eastern frontiers of Tibet travellers are arrested by the rugged gorges, the extensive forests, the absence of population, and consequently of supplies of all kinds, and to these obstacles is now added the ill-will of the Chinese authorities. During the present century the Tibetan Government has succeeded better than any other Asiatic state in preserving the political isolation of the people, thanks chiefly to the relief and physical conditions of the land. Tibet rises like a citadel in the heart of Asia; hence its defenders have guarded its approaches more easily than those of India, China, and Japan.
Exploration—Extent—Divisions.
The greater part of Tibet remains unexplored, or at least geographers have still failed to trace with certainty the routes of the Roman Catholic missionaries who traversed the land before their entry was interdicted. In the first half of the fourteenth century the Friuli monk, Odorico di Pordenone, made his way from China to Tibet, and resided some time in Lassa. Three centuries later on, in 1625 and 1626, the Portuguese missionary Andrada twice penetrated into Tibet, where he was well received by the Buddhist priests. In 1661 the Jesuits Grüber and D'Orville travelled from China through Lassa to India. In the following century the Tuscan Desideri, the Portuguese Manoel Freyre, and others visited the Tibetan capital from India. But the Capuchins had already founded a Catholic mission in Lassa under the direction of Orazio della Penna, who spent no less than twenty-two years in the country. At this time the Tibetan Government allowed strangers to penetrate freely over the Himalayan passes, which are now so jealously guarded. A layman also lived several years in Lassa, whence he went to China by the Kuku-nor, again returning vià Lassa to India. This was the Dutch traveller Van de Putte, who is known to have been a learned man and a great observer, but who unfortunately destroyed his papers and charts, fearing lest these ill-arranged and misunderstood documents might be the means of propagating error. He left nothing behind him except a few notes and a manuscript map, carefully preserved in the Middelburg Museum in Zealand.
Itineraries traced either astronomically or by the compass and chronometer are still very rare. The English explorers and the Hindu surveyors employed by the Indian Government have only visited the south-western districts, and the upland basin of the Tsangbo north of Nepal and Sikkim. South-east Tibet has been traversed by French missionaries; but all the recent attempts made to penetrate from the north and north-east have failed. In imitation of Paskievich the "Transbaikalian," and Muraviov the "Amûrian," the brothers Schlagintweit have assumed the whimsical title of "Transkuenlunian" (in Russian, Zakuenlunskiy), to perpetuate the memory of their passage over the Tibetan mountains; but they only visited the western extremity of the country. The Russian explorer Prjevaksky was compelled twice to retire without being able to penetrate into the heart of the country, and the Hungarian Bela Szechenyi also found himself obliged to retrace his steps. For all the regions not yet visited by the English and Hindu
