[As soon as the brief telegraphic announcement of M. Tsybikov's
remarkable journey reached England we took steps to secure the
earliest account in an English magazine of this expedition. At the
present moment its value is enhanced by the fact that a British
mission is being dispatched into the mysterious land of Tibet.
The account of "The Forbidden City of Lhassa" which follows is
the first that has been written by a visitor to Lhassa since
the French missionary Huc spent a few months there in 1845. It
has been translated and edited for THE STRAND MAGAZINE by David
B. Macgowan, by permission of the Russian Imperial Geographical
Society.]
M. G. T. Tsybikov is by birth a Russian Bouriat from the Trans-Baikal
territory. He learned his own, the Mongolian, and the Tibetan languages
in infancy and boyhood, and completed his education in the St.
Petersburg schools for Oriental languages. He was sent to Tibet by the
Russian Imperial Geographical Society, and his success in reaching the
Tibetan capital and in remaining there or in its vicinity for more than
a year was due in large measure to the careful planning of his journey
by the experienced officers of this society. He carried a high-class
camera of special construction and returned with a number of excellent
photographs, some of which are reproduced with this article.
The explorer left Lhassa on September 10th, 1901, but was detained on
his return journey and did not reach the hospitable Russian consulate
at Urga until the middle of last year.