was born in 1772. After a distinguished career at Cambridge, he appears to have been seized with a desire to travel through China, and he began to study the Chinese language, in which ultimately he attained considerable proficiency. Charles Lamb, with whom he contracted a lasting friendship, and who long corresponded with him, endeavoured to get him to abandon his whim. Lamb advises Manning to try and cure himself. " Take hellebore. Pray to avoid the fiend, j Read no more books of voyages ; they are nothing but lies ;" and years afterwards when Manning returned to Canton from Lhassa, Lamb writes : " Still in China! Down with idols — Ching-chang-foo, and all his foolish priesthood. Come out of Babylon, O my friend ! In 1806 Manning set sail for the East India Compauy'a ! factory in Canton, but he appears to have discovered that it was impossible to penetrate China and Central Asia from that point, probably on account of the ] suspicion with which the members of the factory were watched, und aftor about three years spent in improving 1 his knowledge of Chinese, spoken and written, he proceeded to Calcutta to attempt to reach China from the side of India. He received no offiioal recognition, which irritated him so much that ho refused to give any account of his journey on his return, and the details did not see light until many years afterward*, when a relative gave his manuscript diary to Mr Clements Markham, who printed it in his work on Thibet published six or .seren years ago. Accompanied, then, by a single Chinese servant, without encourairement from the successor of Warren Hastings, Manning began his adventurous journey. He left Rangpore in the autumn of 1811, and plunged into the coloßsal mountain ranges of Bhutan and Thibet. He travelled as a Tartar doctor, but it is not clear that hi* disguise was of much u«e to him, or that be would not have fared quite as well had he gone in his proper character. Unfortunately, his diary is fnll of querulous complainings about his servant, the people he met, the ill-treatment he received at various points and gives little information on many subjects of great importance. However, in December .be reached Lhassa, which he describes as a commonplace town. "The habitations," he says, "are begrimed with nmut and dirt ; the avenues are full of dogs, some growling and gnawing bits of hide which lie about in profusion, and emit a charnelhouse smell : others limping aud looking lividj; others ulcerated, others starving and dying, and pecked at by the ravens ; some dead and preyed upon. In short, everything seems mean and gloomy, and excites the idea of something unreal." Even the mirth of the inhabitants he thought dreamy and ghostly. But the palaoe of the Grand Lama, which was set on a high hill, struck him with surprise. The 17th of December, 1811, was a great day in Manning's caldndar, for it was then that he was first presented to the Grand Lama, who was at this time seven years old. This child seem* to hare »trangely affected the traveller; "he had the simple and unI affected manners a well-educated princely chid. His face was, I thought, poetically and affectingly beautiful; he was of a gay and cheerful disposition ; his beautiful mouth perpetually unbending into a graceful smile, which illuminated his whole countenance." And in another place he makes this entry ;"lst Deo, 17 th of 10th moon. This day I saluted thee, Grand Lama ! Beautiful youth. Face poetically affecting; could have wept. Very happy to have seen him and his blessed smile. Hope often to see him again." Although Manning does not give a very glowing account of Lhassa, Hue, who saw the city more than thirty years after, speaks of its appearance as imposing and majestic, and dwells with enthusiasm on the multidue of aged trees which surround it with a girdle of its foliage, on the lofty white houses, &c. Manning remained in Lhaasa until April, 1812, hoping that he would be allowed to travel by Sining into Szechu'an, and so through China to Canton, but the Chineae refused to permit this, and in June, 1812, he reached Bengal, after a journey which no Englishman had ever performed bofore, and which, notwithstanding the succeeding years of adventure and travel, no Englishman has ever performed yet. Mr Macaulay, with his largo train, and with his letters from the Chinese Government, will, it may be hoped, succeed in gazing on the face of the Grand Lama, as the solitary Manning, with no resources but his. own, did seventy-five years ago. On his arrival at Calcutta, Manning refined to tell any one about his journey, and soon afterwards returned to Canton. In 1817 he went with Lord Araherst's mission to Pokin as interpreter, and subsequently returned to England, where he

resided till his death in 1840. He lived in seclusion for the greater part of this period ut Bexley and Dartford, leading a somewhat eccentric life. His library of Chinese books in now to be seen at the rooms of the Royul Asiatic Sooiety, in Albemarle-street.