EVARISTE Mars, a distinguished missionary and traveler, was b. at Toulouse, Aug. 1, 1813. He was educated in his native city, and about his 24th year he entered the missionary congregation of the Lazarist fathers, and received holy orders at Paris in the year 1839. Almost immediately after his ordination, he joined the missionary expedition of his order to China. After he had spent about three years of mission ary life in the northern districts of China, the new apostolic vicariate of Mongolia was founded, and Hoc, in company with a priest of the same congregation, pegs Gabet, and a single native Chinese convert, undertook to explore the new district, and to ascertain, for the guidance of the mission, its extent and its missionary capabilities. After a few months' study of the Tartar dialects, they set out from the missionary station, n. of the great wall, called Si-wang, towards the close of 1844; and after a journey of excessive hardship over the high tablelands of Tartary, they took up their quarters for some months in one of the lamaseries, or Tartar monasteries. Having here become familiar ized in some degree with the Thibetan language, they succeeded in making their way, in Jan., 1846, to Massa, the capital of Thibet and the residence of the grand lama: but scarcely had they settled in that city, when an order for their immediate expulsion from the country was obtained from the lama by the Chinese resident in Massa. They were not permitted to choose their own route homewards, but, having been put in charge of a Chinese escort, were carried back a journey of nearly 2.000 miles to the extreme s.,
and arrived in Oct., 1846, at Macao, where they were subjected to a tedious trial by the Chinese tribunals. In the end, they were permitted to return to the missionary station of Si-wang, from which they had originally taken their departure. Hue's health having been completely broken down, he sailed from Macao in the beginning of Jan., 1849, and in the autumn of the same year reached his native city of Toulouse. In the fol lowing year he returned to Paris, where he published Saurenirs d'un Voyage dans in Tar tarie, le Thibet, et la Chine pendant les Annees. 1844-46 (2 vols., Paris, 1852). This was followed in 1854 by a similar record of his Chinese experience (L'Empire Chinois, 2 vols., 3d edit. 1857), and in 1857 by an elaborate historical work on Christianity in China (Le Christianisme en Chine). All these works have been translated into English and most other European languages. The strangeness of some of the incidents recorded in the book on Thibet provoked some degree of incredulity in certain quarters; hut capt. Blakiston, a later traveler in the same regions, which have hitherto been almost a terra incognita for Europeans, bears unhesitating testimony to the fidelity of pore Hues narrative and description.
• During his latter years pore Hue, in order to devote himself more freely to his lit erary occupations, withdrew from the Lazarist congregation. His health, however, never fully recovered from the fatigues of his Thibetan expedition, and he died in Paris, March 31, 1860, at the early age of 46.