The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel, 7th Ed

THE SECRET LIVES OF ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEL ft

B iography AMD I t s

of th e E x p lo re r of T ib e t Forbiddeh P ra c tic e s

B arbara Foster

and

M

ic h a e l

Foster

“A fascinating account of the life and exploits of the brilliant 20th century Frenchwoman who became the first European female to enter the. holy city of Lhasa.” —Harper’s Bazaar

The Secret Lives of

Alexandra David-Neel

f\ B io g ra p h y

o f th e

E x p lo r e r o f T ib e t

AMD It s F o rb id d e h P r a c tic e s

BARBARA FOSTER AND MICHAEL FOSTER

THE

OVERLOOK

W OODSTOCK

&

NEW

PRESS YORK

First published in the United States in 1998 by T he Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. Lewis Hollow Road Woodstock, New York 12498 Copyright © 1998 Barbara Foster and Michael Foster All Rights Reserved. No part o f this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publications Data Foster, Barbara M. The Secret Lives o f Alexandra David-Neel / Barbara Sc Michael Foster— Rev. ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. David-Neel, Alexandra, 1868— 1969. I. Foster, Michael. II. Title. BQ950.A937F67 1998 294.3*092— dc21 [B] 96-50127 B o o k d e s ig n a n d f o r m a t t i n g by B e r n a r d S c h l e if e r

Original Maps by Letha Hadady Manufactured in the United States o f America ISBN 087951-774-3 First Edition 135798642

d V l t 'C V l f 'S

V oyag e s

and

C hronology

vii P re face

to the

R e v is e d E d i t i o n

ix I n t r o d u c t io n : O

ur

J ourney

to

A lexandra

xi i

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1. T he Eye of Empire 3 2. Prisoner of a Dream 9 3. T he Ego and Its Own 18 4. T he Saddest Story 34 5. India Absurd and Marvelous 46 6. City of Joy 57 7. The Genie and the Demon 65 8. T he Living Buddha 79 9. An Invisible Barrier 92 10. In the Realm of Shiva 102

CONTENTS V lW j

11. Cavern in the Sky 117 12. Asia Marvelous and Diverse 131 13. A Paradise 143 14. T he French Nun 157 15. An Officer and a Gentleman 172 16. A Long Walk 185 17. A Long Walk, Continued 196 18. “The Potala Is the Paradise of Buddha.' 210 ty r e e : 19. The Dream of Repose 225 20. Success at Paris 235 21. T he Short Path 246 22. Storm Clouds 259 23. The Wife of the Chinese 273 24. T he Sage of Digne 288 Coda: T h e L egacy

298 S o u r c e s an d A ck n o w le d g m e n ts

307 S e le c t e d B ib lio g r a p h y

311 Index

321

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(^Dswfo-c/Xbel 1891-1893

India

1911-1912

Ceylon, India

1912-1916

Sikkim, Nepal, southern Tibet (expelled)

1916-1918

India, Burma, French Indochina, Japan, Korea, China

1918-1921

Eastern Tibet (Kum Bum)

1921-1924

Journey to Lhasa through eastern Tibet, Mongolia, western China, and southern Tibet

1925

Return to France

1937-1945

Soviet Union, China, Sino-Tibetan border, India

1946

Final return to France

v o v i o l& Q y y

October 24, 1868 Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David is born in Paris. 1871

The Commune lives and dies.

1873

T he Davids move to Belgium.

1888-1890

Alexandra investigates the Society of the Supreme Gnosis, London. She discovers the Theosophical Society in Paris and Buddhism and other oriental philosophies.

1891

Departs for India.

1895

Sings with l’Opéra-Comique in Indochina

1898

Publishes Pour la vie, a libertarian essay

1904

Marries Philip Neel; her father dies

1911

Undertakes second Asian sojourn

1912

Meets Prince Sidkeong of Sikkim, glimpses Tibet and has two interviews with the Dalai Lama.

viii

CHRONOLOGY

1914-1916

Lives as a herm it in the Himalayas

1917

Tours Japan and Korea

1918-1920

Lives among the monks at Kum Bum monastery

October 1923

Sets out on a four-month journey afoot to Lhasa

February 1924

Reaches Lhasa, remains for two months

1925

Returns to France

1927

My Journey to Lhasa is published in New York, London, and Paris.

1928-1936

Alexandra buys and inhabits Samten Dzong in Digne, France. Completes Magic and Mystery; Buddhism; Initiations

1937-1945

She lives in China during the Sino-Japanese war.

1941

Philip Neel dies.

1946

Alexandra returns to France to settle estate.

1955

Yongden, her adopted son, dies.

1959

Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet comes to Samten Dzong.

1968

Alexandra’s 100th birthday is celebrated at Digne.

September 8, 1969

Alexandra, much honored, dies at Digne. Several projects are left incomplete.

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i

At the start o f the winter we were in N orth Beach. It was a nostalgia r u n that b ro u g h t back m em ories of hippie San Francisco rath e r than today’s techno-tow n at the head o f Silicon Valley. While we didn’t wear flowers in o u r hair, we did head for the City Lights Bookstore. I n front o f the shop there was a photo shoot of Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the grey-bearded flesh, w earing a dark sweater and a dented bowler hat. We had m utual acquaintances—Allen Ginsberg for one— b u t with photo g rap h ers shouting instructions and flashes popping, this was no time to bo th er the m an. B ut we did want to talk to him about B uddhism and his publication, in 1967, of The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects, by A lexandra David-Neel and her T ibetan son Lam a Yongden. Alan Watts called this the “I-told-you-so-book,” because it vali­ dated his crystal-clear approach to m editation and enlightenm ent. W hen the crowd had cleared and Ferlinghetti had gone back inside, we ap proached the show window. T h e re, w here it has stood for the last thirty years, was The Secret Oral Teachings with the same picture of bespectacled Lam a Yongden seated, prayer beads in h an d and what appears to be a wizard’s cap on his head. T h e form at was larger than o u r original copy, b u t we were pleased to discover not a word had been changed. W hen we finally spoke to Ferlinghetti he told us this late work by David-Neel was selling better than ever. A lexandra David-Neel, French by birth, English by education a n d Am erican in tem peram ent, lived— really lived—for nearly one h u n d re d and one years, a span that stretched from the m id­ n ineteenth to the m id-tw entieth centuries. In that time she led a

xii

PREFACE

youthful life as a student radical, had a career as an o p era singer adm ired by Massenet, becam e a feminist journalist who flirted with Mussolini, tried conventional m arriage at which she failed, jo u rn e y e d to India, Tibet, and, China w here she studied, traveled, a n d wrote despite famine, plague, and civil war, and w here she was effortlessly at hom e. T h e wom an shed h er past lives like a serpent does its old skin. In each life she buried the previous one, concealing its traces. In h e r very last incarnation, as the Eastern savant, she effaced h e r whole previous history. Why? Because she had done or said things she wished to deny, or at least hide. She was m aking for herself a stain­ less m yth o f the intrepid explorer, the philosopher above and beyond passion. A lexandra’s act has been good enough to fool h e r previous biog­ raphers. However, in their attem pts at the telling of h e r life, they tu rn h e r into a stick figure—either a sexless saint or a liar who never went to Tibet. T hey attribute h e r deliberate actions, in which they cannot find motive or reason, to a divine destiny. At their most banal, writ­ ers on this relentless seeker o f clarity of m ind gush about h e r h e ro ­ ism or h e r devotion to Buddhism . She had both, b u t they do not explain the woman. In Forbidden Journey (1987), o u r initial attem pt to chart A lexandra David-Neel’s mysterious course, we em ployed—for the first time am ong h e r biographers— third-party sources, original maps, and copious footnotes citing secret archives and personal letters. We proved that, at age 55, she h ad indeed trekked to Lhasa, Tibet against an incredible array of obstacles. This entirely revised edition follows a somewhat different path. Since we have been living with David-Neel’s life for nearly two decades, we trust m ore to o u r own observations and opinions. We try to answer the question why, as well as the questions where and when. We believe that a biography, especially o f such a large character, is a no-holds-barred effort, or it m ust fail. For the global edition, we have fleshed o ut the com m ents about David-Neel m ade by distinguished persons who knew her, such as Christm as H um phreys, Lawrence D urrell, and J o h n Blofeld—from the latter we received an ex trao rd in ary deathbed commentary. We have again consulted o u r m ainstay H u g h Richardson, Britain’s

PREFACE

xiii

last m an in Tibet. We have dug d e e p er into the Secret Files of the India Office to u n e a rth startling evidence that confirms the relent­ less, u n d e rg ro u n d character of o u r protagonist. Unfortunately, the disoriented state of the David-Neel Foundation in Digne, France prohibits o u r lushly rep ro d u cin g A lexandra’s own voice. B ut the rea d e r will find that h e r presence perm eates the tale of a karmic jo u rn e y at once both hugely successful and tragic. A lexandra David-Neel’s influence lives on in surprising ways. If we are ju st beginning to appreciate the role o f Beat writers such as K erouac and Ginsberg in transm itting B uddhism to America, m uch o f w hat they lea rn e d o f T ib e ta n B u d d h ism stems from her. A lexandra and the Beats shared a love o f the big, blue sky over an expanse of land undesecrated by man. T h e re is, as Carole Tonkinson expresses it, “an Am erican b ra n d of m ountain mysticism based on B uddhist sources,” b u t in term s of the m ountains as well as the mys­ ticism. T h e w estern peak in The Dharma Bums that Jack Kerouac, no m atter how spaced, can’t m anage to fall from , m ight as well be in the Himalayas. David-Neel’s work influenced Jam es H ilton’s Lost Horizon and led to the notion that h idden in T ibet was Shangri-La, an ageless Eden. H e r m ore esoteric writings have been studied by occultists th ro u g h ­ out the world. Not least, they helped to shape the ideas of L. Ron H u bbard, who took them in the very different direction that has becom e the C hurch of Scientology. Yet, WHAT IS T R U E FOR YOU IS T R U E was not only H u b b a rd ’s b ut also h e r credo. This Frenchw om an o f obscure antecedents, with not a great deal of form al education, p ro d u ced thirty fascinating books that have been translated into as m any languages. W omen still find in her a hero, and m en an exam ple. B ut we suspect that most of her fans wish only to escape for a time into a rousing adventure story set in that exotic East, especially Tibet, which is fast vanishing. At any rate, David-Neel’s works are h e r legacy to all, and it was through one in particular that we m ade the acquaintance of this rem arkable woman.

V l i 'V o b u C H D V li

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T h e setting was perfect: a spacious whitewashed room with slowly tu rn in g ceiling fan, decorated with tropical flowers and opening onto a lush garden that m itigated the heat of south India. Pondicherry, a form er French colony, retained its M editerranean air, a n d at dusk with the chirps of crickets a n d hum s of insects wafting th ro u g h the opened doors, we felt im m easurably far from the ro ar o f New York. Time: the late seventies; place: the library of the ashram founded by Sri A urobindo Ghose, the patriot and philosopher who on the Subcontinent rivals G andhi in the esteem accorded to his memory. A p ortrait o f A urobindo, the rational mystic, h u n g on the wall, flanked by a lum inescent photo o f the Frenchw om an known as the Mother, who had become the m aster’s consort and successor. Pardy it was this lack of sexual prejudice, found too often am ong the allegedly enlightened, that had draw n us to this idyllic spot. As well, we had h e a rd o f the small, private gatherings of seekers u n d e r the guidance of the learned librarian M eh tananda held to discuss subjects that were o f pressing interest to David-Neel herself: psychic phenom ena and occult forces. A round us this evening sat a dozen others, ranging from fair-haired Swedes to a British couple (burned re d as lobsters from lingering too long on the beach) to several Asians. Im agine our surprise w hen the tall, graying, dignified Indian anno u n ced that his topic was tantric sexual rites. In soft, well-bred English he spoke o f the higher p urpose of sexual initiation, how arduous practices were underg o n e to achieve an evolved con­ sciousness rath e r than erotic gratification, which after all could be come by in the usual ways.

INTRODUCTION

xv

T h e speaker told o f male initiates trained to reserve their seminal fluid, even to retract after e x p en d in g it. T hese adepts chose not to sacrifice the seed of life b u t to reabsorb it along with a com plem ent o f female energy. T h e ir consorts, whom they worshiped, gained powers to rival the dakinis (or kandomas, literally sky-dancers). These in T ibetan lore were considered as m other goddesses who taught mystic doctrines a n d magical sciences. Some adepts deep in practice sought intercourse directly with the goddess, bypassing h e r h um an surrogate. A lexandra, w hen she traveled in Tibet, was taken by the com m on folk to be a dakini, a n d she d id n ’t entirely disagree. A m em ber o f o u r group was a Tibetan, Burm ese in features ra th e r than Mongol. H e verified the speaker’s assertions, pointing to the exam ple of the Sixth Dalai Lam a, Tsanyang Gyatso, whose nam e m eans “Ocean of P ure Melody.” T h e rebel potentate, to the despair o f his advisors, becam e the scandal of eighteenth-century Tibet. Recognized as the incarnation of the revered G reat Fifth, this Dalai Lam a had an eye for loose wom en. Come nightfall, he m ade the ro u n d s o f taverns and brothels in his capital, Lhasa. H e wrote songs about his exploits until, at the instigation of the Chinese em peror, he was deposed and m u rd e red . Some scholars, despite describing him as “the only erotic poet of the country,” claim he was not a playboy b u t an initiate of secret knowledge, which is borne out by a couplet o f his verse: Never have I slept without a sweetheart/ N or have I spent a single d ro p of sperm . While were were playing the skeptical roles natural to an occi­ dental education, o u r leader abruptly switched to the apparently m orbid: rites practiced with the aid of the dead. We were invited to close o u r eyes and mentally tran sp o rt ourselves over the Himalayan range to a rockstrewn plateau sixteen thousand feet high in Tibet, the ro o f of the world. Rolang— ’’the corpse who ju m p s u p ”—was one o f the secret practices o f the pre-B uddhist shamans of Tibet. Even today a body is not dism em bered and fed to. the vultures until a B uddhist lama has extracted what we would call its “soul” in the. req u ired fashion. T h e lam a chants the service, which contains direc­ tions for the “soul” to find its way to the paradise of Maitreya, the

XVI

INTRODUCTION

Buddha-to-com e. Otherwise, the spirit will tu rn into a h u n g ry ghost that w anders about causing harm . In rolang, the sham an, after obtaining a corpse, lies on it m outh to m outh; holding it in his arm s he continually repeats a magic form ula. T h e corpse begins to move, then stands u p an d tries to break loose. T h e sham an clings to it though the corpse leaps and bounds to extraordinary heights, dragging with it the m an, who keeps his lips on the m o u th of the cadaver and continues to mentally rep eat the magic words. T h e n comes the vital m om ent w hen the tongue o f the corpse protrudes. T h e adept has to seize it in his teeth and bite it off, at which time the corpse collapses. I f any p a rt of the operation should backfire, the cadaver may escape to kill indiscriminately. T h e tongue, properly dried, will becom e a magic w eapon d rea d e d by all b u t the most enlightened Tibetans. By narrative’s end, the room in sweltering Pondicherry felt chilly to us. W ithout discussing o u r doubts, we asked how such closely held secrets had become known. In reply, M ehtananda p ro d u ce d a copy o f Magic and Mystery in Tibet, which he inform ed us was the most widely read book of A lexandra David-Neel. We rem ark ed that we h ad not h eard o f the author, an d shordy after the group, no doubt appalled by o u r ignorance, broke up. In the m idst of a squall, palms clashing as the rain fell in sheets, the borrow ed volume tucked in to stay dry, we h u rrie d to o u r hotel. We were struck most forcefully by the a u th o r’s source for h e r tale o f rolang: A ngagspd (wizard) whom she m et on the T ibetan steppe claimed he had perform ed the rite himself. H e even described his d rea d w hen the corpse’s tongue touched his lips and he w ould have to bite it off or succumb to the cadaver’s deadly force. T h e ngagspa showed A lexandra the dessicated tongue in a jar, which he claimed was a powerful magic tool. She in tu rn w ondered if the wizard h a d n ’t succum bed to a form of self-hypnosis, im agining the whole affair in a trance. Skeptic, rational mystic, indefatigable traveler, and explorer— h ere was a w om an who h a d gone to India and Tibet, lived there for fourteen years am ong a wide variety o f types from m aharajas to bandits to naljorpas (adepts), and re tu rn e d to write intriguing b u t dispassionate accounts o f w hat she had observed. H ere was the lost

INTRODUCTION

XVll

world of T ibet before the Chinese occupation, indeed before the wheeled vehicle. If there were masters of secret knowledge beyond the Himalayas, practictioners o f the sort of psychic phen o m o n a the New York Times had d ubbed “astral bodies and tantric sex,” DavidNeel m ust have gotten to know them . And so m ight we, though the physicality o f the world they inhabited had been blown to bits, th ro u g h an acquaintance with h e r life and work. We com m enced the search that would consum e o u r next decade. We left Pondicherry for Adyar, near M adras, and the ample library at the h eadquarters of the Theosophical Society. H ere at the tu rn of the century, a youthful A lexandra had sat u n d e r the sp read ­ ing banyan tree to discuss arcane lore. “T h e re is no religion higher th an tru th ” is the theosophical motto, and appropriately we discov­ ere d David-Neel’s My Journey to Lhasa, h e r b reak th ro u g h work in every respect. Published almost simultaneously in 1927 in New York, L ondon, and Paris, Journey, m ore w onderful than any work of fiction, tells of the e x p lo re r’s trek across the trans-Himalayas in dead of w inter disguised as a beggar and accom panied only by h e r adopted Sikkimese son Yongden. To gain an u n d ersta n d in g of how this lone wom an in her midfifties could gain the T ibetan capital— a quest that had defeated the most accom plished and acclaimed male explorers—we browsed am ong the twenty-five additional books she had published during h e r long life, as well as h e r m ore im portant articles. We located sev­ eral short pieces about her, b u t these were confused and repetitious, a sign of the bio g ra p h e r’s original sin: regurgitating the errors of oth­ ers. T h e n we came u p o n A. David-Neel au Tibet by Je an n e Denys. This slim volume, published shortly after A lexandra’s death in 1968, had caused a m inor sensation by claiming she had never gone to Tibet. Denys called h er subject an actress and alleged that she was an im poster who invented the stories of h e r travels and studies. T he motives of this ill-tem pered, anti-Semitic tract were m ade obvious by the a u th o r’s insistence that A lexandra’s parents had been modest shopkeepers an d that they were Jewish and spoke Yiddish at home. Still, it deep en ed o u r suspicion that the tru th about David-Neel would not come easily. Denys, a dedicated enemy, had spent years digging for dirt, and she claimed to have found some. We booked a flight for Paris.

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INTRODUCTION

T h e French intellectual René Grousset once q uipped, “T h e re exist two M adames David-Neel: the one who writes and the one who knows.” T h e seeker began h e r quest for enlightenm ent at the Musée Guimet, w here in h e r youth the m urals a dorning the g ran d staircase presented scenes from the great Eastern religions, including the life of Siddhartha, the Nepalese prince who becam e G autam a the B u d d h a two-and-a-half millenia ago. But the m urals have faded and traces of A lexandra are few in the City of Light that first tantalized, then defeated and, perh aps too late, rew arded her. We crossed the English C hannel to London. A lexandra spent h e r days on foot, horse, and yak crossing the trails of an Asia dom inated by three em pires— the British, Russian (afterward Soviet), and the fading Chinese. T h e contest for political suprem acy am ong these behem oths had been dub bed by R udyard Kipling, “T h e G reat G am e.” B ut on the ground, am ong the caravan traders, bandits, soldiers, an d pilgrims with whom A lexandra rubbed shoulders, authority was exercised by the local w arlord or the party with the greatest firepower. T h e Parisian dakini got by on her guerilla instincts and charm and a handy knowledge of English, the lingua franca of this Asian stew. It was in the British Library, then housed at the British M usuem, that we m ade the acquaintance of Sir Charles Bell th ro u g h his unpublished papers, resident political officer in the Himalayas and a leading hawk eager to place T ibet wholly within the am bit of the British Em pire; his aim was to fill the vacuum of pow er in Central Asia by extending n o rth the influence of British India. Bell, who was at first David-Neel’s p atron, soon became h er rival and nemesis. As fluent in Tibetan as she, equally fearless and certain of his mission, Bell had the backing of the em pire and its secret service as well as that of the T h irte e n th Dalai Lam a and his servants. It was at the same historic library, u n d e r whose m agnificent dom e Karl M arx had scribbled notes toward Das Kapital, th at we found traces o f A lexandra’s love affair with the handsom e Tibetan, Prince Sidkeong Tulku of Sikkim. T h e progress and sudden e n d o f this rela­ tionship irrevocably set h e r course toward Lhasa a n d fame. H e r life story, we decided, had everything—love, adventure, betrayal, and victory. B ut what about it was true? Over lunch in a small restaurant tucked am ong the rare book

INTRODUCTION

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shops of L ondon, we queried Peter H opkirk, au th o r of several books on C entral Asia: was he convinced that A lexandra had m ade that forbidden jo u rn e y to Lhasa? “David M acdonald would have been h a rd to fool,” he replied. T h e n he suggested we consult the Secret Files of the In d ia Office for additional clues. Macdonald? Secret Files? We were in for m ore than one surprise. H oused across the T ham es in a nondescript South Bank neigh­ borhood, these splendid if musty archives of the India Office offered up rare nuggets from the intrigue and duplicity typical of the Great Game, a web in which David-Neel was unknowingly caught. T h e secret service had watched her, giving h e r the code nam e French N un. By tracking her, they verified beyond doubt her travels across the vast T ibetan plateau—w here they had tried to keep h er from going. Eventually, we were able to obtain the other side o f this story from Bell’s eventual successor H u g h Richardson, the W esterner who best knows Tibet, an d who in him self sums up all that is excellent in B ritain’s vanished em pire. Possessing h a rd facts m ade us w onder m ore about the “whys” o f A lexandra’s adventures. Again we crossed the C hannel, headed this time for the spa town of Digne in the Basses Alpes of southern France, w here at sixty she had finally b ought a hom e. Settled in with h er extensive collection o f T ibetan m anuscripts and curios, she called the place Sam ten Dzong, or “Fortress of M editation.” H ere we m et Mademoiselle M arie-M adeleine Peyronnet, who had acted as A lexandra’s cook, housekeeper, and secretary for the last decade of h e r centenarian life. U n d e r h e r custody (nominally supervised by the m ayor of Digne) were crates of A lexandra’s papers and photos— she was an early cam era buff—including some three thousand type­ script pages of the w an d e rer’s letters to h e r stay-at-home husband, Philip Neel. B ut what husband? N one o f h er books published in David-Neel’s lifetime m ention such a person. A lexandra had carefully guarded her private life in o rd er to cultivate a rarified public image. O n separate occasions she o rd ere d both h er husband and secretary to destroy portions of h e r letters. Philip, who usually acquiesced to his wife’s dem ands, once refused, b u t M arie M adeleine, feeling she had no choice, consigned to the flames a substantial packet of documents. T h e rem aining letters, only one-third of which have been p u b ­

XX

INTRODUCTION

lished, reveal that b ehind the pose of an enlightened being beat the heart of a real woman, alternately troubled or elated, happy or desperate. At times A lexandra’s intim ate letters are at odds with her published accounts. Yet the correspondence has its own slant, since the turn-of-the-century wife, traveling far from hom e, h a d no inten­ tion of telling all to h er bourgeois husband, who grudgingly paid h er bills. As we browsed am ong the letters, the debris of A lexandra’s explosion of living, the image of rolang came to mind: writing the biography of this wom an was like bringing h e r corpse back to life. At any m om ent it could ju m p up, shatter o u r preconceptions, and m ake off on its own. “She was born an explorer,” rem arked M arie-M adeleine, as we took tea in the garden, a habit A lexandra borrow ed from the English. B ut why had she chosen the m ountain fastness o f Tibet? “It was big­ ger than life, ju st as was h er character. It exhilarated her.” But again, why had she m ade that suicidal trek to Lhasa in dead of winter? M arie-M adeleine th o u g h t for a m om ent: “She was tu rn e d back twice in the south—literally, ‘p u t out the d o o r’—and twice in the north. It h u rt h er m onum ental prid e.” So here was one answer, and A lexandra herself had given several others to the same question. Suppose h e r story was m ade into a screenplay: the central action—h er quest and the chase that followed—lacks a credible motive. Mademoiselle Peyronnet thinks o f h er form er em ployer as a journalist, a re p o rte r on the oddities of a bygone Asia. T h e National Geographic Society to prom ote their coffee-table book Into the Unknown term ed David-Neel a “gentle­ wom an explorer,” while headlining: “She defied East and West in her quest to explore a forbidden lan d .” And the authorized French biog­ raphy (by Je an Chalon) persistently refers to this B uddhist agnostic as “O u r Lady of T ibet,” one who followed a divine destiny. W hat a varied life she led! A lexandra was progressively a d e b u ­ tante, a radical student and bohem ian in Belle Epoque Paris, a failed o p e ra singer, and the frustrated wife of a colonial b u rea u c rat in Tunis. However, once she tu rn e d East she found h e r course. So it was that, following on a similar path, we re tu rn e d to India. At holy Benares on the Ganges, A lexandra had strained to accept the im per­ sonality of life and death. In Nepal she pilgrim aged to the fragrant gardens of Lum bini, birthplace of Siddhartha, the historical B uddha.

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It was at the b o rd e r of T ibet that she paused on the edge of a mys­ tery. A lexandra’s destiny was n ot written in the stars; she m ade it h a p p e n in the face of the m ightiest em pire on earth. This is being written on M arch 10, 1997, the thirty-eighth anniversary of the uprising of the Tibetan people against the occu­ pation of their land by the Chinese Red Army and its destruction of their culture and institutions. Most imm ediately for us, the 1959 popular resistance and the Red Army’s bloody reprisals—some ninety thousand Tibetans lost their lives—caused the Fourteenth Dalai Lam a and m em bers of his governm ent to flee across the b o rd er into India. His continuing exile has resulted in the form ation o f a sub­ stantial, thriving T ibetan diaspora that rings the Himalayas from Dharam sala, India in the west to B hutan in the east. H ere we m ean­ d e re d in search of a vanished time, country, and person. In the Himalayas A lexandra had cam ped and stalked wolves and snow leopards to photo graph. T h e paintings of an o th er lover of these m onstrous m ountains, the Russian Nicholas Roerich, only slightly p re p a re d us for the fire-opalescent sunrise— “the flowering of the snows”— over five-peaked K anchenjunga, viewed as A lexandra had seen it from Gangtok, Sikkim on a clear dawn. At last in tiny Kalim pong, term inus of the m ule trains from across the m ountains in what in h e r day was British B hutan, we began to delineate o u r own p o rtra it of A lexandra David-Neel. A wom an o f m ature years, Victoria Williams, d a u g h te r of the British official David M acdonald, told us about the encounter betw een A lexandra and h er father. At the H im alayan Hotel, a M acdonald family operation, we began to write the story of “the most astonishing w om an of o u r time,” as Lawrence D urrell called her. B ut first we asked Mrs. Williams, who succored the haggard but cheerful traveler when A lexandra came out o f Tibet, why she supposed A lexandra had m ade that nearly suicidal jo u rn e y to Lhasa. “W hy?” she repeated. “To show that a w om an could do it!”

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David M acdonald was n a p p in g after tea in May 1924. Spring after­ noons were pleasant in so uthern Tibet, and since he was n ot expect­ ing visitors, the British T rade Agent had retired to a bedroom in his house that was located within the m u d brick fort overlooking Gyantse a n d the su rro u n d in g fields still bare of grain. T h e town, T ib et’s third largest, was strategically located at the confluence o f the Route of Wool from the southeast, the R oute of Wood from the B hutanese border, a n d trade routes from N epal th ro u g h the H im alayan passes. B ut the m ost im p o rtan t route o f all was that of Religion from India, along which B uddhism had en te re d Tibet beginning in the seventh century. W hen an Indian servant awakened M acdonald, he was surprised to h ear th at a wom an in a white native dress, wearing a hat with pointed flaps, and a young m an in tattered lam a’s robes were dem anding to see him. Despite his unassum ing title, the half-Scottish, half-Asian official rep resen ted the British Em pire in these parts, and his su p porting detachm ent of In d ian troops, officered by a few Britons, was the sole military force. It was this far— two h u n d re d and forty miles n o rth of the Sikkimese b o rd er—that British m ight had pen e tra te d into Tibet on a p e rm a n e n t basis. T h e servant described the pair as looking like tram ps, yet the w om an spoke English tersely in the E uropean manner. M acdonald had an ugly thought: the two m ight be another set of miscreants who had sneaked across the border, found the natives hostile, and were

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pleading for help. A few years ago an Am erican daredevil, Schary, a strange little m an, had crossed over from Ladakh. His pony died and a servant ran off with his money; he had to beg and becam e an object of ridicule. By the time he crawled on hands and knees to the fort, he was covered with festering sores and was half-mad. H e said he w anted to find the Mahatmas— the legendary wise m en— a n d write a book about his adventures. C om ing fully awake, M acdonald realized he did ind eed have a w om an for a caller. Annie Taylor, the missionary lady who used to live at Yatung on the Sikkimese b o rd er w here his own family stayed at this season, was in the habit of don n in g a disguise and slipping into T ibet in an attem pt to convert the lamas to Christianity. B ut she had long since d ep arted for E ngland and, he guessed, heaven. No, it was probably his d au g h ter Victoria and some friend. She was often u p to tricks to fool him. She m ust have come by buggy—the sole wheeled vehicle in T ibet—to b ring h e r dad preserved fruits and vegetables, for they grew there in the m ilder Chum bi Valley. Well, he would have the laugh on her. M acdonald instructed his servant to show in the lady. H e p r e ­ ten d ed to be asleep. H e h e a rd steps, a voice, “Mr. M ac-do-nald?” O h, Victoria was p u tting on a French accent. “Go away! I ’ve no time for a silly girl!” “I am A lexandra David-Neel,” replied the m ature woman. M acdonald p o p p e d up. Along with other b o rd er officials, he had been alerted to watch for this mysterious Frenchw om an, who was sus­ pected of spying, though no one was certain for which country. Aside from feeling like an ass, he knew she had no business being in Tibet. However, the agent was a kindly m an who, from his m ustache dow n to his riding boots, resem bled an oriental Teddy Roosevelt. H e apologized and led his visitor into the sitting room. H e noticed her eyes, filled with the light o f the m ountains, and that she was short, pale, and, save for an odd bulge ro u n d h e r waist, m uch slim m er than h e ’d expected. H e w ouldn’t have d ream ed that in the belt strapped b eneath h e r clothes she carried exquisite gold jew elry—the gift of a m aharaja—which she kept on h e r person. T h a t she had stashed an autom atic pistol m ight have surprised him even m ore. M adam David-Neel sipped tea, disappointed it was English style

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ra th e r than the salty, bu ttered T ibetan tea that was almost a broth. She did not wait long to state h e r e rran d : she was bou n d from Peking to Calcutta th ro u g h the h e a rt o f C entral Asia, a jo u rn e y that so far had taken several years. She an d h e r adopted son Lam a Yongden had traveled the last several m onths on foot from Yunnan, China, crossing th ro u g h the u n ex p lo re d Po country to Lhasa, T ibet’s for­ bidden capital. She had circum vented Chinese, Tibetan, and British authorities by walking th ro u g h ru g g ed terrain, often by night, and by disguising herself as a beggar. M acdonald, who had achieved his position, unusual for a Eurasian, by exercising both diligence and wit, asked his visitor in Tibetan how she had found h e r way. She replied with the ease of a native, b u t she said no thing about the m aps lining h e r yak-hide boots. T hey had been given to h e r by a form er British officer, a m an w hom M acdonald greatly respected. Instead, A lexandra em phasized that as a B uddhist she was able to assum e the role of a beggar-pilgrim w ithout qualm. She and Yongden had slept outdoors or in the huts of the natives, po o r b u t generous, eating what scraps they were fed. T hey had spent two m onths in Lhasa undetected. Now she wished perm ission to lodge in the guest bungalow for a few days before crossing the Himalayas into India. M acdonald was amazed. Assuming m adam was telling the truth, she h ad perform ed a w onderful feat for a wom an of h er fifty-odd years and slight physique. H e knew Tibet and took a keen interest in its people and customs. David-Neel would have had to travel through jungles and over snow-covered m ountain ranges, cross wide chasms on flimsy rope bridges, and stum ble down miles o f crumbly rocks to find roads no wider than tracks in the m ud. She m ust have fended off wolves and bears and the giant mastiffs that defended every vil­ lage and m auled strangers on sight. Most incredibly, she had slogged th ro u g h that wild, inaccessible country in the dead of winter! M acdonald pressed h e r for fu rth e r details. A lexandra at first refused, because she intended to write a book in which he and everyone who liked could read about her journey. She was thinking of going to America w here she was certain to lec­ ture before packed houses. T h e official rem inded his visitor that the governm ent of India had denied h er perm ission to travel in Tibet, indeed had expelled h e r from Sikkim and India. She shot back that

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it was none of their affair because Tibet was an in d e p e n d e n t nation. Besides, she h ap p en ed to be a French citizen. M acdonald kept his counsel. H e could recall that not m any years past a high lama had been flogged and th en drow ned for unwittingly aiding an Ind ian spy in reaching Lhasa. O thers who were implicated had their arm s an d legs chopped off and eyes gouged out. Although Tibetans were by n a tu re kindhearted and eager to gain m erit th ro u g h good deeds, no word in the language aroused m ore distrust than philing (foreigner). A lexandra rem oved h e r cap to reveal a wave of grey-tinged brunette hair and reluctantly offered p roof of her exploits. She spoke of nights on the snowy wastes, of villagers who had opened their doors to them , hoping that if Yongden blessed their yaks they would prolif­ erate like stars in the Central Asian sky. T houghtful householders h ad invited the m endicants to share a stuffed sheep’s belly. Because they were on pilgrimage, the peasants filled their begging bowls with tsampa (barley gruel) to assure a propitious rebirth in future lives. Once at Lhasa, the interlopers had m ingled with the thousands of pilgrims flocking in from the countryside, a n d twenty thousand m onks from the three great m onasteries ringing the capital, to jo y ­ ously celebrate the T ibetan New Year. T hey had witnessed the dances o f the masked lamas, the horse races and archery contests am ong big fur-hatted nom ads who resem bled Genghis K han’s G olden H orde, as well as the ritual h o u n d in g o ut o f town of the po o r fellow chosen as scapegoat, who took on the com m unity’s sins. Packed in the motley crowd, they watched colorful pageants o f giant figures m ade from b u tte r—in no danger o f m elting at twelve thousand feet. A lexandra and Yongden had tou red the Dalai L am a’s awesome Potala Palace with its riches o f gold, silver, and bejeweled statues of deities, its countless room s filled with priceless porcelains and jades do n ated by pious Chinese em perors. From its ro o f to p p ed with gilt pagodas, they took in a view over the plains and distant m ountains that repaid all their efforts. M acdonald, one of the handful of outsiders who had visited Lhasa, doubted his guests no longer. B ut w hen the wom an, who was beginning to seem m uch taller than her dim inutive five feet, two inches, requested a signed statem ent to verify their journey, the T rade Agent hesitated.

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“M adam ,” he said, “you have u ndergone incredible hardships. Your courage and vitality have succeeded w here others failed. U nfortunately, by reason of the disguise you adopted, you saw Tibet only from the viewpoint of a po o r pilgrim .” H e had almost said “an outlaw.” T h e political air of T ibet was om inous due to a pow er struggle betw een the Panchen Lam a (dom i­ ciled in T ashilhunpo m onastery n ear Shigatse) and the T h irte e n th Dalai Lam a, and each was being courted by the rival great powers. M acdonald need ed to weigh his goodhearted instincts against official policy. O n the n ext day, May 7, he would notify his im m ediate supe­ riors in Sikkim and India about his visitors. W hile A lexandra m ight smile— she had won sweet revenge for earlier hum iliations—she couldn’t afford to let on how sick and weary she and Yongden felt. She had shown what the will of a wom an could do; it was now time to tell the world. N either she nor the astute Scot could gauge the extent o f h e r victory: the fame and honors due her in a life that would span m ore than a century. Yet, this wom an of pow er would know m uch disappointm ent and sorrow in h e r heart. A lexandra, p ro d d e d by Yongden, noticed a nearby haversack and what ap p e are d to be an eye resting on it. M acdonald, seeing her surprise, explained that the T elegraph Master had come up from India to inspect the newly installed line to Lhasa, which via Gyantse was now connected to the entire world. “H e has a glass eye,” contin­ u ed M acdonald, “a nd he places it on his property to guard it from pilfering. T h e natives, being superstitious, give his things a wide b e rth .” A lexandra at once inquired if she could telegraph the news of her triu m p h to Paris. But Yongden, reg ard in g the small blue object of glass said, “T h a t is the eye of em p ire.” And the telegraph was the ear of em pire. Lhasa was no longer closed to the world and its doings. From the day telegraphic service began until the Chinese invasion o f 1950 there were always British or B ritish-trained operators in Lhasa. T h e pristine Tibet, unknow n and u n m ap p e d , portrayed in the books of the first foreign woman to reach Lhasa was already becom ing a memory. But in 1924 it was unforseen that not Britain b u t the Red Army of China would p e r­ form the drastic surgery of severing the Tibetan nation from its ancient religious and cultural roots. To Alexandra, the British

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G overnm ent of India was the antagonist she feared. Ironically, David M acdonald, T rade Agent at Gyantse, fu rth e re d David-Neel’s ambitions by sending h e r on to his family at Yatung in the C hum bi Valley. T h e ir loving treatm ent may have saved h e r life and Yongden’s, so weakened had they become th ro u g h fatigue and illness. Victoria, then only twenty, gave h e r respectable clothes to wear down into India. She thou g h t A lexandra the handsom est wom an she had ever seen.

