¹ First published at Paris in 1850, the Travels were translated by William Hazlitt and published in London in 1852 (Office of the National Illustrated Library). This was reprinted in Chicago by the Open Court Publishing Co. in 1898 and 1900. Still another edition of the same translation, edited with an introduction by Paul Pelliot was brought out in London in 1928 (G. Routledge & Sons).

² See d'Orleans, Henri Due, Le Père Huc et ses critiques (Paris, 1893)Google Scholar, chapters I, II, and III, pp. 7–32, for some of Prjevalsky's accusations and their refutations.

³ Rockhill, W. W., Land of the lamas (New York, 1891) pp. 125–26Google Scholar, for one example.

⁴ See note 2.

⁵ Orleans, , op. cit., pp. 4, 26.Google Scholar

⁶ Ch'i-ying, a capable Manchu official is perhaps best known for having been the Imperial Commissioner appointed to sign the Treaty of Nanking with Sir Henry Pottinger. Biographies of him appear in the Ch'ing shih kao, ch. 376, p. 4b, and Ch'ing shih lieh-chuan, ch. 40, 35a. Also see an article by Fairbank, J. K., “Chinese diplomacy and the treaty of Nanking, 1842,” Journal of modern history, 12 (Mar., 1940), pp. 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Cordier, H., l'Expulsion de MM. Huc et Gabet du Thibet, documents inédits, Bulletin de geog. historique et descriptive, 2 (Paris, 1909), pp. 223–33.Google Scholar

⁸ Pelliot, P., Gabet, Le voyage de MM. et Lhasa, Huc à, T'oung pao, 24 (1926), pp. 133–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ See note 1.

¹⁰ Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo [Tao-kuang section]. (Peip'ing: Palace Museum, 1930). Heteafter cited as IWSM-TK.

I am very much indebted to Dr. John K. Fairbank for locating these documents, the source for each of which is cited below, and for constructive criticism in the preparation of this paper.

Some of these documents appear elsewhere. No. III appears in the Tao-kuang section of the Shih Lu (Ta Ch'ing Hsüan-tsung Ch'eng Huang-ti shih-lu), ch. 428, p. 4a. This is identical in form, except that the expression yang-jen foreigner, is used in place of the less complimentary i-jen barbarian, throughout. No. V appears in the same collection, ch. 430, p. 4a. I have been unable to find no. VII in this source, and have failed to find any reference to the case in the volumes of the Tung-hua lu which cover this period (Tao-kuang section, chs. 53 and 54). Pelliot notes that a translation of no. IV, by Gabet, appeared in the Lazarist journal, Annales de la congregation de la mission, vol. 13, for 1848, pp. 209–17, but I have not succeeded in finding a copy of this work. A partial translation of it appears, however in Huc's, Chinese Empire (Harper's ed. of 1855) vol. 1, 80–81Google Scholar; 96–99, but in the latter case it was only introduced to furnish some local color and is very unsatisfactory as a translation.

¹¹ Pelliot in his introduction to the Travels says that Huc had the eyes to see and the power to recall what he had seen in life, but that these very gifts had their counterpart in a somewhat ardent imágination, which led him on occasion to invent what he supposed himself to be merely reporting; that he could not be trusted in details, even in those which concerned him personally; and that even his chronology of the journey brings up difficulties.

One example of Huc's muddled chronology has some bearing on the events of this paper. Huc claimed that they had entered Lhasa on the 29th of January (O.C. Travels, vol. 2, p. 143) and that they left on March 15th (ibid., p. 251). On p. 229, however, he said further, “In accordance with the orders of Ki-chan (Ch'i-shan) we were to set out after the festivals of the Thibetian New Year. We had only been in Lhasa two months, and we had already passed the New Year twice, first the European New Year, and then the Chinese; it was now the turn of the Thibetian.” The Tibetan New Year in 1846 fell on the 26th of February. (Waddell, , Lamaism, p. 454Google Scholar, says that the Tibetan New Year begins in February with the rise of the new moon. The American almanac for 1846 (p. 12) says the new moon in that year was on the 25th of February. Add one day for International date-line.) This means that they must have reached Lhasa by the end of December, and have left in the last week of February. As support for this hypothesis, Gabet stated that they arrived at Lhasa at the end of December and left on the 26th of February (Pelliot, , TP, vol. 24, p. 165Google Scholar). Although it seems unlikely that they would be forced to set out on New Year's Day, Huc spoke of the difficulty of procuring animals on their second stage because of the New Year's season (O.C. Travels vol. 2, p. 257Google Scholar). No doubt Huc deliberately gave the later starting date because he wanted to be able to describe the colorful Tibetan New Year Celebrations as though he had personally seen some of them.

¹² IWSM-TK, ch. 75, p. 21b, line 5, to 23, line 2.

