HUC, EVARISTE REGIS (1813-186o), French mission ary-traveller, was born at Toulouse, on Aug. 1, 181 3. He entered the congregation of the Lazarists at Paris, and shortly after receiving holy orders in 1839 went out to China. At Macao he spent some 18 months in the Lazarist seminary, preparing himself for the regular work of a missionary. He at first superintended a Christian mission in the southern provinces, and then perfected his knowledge of the language at Peking, eventually settling in the Valley of Black Waters or He Shuy, just within the borders of Mongolia. There, beyond the Great Wall, a large, scat tered population of native Christians had found refuge from the persecutions of Kia-King, to be united half a century later in an apostolic vicariate. Huc studied the dialects and customs of the Tatars, translated various religious works, and in 1844, at the instigation of the vicar apostolic of Mongolia, undertook an expedition to Tibet.
Accompanied by his fellow-Lazarist, Joseph Gabet, and a young Tibetan priest who had embraced Christianity, he set out from Dolon Nor. To escape attention the little party assumed the dress of lamas or priests. Crossing the Hwang-ho, they advanced into the sandy tract known as the Ordos desert. After terrible sufferings they entered Kansu, having recrossed the flooded Hwang-ho, and in Jan. 1845 reached Tang-Kiul on the boundary. There they waited for eight months, and studied the Tibetan language and Buddhist literature, residing for part of the time in the Kunbum Lamasery, which was reported to accommodate 4,000 persons. Towards the end of September they joined a returning Tibetan embassy from Peking, which comprised 2,000 men and 3,700 animals. Crossing the deserts of Koko Nor, they passed the lake of that name, with its island of contemplative lamas, and, following a difficult and tortuous track across snow covered mountains, they at last entered Lhasa on Jan. 29, 1846. Favourably received by the regent, they opened a little chapel, but the Chinese ambassador interfered and had the two mission aries conveyed back to Canton, where they arrived in October of the same year. For nearly three years Huc remained at Canton, but Gabet, returning to Europe, proceeded thence to Rio de Janeiro, and died there shortly afterwards. Huc returned to Europe in shattered health in 1852. He died in Paris on March 31, 186o.
His writings comprise, besides numerous letters and memoirs in the Annales de la propagation de la foi, the famous Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine pendant les annees 1844-1846 (2 vols., 1850; Eng. trans. by W. Hazlitt, 1851, abbreviated by M. Jones, 1867) ; its supplement, crowned by the Academy, entitled L'Empire chinois (2 u0ls., 1854; Eng. trans., 1859) ; and an elaborate historical work, Le Christianisme en Chine, etc. (4 vols., 18J7-58; Eng. trans., See, for information specially relating to the whole subject, the Abbe Desgodin, Mission du Thibet de 1855 h 187o (Verdun, 1872) and "Account of the Pundit's Journey in Great Tibet," in the Royal Geographical Society's Journal for 1877. See also Prince Henry of Orleans, Le pere Huc et ses critiques (1893).