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O n a baking mid-August evening in 1911, thirteen years before DavidN eel’s en counter with M acdonald, the steam er City of Naples sound­ ed its h o rn and pushed off from the quay at Bizerte, Tunisia. T he Arab wom en hanging on the rail sent up a cacaphony of shrill howls to m atch. T h ird class was above ra th e r than below decks, and the p o o rer travelers, head ed for the Suez Canal and beyond, kept their belongings bun d led on top. Down in the hold stirred a tribe of rats, intent on good-m eals to come. T h e passenger M adam e A lexandra David-Neel, w earing a preposterous feather hat, was pressed am ong the natives, while h er husband Philip stood on the dock in the fullness of his starched-collar dignity. In the tum ult about her, she watched in silence as his silhouette grew smaller, dimm er, erased by the night. Why, she w ondered, did thoughts of Philip arouse a physical disgust in her? Instead, she o ught to feel grateful. T h e chief engi­ n eering officer o f the French Railroads in N orth Africa was not the inspiring life com panion she had dream ed of, b u t she had chosen to m arry him. So the obscene pictures of him that flashed to m ind caused h e r to feel guilty and to flee ever farther from the poor man. Yet he seem ed preferable to the husbands of women that she m et in h e r constant travels. To all appearances, A lexandra, who had m arried Philip Neel in Tunis in 1904, was both successful and content. A feminist and ori­ entalist of some repute, she kept on the move. D uring the years subsequent to m arriage, she m ade a circuit of Paris, Brussels, L ondon, and Rome, taking out time to visit Philip in Tunis. She

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atten d ed various conferences, took tea along the boulevard, SaintG erm ain, w here this m eant cham pagne, and in L o n d o n w here she and h e r cultured friends d ra n k actual tea. An increasingly successful journalist, she stalked editors in their dens, particularly M. Rachilde at the influential review Mercure de France. She was rew arded by his publishing h e r “C ontem porary B uddhist T h in k e rs” in Decem ber 1909. In 1910 A le x a n d ra le c tu re d to attentive crow ds at the Theosophical Societies o f both Paris and L ondon. She was delighted to address a group o f In d ian medical students at E dinburgh. She wrote and published in Paris in 1911 Modern Buddhism and the Buddhism of Buddha, a title th at reads no less awkwardly in French. She was on the right path, the a u th o r assured h e r husband. Keeping busy allowed h e r to feel better than she had in years. Yet A lexandra felt som ething essential to be missing. She wrote to Philip from L ondon that she was fed up with poseurs who took a facile interest in the East. She’d m et one eccentric who insisted on w riting a life of B u d d h a in Miltonic blank verse. Most enthusiasts passed off secondhand opinions and could only quote the critics. At the Paris salon of Professor Sylvain Levi, the Sorbonne’s m ost dis­ tinguished Orientalist, w hen A lexandra had spoken anim atedly of a living Eastern philosophy that was not limited by the past, she found that the guests deserted the professor to gather a ro u n d her. Still, she felt like a poseur herself. H e r work was based on book learning ra th e r than the hard-w on knowledge gained from experience. To h er surprise, Philip resp o n d e d by proposing th at she visit In d ia to perfect h e r oriental languages, particularly Sanskrit. H e w ould pay for a sojourn of about one year. This wom an approaching h e r mid-forties, despite suspecting that h e r husband had found a mistress, ju m p e d at the chance, and by August she was aboard a steam er b o u n d east of Suez. While the odor of rancid food wafted to her, she could hardly believe that she was truly en route. A lexandra introduced My Journey to Lhasa by recalling that even as a little child in a Parisian suburb she longed to escape from the g arden o f h e r hom e, to investigate far away places. A lexandra’s enemy, J e a n n e Denys, admits that “from the age of five on, she m anifested h e r taste for travel and liberty by escaping from the arm s o f h er nurse to explore the Bois de Vincennes.” B ut Denys failed to

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see th at A lexandra was not only ru n n in g away, b u t also toward some­ thing: here was a duality o f captivity and flight that, once established, w ould becom e habitual. In this case the precocious little girl, or so she tells us as an adult, was fleeing from h e r family’s plans to move from Paris to Brussels. A lexandra once com pared h e r parents to two statues who faced each o th er over a lifetime with nothing to say, closed and cold. H er father, Louis Pierre David, was b o rn in Tours on July 6, 1815, into an old H u g u e n o t family. H e was distantly related to N apoleon’s favorite p ain ter Jacques Louis David, an d the nam e has Jewish antecedants. A lexandra h inted that the family once had been Albigensian (a heretical sect d u rin g the M iddle Ages) and suffered religious perse­ cution. H e r m other, A lexandrine Borghm ans, came of mixed Dutch, N orwegian, and Siberian ancestry, and because o f the latter the e x p lo re r o f T ibet would claim to have M ongol blood. It was the only positive thing she ever said about h er mother. From photos, A lexandrine’s am ple presence appears intim idating in the way of those who are securely anchored and care little for spec­ ulation. In Flemish lace and pleated blouses, she o rd ere d about her family and the servants, and in the m arketplace she tried the patience of m erchants with h e r dem ands. At hom e everything had to be kept spotless, b u t the dam ask napkins a n d the fine porcelain dishes were never used. As a girl A lexandra fought against h e r m o th e r’s restrictions, and as a w om an she never entirely forgave her. In contrast A lexandra ad o red and b o n d ed with h e r indulgent father. Louis David came to m an h o o d u n d e r the reign o f Louis-Philippe, the bourgeois m onarch b ro u g h t to pow er by the Revolution of 1830, who could be seen strolling the prom enades of Paris in everyday clothes. It was a peri­ od of economic liberalism, m aterial im provem ents, and spiritual malaise that perversely spawned the heroic poetry of young Victor H ugo and the titanic canvases of Delacroix. At first, Louis chose his fath er’s occupation, the prosaic one of provincial schoolmaster. Louis, slim, earnest, with eyes alight and handsom e features finely hewn, considered him self a political activist. And the French genius for controversy was m erely slum bering. In the 1840s, with the relaxation of censorship, Louis founded a Republican jo u rn a l, Courier d ’Indre et Loire. This was a local weekly that combined official

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notices, advertisem ents for land sales, hum orous rem arks, and veiled editorial com m ent. David becam e a p ro m in en t citizen of Tours. T h e 1851 coup d ’etat o f Louis Bonaparte, who would declare him self N apoleon III, sent Louis into exile in Louvain, Belgium. T h e m ature bachelor, who p rid ed him self on his appearance, tried to keep his head high and his graying beard trim m ed— the badge of a Republican. Nearly penniless, he gave French lessons to the young daughters of the Flemish m ayor o f this thriving industrial town. Protestant, Mayor Borghm ans may have been a fellow Mason. T h e re also lived at his house his adopted d au g h ter A lexandrine. She was now twenty-two and becom ing old maidish. T hus the m ayor m ade no objection when, in 1854, Louis asked for A lexandrine’s hand. T h e couple was m arried with a m inim um of ceremony. According to A lexandra, who is o u r only authority, h e r parents were unh ap p y from the start. T h e new M adam e David was a practi­ cal soul who cared little for politics or ideas. N ot formally religious, she had a mystical streak and had converted to Catholicism. A stocky wom an who looked older th an h e r years, she liked to wear h e r thick hair in a b u n atop a ro u n d , com placent face. Why had the intense Louis taken this terre a terre wom an as his wife? An exile, he faced bleak economic prospects, while in contrast Alexandrine, though an o rp h an , had been left a boutique that sold fabrics as well as a tidy sum by h e r natural father. T h e money, loaned to m erchants in the textile trade, b ro u g h t in a secure income. D uring A lexandra’s youth, h e r family did not lack for possessions, servants, an d social standing. Until Louis suffered severe losses on the Bourse in the Panic of 1893, he was able to indulge his only d a u g h te r in gov­ ernesses, music and English lessons, and in pocket money. It is curious how the Davids, after fifteen years of a steadily souring m arriage, finally conceived a child. A lexandra told Philip th at d u rin g h e r m other’s pregnancy the d o u r wom an rea d the nov­ els of Jam es Fenimore Cooper. In h e r m ind she traversed grasslands and forests, lived harrow ing adventures, while carrying A lexandra in h e r womb. An im m ediate effect of A lexandrine’s pregnancy was that Louis d em an d ed his offspring be b o rn on French soil, so the child would be a citizen. In 1868 the couple m oved to Paris. T h e ir d a u g h te r was b o rn on O ctober 24th at St. M andé, a comfortable suburb o f Paris

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w edged betw een the Bois de Vincennes and the defensive wall sur­ ro u n d in g the city. T h re e days later at the parish church the infant was baptized Louis Eugénie A lexandrine Marie David, b u t to the despair of h e r m o th er and pleasure of her father she p referred to be called A lexandra. Louis David, the earnest Republican of 1848, found a drastically altered, im perial capital. B aron H aussm ann had ram m ed through wide boulevards, destroying the tortuous alleys of the medieval burgh. Everywhere rose gleam ing new buildings with cafes spread out u n d e r rows of trees. Fashion and laughter ruled the day and m ore the night. At all hours Paris am used itself u n d e r the glow of gaslights. Jacques Offenbach wrote the gay tunes to which dancers kicked and showed their red satin-clad derrieres. As soon as she was old enough, A lexandra tagged along with her father and his h u n tin g dogs on walks aro u n d their placid, leafy neighborhood. U n d e te rre d by brisk w inter days, they chatted together like grownups. Often their longer excursions ended at the Gare de Vincennes or the Gare de Lyons to watch the trains come and go. A great netw ork of tracks had been built out from Paris to every corner of the country, an d the Impressionists were soon to discover the lure of painting outdoors in the provinces. However, the dream s of this precocious child—fussily dressed with tiny drop earrings and necklace to m atch— did not stop at the French border. O n the station platform s she yearned for vast, snow bound places like Russia. Infinite space lured her. A lexandra’s first escape was triggered by a situation m ore com­ plex than she later adm itted. She never cared to acknowledge that from h er m aternal line she inherited stamina, longevity, and good looks. For Alexandrine was solidly handsome, a com plem ent to Louis’ slender sensitivity. T h e ir union was m aintained by an attraction of opposites. Yet A lexandra claimed that when on Jan u ary 26, 1873, after nineteen years of m arriage, A lexandrine gave birth to a boy, Louis was m ore em barrassed than delighted. Certainly his five-yearold d a u g h te r was less than pleased. While watching her baby b ro th ­ er in the bath, she is said to have com m ented about his tiny penis, “Well, that I do not have.” Even if this story, related by m ore than one biographer, is apocryphal, the d em anding little girl felt jealous about the shift of

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attention to h er sibling. W hen Louis Jules died at the age of six months, Alexandra acted openly content, b ut the episode may have planted within her a certain guilt. This, at least, is classic Freudian theory. N one­ theless the woman when grown could and did enjoy sex. Initially, her attitude toward m en was typical of the milieu in which she was raised. After the baby’s death the David household was in uproar. T h e distraught A lexandrine d e m an d ed to re tu rn to live n ear h e r a d o p ­ tive mother. Louis, living in a T h ird Republic constantly u n d e r the threat of a B ourbon restoration, without significant friends or hopes, could not resist for long. It was then, on the eve o f the family’s d e p a r­ tu re for Brussels, that the girl gave an inattentive nurse the slip in the Bois de Vincennes. T h e horrified domestic alerted a gendarm e, and after a w idespread search A lexandra was captured and b ro u g h t to the station. For his trouble, she scratched the policeman. W hen h er chagrined father came to collect her, she showed no rem orse, len d ­ ing some credence to h e r adult boast that she was b o rn a savage. It was in M arch 1874 that Louis was ready to s u rre n d e r to A lexandrine’s dem and to re tu rn to Belgium. B ut first, he did som e­ thing that rem ained a secret betw een father and daughter. Louis had A lexandra baptized again, this time as a Protestant. She never revealed h e r feelings about when, standing in a strange, b are church, the m inister in black touched h e r forehead and left a chill spot. In later years A lexandra spoke well of the H uguenots a n d she identified with ,their in d ep e n d e n t spirit a n d social conscience. But in time of need she couldn’t find com fort in their austere services. Catholic an d Protestant, d rea m e r and activist, loving at once the sensual and the severe, A lexandra’s n a tu re was built on dualities. Living in the suburbs o f Brussels in a tense bourgeois household, the young girl fled into the im aginary realm of books. H e r favorites were the fantasies of Jules Verne and she swore to herself to surpass the exploits of his heroes, w hether in the air or u n d e r the sea. Dolls and dresses bo red her, and for her. birthdays she d em a n d e d books about faraway places, or better yet the whole world—a globe! She d ream ed not o f grow ing up to be a coquette, of fancy dress balls, b u t o f wild country a n d glacier-tipped peaks. At least, h e r parents m ight take h e r traveling on school holidays. T hey failed to, and so A lexandra tried vainly to escape. In Belgium at that time prim ary schools were all tau g h t by the clergy.

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W hen A lexandra’s governess becam e a nu n , and the ten-year-old tu rn e d sickly, h er m o th er packed h e r off to Bois Fleuri, a convent school w here rows o f rosy-checked litde Flam andes were stuffed like geese, fed half-a-dozen times a day. H ere, am ong girls h e r age, she fattened. Yet this hardly satisfied h e r soul. Instead, she was struck by re a d in g a tale a b o u t B u d d h a — an earlie r in ca rn a tio n th an G autam a—who, on m eeting a tiger in the jun g le, gave his own flesh to feed h e r starving cubs. T h e sacrificial quality of the story thrilled A lexandra’s imagination. Already she had b egun to read authors intellectual enough to intim idate an adult: Augustine, P roudhon, Kierkegaard. Im itating the ancient Stoics, she subjected h e r body to rigorous trials, which included using boards for a bed. T h a t habit stuck, and even in old age she p erm itted herself only the luxury of dozing in an armchair. She would joke that the soul of a medieval theologian had been reincarnated in the body of a schoolgirl. And this pessimism, too, stayed with her, even when it yielded first to social radicalism, then Bohem ianism. Finally B uddhism — concerned with putting an end to suffering—becam e the solace of a desperate young wom an who felt betrayed by the crassness of the world. At fifteen, w hen A lexandra h ad already begun to study music and voice privately, an odd thing h a p p e n e d to break h e r routine. She got hold o f an English jo u rn a l p u t o ut by the Society o f the Suprem e Gnosis. It had been sent to her, at h er request, by a certain Mrs. Elisabeth M organ who, although she rem ains a shadowy figure, was to becom e A lexandra’s first patron. She was a m ature woman, an occultist, who b e frie n d e d F ren ch stu d e n ts visiting E ngland. A lexandra, as she sat alone in the garden, stared at the pale blue cover with its enigm atic oriental symbols. T h e contents were still m ore perplexing: unfam iliar language, twists of thought, snatches of Sanskrit. At first she supposed it was all craziness, b u t she soon d eter­ m ined to find o ut in person. T h a t sum m er while h e r family vacationed at Ostend, A lexandra walked into H olland and crossed the channel to England. H ere she found Mrs. M organ, who then p e rsu ad ed h e r to re tu rn home. W hen we observe a photo of A lexandara taken at the age of sixteen, h er desire to flee from a stiffling milieu becomes obvious. She was tighdy corseted into a bustled, ruffly gown that is buttoned up to h e r chin,

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holding a fan in h e r white-gloved hand. A lexandra puts on a p ro p e r face, though she looks swallowed up in h e r gown. Still, h er brow n hair piled high, dark, lum inous eyes, a regular nose and almost sensuous m outh, as well as a note of melancholy, p roduce the con­ trasting impressions of elegance and vulnerability. A lexandra the debutante is about to be presented to the em peror and em press of the Belgians, who also ruled with brutal te rro r over millions o f black subjects in the Congo. How did the dashing Leopold II react, or his equally dissolute wife, H enrietta Maria? We can only guess. B ut already A lexandra can sense that m en will w ant her, and not knowing how to resp o n d makes h e r miserable. In 1885, in h e r seventeenth year, A lexandra again absconded, hiking alone over the Saint-G otthard Pass th ro u g h the Alps to the Italian lake country. She was furnished with little m ore than an um brella an d the Maxims o f Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher. However, she perm itted h e r m other to recover h e r at Milan. This excursion backfired w hen M adam e David, weary o f h e r d a u g h te r’s eccentricities, p u t h e r to work in a family shop selling fabrics for w om en’s clothing. Louis David was not in accord, b ut as usual his wishes counted for little. A lexandra tried to assum e the obliging air of a m erchant b u t failed. From outside the shop came an air played on a N o rth African h a n d organ. It set h e r to dream ing in total oblivion of the customers. She soon p a rte d com pany with the world o f com m erce, never to reunite. At eighteen a rom antic streak lay ben eath A lexandra’s reserved exterior. This was to find an initial outlet in the continued study of music, begun at board in g school. In prep aratio n for the entrance exam of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, A lexandra practiced piano and reviewed music theory. She en tered the conser­ vatory in April 1886, b u t it was for h e r soprano voice that she won first prize three years later. Louis David, who had faith in his d a u g h te r’s talents, vigorously p rom oted h e r singing. To h e r m other it seem ed the lesser of evils and m ight enhance h e r d a u g h te r’s m arriage prospects. In 1888 A lexandra was offered an o th er opportunity to escape, at least tem porarily, when Mrs. M organ sent for her. She could study in L on d o n and b oard cheaply at the Suprem e Gnosis. She was u n d e r respectable sponsorship, and in h e r h e a rt she had already chosen

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the career of medical missionary in the East. H e r m other objected th at women, o ther than nuns, did not become missionaries, but A lexandra persisted an d won out. She knew she would need to perfect English, the com m on language of educated Asians. Traveling tow ard L ondon, A lexandra set o ut for the Dutch port o f Flushing. H ere the passenger was g uaranteed m ore hours aboard ship than at Calais. To the very e n d o f h e r h u n d re d years, she would love the m om entum of travel for its own sake. T h a t evening A lexandra strolled along the quay at dusk. Fog crept in, m aking passers-by into apparitions. A strange peace took hold o f the rebel. She was alone and entirely unknow n here. Waves of happiness swept over her. All m ental and physical agitation disappeared, and she felt— no, tasted—life p u re and simple. T h e young philosopher, on the threshold of h e r first serious challenge, had experienced an insight, a break th ro u g h of the quality term ed by Zen Buddhists satori. According to Christmas H u m p h re y s ’ Dictionary of Buddhism, “It is the b e g in n in g and not the e n d ” o f the direct experience o f reality. N ext m ust follow “a period o f m atu rin g .”

J e a n n e Denys was a medical d o c to r who in 1958 helped the ninetyyear-old A lexandra David-Neel to arran g e h er library at h e r hom e in the south of France. Yongden had passed away three years earlier. Denys, who’d ho p ed to find an enlightened sage, instead had to deal with a crotchety wom an who com plained of h e r aches a n d pains and, instead of discoursing on B uddhism , avidly followed the stock m a r­ ket. Denys finally told David-Neel to h er face that she was a fraud: “M adam e, you never went to Lhasa or received a mystical initiation.” T h e canny one smiled, and replied, “Prove it!” She u n derstood that th ere is no such thing as bad publicity. Denys spent the n ext decade investigating David-Neel’s life and tracking h er winding course th ro u g h o u t Asia. In Alexandra DavidNeel au Tibet, Denys outlines A lexandra’s travels beginning in 1911 at Adyar, India, traversing Benares, Sikkim, Nepal, Shigatse, Tibet, In d ia again, China, B urm a, Korea, Ja p an , M anchuria, Peking, Eastern Tibet, finally to Lhasa. She ends by stating: “W ith that, this fem ale traveler would have crossed a good p a rt o f the im m ense Asian continent, some 30,000 kilom eters on horse, yak, rickshaw, sedan chair, train, boat and even on foot, and all this d u rin g only fourteen years. You have to adm it it is a fantasy.” No, David-Neel’s adventures are fantastic— incredible, amazing—b u t she really lived them . Biographical research requires an open m ind, a n d it can’t be accom plished from a Paris café, em ploying a derisive logic as one’s chief tool. N onetheless we agree with Denys’ com m ents about “the extrem e reserve of the a u th o r [David-Neel] concerning the first forty

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years of h e r life.” A lexandra m ade a deliberate attem pt to picture herself as a superw om an, w ithout em otion, or in a phrase she often used: a “rational mystic.” She obscured and destroyed evidence of any less elevated or d ark er side. A trunkful o f costumes that MarieM adeleine stum bled over after h e r em ployer had died was h e r first clue that A lexandra h ad m ade a career as an opera singer. A lexandra was reluctant to deal with w ounds received or given, though deeply felt. H e r in n er probing was d one in a specifically Tibetan B uddhist context. For the first time on M arch 18, 1913, A lexandra inform ed her husband from Benares, India that, while watching dead bodies h e a p ed on the crem ation ghats, the od o r o f ch arred flesh had forced to the surface h e r earliest conscious memory, one that gnawed at her th ro u g h o u t life. Because this trau m a form ed the basis of DavidN eel’s view o f hum anity, we reconstruct it in detail: Paris—divided and burning, 1871. U nder a sky leaking rain, a welldressed man with a neat gray beard totes a young girl in his arms along the deserted boulevard Voltaire. The girl in her pretty starched dress, hair braided and beribboned as though going to a party, slightly resembles monsieur. Ragged gunfire can be heard ahead. The man has difficulty peering through the haze com­ pounded of a gray day and smoke from the remains of the palaces on the Right Bank. Out of view, the romantic revolutionaries known as the Paris Commune are making a last stand behind a barricade of cobblestones at the corner of rue de Faubourg du Temple and rue de la Fontaine, 11th arrondissement. Army cannons overwhelm their scattered musket shots. Fearful, Louis David pushes on, keeping clear of the fighting. He has a reputation as a liberal journalist, a dedicated Republican. He is close to Victor Hugo, France’s foremost man of letters and the scourge of the now dethroned emperor, Napoleon III. The connec­ tion is enough to hang a man during this week of reactionary terror that follows the French defeat at the hands of the Prussians. Under orders from the new government at Versailles, the army has uproot­ ed the rebels of Paris and is systematically executing thousands, per­ haps twenty-five thousand in all. Men, women and children. The pair eventually reach the destroyed gate of Pere Lachaise cemetery. No one stops them from entering. The muddy ground is littered with toppled tombstones, and fresh corpses still clutch their

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enemies, locked in timeless combat. Casualties from both sides have fallen round the bust of Honoré de Balzac. Louis David trudges on, cradling his only child. Ahead stands a stone wall. A few minutes earlier neatly uni­ formed soldiers had formed into ranks, shouldered arms, and on command fired. Figures, hands tied behind them, fell like puppets with their strings cut. Those not quite dead moaned while another group was lined up against the wall. This well without bottom— defiant men, pregnant women, boys with fuzz on their cheeks weep­ ing—would be plumbed to its depth by the haute bourgeoise regime determined to exorcise the devils of the Commune. The soldiers have m arched off, leaving the burnt smell of gun­ powder and a heap of bodies that hangers-on are shoveling into the holes they themselves dug. Louis David has to brace himself to keep from trembling, but his little daughter’s round face remains placid, her gaze elsewhere. She has just caught sight of her “invisible com­ panion,” who will guide her through a distraught youth. Still, for the fancily dressed Alexandra of two-and-a-half years, the pile of fresh corpses will coalesce into a phantom in the depths of her psyche. She will never forget that hum anity is the most ferocious species. I f A lexandra’s left-wing politics were a reflex in herited from h er father, the streak of mysticism she rarely displayed to those in the West stem m ed from h e r m o th e r’s side. She com plained o f being a pawn in h e r p aren ts’ endless chess match, yet h e r whole life long she oscillated betw een the attractions o f reason and ritual. A lexandra’s actions from the late 1880s until she m arried Philip Neel in 1904 are difficult to make sense o f because she was going in two or m ore direc­ tions at once. In L ondon at twenty she came u n d e r the influence of occultism, which proved m erely diverting to her, and Theosophy, which she took m ore seriously. O ne evening in 1888 the twenty-year-old mademoiselle descended on Victoria Station, unsure of herself. Confused by the swirl, she sum m oned nerve to ask directions in halting English. Fortunately, Jam es W ard, a m em ber of the S uprem e Gnosis, picked the young w om an o u t o f the crowd and conducted h e r to the hom e of the society. A lthough A lexandra had eagerly awaited this m om ent, once deposited in h e r dimly lit room she burst into tears. Alone in a foreign capital, she felt homesick.

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W hen A lexandra lay down to sleep, vibrations from French doors covered by a shade pulled down smoothly like a lacquered panel dis­ tu rb ed her. W hat was behind them ? She had read of secret societies that subjected candidates for admission to gruesom e and terrifying ordeals. Drifting off, she was startled awake by a ghostly procession m arching th ro u g h the doors and a ro u n d in arcane circles. A lexandra was d eterm ined to get hold of herself. H a d n ’t she always d erided h e r m other for h er baseless superstitious fears? She crep t out of bed to exam ine the doors. W hen she m anaged to pry u p a corner of the stiff canvas paneling to peek beyond, she saw only darkness. T h e re was an electric lamp in the room , and A lexandra seized on this p ro d u ct of science. She kept the unaccus­ tom ed object lit by h e r bed, ready if the phantom s invaded to point it at them and scare them away. At seven the next m orning a m aid bearing tea and biscuits awoke the soundly sleeping young woman. She pressed a tiny latch and p a rte d the doors to disclose a pleasant garden, com m on enough behind L ondon townhouses. A lexandra h u rrie d th ro u g h h e r toilette to arrive at breakfast, b u t here she found only a few emaciatedlooking tablemates. W hen she com plained about the sparse diet, they rep rim a n d e d h e r with a story about their president: he subsisted on a dozen alm onds a day and an occasional orange. A lexandra grew used to life am ong the gnostics, older than she, urbane, and discreet. T hey enforced no rules or dogm a. Normally, they congregated in the large, comfortable library, rich in works on alchemy, metaphysics, and astrology, and they read whatever treatise struck their fancy. Sm oldering incense sticks lent an oriental arom a to the book-lined room . Some puffed incessantly on Turkish ciga­ rettes, while others in trailing white robes glided soundlessly through the thick blue smoke. Even at twenty, A lexandra’s critical faculty kept her aloof from true believers or a mushy mysticism. In old age she wrote a reminiscence of her youthful search, which she then declined to publish. Since she was always eager for the attention and money a book would bring in, this was unusual. However, this veiled m em oir might prove embarrassing if someone could read between its lines. Issued posthumously, Le sortilege du mystere (The Spell of Mystery) chronicles the seeker’s occasional adventures in the fin-de-siecle world of metaphysics and kooky cults.

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Long afterw ard A lexandra term ed the gnostics extravagant, but w here else in Victorian L o n d o n could a young lady be housed so cheaply and safely? T h e gnostics left h e r free to study English an d to delve into the wealth of knowledge stored at the British M useum . H e r carrel at that famous library began to be piled high with com ­ m entaries on H in d u philosophy, B uddhism , and Chinese Taoism. Down the sidestreets were bookshops specializing in such m atters, into which would stroll real tu rb an ed Indians and pigtailed Chinese! Elisabeth M organ exercised some supervision over the still naive, attractive young woman. A lexandra referred to this shadowy figure as h e r “godm other,” although marraine may also m ean “sponsor.” L ondon at this time presen ted a sm orgasbord of occult societies and personalities. T h e Kabbala an d the Rosy Cross h ad their devotees, as did cenacles o f Egyptian magical rites. Spiritualism was a craze am ong high and low alike. Victor H ugo had ado p ted it while living on Guernsey, and he spent days on end tipping tables to contact the spirit of his drow ned daughter. Distinguished intellectuals such as Sir A rth u r C onan Doyle investigated the phenom ena. T h e p o p u lar field belonged to the great perform ing m edium s, such as Douglas H om e, who could levitate individuals; Florence Cook, who m aterialized beings; an d the m aster o f the trance, William Stainton Moses. Alexandra, in spite o f h e r excellent recall, never m entioned seeing any of these famous m edium s. However, we know that she atten d ed seances because she would later give a reasoned explana­ tion of the process. T h e spirits that people perceived at seances were “elem entáis”— disem bodied spirits that, lacking a m aterial envelope, strive to incarnate, to becom e involved with living beings. Failing in this, they may tem porarily possess a willing m edium , who uses them to produce spiritual “p h e n o m e n a ”— sounds or sensations— or an unwilling m edium , w hom they may lead to destruction. T hese elem entáis were never h u m an b u t fall into the class term ed “dem ons” by the Tibetans. They inhabit a shadowy n e th e r world and have been th ro u g h the ages the servants of magicians, shamans, a n d wizards. A lexandra, then, believed in another, nonm aterial world, the so-called astral or etheric planes w here the boundaries of m aterial reality are transcended. This places h e r m ore directly in the line of that p ree m in e n t figure of nineteenth century metaphysics— M adam e H elena P. Blavatsky. T h e founder of the T heosophical Society in 1888

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resided in a little villa on Lansdow ne Road, South L ondon. On Saturdays, starting in the afternoon and often lasting till the wee hours, M adam e Blavatsky would hold forth on the principles of the Secret Doctrine, im parted telepathically to h er by the spiritual mas­ ters of Tibet. T hese mahatmas, wiser than m ere gurus, form ed a Secret B ro therhood in a Shangri-La beyond the Himalayas, and their wishes were m ade know n only via selected disciples. M adam e orated in a stentorian voice— audible for blocks in that quiet neighborhood— to ra p t audiences of her followers, h e r soon-tobe-enem ies from the Society for Psychical Research, and those who wished to seem fashionable. A lexandra, in an u n d a te d entry in her diary, recalled that Elisabeth M organ had introduced h e r to M adam e Blavatsky’s salon and this had opened a new dim ension of h e r life. Blavatsky’s th o u g h t contained strong feminist and anticolonial ele­ m ents, and h e r influence on David-Neel was far greater th an she later cared to admit. According to Blavatsky’s biographer M aurice L eonard, “It’s obvious that there were certain things in h e r past which M adam e was terrified would be resu rrected .” T h e same can be said for David-Neel. David M acdonald wrote that “for some time [David-Neel] was associated with the organization inau g u rated by M adam e Blavatsky.” Partly the reason was convenience. L eonard noted that “in 1883 forty-three new branches o f the Theosophical Society opened in India and Ceylon, in addition to branches in L ondon, New York, Paris, and the rest of Europe. M adam e Blavatsky was by now an international figure whose career was followed with interest by millions.” T h e re were advantages and a sense of identity in being a Theosophist. A lexandra was especially attracted by the character of Annie Besant, who becam e Blavatsky’s disciple in 1889 an d the leading fig­ ure (and eventually president) o f the Theosophical Society after the fo u n d e r’s death in 1891. N ot coincidentally, A lexandra formally jo in e d the society the next year, stayed with Besant in London, followed by a lengthy stay at the Theosophical com pound near Adyar, India in 1893. After re tu rn in g from h e r first trip to the East, she continued to ask advice of Besant. This strong-willed woman had been a feminist and outspoken advocate o f what was then term ed Free Love, that is, free sexual choice.

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T h e young wom an boarding at the Gnossis was m ore concerned with h e r covertly rom antic relationship with Jacques Villemain, artiste parisien. She was attracted to the slim, elegant esthete, with his deli­ cate features and pale com plexion, as she would be to others of this m onkish type who also held some knowledge she w anted. H e also gave the im pression o f b e in g a g entlem an, which rea ssu re d Alexandra. She rem arked with satisfaction that she couldn’t imagine him dressed up in a costum e at the Beaux Arts Ball. Villemain painted in a metaphysical style: landscapes alive with m enacing a n thropom orphic forms, as though each rock or tree held a secret in n er self peering at the viewer. In the artist’s room , where she visited him, A lexandra reg a rd e d one such landscape o f a snow­ capped peak dom inating a deserted salt lake, the whole vast and em pty yet peopled with indistinct figures. T horoughly absorbed, as she m oved to touch the painting, the artist whisked it away. H e w arned h e r that she was going to en ter into the landscape. A lexandra begged Villemain to explain himself, b u t he p u t h e r off with tea and toast. Shortly after, he went into seclusion. Miss Holm wood, another eccentric m em ber of the Gnosis, confided that he was a probationer who desired adm ittance to the secret, in n er cir­ cle of the society. After a while the young m an tu rn e d up gaunt and withdrawn, health dam aged by a routine of privation. To cheer him, as well as to corner him into answering h e r questions, A lexandra sug­ gested that they visit the Crystal Palace rem aining from the Great Exposition of 1851. Incidentally, the structure had been m oved to the same neighborhood in which M adam e Blavatsky held h e r Saturdays. T h e pair boarded a train in the m idst of a L ond on fog. Villemain was silent, sunk in thought, a n d A lexandra prom ptly fell asleep. She awoke at a siding and, calling out, discovered they had b o ard ed an express to Scotland. T hey would have to wait until evening when a local came thro u g h to re tu rn to London. It began to drizzle, and they sat u n d e r a little shelter. Alexandra, seizing h e r chance, d em a n d e d to know what Villemain had m eant by “entering into a painting.” T h e youthful occultist launched into a strange tale o f how our fate is determ in ed by our astral double in the oth er world. T h e hours sped by, and although the notions elaborated by Villemain to his fascinated friend harked back to the neo-Platonists, they also corresponded to the beliefs of Tibetan B uddhism . A lexandra was

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especially struck by one story that, taken symbolically, was filled with portent. An artist had painted a'p ictu re of an oasis in Africa. A woman initiate went to view it. She became lightheaded, as though she was falling down among the palms. She walked about in the desert and, feeling warm, she wiped her face with a handkerchief. A sudden con­ vulsion attacked her, and the woman, after dropping the kerchief, found herself back in the artist’s atelier, in an armchair where evidently she had fainted. Searching for her kerchief, she saw it painted into the landscape at the foot of a palm! T he artist swore he hadn’t committed such an incongruity, and others affirmed they had seen the painting without the offending kerchief. Had the woman dropped it while she was strolling in the landscape? Villemain m ight believe in astral doubles who inhabited a n o n ­ m aterial reality, b u t A lexandra sought a m ore tangible explanation. Perhaps all concerned had been victims of a comm unicable delusion? O n their re tu rn to town, she dem an d ed they eat a good Italian din­ ner. Too soon the young m an re tu rn e d to his austerities, and Jam es W ard, h e r first friend in L ondon, succum bed to a d ru g habit. A lexandra, still financially d e p e n d e n t on h e r parents, decided to leave L ondon. Yet she couldn’t rid h e r m ind of the painting of an eerie snow capped peak set in b a rre n terrain shown h e r by Villemain. Decades afterw ard, the traveler finally found herself crossing from the hostile terrain of massive, g uardian ice-mountains onto the vast T ibetan plain, the sun setting over a lake, from the shore of which a gold-crowned bird cawed its displeasure at the passing caravan. She recalled Villemain and the prescient tale of entering into a painting. A lexandra re tu rn e d to Brussels in 1889 to resum e the study of music and voice. She was included in a circle of young intellectuals revolving a ro u n d the old radical and friend o f h e r father, Elisée Reclus. O ne of two brothers who fought on the barricades for the Paris C om m une, his m other had been the rebels’ Commissioner for Girls’ Education. Either practical or intellectual schooling for girls was then a radical idea. H a d n ’t the great Balzac written: “T he destiny of w om an a n d h e r sole glory are to m ake beat the hearts of m en. . . . She is a chattel . . . only a subsidiary to m an.” T he Reclus family passed on the cause o f wom en’s education to Alexandra, who would

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personally suffer from the rabid antifem inism found in French universities. While A lexandra’s parents quarreled over h e r future, she took it in h e r own hands. Elisabeth M organ a rra n g e d for h e r to b o ard cheaply with a branch of the Theosophical Society in the Latin Q u a rte r of Paris. It was a dimly lit, shabby flat fronting on the boule­ vard Saint-Michel, and its proprietors, one of several antagonistic factions of the society, claimed to be descended from m oon beings. D inner consisted o f hunks o f rock-like potatoes and a bloated piece o f bread swimming in boiled dishwater. A few spoonfuls o f this soup a n d the dejected young wom an retreated to h e r room to gaze out the window. T h e pedestrian traffic below caught h e r eye. A lexandra stood at the center o f that gaudy m erry-go-round dubbed La Belle Epoque. T h e habitues of the Latin Q u a rte r stream ed along the boulevard, gay, lively, or ru d e, flaunting their costumes or wares. T hese comings and goings were a river she could not fathom. She was disturbed by the gestures of a fancy harlot to hoped-for custom ers seated at a café, themselves too drow ned in absinthe to notice. H a d hum ans descended from the m oon to arrive at this? A lexandra enrolled at the College de France, studying Sanskrit u n d e r the venerable Professor Philippe-E dw ard Foucaux. H e r teacher h ad translated Sanskrit works into T ibetan a n d w ritten a g ram m ar of that lanugage. Typical of scholars o f his time, he had never visited the L and of Snows—forbidden to W estern eyes— and h e never dream ed of doing so, let alone that his pupil w ould reach its mysterious capital. A lexandra repeated the p a tte rn set in L ondon, replacing the British M useum with the Musée Guimet. H ere she rea d on Eastern them es, not only religion b u t also history, geography, and folklore, reg a rd e d the paintings and statuary, and m et people o f like mind. Settling into Paris, she sam pled from the bro ad m enu of esoteric societies. T h e most intriguing was the salon held by M arie Duchess de Pom ar (Lady Caithness) at Holyrood, h e r m ansion on rue de l’Université. A lexandra eagerly climbed a flight of rose m arble stairs to Pom ar’s ornate bedroom w here the Duchess, w earing crim son velvet and a long chain of huge diam onds a ro u n d h er neck, received visitors. T h e ceiling was painted with angels circling a gold star. T h e

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Duchess, a Spanish beauty, had m arried first an aged noblem an who obligingly died, then the Scottish L ord Caithness. Since she considered herself to be the reincarnation o f Mary, Q ueen of Scots, a chapel in h e r boudoir contained a portrait of that unfortunate. Pom ar had steeped herself in the lore of the dead queen and sur­ r o u n d e d herself with “Mary relics.” Habitually, twelve votaries led by a female m edium sat a ro u n d a table, fingertips touching. T hey silently awaited a presence, while the sensitive m um bled and drifted into a trance. Flashing lights, gray smoke, and a delicious rose p e r­ fum e herald ed the arrival of M ary’s ghost—head intact—who when she kissed som eone was supposed to leave a visible m ark. Pom ar was not the light society quack that A lexandra pictured her. Rather, the Duchess a u th o re d some weighty tomes, notably Serious Letters to Serious Friends. Due to their heretical views, her books h ad shocked the clergy of E urope. Pom ar was an associate of M adam e Blavatsky and Annie Besant and becam e cofounder of the Paris Lodge of the Theosophists. This ambitious wom an was a radi­ cal thinker who advocated the “reign of the fem inine brain .” H er models h arked back to neolithic days w hen female divinities pos­ sessed the traits that once again would be valued in future society. W om an—fecund, sensual, intuitive, and nonviolent—should lead the way to a new race and an era of peace. T h e old warlike male rulers, such as those lords who had u su rp e d the pow er of Mary of Scotland, would become obsolete and vanish. In fin-de-siecle Paris decadence constituted both a style and an atm osphere. But A lexandra claimed not to be tem pted by the cells of pagan worship o f which she was aware. Yet she listened to h e r clean­ ing w om an’s talk of m idnight gatherings in the woods outside of town, which also featured the so-called cult o f the woman. H er prob­ lem with these m eetings was that they were attended by the wrong sort o f people—bank clerks a n d the like. T h e satanic mass was inevitably followed by a sexual free-for-all, for which our Victorian young w om an was not prep ared . In h e r early twenties, A lexandra was pursu in g her studies at the S orbonne, b u t as a w om an she could not be a full-time student. Still, this was typical of the older E uropean system: T. E. Lawrence, who e a rn e d a bachelor’s degree from O xford, spent most of his time wan­ d ering about England or reading medieval literature. A lexandra had

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to re tu rn often to Brussels to continue h er musical studies. T h e stern ju d g e within h e r refused to let h e r rest. She could p rep a re for no def­ inite career because those o pen to w om en were too limited. However, the u n h ap p y and frustrated young w om an did not convert smoothly to B uddhism . L ater in life she liked to give that impression, b u t in reality she painfully oscillated from pole to pole. Born a Catholic then rebaptized Protestant, she had been attracted to the ideas of Plato and the cadences o f the Koran. W hen she felt the need to pray, she knelt in front of a devotional lam p, chanting prayers from the H in d u Vedas. H e r travels to date, th ough mainly m ental, ranged far and wide. In 1889 the governm ent o f the T h ird Republic determ in ed to hold an o th er universal exposition, or w orld’s fair, to com m em orate the centenary of the French Revolution. President Sadi C arnot in au ­ g urated the proceedings, which were intended to display France’s worldly and artistic wealth and to attract a ho rd e of tourists to Paris. This city of two-and-a-half million had outstripped every rival as the capital of pleasure. T h anks to the appearance o f w hat Parisians term ed “the electric fairy,” it was becom ing a tru e city o f light. T h e exhibitions ran g e d from an enorm ous gallery o f machines to the reconstruction of a street in Cairo complete with belly dancers. Scientific discoveries such as Edison’s p h o n o g rap h an d the Curies’ radium were of the greatest interest to the throngs of visitors. In the center of the grounds stood that sum m ation of French genius in the form of soaring iron an d glass: the Eiffel Tower. Most Parisians hated it at first, certain it would tum ble down on their heads. Gustave Eiffel had to guarantee indem nity in case o f an accident. A com m ittee of artists dashed off a manifesto denouncing the edifice “dom inating Paris like a black, gigantic factory chimney.” O n the o th er hand, A lexandra looked kindly on this great symbol of scientific progress, in which she then believed, and of masculine pow er— which she sorely lacked. 1889 also m arks the first of A lexandra’s so-called neurasthenic crises. “N eurasthenia” is a term currently replaced by “depression,” which is almost as vague. A lexandra internalized h er d e p e n d e n t sit­ uation and attem pted to em ancipate herself from what she deem ed unw orthy passions and habits. She claimed to have seen the banality of most h u m an pleasures. She knew of higher things b u t lacked

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the strength to pull herself out o f despair. Young, pretty, petite, she was torm ented by desires and fears. To h e r diary (fragments have surfaced and been published in La Lampe de Sagesse, 1986) she con­ fided that she could not believe in rom antic love, which would only lead to infidelity, betrayal, and a broken heart. D eath preyed on A lexandra’s m ind. U n d e r the appearance of beauty or wealth she saw a rotting corpse, and she predicted, wrongly, that she would die young. But she nearly m ade the prophecy self-fulfilling by attem pting suicide. W ithout warning, a dem onic voice would whisper in h e r ear that she could p u t a quick end to her troubles. She knew she m ustn’t let it trium ph. “I belong to a new b re e d ,” she would reply. “We are few in n u m ­ ber b u t we will accomplish o u r mission. I am doing what I m ust.” In o u r own time of suicidal cults, the above suggests that A lexandra was involved with an extrem ist political or messianic group. If so, she destroyed the evidence. However, in h er diary the form er debutante m entions that she kept a pistol and am m unition in h e r Paris room . A lexandra was trying to accept h er instincts, dem an d in g adm iration from h e r com rades yet fearful of giving them anything deep. O ne evening d u rin g the winter of 1890-1891, she loaded h er h an d g u n , held it to h er head and com m anded: “Pull the trigger!” T h e n she began to reason with herself: a bullet could only disperse the atoms which m ade up h e r body, not kill her spirit. She already believed that she would be reincarnated to suffer the consequences. M ore telling at the tim e, suicide m ea n t desertion. T rue, A lexandra did not trust h e r com rades and she habitually lied to them . She had h e r hands on large sums o f m oney—perhaps as a courier— which m ade h er uncom fortable. A lexandra also had access to drugs. T hese are strong hints that she was leading an u n d e r­ g ro u n d life as a political radical. She scribbled in h e r diary about how h e r blood boiled at injustice and the need for revolt—a stance that has been chic on the Left Bank for a long time. A lexandra knew how to use a pistol. H e r father had hunted and took along his d a u g h te r and tau g h t h e r to shoot. She had sufficient familiarity with the sport to hate it, term ing it the m ere m u rd e r of animals. Je a n n e Denys insisted th at A lexandra “must have had a run-in with the law.” T h e Belgian authorities inform ed Denys,

