language or languages in Tibet previous to the introduction of Boodhism, one thing we are certain of, that no written character or alphabet was used or even known, till that epoch. Although the age of Boodha himself, or the author of the system which bears his name, was at least ten centuries anterior to our æra, yet his system was not introduced into Tibet until a period comparatively modern, although it is impossible to fix the date of its introduction. It is certain, however, that the present Tibetian language and literature are of Hindoo origin. The priesthood-who are possessed of whatever literature exists in Tibet-point to Benares as the source whence all their learning has been derived. It appears that the Tibetians received both their alphabetical characters from Hindoostan about the middle of the 7th century. Mr Moorcroft, in a written communication from Cashmere, in 1823, to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, has given a sketch of the language of Tibet, illustrated by drawings of the various alphabets used there. According to this account, not less than 10 varieties of character are employed in that country for familiar and religious purposes.

Commerce and Manufactures. Excepting the manufacture of idols, we know almost nothing of Tibetian commerce or manufactures; but we may presume that they have a considerable commerce with China. Formerly a considerable commerce was carried on with Bengal through Nepaul, but since 1792 this has been totally stopped by the timid jealousy of the celestial court. No money is coined in Tibet, being forbidden by the principles of their religion, and a very adulterated coin is the common medium of exchange

Religion.] Tibet is the chief seat of Boodhism and of its incarnated head. The influence of this spiritual lord extends over the whole of Central Asia, and he formerly united in his own person the regal as well as the sacerdotal character. The latter he still preserves in its fullest extent, in his own name and by means of spiritual vicars, who reside in different parts of his vast spiritual domain; but his regal power has of late been exercised by the emperor of China, who acts in his name, and has got military possession of all Tibet under the covert of pious protection, especially since Teeshooloomboo was plundered by the Nepaulese, which rendered the political intervention of China necessary to protect a spiritual potentate who could not defend his own territories. According to such Tibetian accounts as Turner could collect, Kanka Grinbo was the first lama who pretended to the sacred character of an incarnated deity, (or rather of Boodha,) and the emperor of China, convinced of the truth of his pretensions, conferred on him the regal and sacerdotal functions in the year 1100.

Government.] The administration of affairs is managed by four ghylongs, each of whom has the administration of one-fourth of Tibet. Under these the civil and military affairs are conducted by the respectable Chinese who dwell at Lassa, and whose nomination must be approved by the Dalai lama. They are generally chosen from amongst the wealthy families, and distinguish themselves as much by their intellectual capacity as by their irreproachable conduct. The Tibetian army is composed, according to father Hyacinth's Chinese author, of 60,000 men, of whom 15,000 are cavalry. The levy is said to be made with great impartiality, one man out of 10 is ordinarily taken. This, if correct, would give 600,000 men fit to bear arms; and this, if reckoned one-fourth of the population, would give 2,400,000 as the population of Tibet; but to this must be added all those who belong to the religious orders, whether male or female, so that the population may perhaps amount to 3,000,000.

