Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1898 — Thibet and Its Inhabitants. [ARTICLE]

Thibet and Its Inhabitants.

The immense territory of Thibet is ilmost completely surrounded by mouiitsn ranges of appalling magniture, which, especially along the southern, western and northern frontiers, constitute formidable barriers against ingress. From the Pamir Plateau, in the extreme west—“the world’s backbone” —radiate the great natural ramparts which shut out India on the one hand and the Tartar countries of Bokhara and Turkestan on the other. No Asiatic or Western conqueror has ever dared to penetrate this mountain world; and even Genghis Khan, the scourge of Asia, whose ravages extended from Pekin in the East to Moscow in the West, was obliged, when invading Northern India, to take the circuitous route, via Kashghar and Afghanistan, Instead of crossing Thibet. Secure on their lofty plateau, and practically isolated from the rest of the world, the people of Thibet have remained undisturbed for ages, and have developed characteristics for which we might vainly search in any other race on the globe. The Chinese “conquest” has not produced the slightest change in their mode of life, or exercised any appreciable influence upon their peculiar culture.