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“T h e re exists [on Alexandra] dossier nu m b er 508-533 at the Foreign Police of the Ministry of Justice.” Denys requested the folder b u t was denied. T h e authors have determ ined that such files are open only for governm ental purpose or to relatives. From the view point of the Belgian police, A lexandra was involved in shady doings. O ver two decades later, the British G overn­ m en t of India, concerned about h e r activities there, investigated h er past. T hey concluded that, at the least, she had radical associates in Paris and Brussels. T h e answer to the puzzle lies in the influence of the old C o m m unard Elisée Reclus. After years of w andering he had settled at Ixelles, a suburb of Brussels, and em barked on the com po­ sition of his g rand Géographie universelle, one of the first genuinely sci­ entific works in the field. B ut Reclus was always at the service o f his comrades. O ne of these was Louis David, his neighbor at Ixelles. Reclus was an uncom prom ising radical. H e continued to edit the far-left review La Rive Gauche and to write such provocative m ani­ festos as Worker Take the Machine! Farmer Take the Land! Dispensing with priest or magistrate, he officiated at the m arriages of his two daughters to like-m inded young men. Most im portant, he threw open his pleasant hom e with its lush garden to young people whom he encouraged to gather and air controversial notions. It was u n d e r his ro o f that A lexandra m et political exiles, b eard ed freethinkers, em aciated poets, and o ther m erchants of dream s. H ere m en and wom en, genteel or working class, were welcomed equally. These hopeful ones would sit a ro u n d a table on which p erched a couple of bottles o f cheap wine and argue philosophy or politics late into the night, each ecstatic face lit by an interior flame. A lexandra, the m ature author, w ondered what h ad becom e of those early comrades. Older, wiser, she knew that some while searching for justice had died as martyrs, or worse, died young after becom ing disillusioned with humanity. T hese rebels would be reincarnated on the streets of the Left Bank d u rin g the 1968 stud ent uprising that toppled the governm ent, and to which A lexandra gave h e r blessing in h er h u n d re d th year. But to u n d e rsta n d the extrem e b ent of A lexandra’s thought, we m ust glance at Max Stirner, the G erm an anarchist whose work dom inated h e r outlook as a young rebel—and as an old one! Stirner, an o p p o n e n t of his m ore successful countrym an Hegel, led an u n re ­

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m arkable m id-nineteenth century life. He tau g h t at a respectable girl’s school in Berlin and was know n for his translations of Adam Smith. B ut his m agnum opus, The Ego and Its Own, converted A lexandra from a libertarian in spirit to one in doctrine and practice. Stirner, scorning the com m on person as “a dog dragging his chain,” celebrated the egotist ' brave enough to heed his natural instincts, which he assum ed were in accord with “the laws of the u n i­ verse.” In the G erm an rom antic tradition, he glorified the self above society. “Every m om ent,” he wrote, “the fetters of reality cut the sharpest welts in my flesh. B ut my own I rem ain,” Indeed, Stirner denied any tru th beyond the individual’s free will. S tirner anticipated Nietzsche and even Freud. H e reflected A lexandra’s in n er turm oil by picturing the self as divided betw een its wants and needs on the one h and, and on the oth er a police force d eterm ined to restrain it from satisfying itself. Give the ego free reign, he im plored; deny so-called honesty by having “the courage to lie.” C om m it crimes to weaken the “cem ent” (respect for law) that holds the state together. At his most bellicose, Stirner announced, “I p refer one free grisette [whore] over a thousand virgins grown gray in virtue.” All this has the ring of La Bohème m ingled with the nasty rom anticism that in time would provide the u n d e rp in n in g for a fas­ cist aesthetic. B ut A lexandra, who couldn’t stand to obey orders, echoed the frustrated G erm an, who declared: “Every m om ent a m an submits to an outside will is an instant taken away from his life.” Elisée Reclus was a kinder m an who provided a figure counter to h e r own weak-willed father. H e became h e r m entor— the next in a line th at was mostly male. A photo of A lexandra from circa 1890, taken in Reclus’ garden, shows h e r dressed soberly in a high-collared blouse, a m an ’s tie folding into a skirt that falls to h e r boots. She appears to be a perfect bluestocking. H e r hair is curly, short, and u n a d o rn e d ; not a frill relieves the austerity of the ensemble. Clearly, she doesn’t frequent the Paris maisons of W orth or Doucet, where socialites flock to spend lavishly on the latest fashions. This young wom an stands at attention, right foot forw ard as though ready to be off to some distant land. T h a t sum m er in Paris was a lark to young Havelock Ellis. In From Rousseau to Proust he recalled that he was welcomed along with the b u d d in g esthetes who frequented the poet M allarm e’s Tuesday

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evenings. H e observed Paul Verlaine (whose love for young A rthur Rim baud had wrecked his m arriage) drinking him self to death at a café on the boulevard des Italiens. It exhilarated the aspiring bohem ian—explorer of the forbidden realm of sex— to stroll along the wide, chestnut tree-lined boulevards. His adm iring glances were re tu rn e d by expensively garbed, if suspect, ladies who were accus­ tom ed to m idnight su p p ers at M axim ’s. T hey expected their entrance on a m an’s arm to m ake heads turn. W hether in the silly farces o f the period, the superb posters, or the absurd dream s of m en far and wide, the Parisienne h ad become the universal sex symbol. Meanwhile the artistic milieu was as insur­ rectionist as the French w orking class, am ong the worst paid in Europe. Paul G auguin and his followers began to make a change in academic perceptions with their Salon des indépendants. At war with the taste of the bourgeosie, G auguin, despairing of E urope, left for Tahiti to rediscover the splendor of barbarism . In effect, he declared the chasm between individual creativity and the constraints of W estern society to be unbridgeable. H e helped to launch the vogue o f Orientalism, which was to find its way into the parlors of the m id­ dle class and into the h e a rt o f o u r susceptible young Frenchw om an. By 1891 A lexandra was in h e r early twenties, and h e r alternatives were narrow ing. She m ight teach or, as h e r parents hoped, marry. If she were m ore of a coquette she could find a wealthy old protector an d scheme to get included in his will. T h e properly b ro u g h t up m adem oiselle hesitated at a singing career with its inevitable dem ands of the flesh. T h e n Elisabeth M organ died and A lexandra inherited a small b u t tidy sum. M adam e David insisted that she invest it in a nice tobacconist shop. Louis, sem iretired, living off stocks and rents, weakly seconded his wife’s practical plan. H e wished his only child to rem ain close to him. In Paris Alexandra, to resolve h e r dilem ma, resorted to the cult led by Sri A nanda Saraswati. T h e followers of this p o p u lar gu ru used drugs, particularly N orth African hashish (concentrated pollen of the m arijuana plant, often laced with opium) for the p urpose of obtaining visions in astral travel. A lexandra disguised herself as a young m an, jo in e d them , and sm oked a hash cigarette. She was hoping for a revelation. A few drags on the b u tt induced a dream like reverie. T h e “young m an” saw his astral double in the parlor of his p a re n t’s hom e,

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enveloped in a gloomy light. H e becam e frightened, weak, doubledup in pain. H e was afraid that he would be m ade a prisoner and never allowed to leave. M oaning, he was ja r r e d awake at the salon. A lexandra writes that the “young m an” left that same evening for Marseilles and a ship b o u n d for India. In fact, A lexandra did not break her ties so quickly. She resorted again to h e r tem ple o f learning, the Musée Guimet. Ascending the gran d staircase past frescos of a B rahm in tending a ritual fire, B uddhist m onks in saffron togas carrying begging bowls, a Japanese tem ple am id cherry blossoms with icy m ountains in the background, she felt like a pilgrim proceeding toward the unraveling o f the suprem e mystery. In the library, presiding over books and readers alike, sat a large gilt B uddha, a smile hinting up his m oon-shaped face. A lexandra had m ade a practice o f saluting the statue. Now she b ro u g h t her problem s to the B u d d h a— and he answ ered h e r with a blessing. T he statue spoke to the young scholar, although not in French or English. An object of prayer for ages, the statue had stored some of the en e r­ gy, the devotion, p o u re d into it, m uch as the earth holds the heat of the sun. As the sand of the desert can in the m iddle of the night give off w arm th, so the stone B u d d h a re tu rn e d the radiance of his van­ ished devotees. But this is A lexandra’s rationalization, not her expe­ rience, which she at first resisted. A nother instance of such com m unication comes from the noted au th o r an d B uddhist J o h n Blofeld. H e writes of hearing an image of Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of compassion and g ran ter of favors, reply to his doubts with the following words: “Look not for my real­ ity in the realm of appearances. . . . Seek it in your own m ind.” Blôfeld kept this experience secret from W esterners for decades out of fear o f ridicule. Finally, he accepted the belief that the being Kuan Yin did com m unicate with him. W h e th e r A lex an d ra’s feeling of oneness with the B uddha stem m ed from a subjective or an objective basis—a tenuous distinc­ tion in the East—in front of this statue, while paying hom age in the traditional m an n e r with palms pressed together in front of the heart, head bowed, she received an instance of what h er H uguenot fore­ bears called “G od’s grace.” Between h e r and the B uddha image passed an intim ation o f things to come. She was off to “som ew here east of Suez.”

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In 1951, following Indian independence, A lexandra David-Neel, then eighty-three, published in Paris a m em oir (India Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) o f h e r several voyages to the Subcontinent. She is unabashed about the sights she witnessed— gorgeous and g ru e ­ some—but, as usual, indifferent to the integrity of genre. David-Neel, who loathed chronology, w ould let nothing stand in the way o f telling a good story. Im pressions from h e r first and later sojourns are m in­ gled if they suit the them e. B ut why did she wait so long to rem inisce about the first Asian country to seize h e r imagination? Beginning in 1891, at age twenty-three, A lexandra traveled for over a year th ro u g h Ceylon and India to the foot of M ount K anchenjunga on the Nepali-Sikkimese border, its five snowy crowns visible on a clear m orning from Darjeeling, beckoning the seeker on to the mysterious beyond. H ere she stopped, although n ot in imagi­ nation. In an article published in 1904, “T h e Religious Power of T ib e t/’ A lexandra wrote of the lamas as “su p e rh u m a n beings” who lived so high and distantly they h a d reversed the G reek m yth o f the gods descending from Olym pus to mingle with hum ans. It would have am azed her to think that she would one day study with these masters. O n the outw ard passage to India th ro u g h the Red Sea, the heat grew unbearable and everyone dozed all day. A lexandra, probably still a virgin, was struck by the lean, blonde beauty of one of the pas­ sengers, stretched out on a deck chair by the first-class cabins. A lthough she had the air of a goddess, A lexandra suspected she was a high-class practitioner of the oldest profession. She noticed that one

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o f two m onks who had come aboard at Suez— Christian b u t o f an Eastern order, w earing coarse robes—felt com pelled to stare at the wom an. W hen this tall, thin, young m onk realized that A lexandra was aware o f this, he blushed, raised his cowl an d went below. But not before he an d the w om an h ad exchanged a glance of unm istakable m eaning. T h e beautiful courtesan and the handsom e m onk continued their dance of passion in the dimness o f the voluptuous, Eastern night. As the ship approached Ceylon, with the sea a sheet o f silver lamé, A lexandra watched one evening while the woman, seductively d rap e d in a sheer dress, lounged against the rail an d the m onk hesi­ tantly app ro ach ed her. T hey spoke a few words that A lexandra could not get close e n ough to hear; th en the m onk, trem bling, em braced the woman. H e follwed h e r to h e r cabin. W hen the young traveler disem barked at Colombo, neither of the pair was on deck a n d she supposed she’d seen the last o f them . A lexandra, on h e r first sojourn in India, b ro u g h t with h e r certain E uropean preconceptions of the hygienic sort that kept h e r at a dis­ tance from the land an d its people. She studied Sanskrit with the T heosophists at Adyar n ear M adras, and after an interview with Annie Besant, she formally jo in ed the society there. In Benares, holy city on the banks of the Ganges, A lexandra studied yoga with a naked em inence, B ashkarananda, who lived year ro u n d in a rose garden. She felt that the swami had a deep u n d e rsta n d in g of Indian thought, and she was p re p a rin g to be initiated as a sanyassin (renunciate) in h e r twenty-fifth year. Before this could happen, she ran out o f m oney and h ad to re tu rn to Brussels. She was once again d e p e n d en t on h e r parents. However, encour­ aged by Elisée Reclus, she set to work on an anarchist “hym n to life,” the lengthy essay Pour La Vie. “This is a p ro u d book,” Reclus would state in its preface, “written by a wom an p ro u d e r still.” He could speak with authority, since eventually he was going to bear the risk of publishing this im m oderate tract th at blasted all laws that interfered with individual liberty. T h e most intriguing aspects of Pour La Vie are those that stem from A lexandra’s heartfelt experience. She dam ned the artificial faith o f h e r m o th er and a cruel god who dem ands pain and tears in life as paym ent for going to heaven after death. She viewed the soci­

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ety of h e r day as her m o th e r’s morality writ large, the enforcer of constraint and death. She condem ned the singlem inded p u rsuit of wealth, particularly by inheritance. Ironically, the Panic o f 1893 gripped the stock m arkets o f the world, and, com p o u n d ed by the col­ lapse o f French efforts to build a Panam a Canal, it was especially acute on the Paris Bourse. Louis David’s investments tu rn e d into worthless pieces of paper. H e could no longer afford to underw rite his d a u g h te r’s fancies, an d h e r inheritance was m uch dim inished. While A lexandra faced the prospect of earning a living, anarchist cells such as “T h e Terribles” counterfeited, robbed, and assassinated in the nam e of the people.^ Never very many, these terrorists—who m ade bombs out of cast-iron soup pots with the lids fastened over sticks of dynam ite and iron scraps— succeeded in thoroughly fright­ ening the governm ent. In 1893 a bom b was throw n from the gallery into the C ham ber o f Deputies, w ounding several lawmakers. In 1894 the execution by guillotine o f Emile Henry, aged twenty-two, drew a large, enthusiastic crowd. H e had hu rled a bom b into the cafe of a railway station filled with people sipping aperitifs. W hen asked w hether he intended to w ound innocent people, he replied, “T h e re are no innocent bourgeoises.” T h e wave of te rro r crested with the assassination of the po p u lar president of the Republic, Sadi C arnot, on J u n e 24. An Italian stabbed him to death. France had been p ushed too far, and the police raided leftist dens and homes. T hirty allegedly anarchist writers and journalists were p u t on trial, b ut their witty replies tu rn e d the p ro ­ ceedings into a fiasco. Nonetheless radicals fled into exile and others w ent un d erg ro u n d . Elisée Reclus accepted the safe position of p ro ­ fessor of geography at the New University of Brussels. Anarchy, as a political m ovem ent, was finished. Although A lexandra David h a d n ’t published h e r subversive “hym n”;—and w ouldn’t until five years had passed—she was wellknow n to the police in Brussels and Paris. T hey retained dossiers on her, which nearly twenty years later they would pass on to British officals in India. For the present, A lexandra was obliged to fall back on h e r fem inine assets: b runette good looks and a fine soprano voice. In p u rsu in g a new career, she found it p ru d e n t to forget most of h e r old com rades and to assume an alias. From 1894 to the end of the decade, A lexandra David lived and

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worked as an aspiring chanteuse, perform ing u n d e r the nam e of A lexandra Myrial (a character in the writings of Hugo). She had a coloratura voice, delicate enough to attem pt the ornam entation of Leo Delibes’s “Bell Song.” She sang roles com posed by Bizet, G ounod, Puccini, an d especially Jules Massenet. W hatever h e r other preoccupations, A lexandra had clung to the love of music. In her m id-twenties, she studied with a feverish diligence at the Brussels Conservatory and then m oved on to Paris. She com posed music and h e r goal was to win the coveted Prix de Rome. In this she did not succeed. Living as an aspiring actress/singer in Paris was difficult. A lexandra later rem inisced about h er so-called h e rrin g days when a grocery store would give h e r potatoes and a dozen h e rrin g on credit. Boiled together, this was all she had to eat as she practiced scales. Still, the glam orous world o f the opera prom ised a way out. She d evoured musical scores, im passioned by them as though they were rom antic novels. But A lexandra com m ented grimly on how she w atched backstage m others tu rn their daughters into whores. She, however, had a backstage father: Louis David was always full of h e lp ­ ful advice or nostrum s. H e was delighted when, solely on h er talent, his d a u g h te r was selected in a u tu m n 1895 to to u r Indochina with the road com pany of L’O pera-C om ique. She was to be billed as their premiere chanteuse in H anoi and H aiphong. A lexandra once quipped that she had nostalgia for Asia before ever going there. O n board the steam er b o u n d for the G ulf of Tonkin, the singer’s cabinm ate criticized h e r for bathing daily, claim­ ing it would ru in h er skin. A lexandra did n ’t care for the libertine society in which she found herself. N or did she have any compli­ m ents for France’s devilish colony, w here the young m en and women of the com pany gave themselves up to sexual intrigues. Rich planta­ tion owners were surprised that they could not buy h e r favors. H e r first trium ph was as Violetta in La Traviata. She immediately sent a clipping from the local p ap er to Louis David with instructions to b rin g it to the notice of the Belgian papers. This was a pattern she was going to repeat in different circumstances with the m an we may term h e r backstage husband. T h e p rem iere chanteuse was creating a certain image. She studied h e r roles with care and oversaw the m aking of h e r costumes. She sang the role of Thais in a coat of silk

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covered with pearls a n d gold that she had copied from a description given by a courtesan of ancient Alexandria. She p o rtrayed Delibes’s Lakm e—a role o f great delicacy—with success, fed herself well, and obeyed h e r father’s injunction to take quinine regularly and avoid the early m orning mists. T h e n A lexandra m ade a mistake. T h e director of the opera house at Hanoi, im pressed by h er ability to fill the house, offered h er two h u n d re d francs p e r night to sing C arm en several nights ru nning. Recalling h e r h e rrin g days, the singer, in h er prim e at twenty-eight, accepted. C arm en is a p a rt for a mezzo-soprano, a huskier voice than A lexandra’s, and though she m ight m anage it occasionally, at H anoi she began the process o f using up h e r voice. T h e would-be prim a d o n n a re tu rn e d to Paris for the season of 1897. She h a d already initiated a c o rre sp o n d en c e with Jules Massenet, cleverly asking his advice concerning the character of M anon. H e had taken unusual pains with the psychology o f his opera. A lexandra perfectly understood that lost but striving wom an, unwilling to accept a m ediocre lot; France’s leading com poser in a letter of that spring praised h e r voice and acting ability. A lthough a projected rendezvous failed to take place, Massenet, an obliging m an, recom m ended h e r to Leon Carvalho, director of L’O pera-C om ique, before he fled the Paris w inter for the south. Carvalho, despite being the com poser of sentim ental operas, was a.h ard h ead ed businessman. H e recognized the singer’s potential but offered h e r a bit p a rt at three h u n d re d francs p e r m onth. This was little m ore than she had ea rn e d each night at Hanoi. A lexandra could starve in Paris or sing for better pay in the provinces. In the spring of 1897 she d e p a rte d for a fateful tour of the Midi. H ere A lexandra experienced h e r first sexual encounter. Previous biographical opinion has claimed that she had an aversion to m en, indeed a h o rro r of the opposite sex. T h e idea is patently absurd; this was a w om an who loved h e r father, had a long m arriage, adopted a son, and who dream ed of h e r own sort of rom ance. In reality DavidNeel, like Blavatsky, got on m uch better with m en than women, if only because it was m ore profitable. She had a great need for, and resp o n d ed to, fatherly affection. Victor H ugo, a bear of a m an, was the first to bounce the little girl on his knee. Physical authority was an essential quality that A lexandra would look for in a m an.

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Eventually she was able to transm ute the father role into that of m en­ tor (even guru), and these m en too would be physical types. Finally they becam e h e r equals, fellow explorers. A lexandra was attracted to a n o th e r sort of m an, the younger b ro th e r or com panion. Possibly this m ade up for the early loss of her own brother. A certain sexual aura, although m uted, pervaded these relationships. Eventually this need was filled by h e r ad opted son Yongden. A lexandra’s ideal m an would have to play both roles sim ul­ taneously, to be at once authoritative and sensitive. He m ust be w or­ thy to arouse in h e r a great love. I f A lexandra h a d n ’t u n derstood the passion for which h e r characters in Manon or Thais were willing to die, she could not have sung the roles so meaningfully. And she would not have found the real life story of the courtesan and the m onk— the duality of sensuality versus austerity— so terribly moving. Because once again, this time in Paris, she glimpsed the “goddess from O lym pus.” She learned from the p ro p rie to r of a beauty salon, with w hom she loved to gossip, th at the goddess was Clare de Langy, a fabulously expensive prostitute. For now, the w om an of nearly thirty had tired of h e r chastity. A lexandra was slipping from the status of m aiden to that o f old maid. Conventional m arriage appalled her, since it would deprive h e r of m ost legal rights. W hat she need ed in o rd er to live in Paris was a room m ate rath e r than a husband. A lexandra found the right young man: J e a n Haustont, composer and fellow orientalist. A photo shows a tall, slender, earnest fellow w ithout m uch force of character. H e is attractive, appropriately bearded, and fair-haired. Je a n had been born in Brussels in 1867, and he was introduced to A lexandra by a painter at a m eeting of the Theosophical Society. T hey shared similar interests but hardly a gran d passion. Tow ard the end of this period of h er developm ent, A lexandra wrote a long, soppy, m ore or less autobiographical novel that she tried b u t failed to have published. “H igh A rt” (subtitled “Memoirs of an Actress”) reveals the a u th o r’s extrem e sensitivity, conflicting desires and dual identity. It handles sexuality in a m anner typical for its day: rough, masculine sex is counterpoised against feminine sen­ timentality. For one reason or another, the a uthor never destroyed this work of fiction.

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J e a n is depicted as the o p era com pany’s pianist, Pierre: blue-eyed and melancholy. He falls in love with Cecile (Alexandra), the glam ­ orous soprano, while she feels a tender pity for the grow n m an she will come to term h e r “child.” While they flirt innocently at rehearsals— the touring o p e ra com pany is at Bayonne— a Greek stagehand is eyeing Cecile. H e has a m ore vivid idea of what she will look like with h er clothes off th an does Pierre. In the novel the stagehand brutally rapes Cecile, who swoons and falls into a brain fever that lasts for weeks. H e r life hangs by a thread as loyal Pierre nurses her, soiled w om an that she is. This sort of m elo­ d ram a was p o pular in its day, b u t in reality A lexandra was never so passive. T h e stagehand probably was h er first lover, b u t only because she had wearied of h e r virginity and decided to make use of him. J e a n H austont, whom she desired, was not the type to initiate an affair, still less to deflower a virgin. A lexandra, we should note, had a lim ited adm iration for the brute, and when decades later she began to write original, indeed captivating, fiction, one of h e r best realized heros was ju st such a fellow. A lexandra was at h e r pitch of beauty at this time. A photo of h er dressed in an elaborate opera costume shows a fully ro u n d e d b u t still petite figure, a symmetrical face whose most striking feature is a pair o f brooding alm ond eyes set in high cheekbones. T h e nose is h er father’s, straight but delicate, and h e r m outh is set in a sensual pout, lower lip tu rn e d out. T h e ensem ble is capped by a frizzed coiffure from which trails a fake braid. Later, although h er looks tu rn e d matronly, she still carried herself with the air of a beauty. A lexandra and J e a n moved in together in a flat in suburban Passy, and here they lived and w orked for most of the n ex t three years. Significantly, they w ent u n d e r the nam e of M onsieur and M adam e Myrial, which A lexandra would ad o p t as a nom de plume. T ogether they wrote a lyrical dram a in one act—“Lidia”—Je a n the music an d she the words. No one could be found to stage it. Q uiet bohem ians, they visited Elisée Reclus, who gave them his blessing, as did Louis David. T h e elderly gentlem an liked J e a n and wrote to him from time to time. H e envied what he supposed was the couple’s true love. T h e singer’s career was going nowhere, and as novelist and essayist she was rejected and unnoticed. B ut she h a d n ’t yet tired of la

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vie de boheme. She looked for salvation in art and wrote approvingly of its sensual satisfactions. W hen, in the a u tu m n of 1899, the o p p o r­ tunity arose to perform with the O p e ra of Athens, a second-rate house, she did n ’t hesitate to go. However, h e r voice was no longer reliable. Louis David sent a rem edy for h e r bad throat: a decoction of dried figs and raisins with honey added. To herself the singer admited that h e r career in high art was a failure. In the sum m er of 1900—while Paris indulged in a nother u n i­ versal exposition—A lexandra sent h e r parents a curt note from Marseilles stating that she had accepted an engagem ent with the m unicipal o p era in Tunis. H er career was on a predictable dow nw ard spiral: from the second com pany to the provinces to the colonies. For a time Louis David received no m ore news from her, and he wrote anxiously to Jean. T h e earnest young musician knew no m ore than did h e r father. A lexandra had d ro p p e d him for a nother man. A lexandra had m oth ered J e a n and she felt for him a sweet, calm affection. But their relationship was ultimately neither practical nor passionate. H austont, an introspective m an, invented a novel musical notation scheme based on vibrations. H e eventually went to China where he taught music and lived out his days. A lexandra, who for a time visited and corresponded with him, m ade no effort to find h e r form er lover in the O rient. Once she had m et the stranger she was going to marry, she never accorded Je a n m uch weight. Philip Neel, a bachelor at the age of thirty-nine, was a m an who ap p e are d to have everything except a wife. B orn at Ales in the south of France, his family was of ancient N orm an stock and came from Jersey, and his father had been a M ethodist missionary. His m other was the d a u g h te r of a Protestant minister. Philip, in contrast to A lexandra, was one of ten children; however, his parents saw to it that he got the best education—in engi­ neering— then available. Philip was instrum ental in constructing the railroad line from Bone, Algeria, to Guelma, Tunisia, of which he was m ade the chief engineering officer. W ith his air of an English gentlem an, Philip favored frock coats, high collars with cravat and stickpin, or while on duty a cutaway jacket w orn with contrasting knickers and high socks, as well as a jau n ty cap. His features were finely cut, eyes cold blue, mustache alert. A lexandra found him to be elegant and a perfect gentleman.

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But he was no Don J u a n an d she never fell madly in love with him. Philip was m ore of a country Casanova, crude in his advances and riddled with guilt. Meanwhile, the Parisienne who called herself A lexandra Myrial, thirty-two and worldly wise, m ust have caused a stir am ong the lonely F renchm en at Tunis. A lexandra m et Philip at the casino. This was the center of social life for colonial society, at least for the m en, and here they gathered to gamble, gossip, and listen to a chanteuse from Paris sing café ballads. T h u s the military officers and bureaucrats forgot, for the m om ent, they were far from hom e in an Arab land. By Septem ber of 1900 the en tertainer at the piano was A lexandra Myrial, form erly of L’O péra-C om ique. She sang light arias for h er polite, if not deeply attentive, audience, one of w hom was the chief engineer. Philip had a yacht of sorts, the Swallow, to which he invited the glam orous Parisienne. N ot only did she accept on Septem ber 15, but, according to h e r diary, she went to bed with him then and there. For a change, Philip Neel found him self involved with a w om an he had to take seriously. T h e yacht was the usual scene of Philip’s trysts, b u t these had involved whores from Marseilles who serviced the colonial class. W hen one of the girls asked for m ore than the going price, Philip sent h e r away rath e r than pay up. This missionary’s son liked to sin, but on the cheap. H e had^a postcard m ade up with a photo of the Swallow on one side, an d he mailed it with identical gallantries to all the girls. Naturally, at first, he assured A lexandra she was the only wom an in his life. If there h ad been others, he couldn’t recall their names. In 1902 A lexandra accepted the m ore attractive post of artistic director of the casino, possibly obtained th ro u g h Philip’s influence. In contrast, she tem porarily jo in e d an expedition o f G erm an botanists into the so uthern desert, w here she indulged h e r interest in ethnology and studied the Bedouins. She continued to write occasionally for radical reviews. In “T h e O rigin of Myths and T h e ir Influence on Social Justice” (Free Thought [Brussels, 1901]) she attacked the Judeo-C hristian tradition and its priests as the descen­ dants of witch doctors. Buddhism , on the o ther hand, she declared to be rational and liberal. She hoped for a revolution of th o ught and sentim ent not for the masses but to free the individual.

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A lexandra traveled sometimes to Paris w here she stayed with Jean H austont at their old flat in Passy. H e came to visit h er in Tunis d u rin g the sum m er of 1902. Perhaps she aim ed to make Philip jeal­ ous, playing on an attraction that, for both, was winning out over their caution and m utual prudence. T h e bud d in g a u th o r needed to m aintain a link with h e r Paris editors, and that same year she p u b ­ lished two articles in the influential Mercure de France, including one on “T h e T ibetan Clergy and Its Doctrines.” It was as th ough she could glimpse h e r own future. By the w inter of 1904, A lexandra, Philip’s avowed mistress, had m oved into his lovely native-style hom e, La Goulette (Waterwheel). O n account o f his curly hair, she chose the pet nam e “alouche,” which she supposed m eant “sheep” in Arabic. T h e nicknam e “M ouchy” stuck to him. For a while, though, it ap p eared that A lexandra and her sheep were going to p a rt bitter enemies. Philip had a kinky side: he took and kept intim ate photos of his paid-for conquests, posed Penthouse-style. Ever the bureaucrat, he carefully filed the photos with the girls’ letters. Either by accident or design, Philip left the incrim i­ nating evidence w here his mistress m ight discover the whole lot. She did, an d far worse, she found h e r own letters m ixed in with the rest. Philip’s reaction to A lexandra’s barely suppressed rage was n o n ­ chalance. Forgetting how h e ’d lied to her, he amiably exhibited his gallery of whores. N one of these overweight, lower-class wom en was pretty, and Philip and A lexandra laughed like com rades over their crudeness. To herself A lexandra tried to rationalize away h e r anger. So w hat if the m an was a skirt chaser? And now he strutted a ro u n d p ro u d as a peacock! But he had led h er on, telling her she was his allin-all. Worse, all the girls had his picture and could exhibit it to future clients. Once she cooled down, A lexandra realized she was dealing with a coxcomb. Mouchy had delivered to h e r his past as hostage. A lexandra divined the M ethodist guilt that lurked beneath his pose as m an of the world. Philip at forty, p atron of prostitutes, had to redeem himself th ro u g h m arriage. She, thirty-six, had trouble keeping her weight in check a n d owned nothing b u t some books and inexpensive jewelry. H er feminist principles were strong, h er B uddhist yearnings real, but the prospect of a poor, lonely m iddle age was bleak. O n August 4, 1904, A lexandra David m arried Philip Neel at the

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French consulate in Tunis. H e r choice of husband proved brilliantly correct and h e r dm ing dow nright lucky. Philip formally wrote to the astonished Louis David to request his consent. T h e elderly gentle­ m an, approaching ninety, agreed— after he had checked with the president of the railroad, who praised the en g in eer’s salary, charac­ ter and pension. For their honeym oon, the newlyweds sailed to France, th en went by train to the spa town of Plombiers, w here they took the waters. After a week they parted. Philip re tu rn e d to Tunis, A lexandra went on to Paris to m ake the ro u n d s of publishers. T h e re she received word that Louis David was dying, and she h u rrie d to Brussels. H e r mother, who was practically senile, fell ill. In h e r time of trouble and grief, while watching over h e r fath e r’s last days, A lexandra could d e p e n d on steady Philip. Over the n ext several years La Goulette, the Neels’ villa by the M editerranean Sea, would provide a healing refuge for A lexandra’s frequently bruised ego. It was a lovely M oorish hom e with white­ washed walls, arcades, and arches, a cool patio, and playing foun­ tains. In August 1905, while redecorating h e r hom e, she learned that h er m entor Elisée Reclus h a d died. She could afford to cry like a lit­ tle girl, resting h e r head on Philip’s shoulder. For the time being she had found a substitute father. But lurking in the background was an older, m ore p rofound paternity: the shadow of Genghis Khan. Try as she might, A lexandra couldn’t tolerate indefinitely the role of b u reau crat’s wife or am ateu r wom an of letters. A photo snapped in the patio of the Neels’ hom e sometime before 1910 shows h e r reclining on a chaise lounge, a prosperous, slightly overweight m atron in an oriental dressing gown. T h e lady is about to sum m on a servant to refill h e r cup of tea. H e r hair is tidy, upsw ept, and p arted in the middle. A round the patio are plants that give an illusion of the tropics, b u t nothing is wild except the eyes o f the caged wife. A lexandra would advance to m eet h e r desinty on the wind-swept plateau o f Tibet, the Roof o f the World. She would penetrate a mys­ terious realm known to few E uropean m en and no E uropean women. B ut on retu rn in g from h e r travels and staying briefly in Paris to taste the acclaim due her, she once again e ncountered Clare de Langy, who was still beautiful and a viscountess and terribly sad. Clare, an ad m irer of A lexandra’s writing, invited h e r to h e r hom e and p o u red out h e r story.

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Clare de Langy had seduced the young m onk aboard the ship on a whim. She was excited by the th o ught of overcom ing his asceti­ cism, his vows to God. Lightning flashed as she felt the coarse cloth of his robe against h e r soft white skin. By m orning she was hopeless­ ly in love with the Viscount de Trevaux, who had jo in e d a monastic o rd e r and planned to give them his fortune. T hey went ashore at Colombo together, the viscount w earing a fashionable tropical suit and black turban. Only then did Clare realize how handsom e h er lover was—like a G reek god. B ut she knew she had sinned mortally. T h e pair becam e a rd e n t lovers b ut Trevaux insisted on m arriage. U n d e r his spell, Clare succum bed. T h e couple lived in luxury on the French Riviera. Clare sensed h e r h u sb a n d ’s restlessness, and indeed one m o rn in g he left the house and d id n ’t retu rn . His lawyer inform ed Clare that she was wealthy and could keep the house b ut h e r husband, who had retreated to an unknow n monastery, would never see h e r again. Clare hired detectives and searched everywhere for h e r husband, w hom she deeply loved, b u t it was no use. At last the lawyer inform ed h e r th at Trevaux had died and she had inherit­ ed his entire fortune. Clare had this to ask o f Alexandra: is there a life after death? She couldn’t bear the th o u g h t of never again seeing h e r loved one. T he beautiful viscountess, in effect a nu n , looked forw ard only to joining him in death. She was hopeful that A lexandra had learned the secret of contacting his spirit. David-Neel, the B uddhist, advised h er to pray for the welfare of all sentient beings to benefit h e r d ep arted husband. But she could see that the woman, despite h e r prom iscuous past, th o u g h t only of this one m an. A lexandra, as she left, realized th at Clare had lived the role o f the penitent courtesan that she had acted on the operatic stage. Clare’s story was, in a sense, h e r own story, which is why she was so moved by it. Except that while Clare had now here to ru n from h er grief, she had taken refuge in travel and the study of Buddhism .