This

Manners and Customs.] Of these very little is known. As might be expected in so cold a climate, the Tibetians use very warm clothing, such as we have already described in our account of Western Tibet. The houses of the peasantry are meanly constructed, and resemble brick-kilns, being built of rough stones heaped on each other, with a few apertures to admit light, and a flat terrace for the roof, surrounded with a small parapet. In their food the Tibetians uniformly prefer crude undressed meat, of which kind mutton is almost solely used, and at their feasts the table is seen spread with joints of raw fresh mutton as well as boiled, the former being most esteemed. They have no occasion to salt their meat during winter, as it will remain fresh during the whole season, from the coldness and dryness of the air. Tea is a favourite beverage amongst them. The milk of the yak is much used as food, and is a great article of commerce. most useful animal gives abundance of this lacteal fluid, rich, and yielding most excellent butter, which is easily preserved in skins or bladders excluding the air. It keeps in this cool dry climate during all the year, so that after some time tending their flocks, when a sufficient stock is accumulated, they have only to load the yaks and drive them to a proper market, with their own produce, which constitutes, to the utmost verge of Tartary, a most material article of merchandize. These animals serve the Tibetians for riding, clothing, and food; and their fine soft silky bushy tails serve as ornaments both to the peasant and the prince. The Tibetians are said to be polyandrists; one woman having several husbands. The eldest brother of the family is said to have the privilege of choosing his wife, but she becomes the common property of all the brothers, however numerous. We greatly doubt, however, the truth of this. As to the rites of burial, we have different accounts. Some are burned, others buried, others thrown into a river, others taken and bruised to pieces, bones and all, and formed into balls, which are given to be devoured by a species of kites, which are esteemed sacred. But the general mode of disposing of the dead is like that of the Parsees of Bombay: they are exposed in the open air, and left to be devoured by carnivorous birds. A place set apart for this purpose was seen by Turner and his suite, when descending the mountain Soomoonong into the plain of Pharee. But a fate far different is reserved for the body of the sovereign lamas, the Dalai lama, and the Teeshoo lama. Soon as the soul of Boodha or Sacyo-Moonee has left the body, the latter is placed upright in an attitude of devotion, the legs being folded under him, with each thigh resting on the instep, and the soles of the feet turned upwards; in this posture they are deposited in shrines. The inferior lamas have their remains usually burned, and their ashes deposited in small metallic idols. Over the shrines of the deceased sovereign lamas, splendid pyramidal mausoleums are built. The Tibetians, as might be expected in so mountainous and so secluded a country, and immersed as they are in all the monstrosities of Lamaism, are very superstitious. Every hill, cave, mountain, or inaccessible place, every glen and stream, is the habitation of spirits and supernatural beings. Every village has its dæmon, or protecting genius, to whom respect is paid, either from fear or gratitude. Spirits, ghosts, and other imaginary objects of terror, are quite common in vulgar belief. But sunk as the Tibetians are in the most abject subjection to the lamas and monks, they are comparatively an amiable, mild, humane race, and quite free from many of the cruel and sanguinary customs of the Hindoos. There is no selling of female infants, as in Bischur and Sirinagur; no putting them to death as among the Rajpoots; no ex

posure of children on trees, or on the banks of the Ganges; nor drowning them in the sacred stream to propitiate an offended deity; nor funeral piles whereon widows are burnt to accompany the manes of their deceased husbands. In Tibet it must be said that the system of Boodha exercises a more benignant sway than the cruel multifarious system of Brahma, and the obscene sanguinary rites of Juggernaut.

