PREFACE
the subject can only be gained by research into many books, Government records, and old Tibetan manuscripts. I have also given very full accounts of my missions and explorations in this beautiful and interesting country, in the hope of removing the stigma under which it has for so long lain—a country about which so little is known, and of which as recently as 1894 Risley wrote in his introduction to the “Sikhim Gazetteer”: “No one wishes to explore that tangle of jungle-clad and fever-stricken hills, infested with leeches and the pipsa fly, and offering no compensating advantage to the most enterprising pioneer. Adventure looks beyond Bhutan. Science passes it by as a region not sufiiciently characteristic to merit special exploration.”
September, 1909
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