irst gave to science such precious results, he who was the first sower
of such an abundant harvest, remained, almost until the day of his
death, a poor and obscure worker. On his way from Tibet he walked to
Calcutta without a penny in his pocket. At last Csoma de Koros became
known, and his name began to be pronounced with honor and praise whilst
he was dying in one of the poorest parts of Calcutta. Being already very
ill, he wanted to get back to Tibet, and started on foot again through
Sikkhim. He succumbed to his illness on the road and was buried in
Darhjeeling.

It is needless to say we are fully aware that what we have undertaken is
simply impossible within the limits of ordinary newspaper articles.
All we hope to accomplish is to lay the foundation stone of an edifice,
whose further progress must be entrusted to future generations. In order
to combat successfully the theories worked out by two generations of
Orientalists, half a century of diligent labor would be required. And,
in order to replace these theories with new ones, we must get new facts,
facts founded not on the chronology and false evidence of scheming
Brahmans, whose interest is to feed the ignorance of European
Sanskritists (as, unfortunately, was the experience of Lieutenant
Wilford and Louis Jacolliot), but on indubitable proofs that are to
be found in inscriptions as yet undeciphered. The clue to these
inscriptions Europeans do not possess, because, as I have already
stated, it is guarded in MSS. which are as old as the inscriptions and
which are almost out of reach. Even in case our hopes are realized and
we obtain this clue, a new difficulty will arise before us. We shall
have to begin a systematic refutation, page by page, of many a volume
of hypotheses published by the Royal Asiatic Society. A work like
this might be accomplished by dozens of tireless, never-resting
Sanskritists--a class which, even in India, is almost as rare as white
elephants.

Thanks to private contributions and the zeal of some educated Hindu
patriots, two free classes of Sanskrit and Pali had already been
opened--one in Bombay by the Theosophical Society, the other in Benares
under the presidency of the learned Rama-Misra-Shastri. In the present
year, 1882, the Theosophical Society has, altogether, fourteen schools
in Ceylon and India.

Our heads full of thoughts and plans of this kind, we, that is to say,
one American, three Europeans, and three natives, occupied a