map of Tibet, so difficult to obtain, which is reproduced on Pl. IX in the first volume.
To all these gentlemen I beg to express my sincere thanks. My thanks are also due to my publishers, The Lithographic Institute of the General Staff of the Swedish Army in Stockholm, especially to its able chief, Mr Axel Lagrelius.
Now that I offer this work to the geographical world of our time, I do it with a feeling of insufficiency and imperfectness. The results I have won by my journey, are in no adequate relation to the grand wideness and enormous magnitude of the task itself. The forces of a single man were not sufficient to embrace and assimilate all that met him on his way during months and years. If, like myself, he makes the geographical discoveries his principal aim, and consequently considers of most importance to form a moderately reliable preliminary map, he has not much time left for minute and circumstancial investigations. These deficiencies must needs be visible in his work.
And, notwithstanding, I hope that these volumes will not be looked upon as an insignificant addition to our knowledge of the globe. They still contain the description of great tracts of Tibet, never before visited, even by Indian Pundits, much less by Europeans. For my own part, I consider this journey, effected under unusually difficult conditions, to be a pioneer enterprise, which in some measure has opened the way for future conquests in Tibet on the different fields of scientific
research.
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