CAPTAIN RAWLING. SOUTHERN TIBET. 523
tions of my predecessors and colleagues and partly to set forth as clearly as is possible through the mouths of eye-witnesses the character of that plateau region. My survey must not in any sense be regarded as a historical résumi , nor can it indeed be such, because I have of deliberate purpose selected only those routes which touch the plateau country proper. Of the Russian travellers I have consequently drawn upon Prschevalskij alone; no others have approached the plateau. The account of Grombtschevskij's journey has not yet, so far as I know, been published, so that the results of that expedition are, as it were, swallowed up in the efforts which English travellers in particular have made within recent years to explore western Tibet.
Nor have I in this connection bestowed any attention upon southern Tibet, with the valley of the Tsangpo and the region in which the Indus has its sources; it is a country that is at all events essentially different from the interior of Tibet. True, not many journeys have been carried out in southern Tibet; but any consideration of them would lead nie outside the limits of the task which I proposed to myself; I hope however in the future, partly in southern Tibet itself, partly by means of a historical survey, to be able to turn my attention to that part of the country. I would refer those who may be desirous of studying the journeys which have been made in southern Tibet to the resumés already mentioned, namely Richthofen's China, vol. I, Wegener's and Sandberg's books, and also to a study by S. Oldenburg in journal Ministerstva Narodnava Prosz jäschtschenzja, bearing the title of The Newest Literature about Tibet. Despite its title, this last paper devotes far more attention to what was done in Tibet formerly than to what has been accomplished recently. His comments, which are very polite in tone, upon Grenard's popular book, Le Tibet, ought properly to be compared with what that traveller tells us in his great scientific work, and the admirable qualities of his map ought to have been pointed out. Oldenburg-'s essay, which is particularly interesting and exhibits great knowledge of the facts, culminates in an attack upon English policy in Tibet.
I also have written a similar essay in the same spirit.* That the forecast which I there made has proved true is in no way dependent upon the manner in which the expedition was carried through, for that was in every respect exemplary, but is due solely to Mr. Brodrick's short-sighted method of protecting the interests of England in that part of Asia, and his inability to render the expedition fruitful of results, both politically and geographically. In the paper in question I ventured to make the following closing observation. »And, that I may point to at least one bright spot in this dark picture, let us hope that, if England does make her influence effective in Tibet, she will at least have the country opened freely and without restriction to scientific exploration. The last hour of the closed door policy will then have struck and all avenues will stand wide open to the eager investigator.» What I meant by this is not difficult to understand. I hoped that within the course of ten or twenty years Tibet will be thoroughly traversed from end to end and from side to side, and its geographical, orographical, and geological problems will be investigated, at all events in their broad outlines; in other words, that the white patches on the map of Tibet will be filled in with lines and hatchments indicative of mountains, rivers, and lakes, and that the pioneer work will be accomplished, and everything ready for the slow and patient investigation of details.
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