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In 1911 on h e r second voyage to India, A lexandra David-Neel, aged forty-three, although traveling first class, had a bad time of it. T h e Arabs eating with their hands from grimy baskets, the odors from p o o r sanitation a n d a scorching sun, the verm in that got into h er cabin, m ade h e r feverish. She believed that odd microbes h ad infect­ ed her, and she th o u g h t wistfully of an early retu rn . B ut the die was cast: A lexandra w ouldn’t see h e r “dear M ouchy” for fourteen years. By then she would have grad u ated from being a stu d en t o f the East to a learned lama; from a seeker to a pilgrim to a savant. Despite h e r discomfort, David-Neel th o u g h t lucidly about what she proposed to accomplish. She was known in feminist circles, and she had both attended and addressed various conferences, including the first Congress of W omen in 1907 in Rome, which she found over­ ly tame an d dom inated by w om en of the leisure class. She had a re p ­ utation as a journalist who wrote on a variety o f subjects, from reform o f m arriage to Zionism, for small magazines. She was perhaps best know n as the author o f a book on the oldest form of B uddhism , that o f the T h eravada as practiced in Ceylon, B urm a, and T hailand. This would go th ro u g h many perm utations and titles and rem ains still in print. In reality the a uthor had exhausted h er stock of knowledge, and the w om an, despite h er apparently productive life, was miserable. A lexandra com plained continually of headaches, fatigue, po o r appetite. She felt she was growing old, com ing to resem ble h er mother. She had lost touch with h er guardian spirit. Yet h e r growing involvem ent in B uddhism gave h e r hope, and she determ in ed to

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take h e r place in French Orientalism: not as a specialist b ut an advocate of the living philosophy o f the East. She (rather rashly) hop ed to reform and rationalize the teachings of Buddhism . M eanwhile A lexandra the g ourm et com plained about the food on b o a rd ship, especially lentils boiled with onions for dinner. If she had guessed what slops she would one day beg for— and relish! Colombo, Ceylon, w here she disem barked on A ugust 30, pleased h e r no b etter than had the voyage. U n d e r the swaying palms m erchants sw arm ed like flies, buzzing about their silks and sapphires. She was infuriated by the sight of a canary yellow statue of B uddha into whose open hands a devotee had placed a pack of toothpicks, while a n o th e r left a j a r of peas. She lectured at the Theosophical Society and gave a conference at the Royal College before heading into the countryside. At a herm itage fou n d ed by the G erm an scholar Nyanatiloka (born A nton Gueth), A lexandra studied Pali. This ancient tongue is the scriptural language for T heravadins, and its revival was akin to the study of H ebrew by the early Protestants. Ind eed, h e r u n d e r ­ standing of B uddhism at this time was entirely rational: B uddha was an exceptionally wise m an who had taught a m eans of collective action th at involved the renunciation of worldly gain. T h u s B u d ­ dhism was compatible with h e r oth er beliefs, such as in science and anticolonialism. Nonetheless A lexandra enjoyed playing the mem sahib. Dressed in white, w earing a huge hat with a white veil, she was pulled about in a rickshaw. For two m onths she visited the holy sites, including the Bo tree grown from a cutting o f the original one u n d e r which G autam a had received enlightenm ent. B ut it was all too sweet and simple, an d m o dern Buddhists were scarcer than in Paris. A lexandra was pleased to sail away across the Gulf of M annar on a tub w ithout electric lights. At M adurai she passed an enchanting evening u n d e r the stars, intoxicated by the perfum e of India. She had arrived in the south, land of the fine-boned, dark-skinned, em o­ tive Dravidians. T hese people, who had resisted the conquering armies of both Aryans (bearers of Sanskrit) and M oghuls (Muslims), were a rd e n t worshipers of the H in d u trinity. This is composed of B rahm a the creator (to whom there are no temples, no images); Vishnu tHe preserver (sometimes pictured as a boar but whose best-

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know n incarnation is as K rishna the blue cowherd); an d Shiva the great destroyer (whose m any arm s flail a whirlwind of blades) who represents the fire of purification and of generation in the shape of a giant stone lingam, a phallic symbol ad o red by m atrons an d m aidens an d over which they p o u r pots of m elted b u tte r or cover with g ar­ lands of flowers—sweet and suffocating. Alexandra grew m ore at ease with customs of which she th eo ret­ ically disapproved. She frequented the baroque, indeed seething with statuary, M eenakshi tem ple that still dom inates this bustling cen­ ter o f pilgrimage. T h e enorm ous rectangular structure dating from 1560 has always been a beehive o f commerce. Figures in bright silks flitted about or hovered over stalls in the outer courtyard. Beggars begged, peddlers hawked glass bracelets while folk gossiped and b a r­ gained for flowers and fruits with which to propitiate Shiva, the tem ­ ple’s reigning deity. At intervals gourds were sounded to sum m on the faithful to prayer amid billows of, incense, m arigold petals, and a rosew ater mist. It all rem in d ed Lanza del Vasto, the Sicilian noble­ m an who became a follower o f G andhi, of Biblical descriptions of the Tem ple at Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. A lexandra liked best the processions on the feast days. First the enclosure ran g with a racket of conchs and gongs, which the form er singer described as com m anding, almost violent. T h e n the B rahm in priests issued from the tem ple precincts with the enthusiasm of a charge, while the devotees dragged a huge w ooden-wheeled chariot th ro u g h the streets, atop which Krishna danced death and rebirth. This chariot was called Ju g g e rn a u t, and, because it sometimes crushed those in its way, gave the term its m eaning. M en naked save for their loincloths, sm eared with ash or painted with symbols, held u p torches like weapons. T h e devout crouched along the way of the cortege or flung themselves down to kiss the paving stones after the god had passed. T h e p andem onium sent chills to the m arrow o f the supposedly rational observer’s bones. A lexandra adm itted that the scene ap p eared to be straight out of the M iddle Ages, even Satanic. Yet it was far m ore inspiring than the insipid holiday parades held in what rem ained o f Christian Europe. T h e pagan Greeks had known of a similar sacred terror. W ithin the tem ple, a g ran d sight was the hall of a thousand exquisitively carved stone pillars, each illustrating an aspect of H in d u mythology. T h e

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inner sanctum was closed to the public (it still is). H ere priests with half-naked torsos perform ed elaborate ceremonies, and here took place the tantric rites, sexual practices o f which most W esterners have h eard b u t continue to m isunderstand. A lexandra, hiding in a seclud­ ed spot, witnessed the rites one evening. David-Neel claims in h e r memoir, written nearly half-a-century after the fact, that she sneaked into the inner sanctum. Perhaps she b o ught admission. At any rate, in the house of the fish-eyed goddess M eenakshi, Shiva’s consort, there were beautifully shaped statues of her, with ro u n d e d hips and breasts, which A lexandra adm ired. U pon M eenakshi were m odeled the Devadasis, the tem ple’s sacred prosti­ tutes. T h e se d an cers w ere slaves- w ed d ed to Shiva at birth . Occasionally, a w om an’s freedom was b ought by a wealthy ad m irer who paid the tem ple treasury a large sum. H e then took h e r away to become his own concubine. T h e dancers perform ed only for high caste H indus, and sons of the best families attended the rites. A lexandra watched forty w om en whirl in dim light to the accom­ p a nim ent of flute and drum s. T h e musicians followed the steps o f the perform ers, to mimic in sound the lascivious sway o f dark, willowy torsos. A steady rhythm built and was accentuated by gauzy revela­ tions o f bare bosoms, which en tran ced the male congregants. Although the dancers, trained from childhood, were skilled in the erotic arts, A lexandra found nothing refined or graceful in the dis­ play. She term ed it an Asian burlesque. No Puritan, she had rea d the Kama Sutra- and, with Mouchy, practiced its complicated sexual postures. B ut the wom en before h e r were soft from a lazy life and violated h e r standard of beauty. T h e M adurai males went nearly wild. Stim ulated by spiraling hips an d breasts, their lust rose to a crescendo. O ne, eyes dilated, began to w rithe and gulp in ecstatic parody of samadhi, the state of unth in k in g bliss. Suddenly, the dancers fled from the platform and the devotees tore after them tow ard an innerm ost cham ber where dwelled Shiva, his consort and their offspring. A lexandra didn’t fol­ low to witness the supposedly divine fulfillment. Instead, flattened betw een the legs of a giant stone horse, keeping com pany with his outsized lingam, she let the wave o f horny males pass by. T h en she exited, feeling not a little superior. A lexandra realized she had found merely a perversion of the

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tantric rite. In his Tantra: The Yoga of Sex, O m ar G arrison reports on his investigation of a “night school” in B rindaban w here a g u ru was training several disciples in the Secret Ritual— the taking o f five for­ bidden substances, including m eat and liquor, which would climax in maithuna, the conjugal union betw een a disciple and his shakti, or cer­ em onial partner. T h e gu ru com plained that, although he had care­ fully chosen his pupils an d trained them for over a year, w hen he a rra n g e d a ritual circle with wom en for their final initiation, the dis­ ciples all failed the test. T h e g u ru continued: The nececessary thing in this practice is control of the senses, especially control of the seed or semen. Emission is not allowed for any reason. But one of the boys did not restrain himself as I have taught him. Instead, he is spending his seed . . . To the others of the circle, he is saying, ‘This is very jolly. Let us indulge.’ They were all discharging with shouts like players at a polo match. So the fruit of their long sadhana (practice) was lost. Now they must find some other path to liberation. Tantric sex, despite its adoption by hip couples th ro u g h o u t the W estern world, is originally a sacred practice. Its aim is to make the sexual life cosmic in scope a n d intensity. Significantly, L o rd Shiva is the chosen deity of both tantric adepts (shaktas) and the m ost ascetic o f yogis, who seek from him the destruction of desire. Shaktas w or­ ship Shiva th ro u g h the several images of his consort, for it is not pleasure b u t the female pow er that they seek. Found am ong this cult are those we would call magicians, or as Lanza del Vasto wrote in his Return to the Source, “the distillers of love-potions, am ulet-m akers, spell-casters, healers and m iracle-m akers— their holy books are the T antra.” Tantrism , though despised by p ro p e r Brahm ins, may be older th a n H induism itself. T h e T antra looks back to the practices o f the Vedic Rishis before the invasion of the Aryans; the latter b ro u g h t with them the n o rth e rn m atrix of beliefs term ed sham anism , from which Tantrism also borrow ed. Tantrism dem ands the oral transmission of secrets from m aster to disciple, and its aim is the acquisition of m ag­ ical powers in o rd e r to immediately affect both the world within and without. R ather than denying the erotic, Tantrism seeks to harness its

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energy. It is the sixth sense that the sexual organs seem to have, that is a m ysterious inclination of their own, that the sham an seeks to obtain. Until relatively recently, this occult tradition was practiced most purely in a few regions of In d ia—and in Tibet, the land where time h a d stood still. T h e im portance of this previously obscure system to the life of A lexandra, the rational B uddhist, would be crucial. A lthough she grew learned in several branches of Eastern thought, she became famous due to what she knew and wrote o f T ibetan B uddhist tantrism . Generally, this is not sexual b u t employs the root pow er for o ther m eans. Only the difficult techniques she had studied in a Him alayan cave—such as tumo breathing, generating a protective body h eat—tu rn e d h e r perilous jo u rn e y to Lhasa into a success. As we shall see, A lexandra was identified as a tantric adept even before she becam e one. T h e seeker traveled n orthw ard by train th ro u g h forests of teak and past clearings in which drow sed age-old villages, a kind of psychic h u m em anating from the click-clack of the train’s wheels. Along the southeast coast the beaches were dotted by palm yra palms, and A lexandra expressed h e r approval of a people whose domestic economy was based on the coconut ra th e r than the cow. At the m ajor stations comfortable bungalows awaited E uropeans w here the native cham berm aid could skillfully massage weary legs. H e r com panions proved interesting, and the B rahm ins respectful, to the lone wom an traveler. B ut A lexandra was wearied by the heavy m onsoon rains. She found the sky too gray and the fields almost too verdant. Everywhere she looked there was m ud. Forgetful of time, she d ream ed of her first trip to In d ia nearly two decades earlier. T h e n she was a young wom an whose spirit was in tune with the brief pink dawns that p re ­ saged a golden hot day. It wasn’t India that had changed, b u t she. T h e full story of the to rtu re d decade d u rin g which A lexandra had acted as Philip Neel’s mistress and wife can only be glim psed through the m irro r of h e r own m editations. T h e ir intim ate correspondence for those years she consigned to the flames. A lexandra arrived at Pondicherry, all that was left of French India, an d was cheered by m eeting with Sri A urobindo Ghose, who was ju s t then undergoing a conversion from political activist to spiri­

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tual leader. A Bengali by birth in 1872, he was taken at the age of seven to study in England. In 1893, after two years at C am bridge studying classics, A urobindo re tu rn e d to India in the service of a native m aharaja. While he tau g h t English he began to learn Sanskrit an d finally to educate him self in the culture of India. In 1905 the British scheme to partition Bengal betw een west and east (H indus a nd Moslems) gave rise to violent protests. A urobindo becam e a lead­ ing Bengali nationalist and an im portant figure in the so-called Extrem ist wing of the Congress party: those who called for prom pt, total independence from G reat Britian. In 1907 A urobindo founded a newspaper, Bande Mataram, which laid out a p rogram of noncooperation with the British governm ent and laws, the boycott of foreign m anufactured goods, and, w hen nec­ essary, civil disobedience, that when adopted later by M ahatm a G andhi would lead to independence. But the plan was p re m a tu re (G andhi did n ’t re tu rn to In d ia until 1915), and the governm ent arrested A urobindo for sedition. All in all he was arrested three times and each time acquitted, b u t the governm ent still im prisoned him for a year. W hen he was released in 1909 he found the Congress Party broken, its leaders in prison or exile, and in 1910 Aurobindo took refuge in French Pondicherry, ju st ahead of a n o th er arrest w arrant. T h e governm ent could not know that while in prison the politi­ cal radical h a d m e ta m o rp h o se d into a spiritual philosopher. A urobindo started on a p erio d o f silent yoga, which he would en d in 1914, after which he wrote his m ore im portant works and founded his ashram , and, via the efforts of his consort, the Parisienne M irra Alfassa (known to h e r followers as the M other), the new city of Auroville. T h a t A urobindo would break his silence to converse with A lexandra is surprising, b u t she was to benefit from exceptions of this sort on the p a rt of o ther spiritually or tem porally powerful m en, am ong them the T h irte e n th Dalai Lama. W hen A lexandra m et A urobindo in N ovem ber 1911, he was a handsom e m an approaching forty. T h e room in his hom e had only a table and two chairs, an d A urobindo was seated with his back to the w ide-open window, the great sky of India as stage set to his glowing conversation. Four young m en hovered nearby—the disciples who h ad followed him into exile. Outside in the street the In d ian “secret police,” typical of their kind, m ade their presence known.

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T h e m eeting of these two exem plars of reform Buddhism and the twentieth century revival of the ancient Indian knowledge was rife with possibilités. Perhaps the philosopher spoke to A lexandra about his concept of the S uperm ind, which is conscious of eternal tru th b u t can be m ade to infuse m atter and all of life. T h e state that A urobindo sought was not very different from the enlightenm ent achieved by G autam a B uddha, and the philosopher and his inter­ locutor had m uch in com m on. B ut though A lexandra praised A u ro b in d o ’s lucidity, she later w ould term th eir conversation “gossip.” This innocent talk had p ro fo u n d consequences on David-Neel’s quest, leading to a series of incidents that found her, a dozen years later, e n te rin g Lhasa in disguise. A lthough she realized th at A urobindo and his guests were being watched, she was surprised when at M adras h e r train was m et by the Chief of Police. H e politely grilled h e r on h e r purpo se in visiting India. She replied by showing the chief h er letters of introduction from L ondon officials to the viceroy and the governors of provinces. According to Jacques Brosse, the best of h e r earlier biographers, the chief left her completely reassured that she was a political naïf. This e rro r has been com p o u n d ed by later biographers, who like to stress A lexandra’s respectability and prom inence, as though she was a society m atron on a charity outing. True, not long afterw ard she din ed sum ptuously at the right h a n d of the governor of Madras. They even chatted amiably about Aurobino. But this was the begin­ ning of a deliberately two-faced policy toward h e r that was d e te r­ m ined at the highest levels of the G overnm ent of India. A confiden­ tial re p o rt (discovered by the authors in the Secret Files) m ade two years later to Sir A rthur H ertzel of the India Office; L ondon, stated: Mme. David-Neel’s visit to . Pondicherry to visit the leading extremist there. You will see from [a previous] telegram of 19, Dec. 1911 that the governor in Madras was advised to inform the Viceroy at Calcutta of her proceedings. In the circumstances we may perhaps assume that the G of I knows all there is to be known about her? This overly optimistic assum ption was based on “secret enquiries in Paris” b eg u n im m ediately after A lex an d ra’s interview with A urobindo, and which had tu rn e d up elem ents of h e r radical past.

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T h e British were w orried by h e r form er associates and by h e r use of various names, and they suspected she m ight be an agent o f the French or some other governm ent. T h e governor had been alerted prom ptly in the following words: “It m ight be well therefore not to lose sight of her, and to inform the . . . criminal investigation d e p a rt­ m ent of Calcutta.” T h e G overnm ent of In d ia perform ed its surveillance with diplo­ matic finesse; its agents kept a wary eye on the Frenchw om an’s trav­ els and contacts. Several officials who proved most helpful to h e r also rep o rted h e r m ovem ents to the viceroy. W hen they supposed it nec­ essary, they thw arted h e r efforts. This ambiquity on the p a rt of British officialdom continued th ro u g h o u t David-Neel’s stay in the East. For h e r part, it took painful experience to learn that the British governm ent was a collective o p p o n e n t worth outwitting. Fortunately, their spying has left us an objective record of the traveler’s moves across the chessboard of C entral Asia. Je a n n e Denys was mistaken: a lone m iddle-aged wom an did get th ro u g h to Lhasa. A lexandra had the am using faculty of denouncing the colonial bureacracy while occasionally sounding like the most chauvinistic of them . She com pared M adras to a heap of rags and den o u n ced the entire B rahm anic system based on the Vedanta (the sacred Vedas, or scriptures) and caste. T h e Brahm ins, by suppressing B uddhism in the land o f its birth, h a d b ro u g h t India to the state o f slavery in which it found itself. Besides, the hom es of the Brahm ins, contam inated by the habits of their domestics, were too filthy for h e r to eat in. So she avoided invitations by m oving to the comfortable head q u arters of the Theosophical Society at nearby Adyar. H ere A lexandra voiced complaints of a different sort. She lu x u ­ riated in a vast room in a house that resem bled the T rianon of Louis XIV. T h e grounds by the sea were extensive, and in the evenings a collection of what she term ed lunatics w andered over them , lanterns in hand. T h e re was a E u ro p ean count, a beautiful circus perfo rm er tu rn e d missionary, a contingent of m ature ladies. A certain H e rr G rünew ald peered th ro u g h gold-rim m ed glasses at old texts in the library to ascertain how m edieval rabbis had m anufactured golems, robots that did their will. A Swedish girl who vowed to starve herself to death for the experience was only dissuaded by a last m inute cable from Annie Besant.

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T h e m editating Theosophists were equally indifferent to the ven­ om ous snakes on the grounds. A lexandra wrote h e r husband how one m ight e ncounter a king cobra, m arked with the sign of Shiva. W hen he rose u p o n his coil, neck swelling, eyes like fire, the victim could only pray. T h e cobra's bite m eant a quick b u t agonizing end. A lexandra, after scaring Philip, assured him that she was in no real danger. Agitating an d then pacifying h e r -husband was p a rt o f h er p ro g ram to m anage him from a distance. Nights enthralled David-Neel, who sat in the dark listening to n a tu re ’s tropic symphony. Many of the disciples, determ ined to concentrate on some assigned m antra, couldn’t b ear the uncanny racket of birds and insects hum m ing, buzzing, whistling, and flying joyously about in search of no u rish m en t or their mates. A lexandra cleverly m ade this creative chaos the subject of h e r m editation. In the darkness h u m an vanity shrank to its p ro p e r insignificance. T h e night sounds were the voice o f truth. A lexandra m aintained that the practitioners of yoga—either in its physical or m ore spiritual branches— could tell one an o th er by the light in their eyes. This way or some other, several Vishnuites found h e r at Adyar and begged h e r to come jo in them . A dorned with togas a nd sm eared with ash, they were a throw back to the ancient India of unvarnished mysticism. T hey ap p e are d to revere A lexandra, and they quizzed h e r on the H in d u scriptures, giving h e r answers the rap t attention accorded to the Cybele p ronouncing on the outcom e of the Persian War. O n fu rth e r inquiry, A lexandra learned that the yogis’ g u ru was an elderly wom an who sat naked u n d e r an arbor in a public park. She h ad been m editating there for decades and was growing worn out. H e r disciples were seeking a likely replacem ent. A lexandra was am used that the disciples took h e r for an avatar, or goddess incar­ nate, a n d she rightly felt that even the greatest o f French Sanskrit scholars would not have been so h o nored. But she h a d n ’t, as yet, the desire to live w ithout fu rn itu re o r servants. She dispatched her would-be disciples by rem inding them she was a m arried woman whose husband would not approve o f his wife’s public nudity. A lexandra was m ore interested in an invitation to represent France at the International Congress o f Moral Education to be held at T h e H ague in August 1912. T h a t she accepted shows her expecta­

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tion of retu rn in g by the n ex t summer. She assured Philip she was gathering valuable docum ents and ho p ed to write a book on the living H in d u philosophy, the m aterial for which would be gained by h e r actual experience. H e r works would be pleasant to gaze on in their old age together. In fact, as it tu rn e d out, she did not write about India until Philip Neel h ad passed on. A lexandra’s first Christm as far from h e r hom e depressed her. It rained, an d as though to em phasize h e r loneliness, the E uropeans m errily celebrated the birth o f Jesus. Those who preached o f Christ, she com plained, were am ong the ones who would have stoned him. Crucifixion was the rew ard for those who tried to save h u m a n ­ ity, she rem in d ed h e r husband, who had no such intentions. She missed M ouchy and wished he were close so she could h u g him. B ut she quickly ad d ed that In d ia would bore him; he would only be interested in the excellent railroad bridges built by the British. Looking ahead to the New Year, A lexandra p re p a re d to jo u rn e y to the north. Rail as she m ight against the E uropeans, w hether Theosophists, officials, or missionaries, she rem ained the mem sahib who dressed in spotless white and preem ptorily o rd ere d about h er coolies. As L uree Miller, a travel-writer, has pointed out, “A liberat­ ing achievem ent m any wom en o f m eans as m odest as David-Neel m ight envy was that she never learned to cook b u t always m anaged to be served.”

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By the New Year, 1912, David-Neel had m oved n o rth to Calcutta. T he city, aggressively Bengali b u t at that time the capital of all British India, spraw led helter-skelter along the Hooghly River. A com m er­ cial creation of the nineteenth century, it was hom e to the H in d u revival, fierce an d conflicting nationalisms, and poets and intellectu­ als such as R abindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize for literature. It was divided into a native and British quarter, the lat­ ter with its Anglican cathedral, park (the Maidan), and stately homes. A lthough A le x a n d ra was w elcom ed a n d feted by wealthy Bengalis, she couldn’t stomach their food and soon m oved to the English pension of a Mrs. Walter. She was ready to dismiss the city as tattered and unhealthy. Each year w hen the river receded a plague broke out. In a reform ing m ood, she refused to m ake obeisances to renow ned swamis, instead shaking their hands. O n occasions w hen asked to speak, she preached the B uddhist dharma (doctrine) in a m ilitant style. B ut h e r carping attitude was as em pty o f conviction as the B rahm anic ritual an d caste system that she d am ned as lacking charity a n d compassion. M ore to David-Neel’s liking, she was know n in Calcutta from reprints in the Indian Mirror and the Statesman of árdeles she had published in E urope. She adm itted that parts of town resembled L ondon’s St. Jam es’s or K ensington Park, and that the evening’s gray mist on the river rem in d ed h e r o f the Tham es. Prom inent persons in the British com m unity also welcomed her, and soon she found herself dressing for d in n er am ong the ladies in low-cut gowns and jewels a n d the gentlem en in tails. She missed h e r escort, Philip, a n d

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supposed the pair of them w ould have cut an impressive figure. But this sort of thing soon grew stale. Besides, King George VI was soon to arrive to be installed as E m p ero r of India an d to announce the transfer of the capital to Delhi. T h e British hop ed th at by reuniting Bengal they w ould con­ ciliate the Bengalis and in any case rem ove the capital from th e ir fre­ q uent dem onstrations for hom e rule. T h e G overnm ent of In d ia only succeeded in angering the Moslems, who had favored the separation of east a n d west, and who now form ed the Moslem League that was to be instrum ental in the partition o f India in 1946. However, A lexandra found a type of official that did n o t resem ­ ble the bum bling sterotype we have seen in films set d u rin g the Raj, such as Heat and Dust or Gandhi. Sir J o h n W oodruffe, Justice o f the H igh Court, was the first senior official to befriend A lexandra, indeed to influence h e r work a n d life. A highly c u ltured m an, he was th en in his mid-forties and w ouldn’t begin to publish until 1918, u n d e r the pen nam e A rthur Avalon, his vitally im p o rtan t studies of the Tantra. In translating the ancient books and revealing the rituals, Sir J o h n had to be circumspect; he was, in O m ar G arrison’s words, “w riting for two Puritan audiences”—the British Victorians and the Indian Vedantists. Sir J o h n im m ediately took A lexandra into his confidence. H e escorted h e r to the tem ple of Kali— Calcutta m eans the place w here Kali debarked—a ferocious m anifestation o f the universal mother. H ere hum ans had been sacrificed until the British stopped the prac­ tice in the. m id-nineteenth century. In A lexandra’s day, sheep, goats and water buffalo were slaughtered in such profusion th at she had to lift up h e r skirts to wade th ro u g h the blood. T h e charnel house d id n ’t disconcert Sir Jo h n , a devotee of Kali, a m odel h usband and kindly father of four. Although A lexandra failed to u n derstand what he m eant when he spoke of realizing m aterial benefits from his sadhana (practice), she was pleased to accom pany him and his wife to Indian receptions an d secret kirtans. T hese devotions included a concert an d could grow as unruly as a revival m eeting. To the rhythm o f tam bours and cymbals—a music then unknow n to the West—partcipants would exclaim the nam e “H ari!” (Vishnu). Seized by a worshipful frenzy, they grew louder, danced with arms akimbo and even fell into

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convulsions, foam ing at the m outh. T h e others, sunk into a kind of trance, ignored them . David-Neel was outwardly critical of elaborate processions where, in spite o f the grinding poverty of the masses, dozens of elephants were decked out in cloth of gold, em eralds, and rubies, and camels in a netw ork of beaten silver and gold. In fact the spectacle thrilled her to the core. She did grow angry over the custom of infant brides. Often these girls were wed to older m en, a m arriage that couldn’t be consum m ated until m enstruation. If their in tended groom died, they found themselves widowed at twelve or thirteen—still virgin. B arred from rem arrying, they often becam e prostitutes, and they were and still are displayed in cagelike room s in sections of the m ajor cities. A lexandra felt it was praiseworthy th at an Am erican school was e d u ­ cating some of the unfortunates. In h e r own case, curiosity sometimes outw eighed the evidence of misery. W hile in a boat on the river, h e r row er pointed to an object washed up on the bank. It looked like a chubby leather doll but clos­ e r u p proved to be a dead m an. A ravenous dog was gnawing his face, leaving a gaping hole and exposed teeth. A lexandra watched as the dog eventually tired of its tough meal. T h e n she o rd ered the row er to pull n e a re r so she could get a p ro p e r photo. She ho p ed h er shots would come out. She w arned Philip not to show such pictures to any­ one because E uropeans were so fearful of death. Little by little the spell of the East won over the activist. H e r crit­ icisms becam e m uted or clever. W hen a B rahm in priest haughtily refused an offering of chocolate, she tossed him rupees, .which he avidly scooped up. A lexandra was rem inded of how the Rom an E m peror Vespasian had replied to criticism of a tax he had placed on public urinals: “Money has no odor.” Once, annoyed by the antics of the fakirs, she lay dow n on a vacant bed of nails. She explained to a passing British tourist that she needed a nap and was lucky to find a handy couch. A lthough A lexandra continued to see herself as the a u th o r of a shelf o f fat books, she couldn’t decide in which tradition to write. She studied the thoughts and lives o f the two great figures of the H indu (Vedantic) revival— the saintly R a m a k rish n a a n d his disciple Vivekananda, from whose exam ples flow most of the yoga ashrams in the West today. She was im pressed that the ascetic Vivekananda had

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willed him self to death at an early age while seated in a chair apparendy m editating. But she was even m ore taken with the wife o f the late Ram akrishna, whom she visited in h er sixty-sixth year. C aroda Devi had no wrinkles an d bright, shining eyes, and A lexandra tried to coax from h e r the secrets of perp etu al youth. Facilitated by W oodruffe, David-Neel tu rn e d toward the mystery o f the Tantra. She partook o f the ritual of the so-called “five for­ bidden substances”: meat, fish, grain and wine—all b u t the grain religiously forbidden to Brahm ins. T h e fifth is maithuna (sexual union), which follows the cerem onial tasting of the first four. In h er books on India and Nepal, w ritten in the 1950s, A lexandra admits to at least witnessing three diverse tantric cerem onies that included all five elements. At the first, to which she was invited by a guru, ten upper-class H in d u m en attended, each accom panied by his wife and a shakti, or a dored female. In an o pulent house the richly attired threesom es form ed into a chakra (mystic circle) seated on cushions on the floor. A lexandra was herself a shakti and chanted in Sanskrit while incense b u rn e d , the lights of oil lam ps flickered over smooth, chiseled faces, an d bronze bells tinkled. Finally, h e r eager nostrils could scent the p erfum e of adventure— now she was alive. In this instance, the fifth elem ent—sex—was p erform ed virtually as each m an w rapped him self an d his wife in the ex tra length of h e r sari. W ithin their m ulticolored cocoons the couples appeared to be immobile for a long time. Actually.each m an had “laced” or inter­ twined him self with his p a rtn e r and both m editated on suprem e union with the universal power. Presently both em erged to gaze on an d adore their shakti. A lexandra does not m ake clear what else h a p ­ pened, b u t she claimed it m ade h e r feel hum ble. A nother instance of tantric sex took place in an isolated pavilion in a garden, while jackals howled outside. A lexandra had bribed the gardener, whose employers w orshiped the goddess, or female power, on certain moonless nights. She was secretly installed on a stairway leading to a terrace, and from th ere she looked on undetected. She was disguised in a dark blue sari like those worn by wom en o f a low caste. By craning h e r neck, she was able to see everything. First a goat was slaughtered, then the attractive, well-off partici­ pants, seated in the chakra, d ra n k a lot of wine from a com m unal

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jug. T h e n each o f the ten m en em braced his shakti. This was his con­ sort or p a rtn e r in the cult and could be any wom an except his actu­ al wife. T h e couples, w ithout entirely disrobing, consum m ated with first one sexual pose and then an o th e r to resem ble the tantric statues that decorate certain In d ian temples. A lexandra enjoyed watching a scene that she found perfectly decorous. But it is likely, from what she adm itted to a confidant late in life, that she was a participant as well as a voyeur. A third instance of A lexandra’s spying on tantric sexual intim a­ cies w ent less smoothly. T h a t one took place a year later in Nepal, and it involved the sort of native helper that colonial society term ed a “boy,” no m atter his age. A lexandra had a p enchant for young, handsom e, clever boys, and in Nepal she was guided by a young m an nam ed Passang. W hen she asked him why a giant stone lingam should be considered a symbol of Shiva, he scornfully replied that only foreigners th o u g h t that way: “For us the lingam is Shiva himself.” Passang installed A lexandra, disguised as a T ibetan male, in a hay loft above the scene o f a rural tantric rite. Five m en and an equal n u m b er of wom en participated while the seeker p eered th ro u g h the widely separated floorboards. After prayers a goat was b ro u g h t in and beheaded, and the tantrikas dip p ed their fingers in its blood and m ade signs on their faces. Food an d drink—four o f the elem ents— were indulged in without m oderation. Suddenly the lamp went out and, am id the odor of blood, A lexandra heard “bestial groans.” She silently crept out after Passang, h e r taste for voyeurism dam pened. In late J a n u ary 1912 David-Neel com plained to h e r husband that she was rushed, confused, and suffering from dizzy spells; she dwelt on everything that was tragic about India. Yet one m onth later, as she p re p a re d to jo u rn e y to the Himalayas, she was all enthusiasm . She wrote Philip that she had a vision of a good genie who walked in front of her, finding the path, m aking things easy. This need not be taken as a m etaphor. Although A lexandra ad apted the form of her spirit guide to conform with the environm ent, she had a reassuring faith in an o u ter force that watched over her. Only w hen she lost contact with this force did she fall into despair. After a year o f travel in Sikkim and Nepal, in March 1913 A lexandra re tu rn e d to the Ganges Valley, to holy Benares (Varanasi).

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Again she fell into a depression. D uring the year she h ad pried open a crack in the door to Tibet, b u t had it shut in h e r face. She was racked by a b u rn in g desire to be the first W esterner to truly u n d e r ­ stand that forbidden land. Now, at forty-four, she again com pared herself to an old woman. She tu rn e d once m ore to the scholarly study of Sanskrit and Vedanta. Benares, which m eans “resp len d en t with light,” has b een the reli­ gious capital of India since the dawn of history. W hen G autam a B u d d h a came there a ro u n d 500 B.C., he saw ancient tem ples con­ tem porary with Babylon, Nineveh, and Thebes. All devout H indus yearn to worship at its holy places and to expire on the banks of its sacred Ganges. In this way they fu rth e r their wish for no additional rebirths on earth but rath e r im m ersion in the Oversoul, Brahm in. Ultim ate liberation from the wheel of life is assured to those who repeat, as does Shiva himself, “Ram a!”—a nam e of God— directly before they die in Benares. A lexandra explored*the maze o f small streets containing in n u ­ m erable tem ples and shrines. She observed the ghats—stone steps stretching for miles to lead down from the steep bank to the river— an d the crowds on them . She was out at dawn to watch devotees young and old execute yoga poses; zealots, eyes on the rising sun, stare into its blazing rays; a votary of Vishnu, hair m atted and filthy, holds his shriveled u p arm perm an en tly high a n d imm obile. P hantom forms em erged from the low-lying mist to bathe while cows am bled along the terraces. Saddhus (holy men) intoned m antras to the cosmic One. M other Ganges m ade a g ran d e r stage than any A lexandra had sung upon. W hile maids an d m atrons with lightning speed changed wet saris for dry ones, the widows, segregated in houses along the banks, called plaintively for their own deaths. A lexandra fell into sym pathy with this atm osphere of charged piety. She took a step by adopting the saffron robe of the sannyasin, or renunciate. W hen Philip, who felt their m arriage was threaten ed by this gesture, accused h e r o f consulting only h e r own ego, she assured him she h a d n ’t becom e a nu n . T h e dawn-colored robe con­ stituted a refuge that did away with the need for the stone walls and iron grilles of a convent. A lthough she did n ’t inten d to m editate and fast all the time, she w arned Philip that, if he pressed h e r to re tu rn at once, she would retire to a cave in the Himalayas.

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A lexandra confessed to missing the shelter of their m arriage, the beautiful house, the delicious d inners . . . but she had lived like a sleepwalker, not h e r time self. Now she needed to learn the illusory quality o f this self. Like a saddhu, she w anted to own nothing. In almost the same breath, A lexandra assured Philip that he had m a r­ ried a person of note a n d could be p ro u d of their name. T h e College of Sanskrit had called a conference to h o n o r h e r with an honorary doctorate of philosophy. Im agine, h ere in the citadel of H in d u o rth o ­ doxy, a E uropean, a woman, a B uddhist, to be so exalted! B rahm in priests attended, squatting on their haunches and listening raptly to her discourse on Vedantism. It was an event w ithout parallel. A lexandra had m ade rapid progress in Sanskrit, the notoriously difficult language of the Vedas, due to the tutoring of an elderly p u n d it who came to h e r in the m o rning an d again in the evening. T he B rahm in possessed am azing knowledge of the ancient texts b u t scant com m on sense. W hen a cholera epidem ic broke out, he declared it to be the invention o f evil foreigners. H e scoffed at the E uropean for having h e r room at the Theosophical Society scrubbed daily with disinfectant: it was useless to keep clean. At n ig ht funeral processions w ent by, chanting the divine name: Ram! Ram! T h e ir torches cast a gleam over the protective net u n d e r which A lexandra slept, cursing the mosquitos w h o se,buzzing kept h er awake. She stayed away from the worst infected zones, for the poor, dying like crushed ants, couldn’t afford to b u rn their dead relatives’ linen and by reusing it, unwittingly spread the disease. She tried to stick to h e r studies while the tem p eratu re soared to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Partly to gauge the epidem ic’s progress, m ore out of curiosity, David-Neel w ent down to the b u rn in g ghats. She squatted am ong the relatives and the yogis to watch dead bodies being incinerated on w ooden beds, their ashes afterw ard fed to the Ganges. Day and night the spectacle continued, people carrying on their religion by setting others aflame, knowing that soon enough their tu rn to be consum ed by fire w ould come. A lexandra was fascinated by the solid fellows who did the work, torsos naked, a b rie f garm ent d rap ed over their m uscled thighs. T h e operation rem in d ed h e r of a ghastly sort of cooking. T h e workers, arm ed with long poles, flipped pieces of disjointed bodies into the h e a rt of the fire, tu rn in g them like m eat on

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a spit. T h e pelvic bones, seat of procreation, resisted longest. Meanwhile the p u n d it was consum ed With m oney worries. H e spoke to A lexandra transparently of a friend who was losing all his disciples. T hey no longer believed in the H in d u gods and wished to em igrate to England. But if this friend could learn to work miracles, disciples would flock ro u n d him. Since A lexandra knew the Tantra, she m ust take him to magical ceremonies. H e would do anything, the p u n d it whispered, eyes wide—even eat the brains of a dead person. A lexandra realized it was no use to explain that she d id n ’t believe in the sort o f magic he wanted. H a d n ’t she been to the Himalayas? Every Indian knew that sorcerors lived there and even the English said so. A lexandra laughed w hen the p u n d it d e m an d ed to m eet practitioners of the black arts. But she took seriously the illness that afflicted h e r in late summer. She felt feverish, dizzy, depressed—were these the first symptoms o f the plague? Practically delirious, she saw visions of the m ountains, o f lakes that reflected snowy peaks. T h e delusion eerily resem bled the painting showed to her long ago by Jacques Villemain, the young artist at the Gnosis, w hen he w arned her about falling into the landscape. A lexandra did n ’t have cholera, b u t rath e r an ailm ent of the soul. She longed for the chill o f the Himalayas, the vistas and p u re sparkling air o f the high steppes. A brief glimpse of T ibet had capti­ vated her, tu rn e d h e r plans topsy-turvy. At h e r last hom e in Digne, France, there exists an unfinished m anuscript, begun at Benares, concerned with the Vedanta. She was going to abandon it to pursue h er dream . Suddenly word came th at an apartm ent in the royal m onastery of Sikkim awaited her. Instantly recovered, A lexandra packed h e r bags, tent, folding cot, and a galvanized tub she claimed to be portable. From h e r stays in Britain, the traveler had acquired two unlikely habits: she d ran k great quantities of tea, and w herever she m ight find herself—m editating in a cave in the Himalayas, slogging th ro u g h the jun g le, or u n d e r siege by bandits—she insisted on a hot bath daily.

“Sikkim is the most m ountainous country in the world. M ore so than Sw itzerland,” said the prince. In his orange brocade robe, a diam ond in his hat, A lexandra th o u g h t he m ust be a genie come down from these very m ountains. N ot only was he heir to the th ro n e o f Sikkim, he was an incarnated lama. With his dressed-up horse and a party of O riental followers in colorful, silken clothes, the prince rem inded A lexandra o f a character from one of h e r operas. H e had ju st invited h er to his capital, Gangtok. H e would have to continue on before she was ready, b u t he would leave h e r one of his subjects, Kazi Daw asandup, as guide and interpreter. She m ust be dream ing, she decided, as the prince and his entourage rode off. But Dawasandup, a compact m an in traditional dress who waited by her side, was real enough. David-Neel wrote of h e r adventures in the L and of the T hun d erb o lt over fifteen years after they had occurred and from the distance of southern France, yet her tone was underlaid by emotion. Perhaps this is why Magic and Mystery in Tibet, translated into every m ajor language, has rem ained her most popular book. T h e seeker had first v entured toward the Himalayas on a lark. In M arch 1912, while she was sweltering in Calcutta, David-Neel received an offer from the venerable Sanskrit college at H ardw ar on the Ganges—room and vegetarian board, servants, a private tutor, and access to the faculty for explications. This would enable her tobecome a scholar the equal o f any in the West. She told Philip it was what she wanted. She accepted and casually inform ed her husband that while waiting she would take a trip to Sikkim. T h e m onotonous clatter of the train across the verdant Bengal

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plain, broken by patches of scarlet—the “flame of the forest” tree— soothed her. Although the land was u n d e r cultivation, principally for rice, the vitality of N ature lurked in bam boo thickets and groves of palms—and its evils. In a n o th e r m onth the tem p e ra tu re would rise to over 100 degrees fahrenheit, the rainstorm s would begin and the mosquitos would breed, spreading malaria. At Siliguri, w here the change was m ade to the narrow gauge Darjeeling-Him alayan railway, A lexandra noted people with yellow skins and slanted eyes w earing heavier, native dress. T h e toy train puffed along at ten miles an h o u r th ro u g h the timber. At times the grade was so steep that a m an who ro d e at the front of the engine tossed sand on the tracks for traction. At the hill station of Darjeeling the scenery opened out to a trem endous am phi­ theater: on the farther side o f the R ungeet River rose ranges of m ountains in gigantic tiers—Sikkim— and in the far distance the lofty highlands o f Tibet. T h e p an o ram a culm inated in the massive, fivepeaked K anchenjunga, twenty-eight thousand feet above the plain at its height. Alexandra forgot the feverishness of the plains an d h e r own discontents. She took a small m are and porters, traversing the high jun g le, a dense curtain o f foliage that hid its mysterious goingson. While crossing tea plantations at over seven thousand feet, she encountered horsem en in T ibetan garb wearing huge curved cut­ lasses. Recalling h e r forebear Genghiz Khan, she exulted in Mongol Asia—though h e r behind ached som ething awful. A lexandra took refuge in the dak bungalow at Kalim pong. C enter o f an area sometimes term ed British B hutan, it was the term inus of the m ule trains carrying wool from across the Himalayas. T h e b u n ­ galows were built by the governm ent to house its traveling officials, b u t these simple, comfortable, out-of-the-way accomodations were also frequented by E uropean wayfarers. T hey were not always up to par, and the Frenchw om an com plained about the poor service. T h e staff bustled about b u t were occupied by the person and entourage fo the Prince of Sikkim. She p e rk e d up when he sent over his card a n d imm ediately paid him a call. A lexandra had m et h e r prince charm ing: the M aharaj K um ar (Crown Prince) of Sikkim, Sidkeong Tulku. A tulku m eans roughly a “p hantom body.” In the p o p u lar m ind this person is a living B uddha,

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or to be m ore precise, the successive incarnation of a great and holy spirit. T h e Dalai Lam a is the best-known exam ple of a tulku. Sidkeong had received this em anation— a concept m ore indefinite than the W estern “soul”—from his granduncle, who died shortly before he was born. T h e prince at thirty-three was the eldest son of the M aharaja of Sikkim and pro form a abbot of the royal monastery. Not m uch taller than A lexandra, with a pen ch an t for satins a n d embossed leather belts, he was" h andsom er than A lexandra would reveal to Philip. Sidkeong had deeply thoughtful alm ond eyes, even features, a strong nose, a n d sensuous m outh, wore his hair caught up in a thick braid clasped in silver, and carried him self with a fitting air of com m and. Jacques Brosse shrewdly rem arked that ordinarily David-Neel wrote with exactitude, b u t so correctly th at it seem ed cold, as if she feared to say too m uch, to reveal herself. She was wary, especially w hen she wrote to h e r husb an d .” A lexandra was at once struck by Sidkeong’s w arm th and intelli­ gence despite his crowd of retainers, each carrying a dagger stuck in his belt. This m odel o f an oriental despot had been given a E uropean education, first by tutors, then at Oxford. Afterward he was sent on a g rand to u r of Asia to acquaint him with the reigning m onarchs. His passions were agriculture, forestry and public education, to which he diligently attended. T h e prince had to make an impression on his people, b u t he him self p refe rre d the tweeds and m an n e r of a country gentlem an. Sidkeong’s father, the ailing M aharaj T hutob, was a well-inten­ tioned b u t superstitious m an, traditional in all things. Disillusioned by politics, his great joy was to go gam ing for bird or beast. H e was certain that if he neglected to h u n t successfully for m ore than a week, and thus offer a sacrifice to the native god he w orshipped, he would be destroyed. This god, a fiery character who wore a crown m ade of five skulls and rode a snow lion, lived am ong the peaks of Kanchenjunga. T h e royal family was Tibetan, imposed in the sixteenth century along with B uddhism on the indigenous Lepcha, forest dwellers who had been anim ist and carefree. T h e British general M ainwaring, who studied the shy Lepchas, considered them “the original, unspoilt children of Adam and Eve.” In d eed , Sikkim in A lexandra’s day h ad the pristine quality of Eden—com plete with a serpent.

