An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

TIBET. 279before the conference was concluded, I endeavoured to engaffe theRegent's attention, with ahope of acquiring some information upona subject, which I was extremely anxious toinvestigate.My inquiries respected an ancient nation, supposed to have onceinhabited the borders of tlieBaikal sea, in the interior of Tartary, andfrom which some persons conjecture, the learning, arts, and sciences ofIndia, and even of Europe, to have been originally derived.If such anation ever existed, the remembrance of itseems now to be buried indeepest oblivion.Siberia and Baikal were nan.es equally unknown to them; however,by setting before them Kiatchta, the point of division, and great sceneof traffic between the Chinese and Russian empires, situated at tliesoutheastern extremity of the latter, Iwas able to identify the region,to which I wished to draw tiieir attention.Soopoon Choomboo had travelled from Kliarka, the residence ofTaranaut Lama, in Kilmauk, to China ;he had traversed the bordersof tire Baikal sea, and lived long, amongst the northern Tartars. TheBaikal lake, he inlormed me, was particularly celebrated for the productionof pearls, remarkable for their size, but imperfect in colour andsliape, and therefore held in no great estimation. lis neighbourhood,be said, was thinly inhabited, nor to his knowledge, was any monumentexisting, that boi^e marks of remote antiquity. The Taitars ofthat vicinity were found, as was remarkably the case in advancinortowards the north, more ignorant, and less civilized, than tiieir southernneighbours. The people beyond the desert, he added, are a wanderingrace, that inhabit tents, and inheritsuch powerful prepossessions