Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 710

669

Travels of M. Huc.

DEC.

kind towards the missionaries, and disposed to favor them; and Kí- shen was passingly forbearing to the intruders in the "Eternal Sanc- tuary;" but their departure was not the less mildly but resolutely in- sisted upon. Everything was done to render their return less irksome than their journey thither. A guard of Chinese soldiers was appoint- ed to protect them, and they had even charge of some of the plenipo- tentiary's effects.

M. Huc collected in H'lassa some hearsays with regard to Moor- croft, which differ from what has hitherto been received. The sum of these reports was, that that celebrated traveler had dwelt for twelve years in the capital of Tibet without being discovered; that at the expiration of that period he started on his way back by Ladak, but that he was attacked by robbers in the province of Ngari, and put to death.

The theological information collected by the missionaries was, from the peculiar position they were placed in, of small import. It is not, however, without interest to find them ingeniously advocating the cosmopolitanism of the religious dogmas of the extreme East. The learned, they say, worship only one and sole Sovereign, who created all things, who is without beginning and end. In India he is called Budha; in Tibet, Samtse Mitchaba; in China, Fuh; and among the Tartars, Borhan. The incarnation of the Godhead in the Tala-lama of H'lassa, the Bantchen of Teshu-h'lumbu, the Tsong-kaba of Sifan, the Kaldan of Tolon-nor, the Guison Tamba of the Grand Kurun, the Hobilgan of the Blue City, the Hototan of Peking, and the innumera- ble other Chaberons, or incarnations, to be met with in different lamazaries, or monasteries, in China and Tibet, no more affect the dog- ma of one Godhead than the other numerous superstitions which cor- rupt the popular mind do the fundamental truths of a purely spiritual religion. Our worthy missionaries went even further than this; they on several occasions assert their belief that in many of the cheats practiced by the lamas, as, for example, cutting open the abdomen of a living lama, and depositing the contents on the altar, that the devil himself plays a part. "Nous ne pensons nullement qu'on puisse tou- jours mettre sur le compte de la supercherie les faits de ce genre; car d'après tout ce que nous avons vu et entendu, parmi les nations idolė- tres, nous sommes persuadés que le démon y joue un grand rôle.” It is not very complimentary to the founder of the apostolic vicarage of all Mongolia, that they also devote many pages of research to what they call les nombreuses et frappantes analogies qui existent entre les rites lamaresques et le culte Catholique. Rome and H'lassa, the Pope and