A WOMAN IN THIBET.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10667, 11 June 1902, Page 1

A WOMAN IN THIBET.

'Those interested in mission travel will have welcomed the recent publication of a remarkable diary, the original record of Mis* Annie' R. Taylor's journey, in 1892-93, through tho. forbidden land of Thibet. This oddity amongst, mission enterprises has "already become, well known through more or less sec-ond-hand' accounts. Mjjjs Taylor, famous as one. of the very "few travellers who have penetrated Thibet, and come back unscathed to- tell jthe tale, had no. generally adventurous- v or ethnological* intention. In a country where any comfort or approach to safety in travel depends, as the Littledales declared, upon plenty of food and animals to carryafct'-thi* solitary woman started off with , the _ slenderest, provision of stores to. meet all the doubtful chanceß ■of her journey, and ."without aneroid,thermometer, or theodolite,, she foiled -over unmapped mountains and logged, through unvisited valleys, ■'provokfngly oblivious of the claims, of science, and constrained only 'when* something went wrong with the cooking to notice the ! boiling- point."' Her aim was, in this unique fashion,' as she says, "to inarch tHrough the closed 'land and claim it for the Gospel/- Her v direct missionary, efforts, however, were confined' to a littleimedical practice and a word^'pT two to. women- by the way, though even* hef'namd proved a' religious passport, and a difficultr with robbers ,was 'brought 'to an' eu&bnt&eir 'discovering that the traveller was an "Anni," i.e., Thibetan nun; We have the word of the official who finally turned her back, that the gallant dash' across country had brought her' within three days 'of lihasa; .and from there she ' retreated in good order, demanding from her captors the horses, food, and warm , clothing required for'tSe return journey, and even carrying^off safely her faithful Ponteo, a Thrbeten servant, convicted""of'ti»- crime of guiding an Englishwoman, toward .the sacred city. Thibetan; chivalry seemkAto have been the great safeguard. In one village a peasant, blamed -, for giving shelter to the foreigner, pleaded successfully, "she was a stranger, a, woman; I could not, do' other than take her v in." Of three' Chinese servants, one turned back, another died early on the journey, the' third was, all through, Miss Taylor's, most dangerous enemy. But, even after the arrest/ some unfriendly looks and, words seem the Worst she had to suffer ffrom either the civil, or the' military . chiefs. a foreigner or not, you- are a woman," said the official most udetennined'.jippn; her expulsion from the country; and with an escort, given as much for, her' protection as for' guard, this adve'nturbus young woman returned <from store* months and ten 'days in the forbidden interior of Thibet. ' . .