IN FORBIDDEN TIBET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2465, 1 April 1909, Page 6

IN FORBIDDEN TIBET.

DR. SVEN HEQIN’S STORIES OF HIS ADVENTURES. OFFICIALS. OUTWITTED. A groat audience burst into a cheer of delighted welcome at the Queen’s I-lall, London, when Df Sven Hcdin arose to tell the adventurous story of liis long journeyings in the wilds of Tibet. Hanging behind him,: in diagrammatic form, were the fruits of his travels —a colored map of Tibet, lined with horizontal mountain ranges almost like a railway junction. Before Df Sven Hcdin went exploring a large part of that territory was blank on the map—or, worse still, was marked with inaccurate detail. The meeting was arranged by the Royal Geographical Society. Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India, was present at the head of a distinguished ccmparip Like most successful explorers Dr Sven Hedin shows no- traces of his hardships. "A FORMIDABLE LIE.” •

“The whole of Tibet is like a sea,” lie said, “the gigantic waves of which, driven up by northern or southern winds, have been changed into stone in the moment, of their worst fury.” He began to cross that sea of mountains in August 1906, with a caravan of twentyfive men and 130 ponies and mules. Of the animals only six survived. From the very first the officials tried to head him back. On the edge of- the great unknown territory he tried in vain to get permission to travel. “I endeavored to demoralise the Garpun in the most horrible wav. We said that when our animals died we had been obliged to bury some precious boxes in the east, and that Tve wanted them again. “it was, of course, a formidable lie, for we had not lost so much as a box of matches; but the Garpun replied that it was more important to him not to loso his own head than for us to hud our lost boxes. .He refused bribes. Ho threatened to send armed men after us if I went eastwards without permission.” In the end, by pretending to go somewhere else, the exnlorer penetrated the Forbidden Country, and there, on- the desolate, mountain tops, with the temperature at the. freezing point, of mercury, lie made observations of the newold country which is to go oil the maps as Trans-Himalaya. THE WAITING RAVEN.

Here Is a typical picture: “We passed an abandoned man who had got hands and feet frozen on the Karakorum ; the fingers were literally falling off. He said he was creeping down to Sheyok. We gave him bread, flour, matches, and some rupees. . . “In the nights the moonshine was brilliant* the mountains stood like black coffins on both sides of the valley, with the blinding white snowfields over them. A lonely raven followed us for a month. I hate them; they only, wait for somebody to be left behind.” Quaint tales of that wild, romantic lgnd were told. “What are. 5*011?” £ man was asked. “A robber!” lie proudly replied. “And I,” said his chief, “am the father of all the Tibetan robbers.” .“The Hopliks called me Padislialiim, or s*our Majesty. The people, of Bongba addressed me as Rinpotclies, or your Holiness—and that, I thought, was a little too much!” They met a Pun on the road, travelling with a village of tents, a 'hundred persons, 400 yaks, and a great and picturesque. escort of armed men. “The Pun has two younger brothers, and all three have two wives together; that means two-third%of a wife each,, which I think is a rather funny invention!” Describing the Tibetan lamas. Dr Hedin alluded to their extraordinary custom of allowing themselves to be enclosed in grottos, and living in darkness. One grotto he saw held a man who had been there fifteen years. He heard of a man who was enclosed at the age of sixteen or seventeen years, and lived there sixty-nine j*ears without any communication with the outside world whatever.

His food and water were parsed underground by a long pole, and the only way those outside could learn of his death was when the bowls were pulled out with the food untouched. These lamas believed that when they died they ould be reborn in a very happy existence or go direct to Nirvana. DR. SVEN HEX)IN’S DISGUISE. Interviewed, Dr. Sven Hc-din- 1 gave the following account of his adventures: “I left Stockholm three and a-lialf years ago,” lie said, “and reached Tibet via Constantinople, Asia Minor, Persia, and India. Of this period I spent no less than twenty-five months in Tibet.

“During part of the journey the solitude and desolation was appalling. For instance, -during my first year I travelled for no loss than eighty-four days without a sight of a human being, apart from my own companions, or a sign of a track; while in the second year for a period of sixty-four days I never got a glimpse of human life.” • “A result of great importance is the discovery of * the real source of the Brahamaputra, which lias never before been visited. It was always supposed that the river came from the Marinin La, but this is now proved to be itself only a tributary of the. Brahmaputra. The source of the Indus, too, was until now absolutely unknown. . “For two and a-lialf months I had to travel disguised as a Ladakhi. This I did by coloring mv face and hands every day with Indian ‘ink. I was eventually discovered, but fortunately only when .1 had finished the important work on which I was at the time engaged. At this time Iliad no European clothes, as, to avoid detection, I had previously burnt mine when assuming my. disguise. Durin (r the later part of my journey I wore Tibetan dress, travelling as a Tibetan chief.” -