¹³ Huc (O.C. Travels vol. 2, pp. 172–73Google Scholar) gives a brief account of Ch'i-shan's life. He was a Manchu who suffered disgrace after concluding an abortive agreement (the Chuen-pi convention) with the British during the Opium War. He was sent to Tibet in virtual banishment, but was later restored to favor as governor-general of Szechuan. For biographies, see the Ch'ing shih kao, ch. 376, la, and the Ch'ing shih lieh-chuan, ch. 40, 18a.

¹⁴ See document I below, first paragraph.

¹⁵ The Nepalese and Tibetans used the word p'i-leng to refer to Indians under British rule, and, by extension for the English, themselves. In Tibetan the word means ‘stranger.’ See Imbault-Huard, Un episode des relations diplomatique de la Chine avec le Napal en 1842, Rev. de l'Extrême Orient, 3 (1887), p. 8, note 3.

¹⁶ O.C. Travels, vol. 2, p. 163. Later (p. 165) Huc says that it is probable that the English would not have been excluded from Tibet more than any other nation, had not their invading march into Hindustan inspired the Dalai Lama with natural terror. Apparently the regent in Lhasa shared the same dread, but he seems to have had faith in the bulwark of the Himalayas. (See ibid., p. 186.)

¹⁷ See. O.C. Travels vol. 2, p. 227–29Google Scholar for an example of their attempts to bait Ch'i-shan.

¹⁸ See Document II below. The King of Nepal at this time was Rajendra Vikram Sahi.

¹⁹ Huc (O.C. Travels, vol. 1, p. 12Google Scholar) describes their preparations for the journey by shaving their heads and donning lama costume. Ironically enough he does not seem to have understood the bewilderment of their converts who witnessed the transformation. This incident may well have given rise to the later legends of European priests turning lamas, which arc cherished by Old China Hands.

²⁰ The letter was dated the 26th of January 1846, and as it commonly took at least twenty five days from Khatmandu to Lhasa, it must have arrived about the middle of February at the very time when Ch'i-shan seems to have adopted his stronger line.

²¹ See Document III below.

²² M. de Lagrené had failed in his hope of getting a clause of toleration included in the French treaty of 1844, but Ch'i-ying, the Chinese Commissioner did obtain for him two edicts of toleration which gave the Roman Catholic Church a slightly more favorable position. See Latourettc, K. S., A history of Christian missions in China. (New York: 1929), pp. 229–30.Google Scholar For the actual texts of the edicts see Morse, H. B., International relations of the Chinese Empire, vol. 1, appendices IX and X, pp. 691–92.Google Scholar

²³ Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai were the five ports opened by the Treaty of Nanking, signed August 29th, 1842.

²⁴ The Lazarist, Laurent Carayon, was arrested in Chihli in December of the previous year (1845) as he was passing through Kalgan on his way to Mongolia. He was first conducted to Pao-ting-fu for examination then when it developed that he was French and a Catholic priest, he was sent down to the French consul in Macao. See letter from the French consul to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, quoted in Cordier, , op. cit. p. 225.Google Scholar Also, the Spanish Franciscan, Navarro, was seized in Hupeh in the Spring of 1846. The first of many Chinese documents on his case appears in IWSM-TK, ch. 76, p. 1, and successive ones are found in this and the following chuan (ch. 77).

²⁵ IWSM-TK, ch. 75 p. 21b, line 5 to p. 23, line 2.

²⁶ Jui Yuan was a Manchu Duke who had held high office in Peking. He is briefly mentioned in the Hsil-pei chuan-chi, ch. 57, p. 19a.

²⁷ The yearly tributary mission required of Mongol and Tibetan rulers by the Ch'ing Dynasty. See Fairbank, J. K. and Teng, S. Y., “On the Ch'ing tributary system,” HJAS, 6 (June, 1941).Google Scholar

²⁸ The central government of Tibet consists of four ministers called Kalons, one monk and three laymen, who form a council over which the Dalai Lama, or the regent acting for him, presides (Waddell, , op. cit., p. 396).Google Scholar

²⁹ Pelliot's introduction to the Travels says that Gabet must have spoken Chinese and Mongol rather fluently. He wrote a small collection of prayers and an elementary catechism of Catholic doctrines in Mongolian, and a Manchu grammar, together with a tract on the connection between Manchu and Mongolian. He taught these languages to Huc, when the latter arrived some years bter. Both learned a little Tibetan in the neighborhood of T'aerh Ssê (Kumbum Monastery) in the Kokonor region, but Pelliot ridicules Huc's quotations of complete conversations which he claims to have overheard. (See also Pelliot, , TP, 24, p. 175).Google Scholar

³⁰ It seems strange that they did not give their Chinese names. Gabet's name was Ch'in (Pelliot, , TP, 24, p. 136Google Scholar), while Huc's was Ku Po-ch'a (ibid., p. 139).

