, where he remained two years.
In the month of October, 1822, he left that town for Cashmere, and on the
25th of August, 1825, died at Andkou, on the way from Herat to Balk. The
death of Moorcroft, at the date and place stated by Charles Ritter, was
announced by his fellow-traveller, M. Tribeck, in a letter dated Balk,
6th September, 1825, and addressed to Captain Wade, the resident at
Loudiana. {203b}

We confess that we cannot possibly reconcile such opposite statements.
If Moorcroft was really not at Lha-Ssa, how is it that he was so well
known there, and that the people there speak of his residence among them
in terms so precise? What interest could the Thibetians have in forging
such a tale? On the other hand, if Moorcroft was at Lha-Ssa, how can we
explain that letter of M. Tribeck, which announces that his
fellow-traveller died in 1825, exactly at the time, when, according to
the other hypothesis, he was on his way to the capital of Thibet?

Without pretending to reconcile these contradictions, we will cite a fact
which concerns ourselves, and which will, perhaps, seem to bear some
relation to the affair of Moorcroft. Some time after our arrival at
Macao, we read the following article in the "Bengal Catholic Herald,"
{203c} a journal printed at Calcutta. "Canton the 12th September. The
French missionaries of our city have lately received the news of the
deplorable death of two fathers of their mission in Mongol-Tartary."
After a cursory sketch of the Mongol-Chinese territory, the writer of the
article proceeds thus:--"A French Lazarist called Huc, arrived, about
three years ago, amongst some Chinese families, who were established in
the valley of Black Waters, about two hundred leagues journey from the
Great Wall. Another Lazarist, whose name is unknown to me, {203d} joined
him in the plan of forming a mission among the Mongol Buddhists. They
studied the Mongol language with the Lamas of the neighbouring
Lamaseries. It seems that they were taken for foreign Lamas, and were
treated in a friendly manner, particularly by the Buddhists, who are very
ignorant, and who mistook the Latin of their breviaries for Sanscrit,
which they do not understand, but for which they have a secret
veneration, because the rites of their religious books, in Mongol,
translated from the Sanscrit, are printed in red ink.

"When the missionaries thought themselves sufficiently learned in the
language, they advanced into the inter