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M aharaj T h u to b had lost his first wife, Sidkeong’s m other, then m arried a noblew om an from Lhasa by whom he had a second son. This queen, Yeshe .Drolma, although nam ed for the T ibetan goddess of mercy, had an iron will that she attem pted to impose on h e r lack­ adaisical husband. She w anted h e r son and not Sidkeong to inherit the throne. In ancient times the wom en o f T ibet had ruled forts and whole provinces. In the late nineteetn century, W. W. Rockhill, the Am erican am bassador to China, claimed that their legal a n d social position was superior not only to o ther Asian w om en b u t also to wom en in Europe. Yeshe Drolma, according to the prevailing custom of polyandry, was m arried to both T h u to b and his younger brother. She wrote a history of Sikkim (u n d er h e r h u sb a n d ’s nam e), and she appears to have been “a practitioner of the Black A rt.” She kept the state seal, and to the extent she had leeway u n d e r the protection of the G overnm ent of India, she ruled. British officials, taking their cue from the expansionist policy of the form er viceroy, L ord C urzon, had definite plans for the tiny p rin ­ cipality wedged between the larger, in d ep e n d e n t m onarchies of Nepal, Tibet, and B hutan. In the words of the Indian historian George K otturan, Sikkim “is the only pass, in a big stretch of form i­ dable natural barriers, connecting two of the most populous nations in the w orld”—C hina an d India. T h e G overnm ent of In d ia ’s resident political officer in Gangtok, Claude White, who h ad overseen the u p bringing o f Sidkeong, was acutely aware that Sikkim was the gate­ way across the Himalayas to Tibet. T h u s W hite took the lead in “regularizing” the adm inistration a n d economy of Sikkim. ’’Chaos reigned everyw here,” he wrote. “T h e re was no revenue system. . . . No court of justice, no police, no public works, no education for the younger generation. . . . [E v e ry ­ thing was in my han d s.” W hite cut the m aharaja’s retainers from three h u n d re d to fifty, an d he encouraged commercial developm ent of the land. Since the su rro u n d in g m onarchies h a d n ’t recognized Britain’s protectorate over Sikkim, the Foreign Office chose to cem ent im perial ties by arra n g in g a dynastic alliance betw een Prince Sidkeong and a Burm ese princess he hardly knew. T h e British had defied the tradition of the m aharani being Tibetan, and, by reinstat­ ing Sidkeong as heir a p p aren t, gone against the wishes of Yeshe Drolma.

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A lexandra, unaw are of this plot o f operatic complexity, instantly was attracted to Sidkeong by his charm and a pixyish quality. She soon discovered he was a rational B uddhist after h e r own heart. Although revered by his people, he treated folk beliefs lightly and was a reform er whose m odel was M ilarepa, the great twelfth century T ibetan poet-sage. T h e prince, thrilled to find a W estern woman who thought as he did, imm ediately invited A lexandra to his capital. Since he had to travel ahead, he provided Kazi Daw asandup as h e r escort. For th ree days, the pair jo u rn e y e d on horseback th ro u g h a lan d ­ scape of shifting fog that obscured the ranks of trees d rap e d with moss a n d climbing vines. T h e trees seem ed to gesture a w arning to the travelers, as though they would speak of hidden influences. A lexandra, in h e r descriptions, will periodically resort to the m etap h o r o f an im penetrable curtain to suggest occult forces. Daw asandup proved a com panion to m atch the landscape. Born of hillmen forebears of the landlord class, he carried on their penchant for the mysterious. As a youth h e 'd studied with a Tantric guru, lived in a cave in the m ountains of B hutan, and courted secret intercourse with the dakinis (feminine deities) to gain magical powers. B ut the d a p p e r little m an was the slave of two passions: he d ran k and read to excess. His d ru n k e n bouts were only occasional, b u t he carried on his reading at any time or place and was known to fall into a long, ecstatic trance over a text that pleased him. D aw asandup was currently headm aster of the T ibetan boarding school at Gangtok. According to A lexandra, he couldn’t bear to spend time in the classroom and assigned his duties to a lower m as­ ter who felt m uch the same. T h e pupils would ru n wild until one day without w arning the headm aster a p p eared to quiz them as sternly as a ju d g e o f the dead. H e o rd e re d one boy at a time to answer ques­ tions, and if the lad failed, the next in line had to slap his face. W hen the students w ouldn’t hit h a rd enough, D aw asandup beat every one. Waving a heavy stick, he ju m p e d .around hollering “H an!” as he whacked the boys’ arms. T hey howled a chorus of lam ents but never studied any harder. Unfortunately, David-Neel had a habit o f denigrating her com­ petitors in a sneaky fashion. In fact, Daw asandup was an interpreter often relied on by the British. T h e Earl of Ronaldshay, Governor of Bengal, th o u g h t highly of him as “a m an of learning with a good

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knowledge of English and a scholarly knowledge of T ib etan .” W. Y. Evans-Wentz, the A m erican-born O xford scholar who com piled the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) adopted D aw asandup as his g uru. T h e pair worked diligently at Rum tek m onastery in Sikkim, Daw asandup translating and Evans-Wentz (then quite a young m an) editing w hat has become the most famous T ibetan text— in stru m en ­ tal in m aking B uddhism a living tradition in the West. Evans-Wentz also edited his m e n to r’s life of M ilarepa, which the latter had translated into English from traditional sources. H e later rem arked that Daw asandup began in J u n e , 1902, “and, w orking on it periodically when he could spare time— he being the sole su p p o rt o f an aged father and m o th er and a wife and three children—com ­ pleted it [in] January, 1917.” T h e headm aster e n d e d his days in 1923 as a respected professor at the University of Calcutta, dying of a fever before he could complete a T ibetan-E nglish dictionary. B ut we shall see that it was Evans-Wentz the American, not his Asian m entor, that David-Neel was out to discredit. Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, is nestled am ong terraced rice fields at six thousand feet. In those days it was an im portant trade depot, “a kaleidoscope of races and costumes?” as an observer p u t it, “w here m any tongues are spoken by the Tibetans, Sikkimese, Lepchas, Indians, Sherpas, and Bhutanese who load a n d unload their pack trains.” T h e Tibetans, daggers stuck in their belts, swag­ gered as they walked the streets of what to them seem ed a big town. A small E uropean colony was m ade up mainly of missionaries, while the British Resident oversaw His Majesty’s affairs in both Sikkim and southern Tibet. Once a year he trekked over the m ountains to Visit the trade agency at Gyantse, one h u n d re d and thirty miles away, the furthest salient of British pow er in the L and of Snows. As A lexandra and h e r escort approached Gangtok, they were greeted by a sudden, severe hailstorm that descended from a clear blue sky as though by magic. D aw asandup, frightened by the freak­ ish storm , rushed off to consult a mopa (oracle), and A lexandra went on to be welcomed by the prince at his private villa. T h e first floor, containing the sitting room , was furnished according to E uropean taste, b u t on the floor above she found snarling images, a T ibetan altar, and statues of B uddhas and saints. Scattered about were excel­ lent works o f a rt gathered by the prince in his travels. T h e m odest

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villa, set in the lovely palace gardens, reflected both the sensitivity of the m an an d the split in his personality. W onderful conversations followed. First a Yellow H at lama arrived from T ibet— this is the reform ed branch, headed by the Dalai Lam a and celibate—and shortly thereafter a Red H at lama— the older, less n u m erous branch whose m em bers may marry. Sidkeong, in a robe, modestly presided from a low couch. A lexandra sat o p p o ­ site him in an arm chair, while the lamas, d rap e d in their garnetcolored robes, sat to either side of the prince. Daw asandup as in te r­ p rete r squatted tailor fashion on the rug. A strange tea was served, flavored with salt and c h u rn e d butter. Rich Tibetans, of whom it was said, “T h e ir lips are always m oist,” d ran k endless bowls o f this concoction. A lthough most W esterners refused it, A lexandra took to the brew, not least because she realized the im portance of the tea cerem ony to oriental etiquette. Talk on the finer points o f B uddhism continued for hours, and the seeker plied the lamas with questions on the mysteries of initia­ tion, magical powers, death, and the beyond. A lama is not an ord i­ nary m onk (or trapa) but usually m ore venerable and better educat­ ed, a n d these two were the equivalents of doctors of philosophy. A lexandra delighted in bringing together two stalwarts of the som e­ times feuding Red and Yellow H at schools. But a m uch greater divide existed betw een the T h eravadin a n d M ahayana schools, and for that m atter betw een T ibetan Lam aism and the rest of the B uddhist world— which at the time n u m b ere d two-thirds of the h u m an race. A lexandra, p erhaps out of mischief, recounted the story of the Greek King M en an d e r’s question about the existence of a h u m an soul to the m onk Nagasena (ca. 100 B . C . ) who replied by taking to pieces and discarding one by one the com ponent parts of the king’s chariot, such as the pole, the axle, the wheels, to dem onstrate that no such thing as a chariot, in and of itself, existed—let alone a soul. D aw asandup pointed to a tanka (painting) on the wall, which illus­ trated the Bardo Thodol by showing the transm igration of the soul from life th ro u g h the bardo (purgatory) to life again th ro u g h rebirth. “How can such a description be given if there is no hum an soul?” he dem anded. Since the Bardo Thodol was considered the work of Padmasambhava, the eighth century fo under of Buddhism in Tibet, the lamas

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couldn’t disagree with what am ounted to sacred scripture. T h e prince seem ed intently interested and agreed with D aw asandup’s argum ent. B ut it failed to convince Alexandra, who would take no authority as final—not even the w ord of B uddha. However, Sidkeong was generally less concerned with metaphysics than the practical affairs of his kingdom and in reform ing the small monastic establish­ ments, all Red Hat. H e was d eterm ined to p u t an end to their feudal privileges (such as com pulsory labor from the peasants) a n d to make them contribute to social progress. A lexandra did not take long to accept the prince’s offer to accom pany him on an inspection tour to the outlying monasteries, although she was su rre n d e rin g h e r chance at becom ing a Sanskrit scholar. T h e night before the pair set out for Podang monastery, of which the prince was nominally abbot, was the first of May, the anniversary of G autam a B u d d h a ’s enlightenm ent. A full m oon blazed in the sky. By its light the m an and wom an spoke in subdued tones. Sidkeong told A lexandra about his father, who was u n d e r the thum b of Yeshe Drolma. To increase h e r own influence she had encouraged him to defy British rule. T h e Resident, Claude White, retaliated by placing him in solitary confinem ent on bread and water. Sidkeong com ­ plained that he was caught between his stepm o ther’s faction of conservative clergy, and on the o th er hand, the British who had no reg ard for Sikkimese customs or the land. H e couldn’t bring his •reforming ideas into practice. Indeed, he struck A lexandra as a bird of exotic plum age kept in too small a cage, and she decided to help free him. She went to bed b u t barely slept. O utside a small orchestra played th ro u g h the night, consisting of two gyalings (oboes), two ragdongs (very long trum pets), and a pair of ketdedrum s. T h e Tibetan-style concert sounded sinister en o u g h to raise the dead. Now, since rock and classical composers have ado p ted the elem ents of T ibetan music, m any m ore W esterners are familiar with it. But an earlier traveler, Captain Knight, called it “the m ost diabolical u p ro a r . . . since the first invention of music.” A lexandra found that the grave, slow, deep sounds thrilled h er to the core. T h e form er diva arose n e x t m orning delighted b u t giddy from missed sleep. T h e prince’s party was followed by an h o n o r g uard of musicians playing trum pets, so long that small boys had to go ahead

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to hold them off the g round. Gradually, they w ended their way upw ard, accom panied by a cortege of lamas who, in pointed bonnets, rem in d ed A lexandra o f m edieval inquisitors. T h e m onks’ red hats and robes ad d ed extra splashes o f color to a scene ad o rn ed with rainbow tinted waterfalls and h u n d re d s of varieties of orchids. Sidkeong, like A lexandra, was an am ateu r botanist, and he showed his guest a few of the four thousand plants and ferns that make Sikkim an exquisitely varied garden. F arther up, the tropical vegetation gave way to h a rd ie r Alpine species, spruce, firs, and birch. H ere and there a gigantic lily poked its graceful neck th ro u g h the shade of the forest. G audy butterflies struck the visitor’s fancy, and she observed at least seventeen different varieties: one with a jet-black body and huge wings resem bling a bird in flight. T he explorer-to-be resp o n d e d m ore naturally to the cooler heights than the hothouse closeness of the lowlands. It rained, frustrating A lexandra’s efforts at photography. She yearned to record the startling specimens of plants and people to send to Philip (with instructions to save for inclusion in future works). However, the prince diverted h er with tales of his gaily dressed sub­ jects, m any o f w hom lined the ro ad to pay hom age, spinning prayer wheels that sighed in the wind. T hese implements offer up quotations from scripture, which are m eant as salutations to spirits in other realms to ensure their favorable reg ard for those on earth. Sidkeong knew his people well— the commercially m inded Nepalis, the cream y sk in n ed L epchas, a n d the stu rd y B hu tan ese h e rd sm e n . B ut A lexandra’s gaze kept roam ing to the lordly Tibetans wearing ear ornam ents of turquoise, jad e , and coral, worked charm boxes aro u n d their necks; they led horses d rap e d with saddlebags in bright, clash­ ing colors. Podang gompa, like o th er Sikkimese monasteries, was relatively small, housing no m ore than one h u n d re d monks. It was a bastion of u n refo rm ed conservatism. O n a terrace dom inating the valley, prayer flags waving from every space, it ap p eared to be a Chinese landscape painting sp ru n g to life. T h e m onks welcomed their abbot reverentially despite his W estern style of life. It annoyed A lexandra when a delegation of notables p rostrated themselves on their stom ­ achs three times. T h e prince, too, was em barrassed before his guest. A lexandra, to show respect to the holy place, folded h e r palms and

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gave the H in d u salutation. L et the lamas ju d g e h e r ru d e, she refused to bow to m en or images. Certainly there existed a vast gulf betw een David-Neel’s rational­ ist beliefs and those of the inhabitants of Sikkim’s sixty-seven m onas­ teries. T hese monks of several older sects peopled an infernal spirit world with ferocious deities dressed in diadem s of h u m a n skulls and necklaces of bone. Still, the frightful aspects of the tantric universe w eren’t as alien to the orientalist as they had been to m ore naive, if intrepid, travelers. Even the great travel-writer Isabella Bird— the first wom an adm itted to m em bership in the Royal Geographical Society—called B uddhist sacred literature, which she couldn’t read, “fairy tales and stories of doubtful morality.” To A lexandra, the paintings that she found on the m onastery walls o f male and female beings copulating—intertw ined in difficult and explicit postures while trying to escape the m any tiered Tibetan hell— struck hom e. H e r sexual entanglem ents, w h eth er casual encounters or the Kama Sutra practices done with Philip, had helped to trap h e r in maya, the world of illusions thought to be real. O n the walls terrible looking m en and women, teeth clenched, naked with m any serpentine arms, were not enjoying lust but jo in e d against it; the corpses beneath th eir feet were slain passions. At least this was A lexandra’s u n d erstan d in g of this horrifying yet erotic art. After what seem ed endless prostrations by the m onks, she and the prince a djourned to the oratory for the usual tea and con­ versation. She joked to Philip that h e r relish for the salty beverage was a sure sign of past lives in Tibet, and she prom ised to bring hom e the recipe so they could brew it in Tunis. She inform ed him that in the evening she had addressed the assembled monks. Taking a T heravadin approach, she em phasized the virtues of early B uddhism a nd the need to banish the fetishes that had distorted the great doc­ trine’s message. T h e congregation h e a rd the foreign w om an respect­ fully, although they distrusted h e r influence on their abbot. For Buddhists* decadent or not, tolerance was a pillar of their creed. T h e dknce of Yama—lord of Death—concluded the festivities. Young boys danced with skeletons, rattling and clanging actual hu m an bones. T h e actors wore masks featuring fanged m ouths full of ulcers, and bloody, bulging eyes. Meanwhile Sidkeong told Rabelaisian jokes to his cronies. H e seem ed unaw are o f the dancers,

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who were p rete n d in g to eat the brains of the dead. A lexandra, stupefied by the show, was even m ore taken aback by the childish, irrev eren t attitude of the audience. She com forted herself with the th o u g h t that, in the B uddhist tradition, they reg a rd e d death as an incident in life, no sadder than o th er events. T h e night had m ore to offer. A lexandra was allowed to sleep in the sanctuary, and the prin ce’s divan was a rra n g e d on one side o f the high altar, hers on the other. A lthough domestics hovered about to serve them , they couldn’t im pede the fleas that climbed up and down h er legs. Mosquitoes, relentless as dem ons, also devoured her, and the p a tte r of small feet indicated rats scurrying a ro u n d to nibble at the food offerings. All these creatures, she understo od, had as m uch right to live as she. Annoyances couldn’t dim the m o m en t’s hypnotic splendor. Soft m oonlight in tru d e d th ro u g h the balcony and caressed the face o f the pillars. A lam p cast dancing shadows on a golden statue of B uddha, while yellow zinnias em itted a subtle perfum e. A lexandra recalled how in ancient Greece a novice who aspired to initiation had to sleep in the sanctuary at the foot o f the altar. W ould some strange magic befall her? As she drifted into a half-slumber, acutely aware o f the p rince’s light, easy b reathing a few feet away, she had a feeling that at last she was going to learn secrets never before revealed to a E uropean. A le x a n d ra ’s e u p h o ric m ood d eflated with h e r descent to G angtok. Letters from Philip awaited her, w ondering w hen she would retu rn , com plaining of h e r growing mysticism as once he had com plained o f h e r being too m ental. She quickly replied and tried to reassure him that she was gathering m aterial to write books while they grew old together. B ut she soon adm itted that intellect h ad its limits, th a t she was o p e n in g a n o th e r d o o r onto ex p erience. A lexandra’s m ore im m ediate problem was the buzz of gossip going the ro u n d s of the missionaries in the dim inutive capital. H e r outings and late night tete-a-tetes with the bachelor prince had caused tongues to wag. T h e E uropeans were certain that all Asians were im m oral, an d since she was sleeping at the royal palace, near Sidkeong’s villa, the good Christians suspected the pair of being lovers. Ironically, the m ost serious accusation against A lexandra was

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that, by m ixing with the prince a n d high lamas of the land, she was acting dangerously democratic. T h e in h ere n t superiority of white skin was threatened! Amusingly, the form er B ohem ian in h e r tu rn d am n ed the local British as m ediocre petite bourgeoisie. T h e w om en talked endlessly of cooking, and their husbands played badly on some instrum ents. T h e sort of evangelical personality a b h o rre d by David-Neel was beautifully depicted by Jam es Hilton in his classic Lost Horizon, the novel published in 1933 th at was influenced by A lexandra’s work, and whose them e bears a curious resem blance to h e r life. Hilton gives us a sympathetic if obtuse Miss Brinklow, who is courageous, narrowly sensible, and inquisitive u p to a point. “A ren’t you going to show us the lamas at work?” she dem ands at Shangri-La. This m ature m aiden lacks any genuine openness of m ind b ut is eager to see “som ething picturesquely prim itive that she could talk about when she got hom e. She had an e x traordinary knack of never seem ing very m uch surprised, yet of always seem ing slightly indignant . . .” For Miss Brinklow the h eath en existed to be converted, and so, stuck in Shangri-La, she dutifully learned Tibetan, in o rd e r to save the souls o f those already in paradise. T h e missionary Annie Taylor presents a real-life case. In 1892 this intrepid zealot en tered T ibet from China, in what* L uree Miller term s “a naive and ill-prepared . . . attem pt to reach Lhasa.” Yet this small, m iddle-aged woman, a semi-invalid in childhood, was tu rn e d back only one week’s m arch from the forbidden capital. She had a propensity for han d in g out cards with biblical texts p rin te d in Tibetan, and although most o f the natives were illiterate, som eone may have spotted these. O f the B uddhist lamas she rem arked, “Poor things, they know no better; no one has ever told them o f Jesus.” An Englishm an of a different stam p resolved David-Neel’s housing problem . T h e Resident Political Officer, Charles Alfred Bell, invited h e r to lodge with him. A lthough Bell, later Sir Charles, did a n u m b er o f favors for A lexandra and initially forw arded h e r research, the two were natural rivals an d antagonists. Bell was bo rn at Calcutta in 1870, the son of a B arrister practicing before the H igh Court. Typically, he went hom e for schooling, first to W inchester on schol­ arship and then to Oxford. By 1891 he had jo in e d the In d ian civil service a n d was posted to Bengal.

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T h e fair-haired, bright-eyed, strong-willed young official was not physically rugged, and the climate of the Indian plains nearly killed him. H e struggled with malaria, a n d a transfer in 1900 to the hills of Darjeeling saved his life. Bell him self continues, “H ere I spent three years, devoting in the m ain such little leisure as I had to the study of the T ibetan language, customs, a n d ideas.” In 1905 he published a Manual of Colloquial Tibetan, an excellent guide to the spoken language. In 1908 Bell was appointed to succeed Claude W hite in Sikkim. D uring the ten years he served as Political Officer, he came to dom i­ nate the relations o f the British governm ent with this principality and to influence its policy toward B hutan and Tibet. W hen in 1910 the T h irte e n th Dalai Lam a fled an invading Chinese army, crossed the Himalayas, and went into exile at Darjeeling, His Holiness found in Bell a firm ally o f Tibet. T h e two continued a rem arkable lifelong friendship, an d the G reat T h irte e n th was pleased to say of the Ideal Civil Servant, “We are m en o f like m in d .” Bell was representative of an extraordinary g roup of scholardiplom ats whom Britain sent to h e r em pire in Asia. He was obser­ vant, free o f racial prejudice, and able to mingle freely with T ibetan lay and B uddhist officials. A lexandra recognized at once that the R esident was the actual pow er in the principality, and she insisted in h e r letters to Philip that Bell had designs on Tibet. Certainly he was Britain’s point m an in the Himalayas as the G reat Gam e of C entral Asian rivalry played out. “From very early on his career,” writes his­ torian C. J. Christie, “Bell had becom e one of the forem ost advocates of the need for a British forw ard policy in the [Himalayan] area.” But he was han d icap p ed by the appeasem ent policies of the Foreign Office an d o f the G overnm ent of India. In 1906 Britian concluded a treaty with China that conceded C hina’s right to negotiate on behalf o f Tibet. T h e next year Britain and Russia formally agreed not to interfere in T ibet’s domestic affairs and not to send diplom atic representatives to Lhasa. Each em pire would police its side of the b o rd e r with Tibet, closing the country to any trespass whatever. Bell, to his disgust, was not allowed farther no rth than Gyantse. B ut he worked quietly to reverse this policy of retreat, a n d the flight of the Dalai Lam a presen ted him with an o pportunity to befriend a ru le r as astute as himself. In the spring of

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1912 he wrote in his private notebook, “Tibet would be delighted to be u n d e r a British protectorate, controlling their external affairs, and leaving their internal in dependence on the lines of the B hutan Treaty o f 1910.” Bell had brokered that treaty, and it was his m odel for the benevolent overlordship that Britain— and he— m ight ex e r­ cise over Tibet. After his retirem ent, Charles Bell wrote several authoritative books on Tibet, its people and its culture. No E uropean m an knew the country better, and if David-Neel, with h e r sharp eye, h ad accu­ rately taken his political m easure, she may have also detected a literary rival. M eanwhile Bell h ad to be concerned with this attractive Frenchw om an’s growing influence o f over Prince Sidkeong. In diplo­ matic fashion the future Sir Charles ushered M adam e Neel into the flow er-gardened residency where, free of scandal, she would be comfortably lodged—a n d he could watch her.

If the small E uropean com m unity o f Gangtok liked to gossip about A lexandra's relationship with Sidkeong, the dust from their liaison hasn’t settled yet. T h e official line em anating from the David-Neel estate is that, in the words of b io g rap h er R uth M iddleton, A lexandra becam e Sidkeong’s “confidante, his traveling com panion, his spiritu­ al sister.” M iddleton cites as evidence A lexandra’s letters to Philip— as if she w ould adm it an affair to the husband who paid all h e r bills!— as well as letters from Sidkeong to A lexandra— those that she, and M arie-M adeleine Peyronnet after her, chose not to destroy. M iddleton accepts a provincial, biased spin on what really went on. Yet elsewhere the tiptoeing b iographer indicates that she knew better: “W ithin the subconscious of almost every wom an, however in d ep e n d e n t and em ancipated, however indifferent to the lure of rom ance, lies buried a sleeping beauty who waits to be awakened. . . . How ap p ro p riate that w hen [A lexandra’s] prince finally arrived on stage, he should be fitted out in gold brocade!” A lexandra, although no sleeping beauty, was a Romantic at heart. She once wrote to her husband that all h e r life she had been searching for a grand passion— and he did not fill the bill. David-Neel was also a hard-driving, m ature wom an who gener­ ally got w hat she wanted. She was not “dedicated to a religious vocation, and therefore celibate,” as M iddleton claims, on no evi­ dence. A lexandra’s m entors, h e r “m asters,” who were dedicated to the pu rsu it of Enlightenm ent, were not celibate. As for Sidkeong, in the family tradition he was som ething of a lady’s man. After all, he had received his m antle of tulku— the reincarnation of a great

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spirit—from his uncle, the second (simultaneous) husband o f his stepm other. Sidkeong’s youth was m arre d by the death of his natural m other an d his father’s losing battle against Claude White, the first Resident Political Officer. T h e Indian historian Lai Basnet writes that M aharaj T h u to b was “sorely tried by an unabating succession of unkind events,” and that he led “an existence reduced to penury.” W hite had T h u to b kept u n d e r arrest for two years at a stretch. H e claimed that Yeshe Drolm#, whom he described as a “born intriguer and diplo­ m at,” was behind all the trouble. While the British backed Sidkeong as an alternative to his father, Drolma favored h e r own son. Sidkeong, then, was emotionally o rp h an ed but still accustom ed to a decisive surrogate m other figure—now provided by A lexandra. T h e prince treated h e r in a m an n e r almost worshipful. H e col­ lected h e r rem arks in a scrapbook that he kept by his bedside. At o th er times Sidkeong acted m ore like a playm ate to the plum p wom an a dozen years his senior. H e took to loading h e r with p r e ­ sents, a n d on one occasion, w hen she was at h e r desk writing, he cra­ dled a baby yak (the hairy T ibetan buffalo) in his arms before h e r window, offering it to her. A lexandra, a Parisian who knew how to flirt, responded to the erotic u n d erto n e. It is h a rd e r to u n d e rsta n d why she deliberately inform ed Philip how enchanting she found the thirty-three-year-old prince, and how he m ade everyone around him happy. Nonetheless, he was a hard worker who took his administrative duties seriously. Although he did not wish to m arry the Burm ese princess that the British had chosen for him, Alexandra concluded, he would make the right w om an-a fine husband. It seems she was still fighting the marital war with Philip, pointing out his failure to become the husband she’d hoped for. Still m ore indiscreetly, A lexandra described h er jau n ts with the prince into the m ountains. Sidkeong, short b u t sturdy, was a first-rate m ountaineer who, no m atter how high or slippery the climb, never showed fatigue or ill hum or. After one particularly steep ascent that caused A lexandra’s head to swim, she glanced up to see h e r p a rtn e r scurrying fearlessly ahead. All this o u tdoor activity m ade the m atron a p p e ar younger, slimmer. Looking in the mirror, she saw that care a n d disappointm ent had vanished from h er features. H e r eyes were rad ian t with an inner light.

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In late May, following a day’s trek on the route to Tibet, night in an isolated bungalow was cozy. O utside, the dem ons m ight prowl and witches gather, b u t within there were no closed doors between the two soul mates. First they din ed together by candlelight; then, with incense perfum ing the air, they spoke and d ream ed of a better world. Until late, the pair indulged in what A lexandra called their private cult. T h e n , she assured h e r husband, the prince discreetly retired. Philip, who knew A lexandra only too well, did n ’t believe her. He was having erotic dream s about his lost wife. N ot overly suspicious, he sensed som ething m ore going on than a platonic affair. T h e re was no denying a strong rom antic c u rre n t between the m ature w om an— charm ing and attractive w hen she chose to be— and the dashing young prince. T h a t their feelings for one an o th er were based on a shared view of the world only fanned the growing flames. A lexandra had never before found this quality of understanding, of spiritual dedication, in a m an who physically pleased her. Sidkeong com bined ease o f com panionship with the intensity of a believer. H e was every­ thing that the m undane, hypochondriacal Mouchy could never be, and A lexandra d id n ’t m ind so inform ing h e r husband. Philip felt betrayed. H e had u n d e rta k e n to su p p o rt a scholar, not an oriental p o ten tate’s mistress. Worse, he realized that he had failed to come close to the one person who m attered to him. According to his n e x t letter, he w ent for a long m elancholy Sunday walk along the m argin of the sea, lonely and miserable. Was his desperation such that he contem plated suicide? T h e letter in which he detailed his feelings was discarded by A lexandra—-just as she discarded his others, although she did respond to this one with unusual urgency. She offered to re tu rn imm ediately if the pain caused by her absence was truly severe. She called Philip pet nam es and reassured him o f h e r fidelity and that she would one day re tu rn to Tunis. Begging for patience, A lexandra switched the subject, rem inding Philip th at B u d d h a had been an active m an of affairs ju st like him ­ self. A lexandra was going th ro u g h a gradual process of abandoning the sexual for the sensual. She devoured h e r exotic surroundings, including the tawny beauty o f both m en and women, through its sights and sounds, th ro u g h h er eyes, ears, th ro u g h every one of h er five sense organs. This is not Puritanism but a quickening of perception that is a step on the tantric path to power. However, her

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developm ent was far from complete, and we are left with the ques­ tion of w hether she did or did not have a love affair with the Prince of Sikkim. Philip supposed so, likewise the missionaries. Charles Bell, who would have m ade it his business to find out, is silent on the matter, even in his unpublished notebooks. Sidkeong gave A lexandra some rem arkable gifts. At Digne we have seen some of these precious bracelets, earrings, and objets, and as is the custom in the East, they are often solid gold. T h e explorer, no m atter how desperate h e r plight, how poor, hungry, a n d cold she grew, refused to sell even one piece. She carried the jew elry on h e r person d u rin g h e r m arath o n jo u rn e y th ro u g h u n m ap p e d Tibet, w hen if anyone had caught sight o f the treasure, it could have cost h e r and h e r adopted son their lives. A lexandra’s training as a singer stood h e r in good stead in h er climbing excursions. Born with strong lungs, she had studied b reath control. Yet she was nervous before h e r first solo cam ping expedition in early Ju n e . She adm itted th at h er daring was a triu m p h of will over unwilling flesh. She never quite lost the fear of h u rtin g herself. T h e prince obtained for h e r m ounts, yaks, tents, and bearers an d waved h e r off on a trek up fifteen thousand feet—ju s t below the line w here the abominable snowm an is ru m o re d to prowl. T hrilled at being h er own wom an, A lexandra sped along in front o f the party, climbing higher, h e a d ed past Lachen and Tangu, the last o.utposts before Tibet. In the snow-clad m oun tains, ho m e of anchorites and sages, A lexandra sensed the im m inent presence that lurked behind the b urnished peaks, the nonm aterial being m ore shadowy than the deepest ravines. She had to wait three hours in stinging snow for h e r servants to come u p and boil tea. H e r tent was leaky, and by n ext m orning it was an inconspicuous dot on the heights. A lexandra, too ill to budge, felt h e r chest b o u n d by pain. She h ad to do som ething quickly or the snow would be h e r shroud. If she h a d pneum onia or heart trouble, the odds were against her. T h e n she grew calm. How noble to perish am ong these majestic m ountains, alone with the gods! H e r last wish was to get a picture of h e r death site—for Philip, she told him, b u t m ore likely for the press. Bulky cam era in hand, A lexandra crawled from the tent, pointed, a n d snapped. She felt better an d groaned for h e r retainers. H ot tea an d a steam ing footbath revitalized h e r blood, and she realized she

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had noth in g worse than a chest cold. Soon, in the saddle, she was heading for the n ext ridge. This trek proved to A lexandra the joys of solitude, of sleeping in a ten t in the high Himalayas, and of eating rations cooked over a yak d u n g fire, but always provided a servant did the cooking. T h e T ibetan plateau lay before her: small, icy lakes dom inated by glowing peaks that p en e tra te d the intense blue sky. This surreal landscape resem bled the mystical painting shown to h e r years before at the L ondon Gnosis. Should she descend to it? She knew, such a step was strictly forbidden by both British a n d T ibetan authorities. T h e ques­ tion was settled for h e r by the Sikkimese porters, who were freezing and d e m a n d e d to tu rn back. T hey took to fighting one a n o th er for a place at the fire, and A lexandra had to separate them with a whip. She wasn’t faring m uch better. T h e glare b u rn e d h e r eyes, the cold blistered h e r skin and spread h e r nose across half h e r face. She cured a h uge white blister on h e r lip by slitting the skin with a sharp knife. Yet after h e r re tu rn to Gangtok, A lexandra had an irrepress­ ible desire to m ake a n o th er expedition, to get stronger bearers— Tibetans— and climb back, this time to cross the forbidden line. AJ1 the E uropeans in the tiny capital felt the same strange fascination, although none d a re d act. W hen D aw asandup revealed to h er that the hailstorm had been a w arning a n d the oracle h ad predicted she would face terrible difficulties if she attem pted to live in Tibet—the L and of the Religion— the rational B uddhist d id n ’t bo th er to reply. Outwardly, David-Neel—who to some seem ed a dilettante, to others w orse—quietly continued with h e r studies. She said nothing of h er evolving scheme to Sidkeong or Charles Beil or the missionaries. But, veiled as the Cybele, she confided to Philip that she was on the edge of solving the mystery that had long bewitched her. “Forbidden Tibet! W esterners have called it that for centuries!” wrote Lowell T hom as, Jr. N aturally the least accessible land on earth, it has always lu red explorers, missionaries, and searchers after both spiritual tru th and the secrets of perp etu al life. Shangri-La may be a fictional place, yet its equivalent has been sought for both above and below g ro u n d in this kingdom protected by the ram parts of the Himalayas. Despite its location on the ro o f of the world, with valleys at fourteen thousand feet, and until recently its official policy of rem aining closed to outsiders, T ibet has draw n an array of adven­

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turers who dared to penetrate the sacred, if haphazardly guarded, realm. For the rest, even now w hen T ibetan refugees live am ong us, we hold m any misconceptions of their country. Ethnographic Tibet is large—equal to one-third of the continen­ tal U nited States—and the influence of its culture has been decisive over an area of Central Asia far greater than its own size. Even its neighbors have been difficult to reach or politically unstable: to the west, Ladakh an d Kashmir; to the south, the m ountainous states of Nepal, Sikkim (now incorporated into India), B hutan, and littleknown portions of Assam an d Burm a; to the east, the Chinese m arch ­ es, form erly inhabited by brigands and Tibetan-speaking nom ads, or inhospitable portions of Szechuan and Kansu provinces; and to the n orth, the vast desert spaces o f C hina’s Sinkiang province. M ongolia lies beyond, and m ore to the west, Afghanistan. Population statistics are m urky and politically entangled; there are some six million e th ­ nic Tibetans, two-thirds of w hom live in what is presently western China, a n d the rem ain in g o n e-th ird in the so-called T ib etan Autonom ous Region of China, the old heartland, which includes Lhasa. Since 1959, w hen Red Army troops crushed a p o p u lar u p ris­ ing, a considerable em igré com m unity has taken root in India, con­ centrated in the north, and m ore recently in E urope a n d America. Historically, because of its altitude a n d the sparseness of the land, T ibet was seldom invaded. Even the hordes of Genghiz K han or the later Mogul conquerors of India went a ro u n d the great m ountain fastness. But the nom inal ru le r of the land, F ourteenth in the line of Dalai Lamas, and perhaps the last, today lives in exile in India. So did his predeccessor, the G reat T h irteen th , from 1910 to 1912 after he, too, fled from a Chinese invasion. Indeed, what was at stake then rem ains at stake today: the status of T ibet vis-à-vis China. This makes it particularly im portant th at A lexandra m et and interviewed the T h irte e n th Dalai Lama. A lthough initially he was skeptical, the lord of M ahayana B uddhism came to accept the foreign w om an as an insider— a m em ber of the faith. T h e T h irte e n th went o ut o f his way to fu rth er h e r mission, encouraging h e r studies and answ ering many abstruse questions. Yet A lexandra did not speak glowingly of the T h irte e n th Dalai Lama. She adm itted his p ro fo u n d knowledge o f B uddhism , yet p ri­ vately she claimed that he was cold, affected, and lacking in compas-

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sion. This was unusual criticism. Charles Bell, who knew the T h irte e n th intimately over a period of years, was certain that he fit the generic description of the Dalai Lama: “H e was reg ard ed as a god, being an incarnation of Chen-re-zi, the L ord of Mercy, himself an em anation of B uddha. As Chen-re-zi is held to be the fo under of the T ibetan race, and is w orshipped as its partron* dlety, this gave the Dalai Lam a an overpow ering position in T ibet.” T h a t rem ains true today, m uch to the annoyance of the occupying Chinese officials, who have m ade the possession of photographs of the Fourteenth Dalai Lam a a crim inal offence. Tibetans, at the end of an evening of light diversion, will sit crosslegged, an d som eone will say, “L et’s talk about religion!” In o rd e r to u n d e rsta n d the unique p h en o m e n o n that is the Dalai Lam a, as well as A lexandra’s reaction to the T h irte e n th , it is necessary to take a quick glance back at the origin o f B uddhism and how it came to reach Tibet. T h e historical B uddha, Siddhartha G autam a Sakyamun—his given, family, and clan nam e—was b o rn in the sixth century B . C . in what is now so u th ern Nepal. According to A lexandra in h e r Buddhism: Its Doctrines and its Methods, he was of the Kshatriya (war­ rior) caste, a n d his im m ediate family was noble and wealthy. Bell rem arks th at “B u d d h a may well have been M ongoloid (perhaps Tibetan) ra th e r than Indian, by race.” T h e young noblem an received the best education of his day a n d grew up unfettered by worldly cares. H e m arried, had a son, and app eared content. T h e n at twentynine S iddhartha had his head shaved, d o n n e d the plain yellow robe of a sannyasin, or renunciate, and rejected the goods of this world. Although the tradition of religious m endicants was well established, the young m an’s family was horrified. T h e re is a certain parallel to A lexandra’s own situation, and she once rem arked that one first has to be comfortable to become a B uddha; otherwise, the allure of m ate­ rial things will be too engrossing, too persuasive. S iddhartha sought E nlightenm ent by studying with the famous teachers o f his day and then by fasting and ascetic practices, but to no avail. It came to him while sitting u n d e r a great canopy of a tree, from within his own m ind. S iddhartha had become the B uddha, the Awakened One. H e preached his first serm on at the Deer Park outside Benares. T h o u g h differing in content and emphasis, as a

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statem ent of belief it has m ade an im pact on people’s m inds no less th an Jesus’ Serm on on the M ount. H ere in the citadel of the B rahm ins—m uch as Jesus d a re d the high priests— B u d d h a denied the value of self-mortification an d denigrated the uses of ritual and sacrifice. H e declared that all things spring from a cause, and the cause of h u m an suffering is the craving for life. T h e search for plea­ surable sensation leads inevitably to pain. B ut following the Eightfold Path puts an e n d to karmay successive rebirths, and leads to nirvana, cessation, the blissful void. Buddhism , destined to nearly die o ut in its native India, spread to other lands. T h e term Mahayana is used to differentiate the B uddhism o f n o rth e rn Asia from the original T heravadin. According to Sir Charles Eliot, diplom at and scholar, the new er faith proved “w arm er in charity, m ore personal in devotion, m ore ornate in art, literature, and ritual.” Especially in Tibet, the M ahayana stressed the supernatural spirit o f the B uddha, o f which innum erable B uddhas past, present, and future are b u t em anations. Along with this con­ cept, as mystical as the Christian theology that the young A lexandra rebelled against, came the worship of bodhisattvas—beings who reject nirvana until all o f h u m an k in d can jo in them . Cults are dedicated to these heroes, who m ust continually reincarnate to fulfill their beneficent purpose. “W arriors, warriors we call ourselves,” began a favorite text of David-Neel’s. “We fight for splendid virtue, for high encleavor, for sublime wisdom.” It was the w arrior king Strongtsan G am po who, in the seventh century, b ent to the will of his two wives, one Chinese the other Nepali, and sent scholars into India to study and translate B uddhist texts. T hey h ad to fashion an alphabet, since T ibet had none, and physically carry the books on their backs over the sky-high b a rrie r of the Himalayas. This tradition becam e central to T ibetan B uddhism , and A lexandra would becom e rightfully p ro u d of h e r translations from Tibetan and the collection of texts she hau led back over the m ountains to India a n d the West. No other wom an has p e r­ form ed such an astonishing task, and nearly at the cost of h e r life. N ot until the m id-eighth century did the tropical plant of B uddhism take root in the frigid soil of the T ibetan plateau. T ibet had become an im portant military pow er that had o v erru n areas of T urkestan, India, and China. T h e king sent for Padm asam bhava, a

