Industry.—The Thibetans have made considerable progress in the industrial arts. They are ingenious jewelers, and manufacture extensively fabrics of wool and goat's hair, Buddhist idols, etc. In spite of the inaccessible nature of the country, and the absence of good roads and bridges, the rivers crossed by inflated skins, a great trade is carried on with the neighboring lowlands. That with China is conducted chiefly at Sinning, but partly at H'lassa, by caravans, the goods being conveyed on the backs of oxen, mules, and horses. The raw produce of Thibet is exchanged for tea, or Chinese manufactures, and European cutlery. A great trade is also carried on with Nepaul and Bliotan, from which, in exchange for the produce of Thibet, broadcloths and Indian manufactures are imported. From Turkestan the trade is no less important.
Language and Religion.—The language of the Thibetans, spoken also in Nepaul, and by the inhabitants of Bliotan, belongs to the monosyllabic or Chinese class. See PHI LOLOGY. Thibetan is singularly free from dialects, from which it is concluded it spread rapidly in recent tines. It has a copious literature, chiefly religious. The religion of the Thibetans is a kind of Buddhism. See LAMAIS3L At the extreme w. in Buitistan, however, Mohammedanism prevails, which, having spread from Cashmere and Persia, and not from Turkestan, is Shiite. Some practices common, it is believed, to the earlier races of men, are said to survive among the Thibetans. The most remarkable is polyan dry (q.v.), brothers being allowed to have one wife in common„ Government.—Almost the whole of Thibet proper is now tributary to China The government is to some extent, however, in the hands of a Buddhist hierarchy, the name of the chief priest being the Dalai-lama, and the second the Bogdo-lama. These spiri tual and temporal princes rule in different parts of the country. There are Chinese soldiers in all the chief towns, and a few years ago their number was said to be upward of 60,000. The Chinese generals have the entire control of the army, and the direction of the most important temporal affairs. Commerce is in the hands of the government, and is closely watched, there being Chinese garrisons at the entrance to all the chief passes.
There are several important towns in Thibet, of which H'lassa (q.v.) is the chief.
Ifistary.—The early history of Thibet is legendary. The first king, who flourished 113 B.c., was exposed in a copper box, and afterward found swimming in the Ganges. As early as the beginning of the 5th c. after Christ, a Buddhist missionary from Cashmere is said to have penetrated into Thibet, and to have obtained a footing for the doctrines of Buddha, In 821, Thibet was compelled to pay tribute to China. Early in the 10th c., king Dharma adopted Mohammedanism; but he was killed in 925, and Buddhism was reestablished. In the beginning of the 11th c., Thibet was split into several states, and its power declined. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Chinese began to conquor the
eastern parts of Thibet, which, however, did not become tributary to Pekin till 1720, when they were placed under their present government. Western Thibet has been more exposed to the inroads of the Turkish tribes than of the Chinese. The former were, however, expelled from it by Aurungzebe iu the 17th c., and then it was that Mohammedanism was introduced. In the early part of this century, western Thibet was annexed to the Sikh empire of Runjeet Singh. It now forms part of the territory of the Maharajah of Cashmere.
Until a comparatively recent period, Thibet was only known from the accounts given by Marco Polo and the Jesuit missionaries, travelers respectively of the 13th and 17th centuries. It was, however, visited in 1774 by George Bogle, and in 1783 by Samuel Turner, both sent by Warren Hastings on missions to the Dalai-lama. In this century it has been partially explored by Manning (1812), capt. Strachey (1846), the French Jesuits Hue and Gabet, the brothers Schlagintweit (1855-56). On May 15, 1866, it was stated to the geographical society of Loudon that a regular survey of lower Thibet and Ladak had been completed by the Indian government. While the work was proceed ing, ma j. Montgomerie, the officer in charge, conceived a plan-of carrying out the sur vey in the neighboring districts of Thibet, closed by the jealousy of the Chinese officials against Europeans. He had Hindus of education, or pundits, instructed specially to take scientific observations, and sent them, dis,guised as merchants, to explore Thibet beyond the Chinese frontier. The pundits traveled over and carefully surveyed that part of the country lying n. of the Himalaya, and between the frontier of Cashmere.
and H'lassa. They visited the-great gold-fields of Thibet, which were found to extend 1000 re s.e. of Ilchi, the mart from which the produce of the diggings is exported; and they furnished accurate and copious information about districts which, as yet, no Euro pean has been allowed to enter. One of these pundits, a semi-Thibetan, who was dis patched in 1871 succeeded in exploring 320 m. of unknown territory, discovering and marching round the great lake Tengri-nor in the n., which is 50 m. long. The journey of the pundit Nana Singh, in 1874 and 1875, is one of the most important in geogra phical results that have been made in the present century. Passing from Leh to Massa, he traversed for the first time the vast lacustrine plateau of Thibet, and thence made his Ifay into Assam. While these explorations have been made in the west of Thibet, attempts, have been made to penetrate the south-eastern corner of the table-land.—See col. Mont gomerie's Reports of Explorations; Tibet in the Last Century, by ents Markham (1876); and articles in the Geographical Magazine for 1875, 1876, and 1877_