years in Tibet, and supplied the information on the subject which has been presented in the maps of D'Anville and the works of Georgi and Du Halde. The visit, in recent times, of Fathers Huc and Gabet to Lassa is well known to the public; but it has only recently been discovered that one Englishman has reached Lassa. That was Thomas Manning, a mathematical tutor of Cambridge and a friend of Charles Lamb, who, after residing for several years in China, went into Tibet from India as a doctor, and in disguise. The Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society has announced that Manning's journal, which has lately turned up in an Ayrshire country house, " is a personal narrative, containing many incidents of the road, and is specially valuable for its account of Lassa and of the Dalai Lama but it contains little geographical information; and if it had not been for the accounts of Bogle, Turner, and the Pundit of 1865, it would not be easy to make out his route." Bogle's journal had also passed out of sight. Along with Dr Hamilton, he was sent by Warren Hastings into Tibet in 1774, and reached the western capital, Teshu Lambu. These journals, which are now about to be published for the first time, will probably be interesting; but it does not seem that they will add much to our knowledge of the country. A much more valuable work, that of Captain Turner, has long been before the public, and relates his visit to Teshu Lambu in 1783, besides presenting, and in a very agreeable style, a good deal of accurate information in regard to Tibet in general.

In the close of last century there seems to have been no unwillingness on the part of the Lama Government

to enter into relationships with British India; for first Mr George Bogle in 1774, and then Captain Turner in 1783, were allowed to visit Teshu Lambu as representatives of our Government. It is gratifying to find that the Indian Government is again turning its thoughts to Chinese Tibet after the long time which has elapsed since 1783. A formal mission might be sent to Lassa; or, under the treaty of Tientsin, passports might be claimed from the Chinese Foreign Office, allowing Englishmen, in a private or in a semi-official capacity, to traverse Chinese Tibet, the passports being either in the language of the country or accompanied by Tibetan translations given under imperial authority. As it is, the do-nothing policy of the Indian Government recoils injuriously upon its prestige with its own subjects. It hurts our position in India for the people there to know that there is a country adjoining our own territory into which Englishmen are systematically refused entrance, while the nations of British India and of its tributary states are allowed to enter freely, and even to settle in large numbers at the capital, Lassa,* as the Kashmirís do. About a year and a half ago the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce addressed the Viceroy and the Secretary of State for India, complaining of the restrictions there were in the way of commerce with Tibet, and received answers. which seemed to imply that their prayer would be taken into favourable consideration whenever circumstances would allow. More recently the Friend of India' well

* In Western Tibet the name of this city is pronounced without an aspirate; but in the centre and east of the country it is called "Lhassa,” which, consequently, is the correct way.

remarked that "the day has now come when we may justly ask the Chinese Emperor to take steps for our admittance into Tibet." Certainly the matter might well be brought to a crisis now; and there would not have been the least difficulty about it if a more active use had been made, within the last few years, of our position in China.

{

CHAPTER XXIV.

TIBETAN POLYANDRY.

POLYANDRY EXPLAINED-POLYGYNY-EXTENT-SIX HUSBANDS-THE ABBÉ DESGODINS― TIBETAN AND SCOTCH IMMORALITY—TARTAR A HOLY MAN TIBETAN MAR

TEMPERAMENT

LAMA NUNS

RIAGES ORIGIN OF POLYANDRY-ITS ADVANTAGES-INGENIOUS
APOLOGIES.

It

I HAVE referred more than once in these articles to the polyandry of the people among whom I sojourned ; and though this delicate subject has been alluded to in several publications, it is sufficiently novel to the general reader to call for a little explanation here. Indeed, I find there are many well-educated persons who do not even know what polyandry means. has a very botanical kind of sound; and its German equivalent Vielmännerei, though coarse and expressive, does not throw much light upon the subject. A mistake also has been made in contrasting polyandry with polygamy; whereas, being the marriage of one woman with two or more men, it is itself a form of polygamy, and ought properly to be contrasted with polygyny, or the marriage of one man to two or more women. But the polyandry of Central Asia must further be limited to the marriage of one woman to

two or more brothers, for no other form is found there, so far as I could learn.

This curious and revolting custom exists all over the country of the Tibetan-speaking people; that is to say, from China to the dependencies of Kashmir and Afghanistan, with the exception of Sikkim, and some other of the provinces on the Indian side of the Himalaya, where, though the Tibetan language may in part prevail, yet the people are either Aryan in race, or have been much influenced by Aryan ideas. I found polyandry to exist commonly from Taranda, in the Sutlej valley, a few marches from Simla, up to Chinese Tibet, and from there to Súrú, where it disappeared in the polygyny of the Mohammedan Kashmiris. But it is well known to exist, and to be an almost universal custom, all through Chinese Tibet, Ladak, Little Tibet, and nearly all the Tibetan-speaking provinces. It is not confined to that region, however, and is probably the common marriage custom of at least thirty millions of respectable people. It is quite unnecessary to go deeply into the origin and working of this very peculiar marital arrangement; but it is well worthy of notice, as showing how purely artificial a character such arrangements may assume, and what desperate means are had recourse to, in order to get rid of the pressure caused by the acknowledged law of population.

In the most elaborate and valuable compilation there is on Lamaism- Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche,' by Carl Friedrich Koeppen-that author, in his brief reference to this subject, clears the religion of Tibet of any responsibility for polyandry, and asserts that it existed in the country before the introduction of Búdhism, having arisen from the pressure of popula

P