moment to advise, to ask, to beg me to change my mind and give up my Tibetan trip, and I could see that they were all in earnest. For instance, on the very eve of my departure, while spending my last night at Mr. Maki’s in Osaka, a certain judge of the Local Court of Wakayama came on purpose to tell me that I was bound to end my venture in making myself a laughing-stock of the world by meeting death out of fool-hardiness, and that I would do far better by staying at home and engaging in my ecclesiastical work, a work which, he said, I had full well qualified myself to undertake; to do the latter was especially advisable for me, because the Buḍḍhist circle of Japan was in great need of earnest and capable men, and so on. Seeing that I was not to be moved in my determination, the judge said: “Suppose you lose your life in the attempt? you will not be able to accomplish anything.” “But it is just as uncertain whether I die, or I survive my venture. If I die, well and good; it will be like the soldier’s death in a battle-field, and I should be gratified to think that I fell in the cause of my religion,” I answered. Then the judge gave me up for incorrigible and went away, after wishing me farewell in a substantial manner. That was on the night of June 24th, 1897. Early on the following morning I left Osaka, and on the next day I embarked on the Idzumi-maru at Kobe, seen off by my friends and well-wishers already mentioned. Among them was Mr. Noda Giichiro, who told me that he was very glad as well as very sorry for this departure of mine, and that his words could not give adequate expression to the feelings uppermost in his heart. I thought these touching words expressed the feelings shared by my other friends also.
AUTHOR’S DEPARTURE FROM JAPAN.
Hats and handkerchiefs grew smaller and fainter until they went out of sight, as the good ship Idzumi steamed westward. Past Wada promontory, my old acquaintances, the peaks of Kongo, Shigi and Ikoma, in turn, disappeared in the rounding sea. In due time Moji was reached and then, out of the Strait of Genkai, our ship headed direct for Hongkong. At Hongkong, Mr. Thompson, an Englishman, boarded our ship, and his advent proved to be a welcome change in the monotony of the voyage. He said he had lived eighteen years in Japan, and he spoke Japanese exceedingly well. I found in him an earnest and enthusiastic Christian; and, as may be imagined, he and I came to spend much of our time in religious controversies, which, as they were carried on, it may be needless to add, in a most friendly way, became a source of much pleasure and information, not only to ourselves, but also to all on board. Another interesting experience which I went through during the voyage was when I preached—and I preached quite a number of times—before the officers and men of the ship, who proved the most willing and interested audience I had ever come across.
On the 12th of July, the Idzumi entered the port of Singapore, and I put up at the Fusokwan Hotel there. On the 15th, I called at the Japanese Consulate in the port, and saw Mr. Fujita Toshiro, our then Consul there. Mr. Fujita had heard of me from the Idzumi’s captain, and he said to me: “I hear you are going to Tibet. I do not know how you have got your venture mapped out, but I know it is a very difficult thing to reach and enter that country. Even Col. Fukushima (now Lieutenant-General, of trans-Siberian fame) made a halt at Darjeeling, and had to retrace his steps thence, acknowledging practically the impossibility of a Tibetan exploration, and I cannot see how you can fare better. But if you must, I think there are only two ways of accomplishing your purpose: namely, to force your way by the sheer force of arms at the head of an expedition, for one; and to go as a beggar, for the other. May I ask you about your programme?” I answered Mr. Fujita to the effect that being a Buḍḍhist priest, as I was, the first of the methods he had mentioned was out of the question for me, and that my idea at the time was to follow the second course; although I was far from having anything like a definite programme of my journey. I told him, further, that I intended to wander on as the course of events might lead me. I left the Consul in a very meditative mood.
I stayed a week in Fusokwan, and it was on the last day but one before leaving it that I narrowly escaped a serious, even mortal, accident. As a priest, I made it, as I make it now, my practice to do preaching whenever and wherever an opportunity presented itself, and my rigid adherence to this practice greatly pleased the proprietor of that Singapore establishment. In consequence of this, I was treated with special regard while there, and every day, when the bath was ready, I was the first to be asked to have the warm water ablution, which is always so welcome to a Japanese. On the 18th, the usual invitation was extended to me, but I was just at that moment engaged in reading the Text, and could not comply with it at once. The invitation was repeated a second time, but, somehow or other, I was not ready to take my bath, and remained in my room. Meanwhile, I heard a great noise, with a thud that shook the whole building. A few moments later, I ascertained that the sound and quaking were caused by the collapse and fall of the bath-room from the second floor, where it had been situated, to the ground below, with its bath, basin, and all the other contents, among which the most important and unfortunate was a Japanese lady, who, as I had been neglectful in accepting the invitation, was asked to have her bath first. The lady was, as I afterward learned, very dangerously hurt, buried, as she was, under débris of falling stones, bricks and timber, and she was taken to a local hospital, where she lay with very little hope of recovery. I often shudder to think of what would have become of me and of my Tibetan adventure, had I been more prompt, as I had always been till then, in responding to all invitations of the kind. I felt exceedingly sorry for the lady, who met the awful accident practically in my stead; withal I look back to the incident as one that augured well for my Tibetan undertaking, which, indeed, ended in success.
The day after the accident, on the 19th of July, I took passage on an English steamer, the Lightning, which, after calling at Penang, brought me to Calcutta on the 25th of the month. Placing myself under the care of the Mahāboḍhi Society of Calcutta, I spent several days in that city, in the course of which I learned from Mr. Chanḍra Bose, a Secretary of the Society, that I could not do better for my purpose than to go to Darjeeling, and make myself a pupil of Rai Bahāḍur Saraṭ Chanḍra Ḍās, who, as I was told, had some time before spent several months in Tibet, and was then compiling a Tibetan-English dictionary at his country house in Darjeeling. Mr. Chanḍra Bose was good enough to write a letter of introduction to the scholar at Darjeeling in my favor, and, with it and also with kind parting wishes of my countrymen in the city and others, I left Calcutta on August 2nd, by rail. Heading north, the train in almost no time brought its passengers to the river Gaṅgā. We crossed the mighty stream in a steamer, and then boarded another train on the other side. Heading north still, the train now passed through cocoanut groves and green paddy-fields, over which, as night came on, giant fire-flies, the like of which in size are not to be found in Japan, flew about in immense swarms. The sight was especially interesting after the moon had disappeared. The following morning, that is, on the 3rd of August, the train pulled up at Siligree Station, and there its passengers, including myself, were transferred to a train of small mountaineering cars, which, faring ever northward, forthwith began its tortuous ascent of the Himālayas, or rather, of the outer skirt of the mighty range. With its bends and turns and climbings, as the train labored onward and upward through the famous “ḍalai-jungle,” it looked like some amphibian monster on its war path, as I fancied, while the grind of the car wheels, with its sound echoed and re-echoed, seemed to spread quaking terror over peaks and dales. By 3 P. M., the train had made a climb of fifty miles and then landed us at Darjeeling, which place is 380 miles distant from Calcutta. At the station I hired a ḍanlee, which is a sort of mountaineering palanquin, and, borne in it, I soon afterward arrived at Rai Saraṭ’s retreat, Lhasa Villa, which I found to be a magnificent mansion.
RAI BAHADUR SARAT CHANDRA DAS, C.I.E.
CHAPTER II.
A year in Darjeeling.
It