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renow ned yogi-sage, skilled in magic and mysticism. H e was a harsh b u t clever m an able to ad ap t his teachings to the dem onology already in place. T h e preexistent sham anist religion, know n as Bon, e m p h a ­ sized protection against a h o rd e o f malicious spirits. C onsidering their environm ent of biting winds, glaciers, sudden storms, forbid­ ding m ountains, chasms th ro u g h which rush icy torrents, and a light that presents distant objects as near an d n ear ones as receding, the Tibetans* bone-deep belief in sorcery is scarcely surprising. Padm asam bhava p resented him self as the great exorcist em pow ­ ered to subdue the most ferocious dem ons. This is the sort of fellow a barbarian king, or a well-to-do m erchant or herdsm an, is pleased to hire, a n d G u ru Rinpoche, as he is re fe rre d to by Tibetans, was able to build the country’s first monastery, Samye, and to become the fountainhead of the several Red H at sects. A pparently he drank, consorted with wom en, and practiced tantric sexual rites. At first, David-Neel reg a rd e d the B uddhism descended from Padm asam bhava as decadent and superstitious. She leaned tow ard the reform s of Tsong Khapa, b o rn in 1357 near Lake Koko N or in Amdo. This fo u n d er o f the Yellow H at discipline, the established church o f most Tibetans and Mongols, becam e a m onk at seven and absorbed instruction from a variety o f teachers, including Rom an Catholic missionaries. In early m anhood he went to Lhasa and, u n d e r the secular rulers, began to im plem ent his reforms. H e insti­ tuted a tru e monastic discipline com plete with hierarchy, celibacy, and com m unal prayer, while discouraging magical practices. Tsong K hapa was behind the founding of the three great m onasteries of G anden (Joyous M ountain), Sera (Rose Fence), an d D rep u n g (Rice H eap), thereby su rro u n d in g the capital with yellow-hatted monks and insuring a clerical veto over the acts of governm ent. H e also established Tashilhunpo at Shigatse, which becam e the seat of the Panchen Lam a, who would rival the Dalai Lam a in prestige—and eventually in bestowing favors on David-Neel. T h e a u th o r of Buddhism rem ark ed that of all the Dalai Lamas who p reced ed the T h irte e n th , only two others achieved a m easure of fame: the G reat Fifth and his successor, the infamous Sixth. T h e Fifth, with the aid of M ongol troops, seized secular power in the sev­ enteenth century. Indeed, Dalai is M ongol for the sea, vast and p ro ­ found. T h e Fifth built Lhasa’s enorm ously impressive Potala Palace,

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a n d he determ ined the powers of the Dalai Lam aship as definitively as h ad Innocent III d eterm ined those of the Rom an papacy. W hen the M anchus succeeded to the Celestial T h ro n e of C hina in 1644, the Fifth jo u rn e y e d to Peking w here the em p ero r bestowed u p o n him the title “Universal Ruler of the B uddhist Faith.” T h e death of the G reat Fifth was concealed for over a decade while his chief adviser, said to be his natural son, continued to p r e ­ side in his name. B ut there can be no dynasty of Dalai Lamas; the successor is not his son but his reincarnation in a new born male child. T h u s T ibet’s ruler has often been an infant of ru d e peasant p a re n t­ age raised in the halls of state. However, due to the conniving at court, the Sixth Dalai Lam a was not announced until 1697 when he was in his teens. H e had been discovered but left to live norm ally with his parents. Alas, the rem arkably w inning lad was a m erry one: he drank, wore jewelry, and chased w om en all night long. M elodious Purity— so he was nam ed—wrote beautiful love songs that are still sung by Tibetans, for the people a dored him. Indeed, A lexandra insisted that she had found in Lhasa a half-secret cult that venerated his memory. She translated some of the Sixth’s poetry, which often contains sharp social satire, mocking the m onks who are not tru e to their vows, b u t m ore often is lyrical in praise o f his sweethearts. She wrote th at he led a life of “what appears to us [as] debauchery, and would indeed be so in the case of any other than an ‘initiate’ into that singular tra in ­ ing”—of tantricism. T h e In d ian scholar A gehananda Bharati adds: “T h e famous, or infamous, Sixth Dalai Lam a had his problem s vis-àvis the orthodox reform ed clergy, b u t I feel reasonably sure that they did not recognize the tantric disciplinary elem ent in his casé.” Certainly the M anchu e m p e ro r failed to be amused. H e invited M elodious Purity to Peking u n d e r guard, in a mockery o f the usual honorifics. O n the way he had him poisoned. T h e T ibetan people were outraged, b u t this initiated the u n fortunate habit of m u rd e rin g young Dalai Lamas when they approached m anhood. T h e N inth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth conveniently shed their earthly guise at about the same age. T h e T ibetan noblem en acting as regents p re ­ ferred it, and so did the two Chinese Ambans (ambassadors) residing in Lhasa. However, the T h irte e n th proved m ore canny th an had his predecessors, outwitting his enem y the E m peror of China. Indeed,

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he lived to g ran t an audience to a d eterm ined Frenchw om an, aged forty-four, who claimed to be a B uddhist and who barraged him with such exacting questions about the faith that he had to consider his answers carefully. K alim pong, India— twenty miles from Darjeeling—April 15, 1912. T h e inhabitants of this bustling trade m art, w hether Nepali m ule drivers, broad-faced B hutanese, m ustachioed Tibetans, or swarthy H indus, or even the handful o f British functionaries, were in a state of excitem ent b o rd erin g on the feverish. Flags flew, banners waved, a n d a bust of the late Q ueen Victoria presided benignly over this outpost of em pire. In a chalet belonging to the M aharaja of B hutan on the outskirts of town, T ibetan servants bustled about p rep a rin g tor the day. Despite a drizzle, some were planting bam boo poles to form an avenue in front o f the m odest building. O thers hov­ ered n ear their master, the living B uddha, who was seated crosslegged on an elevated bench d rap e d in yellow in a corner of the to p ­ most room . N one of the retainers was too busy to chatter and gossip. From the m arketplace with its crowds lining shuttered shops, came a chorus of approval: a E uropean wom an was being carried past in a dandy, h e r four bearers doing their best not to jiggle her. T h e crowd caught only a glimpse o f her, swathed in a raincoat, face covered by a light salmon veil. If the populace had been told, “She is A lexandra David-Neel,” they w ouldn’t have cared. By sticking out their tongues (a sign of respect) and pointing to the bust of Victoria, they showed they re g a rd e d the lady as an em anation of the empress, who in tu rn really was Palden Lham o, patro n goddess of Tibet. In the East, tru th can be as m anifold as a “thousand-layered” Burm ese pancake! W ithin the dandy, A lexandra’s m ind was w andering back to the past. T h e w eather rem in d ed h e r of Belgium, of walks u n d e r rainy skies with h e r father. H e had been h e r first m entor, and how p ro u d he would be of h e r now. Sadly, A lexandra wished h e r dead father would a p p e ar magically on the road so she could stop everything to hug and kiss him. But she knew th at Louis David would be em bar­ rassed. Finally, he h a d n ’t loved h er any better than h e r mother. Once inside the chalet, A lexandra had to pass the royal cham ­ berlain, whom she felt was brusque. Although the protocol for h e r visit had been decided in advance, lapses occurred. U shered into the

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presence of the Dalai Lam a, she found that he had aban d o n ed his th ro n e to sit in a simple chair by the window. This was extraordinary, since he always sat higher than anyone else. H ad he divined h e r dis­ like of pom p? A lexandra recognized him from his portrait: a slightly stooped figure with wide open, riveting eyes, slightly evasive, a waxed m us­ tache, and enorm ous ears (a sign of wisdom), wearing a peaked yel­ low cap and m aroon robes. She pressed h e r palms together before the h e a rt in salutation. Som eone slipped a white silk scarf into h er hands and she presented it b u t forgot the p ro p e r words. H e wasn’t very tall and, a trifle unwillingly, the rebel bowed h e r head, w here­ up o n the Dalai Lam a reached out to bless her. As the two conversed, the T h irte e n th w ondered aloud how the Frenchw om an, alone in h e r faith in a foreign land, could have become a practicing B uddhist w ithout a master. To him self he m ust have questioned w hether she was a B uddhist at all. T h e Christian missionaries, fond of disguises, would go to any lengths to convert his people. But David-Neel’s knowledge ran deep, and she soon satisfied him on that score, even m ade him smile. She tried to ignore the offi­ cious cham berlain who continued to in te rru p t. However, she h ad to adm it that those Europeans interested in B uddhism were generally of the older, T heravadin school. “T h e religious d octrines o f T ib e t are n o t u n d e rs to o d in E u ro p e,” A lexandra inform ed His Holiness. “I am hopm g you will enlighten m e.” This pleased the Dalai Lam a, and A lexandra went on to in te rro ­ gate h e r host about the p ath o f salvation, of gaining wisdom. She wasn’t being impolite b u t merely em ploying the traditional m ethod of discourse. Lamas m ust com m it h u n d re d s of sacred texts to m em ­ ory, and when they are called on, rep eat the ap p ro p riate answer to a question. T h e eager visitor fired off so m any queries that she and the Dalai Lam a agreed she should subm it them in writing. H e prom ised to answer them fully, and she would have unique docum ents, of great value to the world. T h e interview over, the visitor received an o th er silk scarf and backed out. Luckily there was no fu rn itu re to b u m p into, a n d besides she had practiced this m aneuver at the court of Belgium. T h e crowd outside was awestruck when she em erged, since the Com passionate

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O ne had allowed this E uropean w om an—the first ever—an h o u r of his precious time. A lexandra was thinking that the episode would make a splash in a French magazine. T h e silk scarf smelled so musty she couldn’t wait to get rid of it. T h e crowd stirred with anticipation. His Holiness appeared, and with legs bowed from m editating for h ours each day since childhood, he m o u n te d a makeshift throne. T h e pilgrims began to pass before him: rich or poor, traders and cowherds, Buddhists, H indus, and animists. O n the highest born he placed both hands, on landow ners one h and, on m erchants ju st a finger or two. Even the lowliest beggar could expect to be touched with a tassel to com plem ent the blessing from the incarnation o f Chenresi—b o u n d to bestow good fortune. After all, h a d n ’t this god on earth th ro u g h the pow er o f his spells overthrow n the E m peror of China? Was he not about to re tu rn triu m p h a n t to Lhasa, the universal ru le r of the B uddhist faith?

A v v ic r

Events leading up to 1912, w hen David-Neel first v en tu red into culturally Tibetan territory, m arkedly anticipated the Red Chinese invasion and occupation of T ibet that began in 1949 an d continues as of the date o f this writing. T h e issues o f law and pow er th at Charles Bell and his colonial contem poraries struggled to resolve are with us today. Indeed, Bell’s diplom atic m aneuvers have shaped c u rre n t W estern policy toward Tibet. Remarkably, the eye of the h u rrican e rem ains the Dalai Lam a—the T h irte e n th then, the F ourteenth now. B ut there has been only one Dalai Lam a in fourteen different h u m an bodies; the task has been to find the em anation after each death and rebirth as an infant. In the past, the m ethod o f locating him was fixed. W ithin a year o r two of the previous sovereign’s passing away, a council of lamas would consult the state oracle for general directions. T h e n a high lama was sent to a particular lake u n d e r the waters of which resided the Dalai L am a’s im perishable soul. While staring into the icy blue water, the lam a would have a vision, an d perhaps that night a h e lp ­ ful dream . H e should picture the looks and the w hereabouts of the child-sovereign too clearly to be mistaken. O nce located, the candidate was p u t to the test. According to Charles Bell, the tiny T h irte e n th , b o rn in a peasant’s h u t in 1876, had several of the ap p ro p riate bodily marks, such as “large ears” a nd “an im p rin t like a conch-shell on one of the palms o f his h a n d .” An unearthly light issued from his countenance, and he was able to recognize the everyday religious articles used in his past life: the sacred thunderbolt (dorje), a bell, and a m uch-fingered rosary. H e

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had to choose from am ong lookalikes with unfailing accuracy. Lat£r, m em ories of previous incarnations would come to him, and he would feel instantly at hom e with unknow n places and people. But now that the old o rd e r is overthrow n and the Chinese occupy Tibet, will there even be a n ex t Dalai Lama? Traditionally, the M anchu e m p e ro r had the right to confirm the choice o f a new Dalai Lama. This was done in a m an n e r subject to m anipulation: the nam es of several likely candidates were d ro p p e d into a golden u rn , and the Chinese Am ban picked out one with the aid of chopsticks. We suspect he had tucked the successful slip up his enorm ously long sleeve. In the case o f the T h irteen th , the indications were clear an d the suspicious Tibetans refused to employ the urn. T h e e m p e ro r grudgingly acquiesced, and so before he was aware of it, the T h irte e n th had begun to defy China. Taken from his m other and father at the age of two, en th ro n e d at three before a h o rd e of grave lamas prostrating themselves, he was then educated by learned professors in B uddhist ritual and m eta­ physics. S u rro u n d e d by serious-m inded adults, he studied day and night, was denied playmates, and hardly ever saw a female. H e learned little of the workaday world either personally or from books, and not m uch about lands outside Tibet. But his fate was to be different from those preceeding him. Traditionally, w hen he reached eighteen, the Dalai Lam a was expected to assume his tem poral authority. First he had to m ake a jo u rn e y to “T h e H eaven Lake of the G oddess” 150 miles southeast of Lhasa to com m une with Palden Lham o, guardian of the Tibetan state. H e r chapel was “furnished with stuffed carcasses of wild ani­ mals and other fearsome objects . . . She is powerful and easily a n g e re d .” O n the way back to Lhasa, the living B u d d h a was given a holy pill, “to renew his vitality and m ake his countenance shine.” Face aglow he passed into his next incarnation. A lavish funeral would be held w here it was ann ounced that the Com passionate One had d e p a rte d the world due to despair at the wickedness of his people. T h e T h irte e n th , who h ad a natural aptitude for politics, was clever enough to avoid swallowing the poison pill. According to Bell, a Chinese official rem arked that “affairs had been m anaged very badly.” N either Peking n o r the G overnm ent of India was accustomed to dealing with an adult sovereign of Tibet.

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In the early years of the twentieth century the British in India, creeping northw ard, becam e w orried by Russian expansion eastward into B uddhist Central Asia. A Russian Mongol, Dorjieff, h a d studied with the lamas and became a close adviser to the young T h irte e n th . L ord Curzon, the viceroy, fearing that Dorjieff was an agent of the Czar, sent several letters to Lhasa to open discussions on trade. Always he received the same reply: “We have no dealings with foreigners.” In 1904 Colonel Francis Younghusband, backed by a small arm y of sepoys (Indian troops), was dispatched to pay a diplom atic call on the Dalai Lama. Y ounghusband was one of the most intrepid and knowledgeable officers on the Indian frontier. Interestingly, he would evolve into a mystic and an adm irer o f A lexandra DavidNeel. O th er officers on the expedition were Captain L. A. Waddell, who would write the com prehensive b u t biased Tibetan Buddhism, and young David M acdonald, ju st beginning his stint o f twenty years in Tibet. To the surprise of the British, the Tibetans fought bravely and held u p their advance in the C hum bi Valley. H ere M acdonald m et A nnie Taylor, who had p e n etrated farth er into the country than any o ther missionary, male or female. Once the arm y had drag g ed its cannon over the m ountains, the defenders, who had antique muzzleloading rifles and no sense o f m odern warfare, could offer no serious resistance. Unfortunately, the T ibetan troops supposed that the bless­ ing o f the lamas would protect them from bullets. At every stage, Y ounghusband tried fruitlessly to negotiate, while the general in actual charge of the sepoys h a d to overcom e thp reluctance of his m en to m achine-gun the foolhardy Tibetans. T h e British pu sh ed on, com plaining of roads so poor they had never felt the weight of any w heeled vehicle. Soon everyone becam e entranced by the wild, m ag­ nificent scenery. As the arm y approached Lhasa and caught sight of the golden roofs of the Pótala Palace, a race developed to be, in M acdonald’s words, “the first living E uropean to set eyes on the Forbidden City of the Lam as.” O n A ugust 4 the British entered, “tearing aside the veil o f centuries.” B ecause the Dalai L am a h a d fled n o rth to M ongolia, Y ounghusband opened negotiations with the regent, the abbot of G anden monastery. While the Dalai Lam a cam ped in the rem ote

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grasslands o f the steppes a n d his devout M ongol subjects flocked to pay him hom age, an Anglo-Tibetan C onvention was agreed upon a n d ratified by the Tibetan Assembly. T h e docum ent laid the basis for T ib et’s foreign policy in the twentieth century and strongly supports its claim to independence from China. N either the M anchu em p e ro r n o r his Ambans were consulted. T h e convention forbade foreign occupation of any portion of T ibet or intervention in its affairs. O f most im portance to A lexandra David-Neel, the convention stated: “No representatives or agents of any foreign pow er shall be adm itted to T ibet.” It did perm it the British to open “trade m arts” at Yatung (Chum bi Valley) and Gyantse. A lexandra realized that, in fact, the British em pire had leaped the Himalayas to include p a rt o f southern Tibet. This arm -twisting diplom acy occurred the same year that she m arrie d Philip, and it was to have an im pact on h e r doings that was nearly as im p o rtan t as h e r m arriage. M ongolia could not long su p p o rt the T h irte e n th a n d his en to u rag e and although he m ade overtures to Russia, the B uddhist spiritual sovereign was forced to travel to Peking to b end his knee at the Celestial T h ro n e . T h e Em press Dowager Yehonala and h er nephew the e m p e ro r received him, after which at Yehonala’s instiga­ tion his title was a m e n d e d to include the p h rase “Sincerely O bedient.” T h e dowager, who claimed to be a good Buddhist, was above all an unscrupulous politician, and the 1908 subordination of the Dalai Lam a to the last M anchus is an argum ent advanced by the People’s Republic of C hina in asserting sovereignity over Tibet today. By fleeing the British, the Dalai L am a h a d leaped from the frying pan into the fire. However, the Chinese em peror, addicted to drugs, was fading fast, a n d m ost likely a final dose o f poison finished him. Yehonala selected an infant for the throne, and in h e r seventy-third year, she boasted she would surpass the years of Q ueen Victoria. She out­ lasted h e r nephew by only two days and died cursing the rule of w om en and eunuchs. T h e Dalai Lam a conducted a jo in t funeral ser­ vice, an d after inspecting the m onasteries o f eastern T ibet he m ade his way tow ard Lhasa. Before he arrived Chinese armies u n d e r the capable general Chao Erh-feng h a d invaded his country, looted and set fire to m onasteries, m elted sacred images for bullets, m u rd e red h u n d re d s o f m onks, an d rip p ed up ancient books to sole the boots of

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their soldiers. T hey were planning a military road from Batang in K ham province (later a key destination for Alexandra) to Lhasa. It was a preview of the pillage o f T ibet in 1959 and afterw ard. T h e Tibetans resisted as best they were able, b u t once a detach­ m en t of several thousand Chinese troops, including cavalry, reached Lhasa, the prem aturely aged Dalai Lam a fled over the H im alayan passes in dead o f winter into the arm s of his form er enemy, the G overnm ent of India. In exile in Darjeeling he m et Charles Bell, who becam e a lifelong friend and ally. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office found it convenient to consider itself b o u n d by Britiain’s treaties with Russia and China, though the latter was in obvious violation. Bell had to deny the Dalai Lama's request that T ibet become a protectorate u n d e r the British em pire. L ater the U nited States go vernm ent would succumb to a similar ambivalence about the fate of Tibet. Yet the prayers of the lamas proved effective: the senile M anchu dynasty collapsed u n d e r the weight o f its depravity. Sun Yat-sen’s Young China, taking time to establish itself, forgot about the Chinese garrisons in distant Tibet. T h e troops pillaged, then m utinied. T h e Dalai Lam a sent w ord to his people to rise and kill the invaders. For this he was criticized by Prince Sidkeong, who began to take DavidNeel’s dubious tone tow ard the T h irteen th . Sidkeong told Bell, “It is a sin for a B uddhist to take a share in destroying life, a great sin for a lama, and a terribly great sin for the highest of all the lam as.” But the T h irte e n th em anation o f the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (L ord of Mercy), thrust rudely onto the stage of world politics, had learned his lines. This was the All Knowing O ne who had g ran ted A lexandra an audience in 1912, and whom she would interview a second and final time in Ari, a tiny village ju st short of the Sikkim-Tibet border. W hen writing to h e r husband, especially if she were asking for funds, A lexandra liked to stress the high-m inded aspect o f h e r j o u r ­ ney. “W hen are you com ing hom e?“ Philip would inquire. H e was writing to the wom an he supposed he h a d m arrie d —a form er opera singer, a journalist, a wom an of fashion. She did miss h e r old com ­ fortable life a little, b u t u n d e rn e a th all h e r appointm ents and teas there had been despair. Keeping busy was the opiate of a wom an who h a d n ’t found herself. Now she preached to h e r dear Mouchy. She answ ered him, in B uddhist term s, that by acquiring knowledge (and not incidentally

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books) she was building a refuge for their old age together. In fact, she was looking years younger and feeling vivacious. T h e wom an was sensitive to the glam our of h er surroundings, aware that she was a privileged person d u rin g the largely beneficent years of the m ature British Em pire. T h e m aharajas had lost their teeth and were quaint curios to play am ong, while war in E urope th reaten ed evanescent as lightning on the far horizon. At a small town on the S ikkim -T ibet-B hutan border, on the J u n e day before the Dalai Lam a crossed into his own country—the time had been fixed by court astrologers— His Holiness was receiving only royalty. Nonetheless, folk stream ed out of the hills to catch a last glimpse of this god on earth, and to the local nationalities o f Lepchas, Bhutias, and Indians were ad d ed Chinese soldiers expelled from Tibet, evidently bearing no grudge. A bargain had been struck: the H an could go in peace if they left their m o d ern rifles behind. T hese would be useful to a new-m odel T ibetan arm y trained by the British. T h e deal h ad Charles Bell’s stam p on it. While attendants kept back the curious crowd with knotted whips, A lexandra sipped tea with the M aharaja o f Sikkim and Prince Sidkeong in a bungalow nearby. A tiny owl, a p resent from the two, looked on from its perch. C erem ony was followed, and the old m aharaja’s cup and saucer were of gold with turquoise inlay and a superb pearl, the prince’s of silver with a button o f coral. A lexandra was disappointed w hen tea was served h e r in a plain porcelain cup. She was developing a taste for position. She accom panied Sidkeong, who would act as interpreter, to see the T h irte e n th . T hey found the lamas uttering disjointed orders, the servants rushing about confused. T h e Dalai Lam a was cordial yet hu rried . A lexandra sensed that his m ind was already in Lhasa, orga­ nizing his governm ent. H e r apparently casual rem ark can be taken in a literal sense: that the use of the th o u g h t form —a second, purely m ental self that is detached at will—was practiced by adepts in Tibet. While A lexandra questioned the T h irte e n th ’s good will, she did n ’t doubt his powers. To A lexandra’s surprise, the Dalai Lam a h a n d e d h e r written answers to h e r abstruse questions. She could write to him for fu rth er explanations, their correspondence to be forw arded through Charles Bell. She realized that the Com passionate O ne had m ade a rem a rk ­

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able exception for her, a wom an. O f his own wife, Bell wrote, “She was careful not to speak to His Holiness, for that would have offended Tibetan custom .” Bell, who knew the T h irte e n th better than any other Westerner, claimed he was “frank and o pen not only in conversation, b u t in his dealings generally.” N either did he neglect the spiritual side, being “strict in his devotions.” Bell observed that “he was fond of gardening and would plant seeds and seedlings with his own hands. And he would visit his [pet] animals, the Bengal tiger a n d the o th er anim als.” However, Bell did adm it that with the passing years the Great T h irteen th became increasingly an autocrat who could punish swiftly an d arbitrarily. H e was to g ather into his hands m ore secular a u th o r­ ity than even the G reat Fifth. D uring perilous times, he necessarily acted as the head of state. We are rem in d ed o f a T ibetan proverb: “In a powerful country religion goes dow n.” T h e contrast with the Fourteenth Dalai Lam a couldn’t be m ore evident; his only pow er is m oral, yet his influence is felt world-wide. W henever possible, A lexandra verified h e r accom plishm ents with photos, and she persu ad ed the T h irte e n th to sit as she snapped away. B ut when she developed the film, the Dalai Lam a a p p e are d to be a vague form, like a ghost. She assured Philip that the film had been properly exposed. She had no explanation, b u t she was rem in d ed of a story she’d h e a rd about the Y ounghusband ex p ed i­ tion. Its photographers had taken m any shots o f the interiors of temples, of bejewelled B uddhas, and elaborate altars, bru sh in g aside the objections o f the lamas. B ut when they tried to develop the pic­ tures, nothing appeared. A lexandra felt she h ad been a victim o f the same occult phenom enon. A lexandra was favorably inclined tow ard one com m and given by His Holiness: “L earn Tibetan!” H e r desire to m aster this difficult lan­ guage h ad been awakened by an earlier, parallel incident. Shortly after their first interview, while she watched the T h irte e n th bestow his blessing on the mob of pilgrims, she noticed a m an seated on the g ro u n d wearing dirty, torn monastic garm ents, his hair w ound a ro u n d his head like a turban. H e was sneering at the goings-on. Alexandra, th ro u g h Daw asandup, learned th at the m an was a w andering naljorpa from B hutan— a sort of ascetic who lives ju st anyw here and possesses magical powers. Soon afterw ard, the seeker

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forced the reluctant schoolm aster to accom pany h e r on a visit to the naljorpa in his cell at a nearby monastery. T h e strange m an was stuffing his m outh with rice and answered their greeting with a burp. A lexandra tried to speak to him, at which he chortled and m u ttered a few words. Daw asandup refused to trans­ late b u t indicated the m an had called A lexandra an idiot. After a while, the herm it proved m ore comm unicative, dam ning the Dalai L am a’s blessings as a sham. H e pointed out that if the T h irte e n th possessed real pow er he w ouldn’t need an arm y or allies to fight the Chinese b u t could tu rn them back by su rro u n d in g Tibet with an im penetrable psychic barrier. A lexandra was intrigued by this filthy fellow with his necklace of h u m an bones and his wild air. But from the poin t of view of the individual traveler, there was an invisible b a rrier that p revented all who tried from reaching Lhasa, the forbidden capital. A lexandra d em a n d e d to know who the naljorpa thou g h t he was. H e laughed noisily, com paring him self to a pig rolling in the m ud. But he also claimed to be a disciple of G uru Rinpoche, as the Tibetans refer to Padm asam bhava. In d eed , he spoke in a sort of code well-known to followers o f the mystic Short Path, the daring b u t d a n ­ gerous attem p t to attain salvation by magical means. H e repeated the alchemical form ula that one m ust fashion gold out of dog shit! A lexandra rem ained skeptical, and on their way out she gave D aw asandup a few rupees for the m endicant. T h e m an disdainfully refused the present. W hen Daw asandup pressed the money on the naljorpa, he suddenly staggered and fell back against the wall, clutch­ ing his stomach. T h e magician h a d n ’t m oved an eyebrow, b u t now, with a grin, he got u p and left the room . On a small scale, he h ad set up an invisible, psychic barrier. N ot long afterw ard, A lexandra m et a m ore learned b ut equally irre v e ra n t n aljo rp a, know n as th e gomchen— g rea t h e rm it— o f Sakyong, a place in eastern Tibet. H e also followed the Short Path, rem in d in g A lexandra, in a ritualistic form ula, that E nlightenm ent consists in “the absence of all views and im agination, the cessation of the thinking that creates illusion.” This is difficult for W esterners to accept, since they prize their opinions and imaginings. A lexandra found it even less credible w hen the Sakyong gom chen predicted that she w ould travel to T ibet via China and be initiated into the Secret

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Teachings. She was certain she would choose h er own path, and that it led back down to India and the study of Sanskrit in Benares. Eventually, she h o p ed to compile some tom e on com parative religion—the sort that would set heads n o d ding in the refined salons of Paris. First, however, David-Neel responded to an inivitation from the M aharaja o f Nepal, facilitated by Charles Bell, to visit the birthplace of G autam a B u d d h a at Lum bini and then make a sortie into the T ilo ra ju n g le on the In do-N epalese border. In D ecem ber in K atm andu the m aharaja received h e r in style and they soon becam e intimate on matters mystical. This ruler of a large, strategically located land was handsom e, suave, an d given to display. H e assigned A lexandra a light carriage escorted by two footm en; the “boys” were u n d e r the orders o f the British Resident to stick close by. Finally she was transported over the m ountains into the ju n g le in a sedan chair, a dozen porters and four elephants trailing behind. A lexandra came alive in the tropical nights, inebriated by the perfum e of the foliage. Unfortunately, the T ilora was populated by m an-eating tigers, and none o f h e r retinue of coolies and servants cared to venture into its depths, not even taking one of the elephants. O ne afternoon, with a single boy, the Parisian pushed on until she reached a pleasant, cleared spot. She sat down cross-legged, ad m ir­ ing a bright blue bird chirping on a bough. H e r boy w andered off somewhere. A lexandra tu rn e d pensive. T h e eighth anniversary^of h e r father’s death, recently passed, had op en ed old wounds. She recalled h er m o th e r’s m ean triu m p h in watching Louis David die. B ut h e r father, too, had disapproved of h e r bohem ian ways a n d studies. H e couldn’t bear the resem blance to w hat he m ight have become. Suddenly, she h eard rustling, as though o f a big cat, am ong dry leaves to h e r left. Gingerly peering into thé brush, she ¿potted about twenty yards off a long reddish body stripped with black. T h e creature was half­ h id d en by foliage, and so she th o u g h t it m ight be a zebra. T h e n she realized that in this country there were no zebras—it was a tiger! To ru n would be stupid; in two bounds the huge cat would be at h e r throat. Q uieting h e r th u m p in g heart, the form er devotee of Paris cafes shut her eyes and forced herself into deep m editation. She knew that yogis could calm wild beasts by their detachm ent from fear.

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She recalled the story o f how the B u d d h a of a previous time gave his body to a m other tiger as a m eal for h e r hungry cubs. But A lexandra’s solution was to visualize the beast as reddish leaves mixed with black leaves. W hen, after some time, she looked up, the creature was gone. N ot content with this victory, A lexandra attem pted to recreate the big cat’s image. To a philosophical B uddhist, the idea o f a tiger is as real as its physical presence. But in the spot w here the cat had stood, she saw only a corner of blue sky. In te rru p te d by the arrival of h er boy with an elephant, A lexandra re tu rn e d to camp. Philosophy aside, in how m uch actual dan g er was she? T h e n a t­ uralist George Schaller has pointed out that the notion of the tiger as inherently ferocious is a fiction p e rp e tu a te d by trophy hunters, and that “tigers are even-tem pered, gentle beasts which assiduously avoid any confrontation with a person on foot, an exception, of course, being the rare m an-eater.” Clearly, the E uropean traveler wasn’t expert on the gustatory preferences of tigers. W hen M adam e Blavatsky was attacked by a m an-eater— so she claimed—she had to call on a M aster to overpow er it, Tarzan style. A lexandra reacted with courage, will power, and discipline. Like the rest of us, she had to struggle to be brave. T h a t night the distant b u t startling ro ar of a tiger m ade the boys a ro u n d the cam pfire ju m p . T h e big cat was getting a good meal, b u t was it the same one? A lexandra regretted that she h a d n ’t taken h e r cam era an d p h o to g ra p h e d the beast. T h e n she could have sent the snapshot hom e for Philip to adm ire.

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David-Neel had been a B uddhist for twenty years when, in Benares, su rro u n d e d by death an d the dying, she came to a p ro fo u n d realiza­ tion: the ego did not exist. She u n derstood th at what she h ad called “life^ was a nightm are from which she ho p ed to awaken into the peace o f the B uddha. O n D ecem ber 7, 1913, fleeing the h eat and plagues of India, she re tu rn e d to the tiny capital of Sikkim to an am azing welcome orchestrated by Prince Sidkeong. Some miles from town schoolchildren lined the road, teachers at their head. T h e p rin ­ cipal offered h e r the traditional white scarf as a m ark of honor. Farther on a deputation of lamas greeted her, followed by an assem­ blage of nobles and landow ners, loading h e r down with scarves. Finally Sidkeong appeared, and he an d A lexandra en tered G angtok in the m idst of the procession— as though they were the royal couple. If this was a dream , it was a sweet one! However, staying at the British Residence to avoid gossip, A lexandra became disillusioned. H ere, on a hill overlooking both the town and a lower hill with the royal palace and Sidkeong’s villa on it, she had to take English tea constantly and dress for dinner. T h e E uropeans were kind, doubly so at Christm as w hen they gave an am ateur concert followed by a sum ptuous dinner. It m ade the adven­ tu re r feel like an old crank am ong a lot o f frolicking children. Events o f m ajor im portance were occuring elsewhere, a n d Alexandra, had she adm itted it, felt left out. She was hanging about waiting for an end to the lagging tripartite conference at Simla. Historian C. J. Christie writes: “In the course of 1912 and 1913 Britain p ut intense pressure on the Chinese Republic to redefine the status of

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Tibet and to reach with Britain a new settlem ent that would maintain C hina’s suzerain right while at the same time establishing Tibet’s autonom y.” China eventually agreed to talk and the conference con­ vened in October 1913. While Sir H enry McMahon led the British del­ egation, Charles Bell, who was on excellent terms with the Tibetans, m ade the crucial decisions. Sidkeong was h u rrie d off to Simla to no purpose except to pose for an occasional photo in unflattering tails and top hat. A lexandra was displeased by his dance to the Resident’s tune. She h o p e d to visit B hutan—seldom allowed—because Bell had prom ised to intervene with its m aharaja. Now the latter claimed to be involved in the treaty-m aking. But it is unlikely that Bell, concerned over In d ia ’s north eastern border, would have perm itted a E uropean wom an to travel about in B hutan. To com pensate, A lexandra began to study T ibetan, which she found m uch easier than Sanskrit. She d id n ’t expect to becom e fluent, only to learn to read, and she hoped to travel th ere a little if perm itted. H earing Tibetan music again, the deep, pensive strains p ro d u ced a pleasant distress, as if the beings w andering in the Bardo (purgatory) were calling out. T h e concert took place at the local b u rn in g g ro u n d for corpses, which u n d e r­ scored the effect. For the New Year o f 1914, the Sikkimese monks presented David-Neel with the robe of what she called a lamina. T h e garm ent had been duly consecrated. B ut m ore im portant, it identified h e r with the long tradition o f coreligionists who had studied and copied m anuscripts, pilgrim aged, deprived themselves, and even died for their beliefs. T h e robe of d ark red felt had a blue silk kimono-style collar and a yellow fringed waistband. H igh Lhasa boots of leather and felt e m broidered in auspicious patterns accom panied the outfit, topped off by a b o n n e t of golden Chinese silk. T h e monks, besides bestowing a rare com plim ent on this foreign wom an, had provided a warm g arm ent to insulate h e r in the Him alayan heights. Given time on h e r hands, A lexandra began to fret about her health. W henever she d id n ’t move, she lapsed into depression, fatigue, and complaints o f feeling old. Wisely, she went on a ro u n d of the m onasteries, explaining B uddhist sutras (discourses) to the young monks. At R um tek m onastery she set up a new tent that astounded everyone. It could be lived in even in the winter. She assured Philip

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she would send it hom e to him in one m ore year, when they could play explorer together. But she ignored his request that she send him a final figure for the cost until h e r retu rn . She acknowledged his sac­ rifices, b u t she was m ore concerned about dem onic forces that were secretly determ ined to keep h e r out of Tibet. Probably, she was sens­ ing Charles Bell’s influence. T ram ping about in the heights, A lexandra thrived by breathing the m ountain air. T h e form er gourm et wasn’t b othered th at she had to settle for coarse food and at times nettles and ferns. Still, she would dream o f the peas and asparagus from the gardens a ro u n d Paris. A nother echo o f h e r youth re tu rn e d agreeably: she was able to m arch for hours across the Alps, never tiring. But at age forty-five she h a d n ’t supposed it was still possible. It h ap p e n ed that one evening after a long trek, as darkness th reaten ed to close in before she could reach a far-off village, she suddenly felt sure-footed, h er body light as a feather, and that she could walk on swiftly forever. T h e Tibetans m ade this occasional, sub­ jective experience known to hikers into an esoteric science they called lung-gom, of which A lexandra had h e a rd b u t wished to learn m ore. Inadvertently, because of the time of day and h e r previous fatigue, an d due to h e r fixing h e r gaze on the distant goal, the trekker in the Himalayas had duplicated ju st the right conditions to become a trance walker. N ight fell but did not im pede h e r from reaching h e r goal. A lexandra wished to m aster the technique, widely m isu n d er­ stood as “flying,” b u t fu rth er investigation would have to wait. H er m ovem ents at this period—which she appears to have suppressed— have been a mystery to h e r biographers until now. Growing im pa­ tient, A lexandra tried the first o f h e r end runs a ro u n d British (and native) bureaucracy. In the secret files o f the India Office we found a com m unique dated 22 Ja n u a ry 1914, Assam (northeast India— to the south of B hutan, w here she was not looked for), from B. J. Gould, a political officer: A French lady named Madame David-Neel, who is a Buddhist and is deeply interested in Buddhist philosophy . . . showed me a letter from the Viceroy which indicated that the Viceroy was interested in her projected journey, and [she] produced a letter of introduction from Mr. Bell to see the Maharajah of B h u tan ... . Mme. Neel has proposed that she should visit the Chumbi valley and Bhutan by herself.