Cities.] The greater number of places marked on the map of Tibet as given by the lamas, seem, as Malte Brun very justly remarks, to be nothing more than villages, or groups of cabins, each surrounding some temple. According to the Dai-Syn-itoundchi, there are but 16 cities in all Tibet. Of these Lassa and Teeshooloomboo only deserve notice. Lassa, called Khlassa by the Tibetians, is seated on the Kaltjoo Mooren, a tributary of the Sanpo, and 24 miles N.E. of the chain bridge across that stream, in a spacious plain. It is a small city, says Malte Brun, but the houses are built of stone, very spacious and very lofty. It is represented by others as a large city, and the Chinese officer, whose account has been given by Hyacinth, affirms that the vast palace, the streets, and bazaars, are worthy to fix the attention. This city was encompassed with a wall, but the chief military governor of the west having demolished it, rebuilt it anew, and had it excellently constructed of granite, and surrounded by a strong stone mole 30 li in length, and which encloses all the sacred space, and defends it against the inundations of the river. It is the seat of the Tibetian government, and of the Chinese mandarins appointed to act as overseers. It is inhabited by merchants and artisans. The famous mountain 7 miles S.E. of the city, on which is the palace of the great lama, is called Putala, or the Holy Mountain; but according to the Chinese, this is only the name of the palace, whilst the mountain is called Mar-Buli, or Pamuri. This palace or temple is crowned with a gilt dome 62 Chinese fathoms high. If each of these be 10 feet, as the Jesuits tell us, the elevation must be enormous, amounting to 620 feet. The exterior is said to be adorned with numberless pyramids of gold and silver, and the 10,000 rooms (a Chinese hyperbole) of the interior contain an immense number of idols of the same precious metals. During the first month of every year, all the lamas from every part of Tibet assemble in this temple to perform their religious service. The Chinese keep a strong garrison in Lassa, commanded by an officer called Zewan Norba, or chief of the army of the west.-Teeshooloomboo is the seat of Pantschin, or Bantschan Rimbochay, the second great lama. It is a monastery, containing 300 or 400 houses, inhabited by monks, besides temples, mausoleums, and the palace of the sacred personage. Of this place we have an excellent account from Turner, who visited it in 1783. The buildings are all of stone, with flat roofs, and parapets of heath, and small boughs. It is defended at a small distance by the fortress of SheegatcheeJeung, seated on the prominence of a lofty rock. The plain of Teeshooloomboo is perfectly level, and everywhere surrounded by rocky hills. Its direction is N. and S. about 15 miles, and from E. to W. about 5 miles. The rock on which is seated the monastery is the loftiest in all the vicinity, and commands an extensive view, and the Sanpo is visible to the N. flowing in a widely extended bed, containing many islands, but the principal channel is narrow, deep, and rapid. At a distance, Teeshooloomboo has a grand appearance. If its magnificence, says Turner, could be increased by any external cause, none could more superbly have adorned its numerous gilded canopies and turrets, than the sun rising in full splendour

directly opposite. It presented a view wonderfully beautiful and brilliant, the effect was little short of magic, and it made an impression never to be erased from my mind.

Historical Notice.] Like many other pagan countries of Asia, Hindostan not excepted, Tibet has no historical annals, at least none have yet appeared. We only know its history by its connection with and vicinity to China. Beyond 790 of the Christian era, we have nothing but tradition, a most uncertain and precarious guide. According to it, Tibet was peopled 1340 years before Christ, by Prasinpo and Prasrimno; 300 years later, Boodha or Sacyó, was born of a virgin, having descended from the skies to restore a purer system of faith. The first king of Tibet was Guiathritz Bengo, son of Macchiaba, a Hindoo sovereign. His capital was Jarlon, and he died 1102 years before our era. The people, weary of anarchy, voluntarily submitted to China in 790, A.D. It is from this period that some light begins to dawn on Tibetian history. From the Chinese writers we learn that the Tibetians were a powerful people in the 8th century, and possessed of all the country from the sources of the Sanpo to the moun.. tains of Cashmere, and the frontiers of Tokharestaun to the W. of the Beloor.

TANGOOT OR SEEFAUN.

THIS is a large and extensive region, comprehending all the space between Tibet, China, and the Kobi, or Great Sandy Desert. Under the above appellation-the one Mongolian, signifying the western country, the other Chinese, signifying the people of the west, all the country to the W. of China was understood, even including Tibet; hence the language and characters of Tibet were called Tangootan by the Mongols and Western Mohammedan writers. Seefaun signifies the Western people' in Chinese, and not Eastern Tibet, as Klaproth affirms, in the same way as the Kokonoor is called See-Hay, the Western sea,' and the region to the W. of the Whang-Ho, Ho-See-oo, or the country to the W. of the Ho or river. In a similar way Tangoot was called by the Chinese, See-Heea, or Heea of the W., because the princes of that dynasty had the charge of the western frontier, at the extremity of the Great wall. The appellation, See-Faun, was subsequently merged in that of See-Heea, when that dynasty rose on the ruins of the former; and in that of Tangoot, when the Mongolian dynasty commenced under Jenghis Khan, which overthrew that of the See-Heea in 1227. All these terms, therefore, are merely relative, not taken from the people who inhabited this extensive region, or the princes who ruled it, but from its relative situation to China; and it must be observed, that it is only from the Chinese that we have any account of this region; the western writers who knew it under the Mongolian appellation of Tangoot, were acquainted only with the N.W. part of this region, but of the southern part, strictly so called, and in modern geography denominated the country of the SeeFaun, they knew nothing, nor of the history of the princes who ruled it antecedently to the rise of the Heea dynasty. At the epoch of Jenghis Khan, Heea or Tangoot comprehended all the country of the Seefaun to the E. of the Yalong, the country of Kokonoor, the district of Shachew, all the N. and N.W. part of Shensee, and the countries of the Ortoos Mongols, and Etsine, as far N. W. as the frontiers of Hamee. This was the Tangoot of the western historians, and of Marco Polo. The names of See-Heea and Tangoot have long since become obsolete; but the appellation of Seefaun, in its present restricted sense, still remains.

