THE unveiling of the last of the hidden civilisations of
the world has found a worthy chronicler. The Tibetan Expedition was fortunate to have with it a writer so competent to do justice to its romance, so sympathetic towards Tibetan life, so eagerly inquisitive and retentive of impressions, and above all, the possessor of a style so dexterous and graceful. Mr. Landon, too, was lucky beyond most of those who go abroad in search of wonders, for he shared in the strangest adventure of modern times and travelled as a pioneer the most wonderful region on earth. No one can hope again to have that hour of wild expectation before the golden roofs of Lhasa revealed themselves over the marshes of the Ki Chu. There are many geographical secrets left unrevealed, but they are mostly cold and scientific, appealing rather to the geographer than the ordinary man. There is no other unexplored civilisation, and no other adventurer can set forth with the knowledge that he will find at the end of his journey not a native kraal, or even a great mountain or river, but a city with an ancient culture, long known by hearsay to the world. No successor can be thrilled as Mr. Landon was when he entered the Jo-kang, the Buddhist Holy of Holies, or saw the vast citadel of the Potala dwarfing the sacred city, or even looked from a hilltop over the Turquoise Lake with its wide girdle of snowy summits. For Tibet when Mr. Landon went there was still an uncharted land of mystery ; now, if the seclusion remains, the mystery, we fear, is gone for ever. His record—by far the most complete we are likely to get— fulfils, therefore, a double purpose. It is the story of the first impression the land and the city made upon the new- comers, a study in practical romance, an epitome of the old mystery which he and the rest of the expedition were dispelling. And it is also an account of the land and the people, to comfort us in the new guaranteed seclusion which, we hope, will be Tibet's fate for many years to come. In such circumstances, we are glad that Mr. Landon thought it his duty not only to tell the story of the march, but to deal minutely with the host of religious, social, and topographical questions on which the world desires light. There are few departments in which his information is not of value, and no information could wear a more attractive guise; for these
volumes are not slipshod correspondence, but serious literature, full of delicate and imaginative work. Now and then there is in style an undue splashing of colour, as there is in matter an occasional slip or hasty generalisation ; but there are many pages of description which for vigour and grace could scarcely be bettered.
The story of the expedition is so familiar that we need not repeat it. Mr. Landon tells it with much spirit, and his accounts of the fighting at Hot Springs and the final assault at Gyangtse are excellent war pictures. But we prefer his company when he is off the high-road, concerned with the land- scape and Tibetan rites and customs rather than the politics of the Mission. He has a fine description of the wonderful North Road, from Siliguri in the plains up the Teesta Valley to Gangtok, and then out of pines and rhododendrons to the
bleak heights of the Natu-la, from which the snows of Tibet are seen ringing the horizon. In his breathless journey
home he came down from the heights to the plains in three days, and it is small wonder that so sudden a change of climate
• Lhasa. By Peroeral Landon. 2 vols. London Hunt and Blackett. [B2 2a. net.] resulted in an inverted mountain-sickness. From Phari Jong onward the road lay over stony uplands, swept by icy winds, but at Gyangtse the expedition found meadows of iris and a valley as closely cultivated as Kent. Before the blockade began Mr. Landon explored the neighbouring monasteries, and fell in with a community of buried anchorites. There he saw children and young men waiting for the hour when they should retire from the world to an underground cell, and, except for one moment each day when the slab is removed and food placed outside, never again see the light. It is a high price to pay for the happiest reincarnation. But, on the whole, the pictures of the religious life of Tibet are not very gloomy. Lamaism is, of course, a tyranny ; but many of the Abbots were humane and friendly people, and even the great dignitaries of Lhasa were not without their merits. Of the common people Mr. Landon has little but good to say. Friendly, simple, keenly appreciative of just and kindly treatment, it is the great achievement of the expedition that it made the name of Britain popular among the ordinary population of the country.
