Exploration in Tibet and Neighbouring Regions ¹

Abstract

COL. LENOX CONYNGHAM has done right good service to the science of geography by compiling in one comprehensive volume the complete story of the early exploration of the great Tibetan uplands before that land of mystery and romance became attractive to European geographers, who evolved the map of Tibet as we now know it on a more scientific basis. It would indetd have been useful if the brief preface to the volume had included a somewhat more detailed explanation of the means and the methods employed by these early native surveyors in those amazing journeys which gave us the first (and sometimes the last) outlines of Ti-betan geography, and laid the foundations for subsequent map superstructure. The narratives of the individual explorers are given in chronological order, commencing with the journey of Fandit Nain Singh, in 1865, from Nepal to Lhasa, and terminating with that of Atma Ram, who accompanied our first adventurer, Capt. (now Sir Hamilton) Bower, when he traversed Tibet from Kashmir to China in 1891–2, following- a route which was not very far removed from that of Nain Singh in earlier days. Then for the first time were the eyes, not only of geographers, but also of archæologists, opened to the immense wealth of scientific and historical knowledge which was to be gathered in that remote part of Asia.