Therefore, under the name of Tangoot, or the country to the W. of China, as distinct from Tibet, we comprehend the three following countries, the Seefaun or Too-faun, the country of the Eluths of Kokonor, and the district of Sha-chew.

I. SEEFAUN OR TOOFAUN.

THIS region was once the seat of a powerful dynasty formidable to its neighbours, and even to the emperors of China. On the east, it not only included several districts, now belonging to Shensee and Sechwen, but its chiefs extended their conquests so far within them, as to subdue several cities of the second rank whereof they formed governments. Westwards it included all the country to the W. of the Yalong-Keeang to the frontiers of Cashmire, as we are told by the Chinese historians and geographers of the middle ages. It consequently included all Tibet according to them. When or where this dynasty commenced, and the name or site of their capital, the Chinese authors have not informed us, but merely state that in the 7th century, Ki-tsong, king of the Seefaun, possessed all this vast dominion, had several kings who paid him tribute, and from him received their investiture with patents, and seals of gold, and also that he compelled the emperor Taytsong, the most powerful prince of the Tang dynasty, to give his daughter in marriage to his son in 640. His successors were so powerful as even to defeat the Imperial armies, and capture Singan-Foo in Shensee, the capital of the empire, in 772. But the history of this state is involved in darkness, and its geography obscure; and Remusat, who has taken great pains to illustrate the Chinese geography of their empire, especially during the dynasty of Tang, has thrown no light whatever on the subject of the See-Faun, but merely tells us that the Thang-hiang, or Tangootians, founded an empire in the 10th century, and passes over in total silence the dynasty of the Seefaun princes. We can only say, therefore, that the empire of the Seefaun went to pieces in the middle of the 9th century, from dissensions amongst the members of the reigning family, several of whom submitted to China, others fortified themselves in the mountains, and others remained independent under a petty prince of the blood in the vicinity of Sining, in Shensee. But in the 10th century, all the tribes and petty princes of the Seefaun became subject to the Heea dynasty, and the family of Tonshen, descendants of Panlochi, chief of Luka-Marsining, enjoyed their small principality in peace under the protection of the Heea princes, till they were involved in the common ruin of that dynasty by the conquering arm of the Mongolian hero, Jenghis Khan, since which event the Seefaun have remained in their original country without either name or power.

In the Jesuits' map of Tibet, sheet first, the territories of the Seefaun are distinctly delineated as bounded on the east by the province of Sechwen, on the north by the chain of the Nomkoun Oubashee, which divides it from the upper basin of the Whangho, and on the west by the Sachoo Tsitsirhana river, which forms its boundary on the side of Tibet. According to this map, therefore, the country of the Seefaun lies between 29o 54 N. lat. and 33° 30′ N. lat., and between 12° 30', and 19° W. of Peking, at the source of the Sachoo. Its shape is triangular, the base formed by the Nomkoun Oubashee on the N., being about 360 British miles long, and the other two sides, which meet in a point in 29° 54′ N., 300 British miles each, but the western side is somewhat longer than the eastern. The region now delineated, was once well-peopled, had many cities, towns,