³¹ This remark seems quite irrelevant. Possibly the Frenchmen mentioned Pondicherry as a possession of their country, in a wild effort to explain their nationality. There does not seem to be any evidence that either of them had ever been there.

³² Pelliot (TP 24, p. 136, note 2) says that his name might well have been Bsam-gtan ‘Jin-pa; Huc always spoke of him as Samdadchiemba; Sandburg (Exploration of Tibet, p. 126) calls him Bram-dad Chhe-ba. In the absence of definite knowledge of its spelling, I am retaining the Chinese transliteration.

³³ In modern Sining district of Ch'inghai province (Kokonor). This Mongolian was apparently still living in this neighborhood in 1889 (Rockhill, , Land of the lamas, p. 45Google Scholar). Rockhill says, “I spoke to the old man's nephew about him, and Abbé de Meester knew him well. He is still hale and hearty, a lover of good cheer and fond of gambling, and a lukewarm Christian.”

³⁴ These questions typify the attitude of the sensible Chinese scholar of the old type toward the Westerner whether traveller or missionary, then as now.

³⁵ Huc gives the impression that they were permitted to walk about freely for some time, before they registered with the authorities and were treated as prisoners. Perhaps Huc felt that his readers would have greater confidence in his descriptions if they felt that he had been able to wander at liberty; or perhaps Ch'i-shan, already in disgrace, wanted the Court to think that he had been very quick in apprehending the criminals. Considering the characters of both, either explanation might be possible.

³⁶ This deputy who escorted them was Li Kuo-an, a Chinese from Chengtu, who had served as a military official in Tibet and Nepal. (See O.C. Travels, vol. 2, p. 243Google Scholar). Already a very sick man, he died on the journey, between Batang and Litang in modern Sikang province (ibid., p. 326.)

³⁷ IWSM-TK, ch. 75, p. 23, line 10 to 24, line 9.

³⁸ Sen-pa evidently is a term used by the Nepalese and Tibetans to refer to the Sikhs. Besides the fact that the British were fighting the Sikhs at that time (1845–46), the King of Nepal in his tribute letter to the emperor of China in 1842 referred to the Land of La-ta-ko (Ladakh) of which the men of Sungpa had taken possession. Ladakh was seized by the Sikhs under Gulab Singh of Jammu in the period 1834–41 (see Imbault-Huard, op. cit.).

³⁹ In his 1842 tribute letter (see previous note), the King of Nepal declared that, finding that the land of Ta-pa-ka-erh, a dependency of Tibet was bordering on his frontier, he would like to exchange it for his own territory of Mo-ssu-tang. At the same time he suggested that if the land of Ladakh, which had been seized by the men of Sen-pa, was placed under his jurisdiction, he would pay tribute for it; and he also asked for the gift of ten li of territory in the neighborhood of Bhutan to place troops there as a protection for Southern Tibet against the British in Sikkim. As if this were not enough, he also asked for money in order to be able to expel the Pilings and be in a position to protect his lands, reminding the Tao-kuang emperor that his grandfather in the Ch'ien-lung period (Sept., 1793) (in writing to accept the submission of the Gurkhas) had said: “If there are people from without who trouble you or invade your territory, you can send a petition to bring these facts to our attention. We will then send you men and horses, or make you a present of a certain sum of money to come to your aid.” Having been refused his requests in 1842, the king of Nepal seems to have written this second letter in another attempt to cash in on the promise of the Ch'ien-lung emperor. This explains why the Chinese officials write of him as though discussing a spoiled child.

⁴⁰ The usual Chinese transcription of Hindustan is Wen-tu-ssu-t'an, but the scribe has miswritten the first character, making it nieh The name appears correctly further on.

⁴¹ The ‘West Road’ was the trade route from Lhasa into Central India by way of Ladakh and Kashmir, thence leading down through the Punjab to Delhi. Since the Sikhs then owned Ladakh, Kashmir, and so much of the Punjab, it was perfectly correct to speak of the territories of Sen-pa as lying on the West Road.

⁴² IWSM-TK, ch. 75, p. 23, lines 3 to 9.

⁴³ Pao-hsing, a Manchu, also occupied the position of Grand Secretary from 1841 to 1848 when he died. For his biography see Ch'ing shih kao, ch. 371, la.

⁴⁴ IWSM-TK, ch. 75, p. 47b, line 8, to 49b, line 7.