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So the hig h est B ritish officials re m a in e d su p p o rtiv e o f A lexandra’s scholarly researches, although within bounds that would n ot offend native rulers or break treaty comm itm ents. But they were also playing cat a n d m ouse with her. T h e same official continues: Privately the Maharajah has informed me that he is afraid that com­ plications may ensue if a lady without a European escort wanders about Bhutan, and especially if she displays a desire to visit monas­ teries. He is also apprehensive that if he grants a lady permission to enter Bhutan on account of her interest in Buddhism, he may find difficulties in keeping missionaries out. . . . As to the Chumbi valley, there can, I imagine, be no question of her being permitted to go there. A lexandra, tu rn e d back at the B hutan border, switched h er attention to southern Tibet. In In d ia she had requested that the French am bassador pressure the G overnm ent of India to allow h e r to visit T ibet to study its religion and philosophy at Shigatse. In so doing she m ade a mistake. O n February 2, 1914, an u n n a m e d British officer re sp o n d e d unofficially to the am bassador’s application, though n ot to the ambassador: [T]here was some reason to suspect that her [David-Neel’s] objects were not quite so innocent as she would have them appear. . . . As regards Tibet we are pledged not to permit private travellers to enter the country without consultation with the Russian govern­ ment. There seems no reason why we should allow a French trav­ eller admittance which we refuse to our own officers. In d eed , for years Charles Bell was n ot allowed to accept the Dalai L am a’s rep eated invitations to visit Lhasa, an issue over which he th reaten ed to resign in 1918. A lexandra was plotting h e r course carefully. Frustrated in one direction, she approached h e r goal via another. She knew how to apply political influence, even th ough this m ight backfire. Trying to en ter B hutan, she presented h e r letters of introduction to a lesser functionary in Assam, while nearly everyone’s attention was focused on Simla far across India. Although it failed, it was a clever ploy. B ut w hen she was definitively blocked from Tibet, David-Neel d ro p p e d the niceties and went ahead anyway. She understood the likely consequences, did not act out of a foggy notion of destiny,

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and she could not have been surprised by the British reaction, as she later claimed. In the m eantim e, the death o f the old m aharaja on February 10 caused A lexandra to hasten to Gangtok. Despite his agonies, the m aharaja had persisted in trying to substitute his y ounger son as heir. A lexandra strongly backed Sidkeong’s ascension to the throne. She found the funeral cerem onies impressive: processions, rites in the open air, lamas chanting gravely in the temples. From early m orn in g until late at i^ight the long horns blew and bass drum s rolled, giving h e r delicious chills. This was one g rand op era in which the form er singer, as she preached a serm on before a large, ra p t audience of m onks, did not m ind playing a su p p o rtin g role. A lexandra was happy to be reu n ited with h e r gam in prince, who now d o n n e d the robes o f state as M aharaja of Sikkim. She was quick to scent d an g er in the air of the intriguing little court. O ne afternoon as the pair customarily took tea, she pleaded with Sidkeong to move with caution. This came rath e r late, since she had earlier encouraged the prince to defy the British an d the clique of ultraconservative lamas. A life-size statue o f Padm asam bhava stood imperiously in the cor­ ner. Since all the m onasteries in Sikkim were u n refo rm ed Red Hat, he was venerated as their p a tro n saint. A lthough his b ra n d o f m agi­ cal T antrism was b ey o n d th e ability o f m ost m onks, it was greatly adm ired. Meanwhile the new ru le r had d eterm ined to become the Tsong K hapa—the Yellow H at reform er of the fifteenth century— of Sikkimese B uddhism . Sidkeong would abolish d ru n k e n ­ ness, sorcery, and living off the peasants. To make h e r point, A lexandra, indicating The statue, teased th at the local clergy had been w orshiping an evil spirit for centuries. H e r com panion began to reply, b u t it was the statue, harsh features silhouetted by the flickering light of an altar lam p, who took the slur personally. A ghostly voice seem ed to cut in, w arning them b oth that he was m aster of this country, m ore powerful than any h u m a n ruler. A lexandra told herself that she h a d n ’t h e a rd anything and m ust be im agining this rep rim a n d from the long-dead Padm asam bhava. T h e n why did the m aharaja blanch a n d vigorously defend himself? H e insisted th at he would succeed. H a d there been a message addressed to him, or was he able to pluck the th o u g h t from

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A lexandra’s m ind? T h e incident may be taken m etaphorically in that a religious statue usually will have enclosed within it sacred texts to give it power. Padm asam bhava is supposed to have h idden p otent secret writings in m any places. No doubt, the ancient magician still speaks to Tibetans. T h e young m aharaja, disregarding the w arning, swore to purge the m onasteries and to em ploy the ro d w here necessary. T h e use of liquor and tobacco m ust go, the monks should pray regularly, banish superstition, and educate themselves as true Buddhists. Meanwhile Sidkeong h ad a m ore pressing problem . Once the m o u rn in g period was done, he was scheduled to m arry Ma Lat, the Burm ese princess whom he scarcely knew. Charles Bell was counting on it. T h e princess was allegedly hot-headed and m o d ern in taste and dress. She even played the piano! Besides, the m aharaja had a Sikkimese mistress, a com m oner by w hom h e ’d fathered a son. H e tu rn e d to A lexandra for advice. She insisted that he do his duty and m arry the Burm ese. Once the newlyweds had children, because Sidkeong was so young at heart, all would go well betw een them . W hen we consider A lexandra’s adam ant refusal to bear children, h e r advice seems two-faced at best. B ut h e r ten d e r feelings toward the m aharaja would be less disturbed by a dutiful rath e r than a love match. N ot incidentally, she wished eventually to visit both B urm a and Siam in com pany with Sidkeong. She went so far as to open a c o rresp o n d en ce with the B urm ese princess to encourage her. Im perial politics was to h e r a gam e she enjoyed playing. In contrast, the m aharaja grew so distressed by his m arital dilem m a that, on a ja u n t with A lexandra to an outlying bungalow, he consulted with a high lam a o f exceptional powers. T h e lam a’s gu ru had been a seer, and he too could read the future. W ithout knowing the subject at hand, the seer fell into a trance, twitching painfully. H e o pened his eyes and seem ed an entirely new m an. In an odd, soto voice he u tte re d the strange prophecy th at Sidkeong n e e d n ’t concern him self about the matter. T h e oracle staggered off, leaving his royal p a tro n bewildered. A lexandra’s troubles with h e r own spouse were coming to a head. Philip was threatening to look elsewhere for a tender, compassionate mate. In a m ore practical vein, he com plained bitterly of having to rattle a ro u n d in a big house by himself, and he w arned h er that if she

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d id n ’t come back soon, she would no longer fit into his life. A lexandra intended to keep h e r husband at a distance, b u t n o n e th e ­ less to keep him. Philip was h e r lifeline to E urope and America and th e ir publishing houses, as well as an em otional anchor. Most im p o r­ tant, he sent money. H ad she been a poverty-stricken yogi, how w arm a reception would the Frenchw om an have received at the courts and diplom atic residencies o f Asia? So the e rra n t wife assured h e r h us­ b a n d that she loved him better than ever. It is rem arkable how this wom an kept up a live relationship th ro u g h the uncertain mails o f those days, d u rin g nearly a decade a n d a half o f m eanderin g in outrageous places. Sometimes she coyly com plim ented Mouchy, telling him how m uch she enjoyed his letters. At o ther m om ents, when Philip m oaned about his lot, she subjected him to purgative doses o f B uddhist philosophy. A lexandra could also resort to em otional blackmail. In May 1914 Philip sold the house in Tunis and m oved to the headquarters of the railway in Bone, Algeria. T h e detachm ent of his wife tu rn e d to rage. How dare he take such a step without consulting her? Philip was the fickle one. She rem in d ed him of past humiliations, of how h e ’d once taken advantage of h e r poverty and lack of prospects. A lexandra knew how to pierce th ro u g h Philip’s a rm o r to his vul­ nerable conscience. She sang well the ballad o f the elder ro u é seduc­ ing the ten d er young thing. In secret she could watch a tantric sex rite with aplom b, b u t the Frenchw om an’s a n noun ced m orals were strictly Victorian. W hen she could no longer stall Philip, A lexandra th reaten ed to become a herm it. She would go live in a cave and he w ould lose his last hold over her. D uring the early fall, A lexandra came u p o n the four nuns of C horten Nyima, actual recluses who lived am id wild scenery on the T ibetan side o f the b o rd er with Sikkim. She was tram p in g in the m ountains with h e r servants and the tem p eratu re h ad fallen below freezing. Sick with the grippe and an abscess in h e r ear, she felt taken by a determ ination to plunge into the land of mystery. O nce having crossed the imaginary line, she found the w eather crisp b u t dry and the sunshine radiant. T h e little m onastery was set high am ong eagles’ nests and air so clear that the rocks glittered like semiprecious stones. Cliffs carved by erosion, sprinkled with pastel-colored pebbles, lent an air o f serenity

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that calm ed A lexandra’s jittery nerves. A round the gompa an im pas­ sible, ju m b le d scenery em anated a serenity beyond expression. C horten Nyima m eans “sun shrine,” and an ancient legend held that a chorten (burial m onum ent) containing precious relics had been tran sp o rted on the sun’s rays from India to here. Secret writings of Padm asam bhava were said to be h id d en on the grounds. According to p o p u lar belief, 108 springs— the T ibetan magical n u m b er— w atered the area. W hile only a few were visible to the vulgar, the p u re of h e a rt surveyed a well-watered scene indeed. O nce thriving b u t neglected over the years, the gom pa had dete­ riorated into a crum bly heap occupied by a handful of nuns. A lexandra was m oved by the quiet courage of these wom en whose daily lives were fraught with danger. Snowed in for half the year, the nuns often came to n ear starvation or falling prey to wild beasts. M ore terrifying to them , they had to com bat evil spirits who took on strange forms. A certain plant was most demonic, for it grew on the edge of dizzying precipices in o rder to lure victims down into the abyss. David-Neel would discover that T ibetan wom en have a strong and de te rm in e d character. T hey did not flinch from living or travel­ ing alone over their untam ed, bandit-ridden country. T hey willingly braved a hostile climate and terrain to make pilgrimages and practice their religion. In Bom in Tibet, Chogyam T ru n g p a Rinpoche, the fo u n d er of m editation centers th ro u g h o u t the West, paid tribute to the fearless nuns who sheltered him on his flight into exile from p u r ­ suing C om m unist Chinese troops. T h e T ibetan w om an’s reputation for independence greatly helped A lexandra on h er own pilgrim age to Lhasa. T h e nuns at C horten Nyima, despite dirty faces and tattered robes, p roved as generous as they were brave. T hey begged A lexandra to share what they had, including their crude enclosure. After inspecting the ru in ed city, she chose to pitch h e r tent outdoors in sight of snowy, inviolate peaks ju ttin g into an azure sky. Once the brilliant sun sank behind the m ountains, and the gloom of night spread, everything froze. T h e w arm th of h e r lam a’s robe and boots kept the o u tlan d er alive. She did n ’t dare budge out of the covers to save h e r dried foods from tu rn in g to ice. T h e brutal w eather con­ firm ed an old T ibetan proverb, “T h e coldness of this land will stop tea from p o u rin g .”

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Woolen gloves didn’t prevent the wind from cracking h er fingers, nor did constant oil applications keep h e r face from blistering. Still, she found herself m editating in air that showed h e r b reath as con­ densed vapor, and the h erm it’s way im pressed h e r as a natu ral path tow ard self-realization. Did solitude create visions, she w ondered, or m erely perm it one to discover th at one has been blind till now? A lexandra knew that she was no saint, b u t in the spring of 1914— while in E urope the m ajor powers became deeply entangled in hostile moves and countermoves, hostages to fate—she hoped she was less of an imbecile than Western political leaders. She assured Philip that she was not following a whim b u t an ancient, tro d d en path that had opened before her. In fact she was m arooned throug h the sum m er at the palace guest house in Gangtok, waiting for funds to arrive. Philip, after hinting that h e ’d found a mistress, h a d n ’t written in m onths. A lexandra’s tedium was relieved when the young m aharaja b ro u g h t tidings from Simla: T h e British, Chinese, and T ibetan dele­ gates had signed a convention that provided for T ibetan autonomy. W hile Bell h oped for the creation o f an inform al British satellite, the Chinese were appeased by dividing T ibet into In n e r (Kham and Am do— closer to China) and O u te r (central and western) zones, with C hina claiming a vague suzerainty over the whole. “A utonom y” for T ibet and “suzerainty” for China, it should be noted, is the form ula for a settlem ent currently favored by H. H. the Dalai Lam a, an d thus the-official position o f the T ibetan governm ent in exile. However, after six m onths o f talks at Simla, British diplomacy had failed to satisfy anyone b u t Charles Bell an d Sir H enry M cMahon. T h e Tibetans had given up their claim to a large tract of m ountainous tribal territory w edged betw een B hutan and Assam in o rd e r that M cM ahon could draw his famous line betw een C hina and India over the crest of the Himalayas. In re tu rn T ibet was left still m ore d e p e n d en t on British military advice and recognition. Worse, Peking would almost immediately disown its delegates and the convention. Chinese troops m oved on eastern Tibet. T h e ensuing Sino-Tibetan b order conflict would ru n parallel, in m inor key, to the overwhelming them e of violence known at the time as T h e W orld War. A lexandra h e a rd the news from Philip in August, and she curi­ ously responded that war with G erm any was inevitable and, since France had reliable allies, a good thing. In a dem onstration of

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“Realpolitik” th at would have been the envy of Bismarck, the Iro n Chancellor, A lexandra asserted that Russia would suffer b u t hold up for a considerable period, Britain would be immensely valuable for its navy an d its colonies, and G erm any was b o u n d to starve to death. T h a t she tu rn e d o ut to be so bellicose (not to m ention correct) is less surprising w hen we recall that h e r political godm other was the Paris C om m une of 1871. T h e French left had w anted to fight to the last against the Prussians. D uring the n ext few m onths, David-Neel w andered about in the m o untains accom panied by a fellow orientalist, the Scotsm an McKechnie, a specialist in Pali, and their retinue of servants. H e r state o f m ind was unsettled, and as soon as she re tu rn e d to w here she could receive or send mail, she d e m a n d e d news of the war in Europe. W hen Philip rep ro ach ed h e r that som eday she would reg re t being so far from hom e d u rin g these tragic hours, she responded that if she were a m an she would re tu rn at once to enlist in the army. But to serve as a n u rse—the role assigned h e r as a wom an— she reg ard ed as too insignificant. T h e war proved convenient for A lexandra. She understood n o th ­ ing of com bat waged with m achine guns, tanks, airplanes, and poison gas, and she was convinced it could be won fairly easily. T h e m onster o f Prussian militarism had to be crushed forever so the world could live in peace. A lexandra would learn the h a rd way the lessons that warfare teaches, b u t not before she had become, in a limited way, a resourceful captain of m en. In the m eantim e, the com m on cause reu n ited h e r in spirit with dear Mouchy, w hom she longed to h u g and kiss. Since the seas were too dangerous for h e r to sail hom e, talk of retu rn in g was p u t off indefinitely. Philip sent funds, and w hen the m oney was tem porarily held up, others came to h e r aid; these included the M aharaja of Nepal, who found h e r a most interesting phenom enon. It was no peaceful disposition, still less a m ushy mysticism, that drew this w ar­ rior to B uddhism . Rather, she most adm ired the yogis who lived in caves, alone with their daring thoughts. T hese extrem e individuals she classed with intellectual freethinkers she had known, such as Reclus or Stirner. However, the yogis, T ibetan or Indian, went far beyond any E uropean, for they possessed the Secret Teachings o f tantric lore. This do o r to the mysteries had rem ained closed to her.

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But now, she assured Philip, she had won acceptance as a disciple by a renow ned gomchen (great herm it), and she was certain to m ake rap id progress. But first, as th o u g h to erase any lingering doubts, A lexandra was going to suffer a terrible blow. O n December 14 at Lachen, a tiny m onastery in the m ountains ju st before the high passes o f Tibet, A lexandra h e a rd th at after a sudden, b rief unexplained illness, the M aharaja of Sikkim had died at the age of thirty-seven. It took six days for the news to arrive. At first, because he had rem ained so youthful, she was simply shocked. T h e n she recalled their last outing together w hen Sidkeong, dressed in an Alpine suit, had climbed so quickly ahead o f h e r that she thou g h t his h eart and lungs were m ade o f brass. At the summ it, savoring the stillness, they m editated on a rock like a p air o f wild birds. T h e n he had to descend toward the cares of the court, while she was going higher into the L and of Snows. Sidkeong, a m ountain sprite, had leaped from bou ld er to boul­ der, waving his Swiss hat, calling back to rem ind A lexandra to re tu rn soon. Now she would never see him again. She was moved to confess, even to Philip, that she had loved Sidkeong, an o rp h a n whose step­ m other was his worst enemy. T h e two of them shared an identity of views, o f wounds, that Philip Neel the m an of affairs could barely u nd erstan d . O n occasion, the w om an would hint at h e r despair at not finding that special som eone who makes all the anguish w orth­ while. By her unassuageable sorrow at the m aharaja’s death, we may conclude she had found him in the person of an Asian m onarch, ju st before he was lost to h er with grim finality. However, Sidkeong was a tulku, a “p h an to m body” who, accord­ ing to Tibetan belief, should only die w hen he wished, perhaps to be reb o rn at a m ore auspicious time. T h u s the lamas were talking about mystical reasons for their ru le r’s passing. W hen Charles Bell p u m p e d an inform ant, he got the following: Ku-sho says that he heard that the cause of the illness of the Maharaja Sidkeong tulku which was followed by [his] death was from his negligence of services to his ancestral Cho-kyong [demon defend­ ers of the faith] and by his introduction of offering [them] candles instead of butter lamps. Secondly that he proposed to marry a princess of Burma, which angered the Cho-kyong, as she had been of an alien nationality, and that she does not follow the Cho-kyong. Moreover during his illness the late Maharaja failed to observe ser­

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vices properly toward his ancestral deities or gods on the usual lines. But Ku-sho does not know the cause of his death. If Bell learned any m ore th an this, he did n ot com m it it even to his private notebooks. Sidkeong had p u sh ed his reform s with u n d u e haste, thereby m aking not only dem onic b u t m aterial enemies. H e had invited to his country both E uropeans and learned m onks of the southern school. H e appo in ted them as teachers over his own lamas and invited them to preach at the monasteries. David-Neel adm itted she had initiated the practice of reg u lar serm ons before the assembled monks. In 1937 w hen the G erm an B uddhist who becam e known as Lam a Govinda visited Sikkim, he rep o rted that the lamas still resented Sidkeong’s introduction of “foreign th o u g h t.” In d ia n historian George K otturan writes that Sidkeong “had voiced his opposition to the continuance of the privileges of the feu­ dal aristocracy and the religious hierarchy o f the state. . . . W hen he was taken ill, it is believed, they conspired with a British physician who was attending on him and engineered his d eath .” Lai Basnet adds a n o th e r sinister elem ent: “Sidkeong Tulku, by his reform ist zeal, h a d displeased not only the feudal landlords b u t also .. . Charles Bell. His death was as m uch a relief to the Political Officer as it was to the kazis and m onks.” Bell adm itted that Sidkeong was “in m any respects an outspoken critic o f British m ethods,” b ut he insisted the m aharaja was on the whole pleased by the effects of British rule in opening Sikkim to the outside world. A lthough Bell was not likely to be involved in Sidkeong’s death, his successor certainly proved m ore pliable. Ajnd m u rd e r as a political w eapon was an d rem ains com m on in south Asia. H alf a century later an American, H ope Cooke, m arried the crown prince o f Sikkim, nephew of Sidkeong. His father the m aharaja, a guilt-ridden old m an h a u n te d by the im perious ghost o f his mother, was the younger son p u t on the th ro n e by the intrigues of Q ueen Drolma. H e soon died, and the Am erican becam e Q ueen H opela and p regnant. Browsing about the rath e r gloomy royal palace— the same that A lexandra knew—she came u p o n an unused room with a glori­ ous view o f the m ountains: It’s the room, I hear, in which my husband’s uncle and previous incarnate, Sidkeong, was killed—either by gross ineptitude or delib­

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erately—by a Bengali physician employed by the British because Sidkeong had proved too wise and strong an obstacle to British paramountcy in Sikkim. Although the details of Sidkeong s death are grisly . . . this room seems neutral, free of spirits, and is sun-filled, even though a sparrow-nested eave hangs over the window... I want this room for the baby. In time Q ueen H opela had to flee Gangtok to prevent the m u r­ der o f h e r own son, the crown prince—by poison. T h ro u g h o u t the Himalayas there grows a sinister flower, the blue m onkshood. In form er days an essence distilled from this plant was used to tip arrow heads; a m ere scratch killed. T h e skill in concocting this subtle poison has n o t been lost, and Q ueen Drolma, practitioner of subtle arts, likely possessed it. In o u r version o f events, after she had adm inistered a dose to h er stepson, she called in a physician to attend him in his last agony. Finding nothing specific, the doctor adm inistered brandy and heap ed Sidkeong with blankets. H e listed the cause o f death as heart failure. W hatever effect Sidkeong’s demise had on the pace of British colonial history, it shattered A lexandra’s dream s. T h ro u g h o u t the w inter of 1914, living in h e r tent at the rem ote monastery, she felt a g reat ache in the place o f h e r heart. Wisely, she declined to attend the lengthy and elaborate funeral rites for the m aharaja, culm inating in crem ation. She did go to a nearby g ro u n d to watch the b u rn in g o f a peasant wom an’s body. She recalled m ournfully how not long ago Sidkeong had spoken of their traveling together and how he would introduce h e r to his friend the King of Siam. It grew so cold she had to w arm h er feet by the crackling pyre. Suddenly, she couldn’t help im agining Sidkeong aflame, his dark hair a torch, his crisp little hands sizzling, the a b ru p t explosion o f the brain inside his skull. In Sikkim it is believed that if a person dies violently his ghost may linger for some time, apearing to those dear to him. T h e transience of friendship, of love, were b rought hom e to a sor­ rowful David-Neel. How stupid to cling to other people, who were b o u n d one day to crumble to dust. Life on earth was die realm of Shiva the destroyer. T he seeker, though learned in Buddhism, h a d n ’t worked sufficiently on herself. She was now to tu rn from the perishable to the imperishable, spirit soaring like an eagle over the craggy heights.

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Far hence in Asia On the smooth convent roofs On the gold terraces Of holy Lhasa Bright shines the sun. — Matthew A rnold

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1914: the year the world went to pieces and A lexandra David-Neel took u p the m editative life of a herm it. T h e death o f the young M aharaja of Sikkim p u t an end to h e r notions o f p arading from one oriental court to another. T h e G reat War prevented h e r re tu rn to France, and instead, in the h eart of the m ountains, she en tered into an intim ate relationship with a n o th er m an, w here he was the m aster and she the disciple. Often David-Neel had com plained about the closed natu re of T ibetan Buddhism . Its art and symbols, not to m ention m any of the lamas, did n ’t easily reveal their secrets to an outsider. B ut a miracle occurred w hen a great herm it, a rep u te d sorcerer, accepted h e r as his pupil. A lexandra first m et the G om chen o f Lachen— abbot of the m onastery there— in 1912 at Gangtok w here he had descended reluc­ tantly to conduct a cerem ony at court. W hen Prince Sidkeong in tro ­ duced the Frenchw om an, he couldn’t have im agined she would become the disciple of this revered mystic. O r could he? At any rate, it was his legacy to his d ear friend. She found the lama, about fifty at the time, beguilingly ugly. G arbed for his p a rt in the tantric ritual, he wore a five-sided crown, a rosary necklace of 108 pieces of skulls, an a p ro n o f carved h u m an bones and aphurba (magic dagger— used in rituals to quell demons). T h e G om chen’s hair was plaited in a long thick braid that touched his heels, and from his ears dangled gold rings stu d d ed with turquoise. A lexandra had never seen such eyes— like hot coals. No w onder com m on folk supposed he could fly th ro u g h the air, kill people at a distance, or com m and demons. L ord Ronaldshay, the governor of Bengal, wrote that the

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G om chen was one lam a who “com m anded the deepest a n d most w idespread veneration.” Conversing with him, Ronaldshay felt that “he h ad reached the stage of Arhatship and was, therefore, beyond good and evil.” Marco Pallis, m ountain climber and seeker who was influenced by David-Neel, dedicated his excellent Peaks and Lamas, to “the great contem plator, abbot of L achen.” T h e awestruck Pallis described the G om chen some twenty years after A lexandra knew him: His face was broad, with twinkling, hum orous eyes, his hair long and wispy; from his ears hung a pair of large gold rings. . . . T he whole effect might have been comic but for the aura of power that seemed to radiate from his person, making one feel at once that here was no ordinary mortal. Actually, I have never looked on a more impressive face, despite its grotesqueness. D uring the following two years, A lexandra took p a rt in occa­ sional conversations with the Gom chen in his a p a rtm e n t at the monastery. This collection of a few hum ble structures, hom e to a handful o f monks, was perch ed on a m ountain slope overlooking the little Him alayan village o f Lachen at eight thousand feet, inhabited by sturdy, superstitious hillfolk. Lachen m eans “the big pass,” a n d the m ain occupation of the region in the northeast of Sikkim, aside from subsistence farm ing, was the raising o f yaks em ployed to carry goods across the nearby high passes to Tibet. T hese good-hum ored, sure­ footed, shaggy, h o rn ed beasts also provided the natives with meat, d u n g for fuel, and hair to weave into tents, an d th*e female (a dri) gave milk to ch u rn into the om nipresent butter. T h e initial talks with the lam a were difficult. David-Neel, a begin­ n e r at Tibetan, needed to use the R everend Owen, from a nearby mission, as interpreter. T h e m inister did his best, b u t seated stiffly in an arm chair betw een the two Buddhists who assum ed a lotus posture on the rug, he felt ou t o f place. T h e Gom chen was dressed in a m ore everyday vein: a white skirt down to his feet, a garnet-colored waistcoat, and th ro u g h the wide arm holes, the volum inous sleeves o f a yellow shirt. T hese long sleeves, which in the old p hotographs h an g nearly to the ground, were a m ark of the m an d a rin class, indicating that the w earer h a d enough servants not to n eed to use his hands.

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Q uestions and answers flew betw een m aster and would-be disci­ ple. T h e two ran g ed over the history and doctrines of Buddhism ; they discussed everything from abstruse points to the need for ritu ­ al. Ow en tried to keep up, b u t his translations grew perfunctory. T he B uddhists took this as a signal to settle quietly into deep m editation, continuing their dialogue by o ther means. T h e minister, not daring to leave, fretted over being late for his Bible class at the mission. Despite the b a rrier of language, A lexandra an d the G om chen were instantly delighted with one another. She felt that here was a clear-thinking skeptic who had p en e tra te d the trappings of religion to its in n er core. B ut even she was astounded by his reply to her question about the efficacy o f a h uge prayer wheel that was housed in a separate tem ple nearby—the largest wheel in Sikkim, rep u te d to m ake one and a half billion prayers p e r revolution. “T hese vain repetitions of wheels, the worship of images on an altar, even the beautiful m andalas, they m ean nothing at all. T h e ir only use is to attract and occupy the attention of average m en, who fail to u n d e rsta n d that nirvana is within their grasp. You have already seen this.” A lexandra felt certain she had m uch m ore to learn and that the G om chen could guide h e r to it. So in the early a u tu m n of the first year o f the G reat W ar’s carnage, inspired by the nuns of C horten Nyima, she determ ined to climb the dizzying heights to the h erm it’s hideaway, the Cave of Clear Light at De-chen, twelve thousand feet in the sky. David-Neel rode beyond Lachen th ro u g h Alpine scenery w here dull green lichen “clung to the fir trees and stream ed like great h a n d ­ fuls of frayed wool in the w ind.” Indifferent to a chilling mist, she stayed at the u p p erm o st dak bungalow at tiny T h an g u , a half-day’s outing from the herm itage at De-chen. However, she had no horse on which to ride higher. T h e Sikkimese in charge, afraid his E u ro p ean guest m ight walk, offered his own horse, a small tame r e d ­ dish beast. A lexandra m ounted and the horse threw h e r into the air a nd down on a patch of grass. Knocked cold, she awoke in pain b ut not badly hu rt. T h e bungalow keeper was m ortified and assured her he would make the pony behave. B ut as soon as the m an grasped its bridle, the puny anim al kicked him onto some rocks w here he landed on his

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head. H e was carried off ran tin g that the pony was perfecdy tame. T h e natives attributed this episode to the pow er o f the Gom chen, who they claimed had set up a psychic b a rrier to g uard his hideaway. A lexandra’s servants looked glum and w arned h e r not to go. A lad of fifteen, A p h u r Yongden, recently en tered into h e r service, cowered in a c orner crying. From h e r sickbed the seeker ridiculed their talk of harm ful dem ons, and w hen two days later the lam a sent a m are for her, she rode up the steep, b a rre n trail until she spotted the waving p rayer flags o f a herm itage. T h e G om chen came out to greet her, and they shared a pot of b u ttered tea in a cave finished with a ro ugh wall and gaping holes for windows. After tea the G om chen retired to his own cavern about a mile farther up the m ountain. Darkness fell before A lexandra could accustom herself to the surroundings. H e r servants spread blankets on the bare rock floor and disappeared. No m oon, she p e e p ed out to spy a glacial mass o f m ountains above the gloomy valley. T h e ro ar of a distant waterfall p u n ctuated the otherwise still night. Fearful of tum bling into the void below, she crept back inside. T h e m om ent she lay down, the kerosene lam p went out. She had no matches and could not move an inch for fear of breaking a limb. A cold wind blew, while a single star was visible th ro u g h the window. She thou g h t it m ust be h e r lucky star because she had never before been so happy. She was at last free of the snares of luxury an d ow nership that others th o u g h t so w onderful. T h e h erm it’s life was the thing! N ext day A lexandra scram bled up to the Gjomchen’s Cave of Clear Light. In 1895, without fanfare, the lam a had established him ­ self in this cell. For five years he saw no one, subsisting on scraps of food left before his door by herdsm en. W hen these superstitious folk solicited him for a blessing, or m ore likely a curse on an enemy, he ignored them . T h e h erm it’s conduct so im pressed the m onks of nearby Lachen that he gained an authority over them , a n d they im proved both his diet and surroundings. By the time of A lexandra’s arrival, she found the m aster living in relative comfort. T h e G om chen’s cave was larger and better furnished than the one below. A wooden step led to the entrance, which was h id d en by a curtain; one en tered into the kitchen, th en back th ro u g h a natural opening to a small grotto, the living room . H ere w ooden chests

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form ed a sort of couch, large cushions were placed on the ground, and slabs of brightly painted wood were set up on feet as low tables. F arther back were the usual altar offerings: copper bowls filled with water, grain, and b u tte r lamps. Religious scrolls covered the walls, and b en eath one of these stood an inconspicuous cabinet said to house the dem ons subservient to the p otent lama. O n its solitary perch, this was truly a cavern in the sky. Term s o f a discipleship were agreed on whereby A lexandra prom ised obedience to the g u ru for an indefinite period. She m ust not take any journeys without his perm ission, a proviso h e r husband m ight have envied. In re tu rn the anchorite d ro p p e d his cherished plan to go into a traditional three-year, three-m onth retreat. Instead, A lexandra w ould teach him English while he im proved h e r Tibetan. I f she proved worthy, the G om chen would reveal to h e r the secret oral teachings o f tantric B uddhism , which were hardly known in the West. After jo ining h e r tent to the lower cave, David-Neel m oved in, filled with the spirit of adventure. Yongden and the oth er servants were housed in a h u t a few yards away. T h e Frenchw om an h ad no intention o f perform ing herself the menial tasks necessary to keep alive in the rarified atm osphere, a n d Yongden, ju st out of school, wasn’t m uch help either. A lexandra found that life red u ced to the essentials pleased her, and the G om chen treated h er like his younger sister. H e supplied h e r with yak butter, milk, and fruits from his own limited store. Unfortunately, he fancied himself a cook and invited his pupil to dinner. His m utton soup was foul, and A lexandra, after she dow ned it with a smile, was forced to rush outside and disgorge it. She was sick all night. In m id-N ovem ber their idyll was broken up. T h e Gom chen, obliged to re tu rn to his m onastery on business, did n ’t dare leave the foreigner alone to face the snows of a Him alayan winter. T h e herm itage was inaccessible for four whole m onths when drifts blocked the trail. So A lexandra accom panied h e r teacher and set up the tent at Lachen. She boasted that with a kerosene heater she could keep the tem perature a ro u n d 45 degrees Fahrenheit. H er lam a’s robe helped keep h e r warm, until one night in early January, weighted by snow, the ten t fell in on top of her. It was like a bad dream , m ade worse because she had to move into a cell in the monastery.

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T h e folk of Lachen and their prim itive com m unal notions proved a real nightm are. T h e re were some eighty families in the neighborhood, growing barley a n d potatoes, pasturing yaks in the summ er, and all year practicing a caricature of a socialist govern­ m ent. Strict regulations prevented one family from gaining the slightest advantage over the others. According to Marco Pallis, A lexandra was “nearly forced to accept a whole pack of hounds because a family that sold h e r one dog was considered, by so doing, to have tried to steal a m arch on its neighbors.” All fines w ent into a com m unal fund from which a feast would be given once a year. T h e elders and the m onks got the good things to eat, the po o r got scraps, an d the wom en nothing. In response A lexandra threw a feast for the wom en and becam e persona no n grata to the officious elders. O th er distractions at L achen included the nearby Protestant mis­ sion, also not to A lexandra’s liking. T h e British ladies had converted a few Tibetans by giving them clothes and presents, as well as Bible lessons. T hese acts of charity confused them , since poor as they m ight be they were accustomed to make offerings to their holy m en. It smacked of bribery to the French B uddhist, although outwardly she rem ained on chatty term s with the missionaries. T h e wom en who came to her cell for tea a n d biscuit— which she baked herself— couldn’t help staring at the Gom chen. Probably they considered him “a dirty old m an,” for the lam a was fairly robust and his m anners were those of a peasant. No matter, it was politic for A lexandra to keep on the ladies’ good side. She tried to p u t Sidkeong’s death b ehind her, b u t h e r tem p er was frayed by unexpressed grief. W hen both the village and m onastery celebrated the Tibetan New Year by a feast worthy of a B rueghel painting—eating and drinking in the open air—she could scarcely hide h e r disgust. She watched in glum silence as the norm ally h a rd ­ working peasants and frugal m onks let loose. Shanks of m eat sizzled a n d cooking pots bubbled, while the cooks stirred strange brews with their fingers. T h e valley teem ed with racing and wrestling figures, and above a handful of monks danced clumsily in a sort o f chorus line. Everybody was getting tipsy on chang, the local barley beer. A lexandra sought out the G om chen to com plain that the dis­ solute clergy were showing disrespect to their late sovereign, as well as violating B u d d h a ’s precepts. She dem an d ed that he p u t a stop

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to the carousing within the m onastery grounds. Mocking h e r as " M m Sahib” the lam a suggested she go com m iserate with the p rudes at the mission, who wished to force their notions of right and w rong on others. Pallis praises the G om chen’s “urbanity, tem pered with a dash of satire,” which enabled him to p u t Sidkeong’s death in p e r­ spective. For he, too, had counted on the late m aharaja to reform feudal Sikkim. Now as the revels grew m ore feverish, m en and wom en stagger­ ing about, A lexandra felt absurd. She was the outsider here. She headed for the m ountains w here the winter sun shone brilliantly on the snowy crests. A recent fall ad d e d to the silvery carpet. Alone, A lexandra planted herself on a rock and strapped herself u p rig h t in the T ibetan fashion. M aster of miles of scenery, she let go of care, slip­ ping into a deep m editation beyond joy or sorrow. T h ro u g h the winter, David-Neel m ade am azing progress in Tibetan. She found herself conversing fluently with the Gom chen, who spoke with a p ro p e r Lhasa accent, and she began to believe he was really a wizard. H e r feelings tow ard him swung between rep u l­ sion at his peasant m anners to awe at the clarity o f his thought. W hen he spoke on B uddhist metaphysics, eyes glowing with fervor, the bo n d of chela (disciple) to g u ru was being forged; indeed, she was being tied in to the long line of m asters who .had preceded him. In T ibetan B uddhism the telepathic m ethod is reg ard ed as supe­ rior to both written an d oral teachings. However, there were few masters left able to em ploy telepathy, and fewer disciples psychically attu n ed to learning in this way. T h e G om chen and A lexandra would sit together in silence in a darkened room , focused on the same object, the aspects of a diety for exam ple. After a time the G om chen would ask what she had seen and if it were the same as his projection. T h e goal was an entirely unified m ental state. Later, cam ping in the wilds, A lexandra would record instances of the use of telepathy at great distances, of receiving messages the Tibetans term ed “written on the w ind.” In the sum m er o f 1915, the G om chen re tu rn e d to his m ountain hideaway an d com m enced preparations against the lengthy winter, an d th ere A lexandra jo in e d him. In sight of the five peaks of K anchinjunga— called the storehouse of the treasure of the gods because its snows were first to reflect daw n’s gold and last to don

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the sable of night—the seeker p rep a re d for h e r personal exploration into the mysteries of being. B ut she could u ndertake this search only after perform ing the m ore m u n d an e tasks that would ensure h er survival. H er cave, the lower one, was im proved considerably by adding on a w ooden two-story structure. O n the g ro u n d floor the outer room was divided in two by a curtain: one half served as com bination kitchen and study (the best place to keep warm), the oth er half as a b edroom that com m unicated with the cavern. Upstairs was a guest room , and any currently u nused space was taken up with stored goods. A lexandra had the convenience of an indoor toilet (though not plum bing) and a tiny o u td o o r balcony. Unfortunately, the whole jo b had been done by local peasants who were terrible carpenters. From halfway a ro u n d the world, Philip sent practical advice about the building of what he called his wife’s “H u ro n h u t,” since she h ad com pared herself to a heroine in a Jam es Fenim ore C ooper novel. After m onths of mistakes the dwelling was com pleted, carpets laid on the floor, and the walls painted. An exu ltant A lexandra h eap ed praise on M ouchy for helping to accomplish h e r wildest childhood fantasy. Assistance came, too, from Sikkim’s new m ah ara­ ja, Tashi Namgyal, Sidkeong’s younger half-brother, who sent a quantity of expensive brick tea. This an d the twelve kilograms of yak b u tte r furnished by the G om chen, plus a little salt, were the ingredi­ ents of that beverage the Tibetans dran k so constantly. A lexandra thrived on this rich brew, reinforcing h e r notion that in a past life she had been one of Genghis K han’s Mongols. Septem ber b ro u g h t the “little w inter”—a prek id e—a n d snow as high as a m an, although A lexandra continued to bathe daily in h er zinc tub. She plunged into T ibetan studies. T h e G om chen spoke freely about the in n er m eaning of B uddhist doctrine, and he grew rhapsodical on the lives o f fam ous mystics; b u t he tu rn e d reticent w hen she b ro u g h t up hid d en tan trie rites. No doubt, he felt the force of the Frenchw om an’s skepticism, and that som eone as strong willed as she would have to m ake h e r own discoveries. Suddenly h e r old enem y neurasthenia struck. T h e crisis of spirit d e e p en e d until A lexandra could scarcely bear to be alone. At night she h ad pains in h e r he a rt and terrible dream s about the war. Desperate for inform a­ tion, she sent h e r boy Yongden into the snows to seek out the latest

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news on the fighting, so far away. Unknowingly, she was on the edge of a b rea k th ro u g h in h e r practice. To divert his pupil, the G om chen took her climbing. If in thought he was wildly venturesom e, in m ountaineering he proved steady and taciturn. A lexandra, m uch slim m er from a sparse diet, felt chipper. She p ushed out of m ind earlier climbs with the handsom e m aharaja. T h e behavior of this rustic philosopher bewildered her, since one m om ent he was genial, the next sardonic. H e could cry or laugh with the ease of a child. His Achilles heel was his love for a pet cat. T h e p am p e re d kitty lived in the h erm it’s cave and was accus­ tom ed to eating from the G om chen’s hand. O ne day, annoyed at the comings and goings o f porters, the pet ran away. T h a t same night, telling no one, the lama left in search of her. W ithout warm clothes or provisions he walked all night, feeling his way with a stick. T h e path led across dangerous waterfalls, a ro u n d steep cliffs, and over fallen boulders. Finally, the G om chen reached a spot w here he expected the tru a n t to arrive, b u t in fact the cat h ad circled hom e. T h e sage spent four nights in a d ank cave, and w hen w orried vil­ lagers searched him out, they received a scolding for their trouble. T h e exhausted lama tru d g e d hom e, sneezing and coughing, to find his kitty yawning and stretched in h e r usual place by the fire. By,early au tu m n the Gom chen had retired into his cave and gone into a trance. This m ight last for days or weeks, d u rin g which time no one was allowed to approach him. Marco Pallis witnessed the G om chen on the verge of entering such a state— “hovering on the brink, about to take flight to u n d rea m e d -o f realm s”— the tim ing of which was n ot entirely u n d e r his control. W hen Pallis explained that he climbed m ountain peaks in o rd er to find perfect solitude, the G om chen scoffed: “T h e solitude to seek is the concentration o f your own heart; if you have once found it, it will not m atter w here you a re .” A lexandra couldn’t afford to be so philosophical. All about her reigned confusion. In Tibet the warfare continued against the Chinese invaders, and in Sikkim the peasants were resisting con­ scription for the great war overseas. Nevertheless, many thousands of G urkhas and o ther Him alayan dwellers volunteered to fight in E urope or the Middle East, willing to soldier for pay. T h e price of supplies shot sky high, and A lexandra was anxiously awaiting the last

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caravan of the year before snowfalls closed the passes. It finally arrived with loads of butter, rice, barley flour, potatoes, turnips, lentils, and beans: the whole of the form er g o u rm e t’s diet for the next few m onths. Christmas Eve 1915 found David-Neel in despair. She missed Philip and wanted to go hom e. H e r rheum atism , troubling all along, had led to fever, nausea, and pain so severe she sometimes couldn’t stand up. This night, asleep in the back of the cave w here it was warmer, she was awakened by a servant. T h e ro o f o f the u p p e r level had caught fire. O u t she tru d g e d into the snow in h e r nightdress. Shivering, she watched the boys p u t out the blaze. At five in the m orning, the m ountains loom ed like vast shadows, an d an o d d calm spread over h e r soul. Once the heavy snows fell an d she was trapped, A lexandra began to m ake great strides. All winter the Gom chen p erm itted his disciple to invade his solitude. Every oth er day, dressed in a heavy o u ter cloak and high felt boots, she set forth on the slippery path to the lam a’s cabin. T h e re his wife—he was R ed H at and perm itted one—rem oved A lexandra’s wet things and h u n g them before the fire to dry. She served hot b u ttered tea to professor and pupil, who fell to work over the subtleties of Tibetan gram m ar, history, philosophy. T h e session done, A lexandra d o n n ed h e r cloak and boots and flung herself into the glittering light of late afternoon. M aking h e r way down, she m ight sing an old chant: Alone on a mountain possessing nothing sleeping on the rocks of a cavern One feels free stripped of all beliefs greater than a raja greater than God. Day in and day o ut the landscape, u n d e r the dom inion of m ajes­ tic snow capped peaks, was extraordinarily quiet, all the stream s and rivulets frozen. A lexandra was left to h e r reading and practice. H e r sole diversion was a bear who came by in hope of being fed. She had no fear of so-called wild animals and got as close as the bear would allow. But with now here to go, A lexandra had to come to grips with

