Travel And Adventure In Tibet

This remarkable book contains a highly exciting account of the travel and adventure in the mysterious land of the Lamas by Miss Annie R. Taylor, a frail little woman missionary of England. She had been fired with the noble missionary?s zeal of spreading the message of Christ to the dogma-ridden-land of Lamas, Born in England, she was just 36 when she made her famous journey to Tibet.The author has divided his work in two parts. The first part describes, the strange land of Tibet and its mysterious people with their mysterious customs and mode of life. It is based partly on the Diary left by Miss Taylor and partly on the accounts left by twenty-two European travellers who preceded Miss Taylor to Tibet and also the Indian explorer, Rai Bahadur Baboo Sarat Chandra Das, a Bengalee who visited Lhasa in 1882 and talked to the then Dalai Lama. Second part of the book reproduces the edited text of Miss Taylor?s diary. In October 1884, Miss Taylor sailed for China where she spent three years. From her childhood, the mysterious land of Tibet had exercised a strange fascination over her mind. She was determined to use the opportunity of her presence in China to attend the great Tibetan fair which is held near Si-ning at the famous Kumbum Monastery where she found herself in July 1887. Twenty years earlier in 1867 this monastery was sacked during the Mohammedan rebellion. Before this sacrilege it used to contain 400 lamas and was a much more inspiring centre of pilgrimage. She was however, firmly determined to travel in Tibet. She had with her Pontso, a 19 year old Lhasa youth who initially came to her for treatment and afterwards became her servant. She learnt Tibetan language in Sikkim. In March 1891 she came to Calcutta and then took a ship for China. She and her servant were for a year in the open city of Tauchau and then tramped through Tibet. For twenty nights she slept in the open. A cave would have been a luxury. For months she could not change her clothes. Of the three Chinese, who accompanied her, one turned back, another died on the road and the third tried to take her life and was the root cause of her misfortunate. Only her servant, Pontso followed her through her dreadful adventures