TIBETAN MARCHES

Andre Migot, Rupert Hart-Davis 1955, translated from the French by Peter Fleming. 288 pages .

Dr.Andre Migot travelled alone the whole way up the mountainous border-land where Western China marches with Eastern Tibet. He had been charged, by the Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient in Hanoi, with the task of carrying out research into various archaeological and other aspects of the Buddhist religion, and during his journey was initiated with the prescribed rites into one of its sects.

 At one stage he was stripped by bandits of everything he possessed; at another, disguised as a mendicant lama, he attempted a clandestine digression towards Lhasa and got a long way towards his objective before being arrested – apologetically, for they respected his piety – by the Tibetans.

The northward limit of his journey was the great lake of Kokonor, and thence he travelled east, through inner Mongolia, to Peking; in the environs of this city he and a female companion were arrested by the Communists, in whose custody they spent several arduous but instructive weeks among the Manchurian Hills.

Like Heinrich Harrer, he became very fond of the Tibetans (whose language he speaks and writes) and a streak of mysticism in his character enabled him to enter into the spiritual side of their life more fully, perhaps, then any Westerner has done before. The result is an unusually intimate and detailed picture of a society outwardly primitive and outlandish but based on values and traditions from which the West has much to learn.

This is an ex St. John library copy as there is a ticket holder taped into the rear inside cover and a St. John label inside the front cover with a cancelled stamp across it. There is no dust jacket, the spine cover has become detached down the join on one side for around 3cm. The spine itself is faded and frayed down one edge and the boards have some light stains and sunning.

The pages are still tight with a little light foxing and staining here and there but this is very minimal. The book is illustrated in black and white and is a good reader copy, illustrating a way of life that is now in danger of being absorbed into the Chinese culture.