Volume 1

Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846 / translated by William Hazlitt; now edited with an introduction by Professor Paul Pelliot.

  • Évariste Régis Huc
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846 / translated by William Hazlitt; now edited with an introduction by Professor Paul Pelliot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and then continues thus : “ The conversion of these three Buddhist monks was a great encouragement to the missionaries in Mongolia. From all they had learned in the various lamaseries, they became convinced that Lha-Ssa, the capital of Tibet and the seat of the Grand Lama, was in the eyes of all the peoples of Central Asia the very Rome of Buddhism ; that Lha-Ssa exercised a decisive influence over the beliefs of the Tartars and that Christian propaganda, directed from that city, could not fail to obtain considerable results in the future. Two missionaries then made up their minds to cross Tartary and Tibet and to reach Lhasa, without allowing themselves to be frightened by the pidfures of fatigue and danger which had unfailingly been conjured up before their eyes. One of these missionaries was M. Gobet [i.e. Gabet] and the other the writer of these lines.” Here the text is perfectly clear. Hue asserts that from the ftart, and in spite of the objedtions raised by their colleagues, the initial objedfive of the journey undertaken in 1844 was Lhasa. We know, however, that it was nothing of the sort. If the idea of going there occurred to Hue, or even to Gabet either, it was entertained without the knowledge of Mgr. Mouly and was not considered in his indtrudtions. Besides, Gabet’s letter to Daguin, unless we are gratuitously to suspedt its sincerity, gives the lie to such an hypothesis. Then what really happened ? What I imagine is this, and it is human enough. On their return to Canton, the welcome given to them made Gabet and Hue realize that they had performed a remarkable journey. The French Consul, M. Lefebvre de Becour, living at Macao, had learned of the passage