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A GENERAL VIEW OF LHASSA FROM THE EAST.

[Photo.

The Forbidden City of Lhassa.

By G. T. TSYBIKOV.

[As soon as the brief telegraphic announcement of M. Tsybikov's remarkable journey reached England we took steps to secure the earliest account in an English magazine of this expedition. At the present moment its value is enhanced by the fact that a British mission is being dispatched into the mysterious land of Tibet. The account of "The Forbidden City of Lhassa" which follows is the first that has been written by a visitor to Lhassa since the French missionary Huc spent a few months there in 1845. It has been translated and edited for THE STRAND MAGAZINE by David B. Macgowan, by permission of the Russian Imperial Geographical Society.]

M. G. T. TSYBIKOV is by birth a Russian Bouriat from the Trans Baikal territory. He learned his own, the Mongolian, and the Tibetan languages in infancy and boyhood, and completed his education in the St. Petersburg schools for Oriental languages. He was sent to Tibet by the Russian Imperial Geographical Society, and his success in reaching the Tibetan capital and in remaining there or in its vicinity for more than a year was due in large measure to the careful planning of his journey by the experienced officers of this society. He carried a high-class camera of special construction and returned with a number of excellent photo- graphs, some of which are reproduced with this article.

The explorer left Lhassa on September 10th, 1901, but was detained on his return journey and did not reach the hospitable Russian consulate at Urga until the middle of last year.

The following is his narrative:—

On May 7th, 1900, a caravan of about seventy Mongolian and Amdo Lamas left the Amdo monastery of Goumboum for Lhassa. I had joined it as a simple pilgrim. We rode and carried our belongings on about two hundred horses and mules obtained in Amdo, and lived in seventeen tents. After a journey of twenty-two days across the uninhabited North Tibetan table-land, we pitched camp on the banks of the San-chou, on the northern side of the Boumza Ridge. Here we, for the first time, met with inhabitants of Central Tibet. Our road was, in fact, blocked by the first of a series of military posts maintained to stop the advance of foreigners and to notify the Government of their presence. It was near here that the great Russian explorer, P. M. Przhevalsky, was compelled to turn back upon his third journey into Central Asia. The soldiers of the post at once came to our camp and, observing that ours was an ordinary pilgrim caravan, resumed their usual occupations, which were mainly barter on a small scale and keeping a sharp look-out for any unconsidered trifles which were not tied down.

After four short marches we reached the Nak-chou monastery. Here reside the two governors of the local nomadic tribes—one, called the "Khanbo," being a priest, and the other, called the "Nansal," being a layman. They rule the natives, collect taxes, control the post-stations, and investigate suspicious travellers. I fell into the latter class, thanks to the head of our caravan, who reported that there were Bouriats among the Mon-