⁴⁵ If this is, as is probable, not the date of their actual arrival, but the date on which they were formally delivered to Pao-hsing for trial, we have additional corroboration for the fact that the prisoners must have left Lhasa about the 26th of February (see note 11). Because from February 26th to June 6th is exactly a hundred days, and Huc's itinerary from Lhasa to Chengtu accounts for at least ninety-five days, while it was four days more before they were brought to trial. Lhasa to Chamdo, 36 days (O.C. Travels, vol. 2, p. 292Google Scholar); at Chamdo 3 days (p. 296); Chamdo to Angti, apparently 6 days (pp. 297–311); at Angti 5 days (p. 312); Angti to Batang about 10 days (pp. 314–21); at Batang 3 days (p. 322); Batang to Litang 7 days (pp. 323–27); at Litang 2 days (p. 328); Litang to Tatsienlu 8 days (p. 330); at Tatsienlu 3 days (p. 332); Tatsienlu to Chengtu 12 days (Harper's, ed., Chinese Empire, p. 59Google Scholar); waiting for trial 4 days (ibid. p. 69). Huc merely confuses his already muddled chronology by saying (O.C. Travels, vol. 2, p. 332Google Scholar) that they arrived in Tatsienlu in the early part of June, three months after their departure from Lhasa.

⁴⁶ Collectively called the ssü-tao, these were the provincial judge, provincial treasurer, salt commissioner, and grain commissioner.

⁴⁷ From here on, Gabet's name appears in all the documents in inverted form as Ka-pi Yo-tse.

⁴⁸ These systematic questions, item by item, seem to have provided the basis for the examination at Canton. See Document VI.

⁴⁹ This probably alludes to their hope of passing through Tibet and Nepal in order to reach Pondicherry, which was nipped in the bud by Ch'i-shan's insistence that they must return through China in order to be investigated further. No doubt their desire to go down to India was a strong reason for suspicion that they were in league with the English, if not Englishmen in disguise.

⁵⁰ IWSM-TK ch. 75, p. 49b line 8, to p. 50, line 10.

⁵¹ Huang En-t'ung as Ch'i-ying's assistant helped in carrying out the first trade treaties. His biography occurs in Ch'ing shih kao, ch. 377, p. 4a.

⁵² Still the note of suspicion that they might be English.

⁵³ See note 22.

⁵⁴ IWSM-TK, ch. 77, p. 1, line 2 to 3b, line 2.

⁵⁵ Literally ‘writing of the red-haired (people),’ a term which was still used for the Dutch, but which later came to be used for most Europeans.

⁵⁶ The correspondence between the Dutch and French consuls is reported in Cordier, , op. cit., pp. 227–28.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ The correspondence between Bécour and Ch'i-ying is reproduced in Cordier, , op. cit., pp. 229–33.Google Scholar Notice the threatening attitude of the French consul. This was balanced by the contemptuous tone of the Chinese; particularly in the references to the ‘barbarous’ Catholic monks, ‘banding together,’ the latter expression is one usually used refering to bandits or brigands.

⁵⁸ M. Theodose de Lagrené who had come to Canton and negotiated a treaty for France similar to the one that Pottinger had gotten for England in 1842.

⁵⁹ The exact words of the edict were: “As to those of the French and other foreign nations who practice the religion, let them only be permitted to build churches at the five ports opened for commercial intercourse. They must not presume to enter the country and propagate religion. Should any act in opposition, turning their backs upon the treaties, and rashly overstep the boundaries, the local officers will at once seize and deliver them to their respective consuls for restraint and correction” Morse, , op. cit., p. 691.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Cordier, , op. cit., p. 226Google Scholar, note 1, says that Michael Navarro belonged to a branch of the Franciscan Order. He had arrived in Hongkong in 1841, and returning to the interior after this incident, he was made Vicar Apostolic of Hunan in 1856. He died in that province in 1877.

⁶¹ IWSM-TK, ch. 77, p. 3b, line 3, to p. 4, line 3.

⁶² In November 1846, a month after they reached Macao, Gabet sailed for Europe, instead of returning to the Mongolian Mission. It is thought that he wished to persuade the ecclesiastical authorities in France and Rome to award the Tibetan Mission to his order. When this failed, he begged to be sent back to Mongolia, but the doctors in Europe forbade a cold climate, and (in 1848) he was sent instead to Brazil, where he died unhappily in 1853, at the age of forty-five.

Huc remained in Macao until 1848, when he returned to North China. In 1852 his bad health obliged him to go back to France, and in the following year (1853), he resigned from his order after long-standing differences. He lived by his pen, writing The Chinese Empire, and Christianity in China, Tartary and Tibet; as sequels to the Travels. The last two were mere potboilers, full of plagiarisms from his own previous work as well as from the works of others. He died in 1860, at the age of forty-seven. The lives of both were no doubt shortened by the exposure and uncertain diet on their Tibetan adventure. (Pelliot, , T'oung pao, 24, pp. 136–40).Google Scholar

⁶³ Throughout chuan 77 of IWSM-TK; see p. 22, line 5, for a typical example.

⁶⁴ Sec Bécour's letters in Cordier, op. cit.