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PREFACE.
The favourable reception accorded to my book, Central Asia
and Tibet, has emboldened me to prepare a cheaper and more
popular edition. This, although of course based upon the longer
work, has been entirely re-written from beginning to end specially
for the present issue.
The halo of romance and the magic of the unknown which have
for so long drawn the adventurous as by a magnet to the mysteri-
ous land of Tibet have now been in great part dissipated. I am
the last traveller who penetrated into the Land of Snow trusting to
my own resources alone. When the future traveller enters Tibet,
and especially if he is an Englishman, it will be under the protecting
segis of the cannon and the stern safeguard of treaty ; but no reflec-
tion of the romantic will envelop him as he treads in all security
the last hermit " kingdom " of the world, the revered Holy Land of
Lamaism and the Sacred Books. I will confess that, in the events
which have happened in that country during the present summer,
my sympathies have been entirely on the side of the Tibetans-—
not, I hasten to add, for any political reason, but because I am a
lover of freedom. And, in saying this, I trust I shall not offend any,
for I have experienced too many and too great proofs of friendship
and hospitality in both England and India for me to contemplate
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