From Gyangtse the road ran over the Karo-la and past the edge of the Turquoise Lake, that mysterious water which we have known of dimly for two centuries :—
"There are few sights in the world like that which is seen from the peak in which the saddle ends to the east The mass and colour of the purple distance is Scotland at her best— Scotland, too, in the slow drift of a slant-woofed raincloud in among the hills. At one's feet the water is like that of the Lake of Geneva. But the tattered outline of the beach, with its pro- jecting lines of needle-rocks, its wide, white, curving sandpits, its jagged islets, its precipitous spurs, and, above all, the mysterious tarns strung one beyond another into the heart of the hills, all these are the Yam-dots own, and not another's. If you are lucky, you may see the snowy slopes of To-nang gartered by the waters, and always on the horizon are the everlasting icefields of the Himalayas, bitterly ringing with argent the sun and colour of the still blue lake. You will not ask for the added glories of a Tibetan sunset; the grey spin and scatter of a rain-threaded after-glow, or the tangled sweep of a thundercloud's edge against the blue, will give you all you wish, and you will have seen the finest view in all this strange land." Over the Khamba-la lay the valley of the Tsang-po, the stream which, after some hundreds of unknown miles, breaks through the Himalayan chain and becomes the Brahmaputra in Assam. Here again the expedition found rich meadows and thickets as at home, with forget-me-nots and Michaelmas daisies, and English bees and butterflies. From this it was only a little way to the city. " There at last it was, the never-reached goal of so many weary wanderers, the home of all the occult mysticism that still remains on earth. The light waves of mirage dissolving impalpably just shook the far outlines of the golden roofs and dimly seen white terraces. I do not think any one of us said much." Mr. Landon was not disappointed. With much that was squalid and dingy, there was more that was magnificent. The frowning citadel of the Potala is enough in itself to dignify the meanest hamlet; and there is also the setting of meadows, gardens, and running water, and above all, the mountain amphitheatre, to make the place unique and beautiful. Mr. Landon is at his best in his Lhasa chapters. With the enthusiasm of the discoverer, he takes the reader along the Sacred Road, through the Lu-kang meadows, and into the endless temples which typify the many cults which unite in Buddhism. His descriptions are admirably vivid, and they are assisted by many photographs and by Countess Helena Gleichen's admirable drawings in colour. Beat, perhaps, is the tale of his visit to the great Cathedral, the Jo-kang, where he was allowed to penetrate to the inner shrine and see the great golden Buddha, glowing with gems in the soft light of the butter-lamps which are always kept burning about the altar:— "Across and across his breast are innumerable necklaces of
Fold, set with turquoises, pearls and coral The crown j
is perhaps the most interesting jewel. It is a deep coronet of gold, set round and round with turquoises, and heightened by five conventional leaves, each enclosing a golden image of Buddha, and encrusted with precious stones. In the centre, below the middle leaf, is a flawless turquoise 6 inches long and 3 inches wide, the largest in the world. Behind the throne are dimly seen in the darkness huge figures standing back against the wall of the shrine. Rough-hewn, barbarous, and unadorned they are, but nothing else could have so well supplied the background for this treasure of treasures as the Egyptian solemnity of these dark Atlantides, standing shoulder to shoulder on altar stones, where no lamps are ever lighted and no flowers are ever strewn.'
But, indeed, quotations give only a poor idea of 4he charm
of Mr. Landon's narrative. Its chief merit is its unity of interest, for all the various aspects of the enterprise are skil- fully conbimed in his survey. He has received the assistance of the chief members of the expedition, and the political side is as carefully treated as the picturesque. His summary of results is moderate and sensible ; he argues for the continued seclusion of the country, and is convinced that the conduct of the Mission has created a real affection for the British Power, as well as consolidating our prestige among all the frontier peoples. All this is valuable, though we may expect from later works a fuller study of Tibetan politics and ethnology. But one thing Mr. Landon gives us which we cannot look for from any successor,—the impressions of a sensitive and highly cultivated mind at the unveiling of the greatest of geographical mysteries, the first sight of the land "behind the ranges" and the most sacred city of the East. Mr. Landon had a great chance, and he has proved himself worthy of his fortune.
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