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h e r own phantom s. Desires, hopes, a n d fears dissolved in the acid of self-knowledge. In m editation h e r life was played back: childhood in Paris, youth in Brussels. As th ough she was watching a film, she pictured h e r parents quarreling, herself on stage singing opera, scenes of failure and hum iliation. She viscerally felt the boredom and tension o f h e r m arried years and the few trium phs of her career as a writer. To herself she cried, laughed, and groaned, but she kept on sit­ ting until w hat others th o u g h t of as h e r self—the perception they still carried in their m inds—was like one deceased. No clear-cut stages m arked the p a th tow ard A lexandra’s enlightenm ent, and no tran s­ p o rt of joy (samadhi) enlivened it. She experienced only steadily growing, quiet courage. She w ondered if there was any m ore to it. A lexandra’s strength increased sufficiently to attem pt an e x p e ri­ m ent with tumo breathing, one o f the T ibetan practices that seems m iraculous. She had stum bled on its good effects inadvertently, m uch as with lung-gom walking. O ne evening, h u d d led by the fire, she began to breath e rhythmically an d felt h e r feet warm up. But she soon grew tired. From h e r reading she knew what was happening. Tum o was the m ost vital practice of the anchorites, enabling them to survive bru tal w eather without fuel, o f which there is little in the m ountains, naked or clad only in a light shift. T h e transcendental yogi M ilarepa, its forem ost ex ponent, praised tum o as the best clothing. About M ilarepa’s disciples, the O xford scholar Evans-Wentz wrote: “T hey were p ro o f against extrem es of cold . . . and so needed to wear no o ther g arm ent [than cotton] even in the arctic winter o f the high H im alayan altitudes of T ibet.” A lexandra, although she had plenty of clothes, found the heavier ones burdensom e. R em em bering the w arm breezes off the Tunisian desert, she could only sigh. In M arch as the w eather m oderated, she m oved into h e r yak-hair tent and threw off bulky clothes—and caught cold. T h e G om chen grew sufficiently alarm ed to instruct his overeager pupil in tum o. T h e principle m ethods are auto-suggestion and retention o f breath: tum o is a m editation on the fire within. Like all T ibetan exercises, tum o is spiritual. T h e aspirant must have perm ission from his g u ru and a proven ability to concentrate. H e m ust be isolated an d avoid foul air and noise. Before sunrise he sits scantily clad in the lotus posture doing various drills to clear the

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nostrils. T h e n with the out-breath he expels pride, anger, covetous­ ness, and sloth, and with the in-breath he draws into him self the B u d d h a spirit. Slow, deep inspirations act as a bellows to fan a smol­ d erin g fire at the pit of the stomach. If the practitioner is successful, w arm th will rise to encompass his whole being. Traditionally, graduates of this course were tested on a frosty night with a h a rd wind blowing. T hey sat cross-legged on the bank of an ice-encrusted river or lake while sheets were d ip ped in the water and one was d rap ed over each m an’s torso; using tum o, he was expected to dry it. T h e n the sheets were soaked again and the e x e r­ cise repeated. By daybreak the successful practitioner m ight have dried as m any as forty sheets. A lexandra’s final exam was less exacting. O n a m oonlit night in spring she proceeded to a lonely m ountain stream an d bathed. Afterward she sat naked and m editated until dawn. A lthough at first she felt no ill effects, she soon came down with a flu. Still, she had conquered a lifelong aversion to harsh weather, and now she could step out on h e r balcony before dawn, clad in thin muslin, to catch the first hint of gold on K anchinjunga’s five crowns. By sum m er 1916, David-Neel’s isolation was draw ing to a close. She could not relish the role of disciple for long, and despite h e r threats to Philip, she had no intention of becom ing a herm it. T h e G om chen guessed as m uch, a n d he habitually told his pupil about his travels in Tibet as a younger m an. H e casually acquainted h e r with the geography, inhabitants, and customs of the land. T h e Gom chen hinted that she m ust continue h e r education on the ro ad —as a pilgrim —and convey what she h ad learned to the world at large. Certainly, A lexandra sometimes looked sadly, almost with terror, at the path that w ound down the m ountain into the valley o f Lachen, which one day would lead h e r back to the m u n d an e world of sor­ rows. T h a t was the way to France, N orth Africa, hom e, and husband. But there existed a nother direction, and with the arrival o f w arm er w eather the traveler tu rn e d h e r attention to the forbidden passes to the north. In h er writing she would indignantly point o ut that in the past, before the Anglo-Tibetan entente, the L and of the Religion had been far sim pler to enter. Now she found roadblocks set up along the Him alayan routes some fifty kilometers from the Tibetan border. H er

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cave, although well within those posts, lay only a half-day’s hike from this forbidden world of knowledge. A lexandra’s two difficult winters spent in cell and cave bore fruit m any years later in a slim, deceptively titled volume, The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects. T h e book, w ritten by David-Neel at eighty and first published in 1951 is not arcane b u t a reflection of the long rational conversations she h a d with the G om chen while the b u t­ tered tea sim m ered and the wind howled outside. Alan Watts called it “the most direct, no-nonsense, an d dow n-to-earth explanation of M ahayana B uddhism which has thus far been w ritten.” A lexandra’s th o ught is as cool and clear as a Tibetan lake. T he spirit o f G autam a B u d d h a pervades it, the pressing need to tra n ­ scend the pain of isolation and to achieve the peace of knowing that all is Nothing. By the latter term Buddhists m ean the Void from which all m atter springs and into which we—o u r m any perishable egos— are constantly dissolving. A lexandra tried to explain to Philip that she’d had to leave him; he no m ore could have held h er than clenched the fine desert sand in his fist. Shortly before p a rting from the teacher to whom she owed so m uch, A lexandra suggested the outline of a book about the knowl­ edge he had im parted to her. T h e m aster scoffed that it was a waste of time: “T h e great majority of readers and hearers are the same all over the world. . . . If you speak to them of pro fo u n d Truths they yawn, and, if they dare, they leave you, b u t if you tell them absurd fables they are all eyes and ears.” H e was playing the devil’s advocate, since he, too, was a reform er at heart. Finally, he gave the project his blessing with one word: “Try!” Some twenty years later, in the 1930s, a nother W estern seeker, the young m an o f G erm an descent who would become known as Lam a Govinda, visited the G om chen at De-chen. T h e land of his forebears had gone m ad, and the world was drifting toward a second great calamity. Inspired by the exam ple o f David-Neel, the saddened scholar tu rn e d East for enlightenm ent. Tashi Namgyal the M aharaja of Sikkim, by then m iddle-aged, e x ten d ed help by equipping a little caravan to take Govinda to the venerated herm it. T h e eager pilgrim had to halt for the night at the bungalow at T h an g u , not far below the herm itage. Strangely, before falling asleep, the young m an felt as though

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a n o th er had taken over his m ind and willpower and he was losing his identity. At once he “realized th at it could be none oth er th an the herm it, who . . . had en tered my body and taken possession of it, probably quite unintentionally, due to the pow er of his concentra­ tion.MGovinda fought the growing m agnetism , jolted into action by the te rro r of annihilation. Tensely, he drew a self-portrait to prove that he still existed. T h e n he was able to sleep. In the m o rn in g he climbed up to the Cave of Clear Light. T h e herm it greeted him with a smile and served tea. T hey spoke of A lexandra David-Neel and looked over new spaper clippings about h e r that had reached the Gom chen. Govinda told him “how deeply I was im pressed by his chela's works.” T h e old lama in tu rn praised h e r “en d u ra n c e and strength o f character.” Was he aware o f what had gone on the night before? T h e G om chen w arned against what he term ed the disease afflict­ ing the world— morality without wisdom—and he offered the seeker a subject for m editation: the Eighteen Kinds o f Voidness. Before he left, the future Lam a Govinda becam e convinced that the innocentseem ing yogi had purposely sent the force that invaded his in n e r self. H e was equally certain the G om chen had chosen A lexandra as the ideal person to broadcast the ancient, secret knowledge o f which hum anity stood in desperate need. H e r works, translated into the m ajor languages, were being rea d by millions. If they failed to alter the traum atic course o f history, that was beyond the pow er o f any sage or author.

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Charles Bell occupied a unique place in the diplomacy of the early tw entieth century. H e was charged with defending an em pire that, at least to its subject peoples, app eared unshakable yet h arb o red within itself the seeds of dissolution. N either a powerful L ord C urzon or a dashing Lawrence of Arabia, liable to grab headlines and attract biog­ raphers, Bell m anaged to accomplish m ore in the realm of u n d e r ­ standing and trust than the theorist or the hero. U ndram atic about his attachm ent to Tibet, he warmly su p p o rted its interests and set policies in m otion that helped keep the country in d ep e n d e n t until the 1950s. In 1919 he would resign as Resident Political Officer in Sikkim, b u t in the n ext year he re tu rn e d as special am bassador to Tibet. L o n d o n had decided to g ran t him a stay in Lhasa. Before the W orld War, Britain had agreem ents with both Russia and C hina that constituted a sort o f Closed-Door policy to the Sacred Realm. By 1920 those o ther two em pires had fallen into disarray, and the Foreign Office felt free to p u rsu e its own policies, including strengthening the T ibetan army. Bell was sent to Lhasa, rem ained nearly a year, and gathered m uch m aterial of interest. In 1921 he again resigned a n d retired to an estate in Berkshire. Amid a fine collection of oriental artworks, he wrote books on the people and religion o f Tibet, as well as his Portrait of the Dalai Lama, about both the institution and his good friend the T h irteenth. Bell was careful, astute, and sym pathetic to B uddhism and its practitioners; his final loyalties were fixedly British. H e seems to have fought the tem ptation of becoming, in Law rence’s words, “the m an

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who could see things th rough the veils at once of two customs, two educations, two environm ents.” Such a m an, insisted the a u th o r of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, was b o u n d to go m ad. Bell was too m uch the diplom at for that, b u t occasionally he could act with a dem onic fury an d swiftness. In July 1916, w hen A lexandra David-Neel set out for Shigatse in southcentral Tibet, she was crossing a line pencilled atop a m ountain range on a m ap—a b a rrier invisible to the naked eye. She traveled at the express invitation of the Panchen Lam a, and yet she knew she risked the w rath of the Resident in Sikkim. She was aware that the British policed the frontier, allowing only their own representatives and a few m erchants to pass. She took care to skirt the C hum bi Valley w here she would likely have been spotted. David-Neel u n d ersto o d from discussions with Bell him self that “T ibet would be delighted to be u n d e r a British protectorate,” and that British soldiers, telegra­ phers, and trade agents in so uthern Tibet were the van g u ard of this arrangem ent. At this time, David-Neel failed to realize how closing the country to foreigners was also a T ibetan policy insisted on by the abbots of the powerful m onasteries a ro u n d Lhasa. T h e latter were afraid that foreign influence would weaken their own hold on affairs, an d they vigorously o p p o se d any m o d e rn ideas or visitors. As H u g h Richardson, a successor to Bell and dean o f Tibetanists, has written us, “T h e Tibetans were far from simple and naive w hen their own affairs were concerned. T hey used the British as a cat’s-paw to keep people o u t.” O ne authority with a m ore open m ind was the Panchen Lam a, the abbot of T ashilhunpo monastery, who cLpspite his exalted spiritual rank exercised only a local tem poral power. Alexandra, accom panied by Yongden, crossed the b o rd e r on horseback, trailing a pack m ule carrying two small tents a n d provi­ sions. With a magic suddenness, masses of angry clouds dissolved and the sky tu rn e d into a deep blue setting for a sun whose light struck sparks against distant snow-shaded peaks. T h e houses were built of stone with flat roofs, and the cast of people’s faces was Mongolian. At Tranglung, A lexandra visited a sorcerer who reputedly could make ritual cakes (torma) fly thro u g h the air to punish his e n e­ mies. H e tu rn e d out to be mild m an n ered and polite, unwilling to harm a fly. T h e pair w andered on, sleeping in the huts of peasants

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w hen they could. T h e E uropean d id n ’t try to disguise herself, find­ ing the people friendly and police as rare as crime. M elting snows m ade the rivers tricky to ford. While the travelers. were hoping to attain Kuma, a village of therm al springs, a freak storm stran d ed them short of their destination. Hail struck, then snow began to fall so quickly it soon reached to their knees. A n e a r­ by brook overflowed into their camp, and the discouraged pair had to spend the night h u d d led u n d e r one soggy tent. A lexandra felt that these trials were too fatiguing even for the Amazon that she had become. Yet she tried to soak in the indefinable atm osphere of Tibet, fearing she m ight never be so fortunate again. A lexandra b rightened w hen she reached Tashilhunpo, beyond the busy m arket town of Shigatse, and the large monastic city of red and white houses a p p eared even m ore splendid than she had im agined. A lthough she knew it was u n h e a rd of for a foreign wom an to dwell am ong the celibate Yellow Hats, A lexandra sent Yongden to request lodgings within the enclosure. She was delighted w hen com fortable room s were placed at h e r disposal. Inquisitive functionaries were soon quizzing the visitor on her origin and business. At first they confused Paris with Phari— p ronounced alike— a village to the south. T h e n a debate ensued over w hether the Frenchw om an was or was not a foreigner. She m aintained that since philing (“stra n g e r”) literally m eant som eone from overseas, and you could reach h e r country by walking (in the eighteenth century Csoma de Koros, a H ungarian, had done this), she wasn’t a foreigner. In the m idst o f the confusion, there ap p eared an unassum ing gentlem an in a simple habit. A lexandra was won by the Panchen L am a’s refinem ent. H e knew where Paris was and pro n o u n ced it correctly. His conversation was that o f an educated m an and a sincere Buddhist. A lexandra had supposed that the country beyond the Himalayas would grow wilder, b u t she realized that, on the contrary, she was coming in touch with an old, truly civilized people. In 1906 the intrepid, not to say brash, Swedish e xplorer Sven H edin had visited the Tashi Lama, another nam e for the same incarnation. H e was struck by the abbot’s unfeigned charm , his warm smile and kind expression. Even Charles Bell, concerned that the Panchen was a potential rival to the Dalai Lama, stated, “O n account of his great sanctity his influence is very

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g re a t.” However, he sensed th a t the still y o u n g m an d id n ’t lack worldly ambition. Bell points out that the Panchen Lam a is considered to be an incarnation of Amitabha, the B u d d h a of Infinite Light, who is reg a rd e d as the spiritual guide of Avalokitesvara, the L o rd of Mercy, whose em anation is the Dalai Lama; therefore, “it is held by m any Tibetans that the Panchen Lam a is spiritually h igher than the Dalai.” This bit of metaphysics m attered not to A lexandra, b u t she was delighted that the Panchen took seriously the T ibetan nam e bestowed on h er by the Gom chen: Lam p of Wisdom. T h e prelate and his m other conducted their guest th ro u g h the tem ples, halls, and palaces of the large monastic establishment. A lexandra was stunned by the splendor: gold, silver, and turquoise decorated doors, altars, and tombs. H ousehold objects used by im portant lamas blazed with jewels. While there was no denying all this magnificence, the display finally struck the seeker as pointless. She couldn’t help yearning for the solitudes w here bears and leopards prow led, and for the Gom chen, whose m an n e r of life suddenly seem ed refined. T h e orientalist did thrive on dialogues with the monks, some three thousand eight h u n d re d strong, half of whom were scholars. Confronted with this vast storehouse of ancient information, a dynam o of psychic uplift, A lexandra realized how little progress on the path she • had m ade. Yet the Panchen, im pressed by the E u ro p e an ’s sincerity and knowledge of scripture, invited h e r to rem ain in T ibet u n d e r his patronage. She was tem pted, b u t h e r keen nose for politi­ cal winds w arned h er that the n u m b er two lama lacked the authority to m ake his word stick. A q uarrel betw een the courts at Shigatse and Lhasa was brewing, principally over w hether the Panchen would con­ tribute to the building of a new m odel army, urged on by the British. In 1923 the Panchen decided to flee to Peking, w here he becam e the focus of C hina’s effort to reestablish influence in Tibet. David-Neel’s patro n would die in Peking in 1933, and his succes­ sor, the T enth Panchen Lama, held m ore or less a prisoner in C hina through m uch of his life, would die suddenly in 1989 after criticizing the harshness of military rule in Tibet. His successor, the boy G e dhun Choekyi Nyima, chosen in the traditional m an n e r u n d e r the s u p e r­ vision (from India) of the Dalai Lam a, has been spirited out o f T ibet

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and is kept u n d e r house arrest som ew here in the Chinese country­ side. Chinese authorities have chosen a candidate of their own, who— after he has been educated to their liking—will be instrum ental in selecting the n ext Dalai Lama. Even before that time the true Panchen may m eet the same a b ru p t fate adm inistered to his p re d e ­ cessors. It is the old gam e of pow er poliucs mixed with religion, one that A lexandra had experienced to h e r sorrow. Besides, she wasn’t ready to live o ut h er days as a yogi. H e r luggage, books, notes, and photo negatives were stored at Calcutta. Paris and L ondon were asking h e r to give conferences on H induism and B uddhism ; why, even the Americans were interested! First she was head ed to n o rth e rn Asia, ready to brave the seas for a plenitude o f untranslated texts. Once the war ended, she would sail hom e to h e r Mouchy. She left Shigatse in early August with additional possessions. T h e P anchen bestow ed on h e r the robe of a graduate lama and an h o n ­ orary doctorate from the Tashilhunpo university. She took with her, too, the w arm regards o f both the Incarnated B ud d h a and his m other, the latter of whom continued to write to her. In retu rn , she frequently nagged Philip to send the elderly dam e postcards with views of the desert, as well as dried figs and dates. A lexandra and Yongden w ended their way back to Sikkim, stop­ ping off at N arthang, T ibet’s largest printing establishment. She adm ired the casual style of the printers, who did painstaking but beautiful work with prim itive wood blocks. T hey chatted and d ran k tea as th o u g h their deadlines were in the n ext life. How different it was from the feverish agitation o f a W estern editorial office. Finally, exhausted, the pair arrived hom e at De-chen. T hey found their herm itage sacked, tu rn e d inside out, and the G om chen in retreat, seeing no one. T h e mystery was soon cleared u p w hen A lexandra received notice she h ad two weeks to leave the country. H er trip across the forbidden b o rd e r had become know n to Charles Bell, who traveled to the area an d fined the inhabitants o f Lachen— the nearest actual village—a heavy collective sum. Furious, he rem inded them it was their task to p revent foreigners from crossing the border. In tu rn these devastated peasants pillaged A lexandra’s abode in hopes of finding valuable belongings. Bell fined her, as well. She claimed

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that he was dying of envy at h e r trip to Tibet, b u t because she was French, he could not lay a h a n d on her. However, he scolded and fined the Gom chen, who couldn’t afford to antagonize the ruling power. A lexandra felt that b ehind it all was the jealousy of the missionaries. T hese good souls chafed at being b a rre d from the mission field of Tibet, rife with infidels. T hey resented A lexandra’s free access and her espousal of the native religion. T h ro u g h their converts they learned of h e r journey, then ran to the Resident. As for Bell, he had considerations of state; the British were suspicious of any u n a u th o ­ rized traveler in Central Asia. T hey rem ained concerned that, like the M ongol Dorjieff who’d claimed to be a devout B uddhist b u t was a Russian spy, A lexandra m ight be the agent of some E uropean power. Bell’s reprisals were harsh, and he may have felt personally betrayed. H e couldn’t help but resent the Frenchw om an’s o p p o rtu ­ nity to gather material for books, since he him self wasn’t allowed past Gyantse. T h a t she was the sort who disobeyed the rules and con­ sorted with magicians d id n ’t weigh in h e r favor. British suspicions were not entirely unfounded. In the secret files we found the following dispatch from the Gyantse T rade Agency (1917): Mme David-Neel, the Belgian [sic] who . . . was expelled from Sikkim for having paid an unauthorized visit to Shigatse, maintains a corre­ spondence with the mother of the Tashi Lama and also with the Lama Chensal Kushab, the confidential adviser of the Tashi Lama. Bell once described the Panchen Lam a as “E ngland’s oldest friend in T ibet.” H e w ouldn’t tolerate David-Neel’s m eddling in Tibetan affairs, and since the correspondence refe rre d to has been destroyed or lost, we can only guess w hether she was in fact butting in as she had done in Sikkim. Willfully or no, “the Belgian” had become an influence on Central Asian politics. A lexandra instandy u nderstood the seriousness of losing the goodwill of British colonial officials. She was now persona no n grata anywhere u n d e r the jurisdiction of the G overnm ent of India. She lapsed into depression and adopted a “good riddance” attitude in her letters to Philip. She disparaged the freezing Him alayan nights, of trying to make fires with yak d ung, of eating an unvarying diet of

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lentils. She assured him that, once he sent h e r the money, she would re tu rn to France pro m p d y via Ja p a n , which she praised as m odern, intelligent, and peaceful. At Lachen, A p h u r Yongden accom plished the packing of his em ployer’s twenty-eight cases. From this m om ent he moves to the forefront of A lexandra’s life, indispensable in m any ways. A lad of sixteen from a m odest background— his father was a petty official— he had served a Sikkimese noblem an in re tu rn for a little education. In spite o f being a novice m onk, the youth had ambitions to become a m an o f the world. H e was sure this was possible in the Philippines, of which he had heard. A lexandra, prom ising him travel, adventure, and six rupees p e r m onth, took him into h e r service. T h e lad got plenty o f what he was prom ised except for the pay. Yongden was short, attractive in a plain way— he wore rimless glasses— and quite capable of learning. O ne day he would become a lama in his own right a n d a considerable help to A lexandra in writing h e r books. W hat was m ore, he carried an invaluable British passport. F rightened by the Resident’s wrath, A lexandra’s other boys snuck off, while Yongden stuck. H e refused to heed his family’s threats, a n d even w hen they offered him a wife an d house if he left the foreign shedevil, he tu rn e d a d e a f ear. No m ere adventurer, he came to reverence A lexandra a n d was willing to do every sort of m enial task for her, while she soon came to prize him. Eventually she legally ad o p ted him. However, now the pair had to descend the m ountain into the bustling world denounced by the B uddhist and of which the lad of seventeen knew nothing. T h e threadlike path w ound lower and lower, until A lexandra glanced back one last time at h e r shanty. T h e villagers hovered a ro u n d the wooden structure, ready to set it ablaze. H e r life in the hazy blue heights was already a dream . T h e m ight of the British Em pire had triu m p h ed , b u t silently the lone woman swore revenge— a witty revenge ap p ro p riate to h e r beliefs and to the spirit of h e r birthplace, Paris. Voila, a miracle! Despite the deteriorating postal com m unica­ tions, a bank draft from Philip m ade its way out of war-torn E urope and found its way to A lexandra in A ugust 1917. She and Yongden, having left Ja p an , were living in a m onastery on D iam ond M ountain,

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Korea, su rro u n d e d by vertiginous peaks, b reathing crystal-clear air. She slept in a bare cell, awakened at three in the m orning to m edi­ tate, a n d spent the rest of the day tram ping on the m ountain paths to visit hallowed shrines. Unfortunately, it rained for three weeks straight, which caused h e r rheum atism to kick up. Otherw ise she felt, at forty-nine, younger an d stronger than ever. All along the e xplorer h a d been consulting cartographic m aps of C entral Asia, searching for a nam e in tiny characters hardly visible am ong the shading that indicated m ountains. This was Kum Bum , fabled birthplace o fT so n g K hapa and the real-life m odel for Jam es H ilton’s Shangri-La. T h e monastic city was located in eastern T ib et’s Ajndo province—not France or N orth Africa. By early O ctober A lexandra had reached Peking (now Beijing), C hina’s form er im p e­ rial city. She found it large, flat, a n d well kept, and as usual she took quarters in the precincts of a monastery. Allegedly— the mails were censored—she in tended to leave for M ongolia in o rd e r to continue h e r studies w here the lamas spoke and read Tibetan. A lexandra had great respect for Chinese culture, an d Peking proved agreeable to her. Because she d id n ’t have a grasp o f the language, she was lum p ed with the foreign diplom ats, soldiers, and missionaries whom the people hated. A lexandra denied any associa­ tion with this class, and she especially d rea d e d the obligatory teas given by the well-meaning missionary wives. H e r plan to travel to Mongolia, if it was real in the first place, never materialized. T h e re was an autom obile that left from the railroad station, b u t no one had ever been able to afford it. A lexandra, after com plim enting Philip on im proving with age, like a fine wine, sketched h e r actual route for him. She in te n d e d to cross western C hina to Tibet, then travel across the steppes o f that large country to the n o rth e rn reaches of the Himalayas. Finally, she would once again descend th ro u g h the high passes to India. This was going to be h e r very last jo u rn e y before retu rn in g hom e, and it m ust be kept secret. O f course she would need m ore money. A lexandra assured Philip she h a d n ’t gone m ad and was really going to re tu rn this time. It was simply a question of p utting one foot after the other. B ut he m ust never m ention T ibet in their co rresp o n ­ dence or in casual talk in Algeria. T h a t would p u t h e r in great danger. She was m aking the trip against the will o f the Dalai Lam a at

A lexandrine David, m o th er o f A lexandra David-Neel

Louis David, father of A lexandra David-Neel

Alexandra, “p rem ière ch an teu se” o f the O p é ra Com ique

A lexandra at 20, a youthful feminist

A lexandra, the m arried woman, 1910

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Philip Neel, h e r husband, 1910

Representatives o fT ib et, G reat Britain, a n d China at the Simla Convention, 1914. Sidkeong Tulku is in the front row, second from left, Sir H en ry M cM ahon is in front row center, and Charles Bell is in the second row behind McMahon to his left.

Wayside Tibetans ex ten d a typical greeting.

A lexan d ra’s herm itage, at 13,000 feet in the Himalayas. T h e au th o r is seated at right.

T ibetan ro pe b ridge o f the type A lexandra crossed o n the way to Lhasa

M en an d yaks clearing the ro ad to the C hum bi valley u n d e r d ee p snow.

M en in coracles on the Tsangpo river

T h e m arketplace at Lhasa

A lexandra between two n uns o f the Red H at o rd e r

K am pa Dzong, a fortress

Yongden

JsjffrA' 1 At Sam ten Dzong: A lexandra’s cameras, gold jewelry, necklace o f bone, “rings of the initiate”

At Sam ten Dzong: A lexan d ra’s travel kit— watch, compass, pistol, jewelry pouch, cooking pot, b o n n et

Alexandra at Sam ten Dzong at 87

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Lhasa a n d the Resident at Gangtok, Charles Bell. She had learned that British intelligence had long ears. T h ro u g h the French Am bassador at Peking, A lexandra m et a rich T ibetan lam a from the Koko N or district in no rtheastern Tibet, adm inistered by China. H e acted as a Chinese official and was in the capital to collect a large sum due him from the treasury. Tall, strong, im posing b u t hom lier than the G om chen, the lam a was well read, the a u th o r o f a gram m ar. Attired in a luxurious yellow silk robe over p u r ­ ple velour, attended by servants, he rem in d ed the Frenchw om an of a Rom an cardinal. W hen he played the tam bourine and sang a sweet T ibetan air, he quite charm ed her. T h e lam a quickly invited A lexandra to join his caravan on its re tu rn trip to Kum Bum , central to the Koko N or region. H e even offered to supply h e r with wood an d water, both scarce, while she studied at the monastery. In re tu rn he expected A lexandra to help him with his m ajor ambition: to write a book on astronomy. Knowing little about planets or stars, she still ju m p e d at the chance. It consti­ tuted the first leg on h e r route, and with civil strife and an outbreak of black plague ravaging western China, the protection of an arm ed caravan seem ed esential. China, after the collapse of the M anchu dynasty, was in the midst of a chaotic in te rre g n u m that lasted until the final victory of the Maoists in 1949. Until his death in 1925, the Republican leader Sun Yat-sen usually held sway in C anton and m uch of the south, while local generals ruled over various provinces. T hese warlords p rinted worthless money, ex torted provisions and labor from the people, and sold concessions to any fo re ig n er rapacious e n o u g h to buy. M easuring their wealth in soldiers, the warlords were never secure, and when not battling one a nother they would combine to m arch on Peking to topple the kaleidoscopic, almost imaginary, central govern­ m ent. C hina’s plight m ade David-Neel want to cry, b ut she did n ’t hes­ itate to plunge right in. T h e lam a never recovered his money. By the end of Ja n u ary 1915 he had decided to leave anyway. A draft from Philip arrived in the nick o f time, along with news that A lexandra’s senile, paralytic m other h a d died a full year earlier. H e r d a u g h te r claimed to be deeply m oved by m em ories. Now a w om an of property, which was out of reach until after the war, she quickly sent Philip h e r will. She

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left him the bulk of h e r m odest estate after debts were paid a n d h er library was donated to the B uddhist Society of L ondon. A lexandra instructed h e r husband to provide for Yongden, who by defying his family had amply dem onstrated his loyalty. T h e n she was off to the railroad station for a big send-off. An elaborate hospital car stuffed with medicines was a p p e n d ed to the train because of the pestilence raging in the countryside. A lexandra disdained those who displayed their fear by wearing face masks, and she was pleased w hen the hospital car became detached by mistake. At the railhead the party switched to mules and wagons. A lexandra found the arm ed guards atop the lam a’s baggage to be worthy descendants of the G olden H o rd e of Genghis Khan. For herself and Yongden she fashioned a large French flag from three appropriately colored strips of cloth. This she in ten d ed to fly d u rin g a battle, a tal­ isman of neutrality. B ut at first the caravan was h u n g u p for days in a squalid village on the b o rd e r betw een H o n an and Shensi provinces. H e re A lexandra becam e om inously ill. Philip h ad begged h e r not to expose herself, that she was all he cared about in the world. T h e plague was of the fatal pulm onary variety that had ravaged E urope in the M iddle Ages. Initially the symptoms were no worse than the grippe—fever and dizziness—b u t if on the fourth day the victim coughed u p blood, she was doom ed to an excruciating death. Most likely there would be no one to help in the last agonizing hours. Yongden stayed close by, b u t A lexandra was d eterm ined not to infect him or others. She resolved that, on the sight o f blood in h e r sputum , she would take the revolver she slept with and blow o ut h e r brains. O n the fourth day she felt m uch better. In spite of the archaic politeness of the arm ed m en to the foreign wom an in their midst, whom they addressed as “Your R everence,” tension filled the air like a th u n d ersto rm about to burst. O ne m o rn ­ ing A lexandra awoke to find a few severed heads im paled on a wall in front of h e r door. Bandits, she was told, b u t their contorted faces looked no m ore guilty th an those of the governm ent soldiers. She h e a rd that in the warfare betw een Tibetans and Chinese troops that continued sporadically along the frontier, the winners o f a batde m ade a stew of the losers’ hearts— they ate them with rice. A lexandra did not p rete n d to ju d g e. Rather, she did h e r best to w ard off violence. Slow progress th ro u g h filthy villages m ade the

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lam a official irritable and b ro u g h t out his shady side. O ne evening at an inn, A lexandra was surprised to see young wom en clad in green pants and a pink jackets en te r his room . After noisy haggling the h a r­ lots em erged, leaving the youngest to stay the night. This failed to appease the lama, and he fell into a quarrel with a Chinese officer. Soon heavily arm ed soldiers burst into the inn. T h e lama called his m en to come ru n n in g , guns in hand. It looked like a m iniature war was about to erupt. T h e foreign woman, aided by an interpreter, saved the day. A lexandra convinced the H an captain it was beneath his dignity to take notice of the ravings of a barbarian from the Koko N or wilds. T h e n she rem onstrated with the lam a in Tibetan. How could he con­ descend to tussle with swinish soldiers? T h e q uarrel evaporated and the caravan resu m e d its laborious trek tow ard T ib e t’s Am do province. T h e com pany A lexandra was keeping had tu rn e d into a liability. She and Yongden d e to u re d via Tungchow w here a small colony of Swedish missionaries offered h e r shelter. Im m ediately the walled town was assaulted. Bullets sang th ro u g h the air, and the pastor and his family retreated to their chapel to pray with fervor. A lexandra ju m p e d into a hot tub. She supposed the rebels would storm the city and take h e r prisoner, and she wished to get in a bath first. Fortunately, the attack was beaten off for the time being. T h e Swedes, convinced God had h e a rd them , loudly gave thanks for their deliv­ erance. A lexandra m u ttered that God should have prevented the attack in the first place. T h e fighting continued with the invaders using ladders to scale the high walls, while the defenders, short on am m unition, hurled stones down on them . A lexandra couldn’t help being roused by this classic panoram a, a painting by Delacroix sp ru n g to life. Sabers were u n sheathed and blood flowed in the ditches, b u t com pared to the m echanized warfare and poison gas in Europe, it looked quaint. T h e city’s defenses held, and in April lilacs bloom ed in the gardens. T h e missionaries gave A lexandra accounts of earlier Western explorers to read, and these incensed her. T h e interlopers, who spoke neith er Chinese n o r T ibetan, had em barked with dozens of camels and horses, dozens of servants, all of which needed to be equipped. N aturally things went wrong, and about such misadven­

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tures the bunglers wrote their books. Worse, they had tu rn e d the natives against all foreigners by tricks such as slaughtering the pet animals of m onasteries, stealing horses from nom ads, an d carving their initials into sacred trees. A lexandra traveled as a pilgrim , not a conqueror. Once the civil war cooled, she was ready to resum e h e r ja u n t. Sian, capital o f Shensi, was appointed as the m eeting place with the lam a official. It was essential th at A lexandra e n te r T ibet in his caravan. Ignoring the military governor of Tungchow, who pleaded with h e r that leaving m eant certain d eath at the hands o f bandits, she snuck out th ro u g h the gates in a train of three creaky carts, each draw n by two mules. T h e terrified drivers w hipped their beasts th ro u g h a scorched countryside, b a rre n o f peasants or travelers. A rainstorm broke, and in the darkness the party app ro ach ed a river beyond which they supposed themselves safe. T hey hallooed for the ferrym an and were answ ered by a hail of shots. Somehow, they crossed the river on a raft, th en b e d d e d down with the fleas in a hovel; n ext day they continued on. Finally, looking up, A lexandra saw a. wagon loaded with baggage and piled still hig h er with M ongols— Sian, the lama, they h ad come through! N earing Koko Nor, the im patient pilgrim began to walk. She had followed a tough regim en— sleeping on the g round, gulping coarse food, b u rn e d up by the sun—one she could n ot have tolerated in h er youth. W hat nonsense were stories about fragile wom en or decrepit older folks. Robust and hearty, one day she su rm o u n ted a ridge to gaze dow n on the great Kum B um monastery. T h e golden-roofed tem ples and flat, whitewashed houses of this Shangri-La gleam ed in the m ountain-rim m ed valley. In July 1918, sixteen h u n d re d miles from Peking and gloriously distant from Europe, A lexandra a n d Yongden settled into a com fort­ able house to begin the m ore m u n d an e task of translating B uddhist m anuscripts. How marvellous an d diverse was Asia, th o u g h t the scholar. Yet its th o u g h t rem ained locked behind a door closed to the W estern m ind. She m ust do h e r p a rt to pry open that door.

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Before the onset of dawn in C entral Asia, the conchs sound their eerie wail. U n d e r a vast dom e of sky in which the stars, soon to g ut­ ter out like spent candles, b u rn the brighter, shaddws gather on the flat ro o f of the assembly hall. Novices, w rapped in togas against the bitter cold, are assigned to waken the slum bering m onks of Kum Bum. Each begins to blow into his shell, and while one rests to breathe, the others continue to bellow forth rising and falling waves that crash against the far corners of this monastic city of h u n d re d s of dwellings. A lthough the age-old call is n ot sufficient to raise the dead, it does rouse the living. Lights flicker in the windows of the princely mansions of g ran d lamas, an d dom estic noises indicate stirring in the h um bler quarters as the sum m ons slowly ebbs. T h e sky pales to gray, rosy day breaks. Doors are flung open, and from every side some three thousand an d eight h u n d re d trapas (monks o f basic degree) stream tow ard the im posing hall with its ornate tiers in Chinese style. W ith shaven heads and in uniform robes, the m onks are rem iniscent o f trained perform ers scurrying to their accustom ed spots. In a few m om ents the m orning prayers will begin to ascend tow ard peaks so mighty even the sun has difficulty in scaling them . T h e Religion—the cum ulative forces o f light—once again will banish the dem ons of prehistoric darkness. As the wail of the conch drifts into space,, albeit fainter a n d fainter, so the Doctrine w hen proclaim ed echoes th ro u g h ­ out the universe. This was the unvarying routine o f monastic life as seen and lived by A lexandra David-Neel. For centuries each one of the myriad

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m onasteries scattered the length and b re a d th of the Lam aist dom ain—the im m ense territories o f which T ibet is only p a rt—had greeted the typically chilly dawn in the m an n e r described. Such is the case no longer. A lthough the conch still sounds sporadically over the C entral Asian steppes, it is in lam ent. T h e dozens of m ajor gompas of the heartland, each a town in itself, have been sacked and dem ol­ ished; their tens of thousands o f monks are scattered, m u rd e red , silenced. T h e Fourteenth Dalai Lam a, defender of the faith, lives in exile in India and speaks openly o f perhaps being the last in his line. David-Neel sensed that, even in h e r time, she h ad found a world both venerable and pristine, too precious to e n d u re in the age of tanks, planes, artillery— or even highways. She is the witness to Shangri-La before its demise. O n the second-floor terrace of h e r house in the Pegyai L am a’s palace sat the doughty wom an d u rin g the frosty m ornings of a u tu m n 1918. Neglecting the rigors of tum o, A lexandra dressed snugly in a w arm robe and high yak-hide boots in o rd e r to watch the daily pageant of life unfold. At ninety-five h u n d re d feet, she inhaled air that tasted of snowy peaks. She could glance from the tem ple roofs b u rnished by sunlight to knots of yaks foraging for grass to a camel caravan of Mongols starting for Lhasa. O r she m ight draw within to savor h e r distance—h ere at w hat Tibetans call “the second birthplace of B u d d h a ”—from the clam or o f so-called civilization. A lexandra wasn’t perm itted to attend the usual matins service, one o f the few acts com m on to the entire bro th erh o o d of a m o n ­ astery, n o r to share com m unal meals. T h e only exception was at im p o rtan t holidays, when the w om an lam a jo in e d in with the trapas, whose shabby robes offered a m arked contrast to the gold brocade vests w orn by the dignitaries and the jew elled cloak o f the ten-yearold tulku who was abbot of the gom pa. Again she enco u n tered the juxtaposition of the tawdry with the magnificent. Scrolls of paintings of B uddhas and dieties h u n g from the high ceiling, while a host of faded gods and dem ons p eered at h e r from the walls of the dim hall. Rows of b u tte r lamps illum ined the large silver and gold reliquaries that housed the ashes of form er disinguished lamas. A mystic atmop here enveloped all things. T h e monks began, deep toned, p u nctuated by bells, drum s, and roaring trum pets. T h e little novices seated on the benches in the

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back rows hardly d ared to b reathe for fear of the “h undred-eyed chostimpa”—the official disciplinarian—and the whip that ostenta­ tiously h u n g from his elevated seat. This fellow was always a dark, strap p in g Khampa (native o f K ham to the south) who overlooked the assembly with majestic disdain. O nce A lexandra saw three m en tow ard the rear, well h id d en from view, make slight signs to one another. Up rose the chostimpa, an d with his whip in h and, he strode across the hall like an avenging angel. Stalking past the foreigner, he tucked his toga above his elbows, brandishing the knotted cat-o’-nine-tails in his large calloused fist. T h e malefactors shook b u t sheepishly awaited their punishm ent. W ith the panache of a hangm an, the chostim pa lifted each m an by the scruff of his neck, depositing him in the aisle w here the po o r fellow p rostrated him self forehead to the floor. Whack! went the whip on each o n e’s back, then the fearful personage resum ed his dignity and his high place, looking for new offenders. Sometimes it was convenient to be a w om an and not subject to the rules. For the m ost part, A lexandra stayed aloof, if observant, from the daily routine at Kum Bum. She would arise at dawn, and after a brac­ ing h o u r on the terrace d u rin g which she walked or m editated, a boy arrived to light the stove and boil water for tea. This she took in Tibetan style, with salt a n d plenty o f butter. She did h e r toilette and read until taking an English breakfast at nine. A lexandra claimed to be fortunate in th at she had good b read from a Moslem baker in a nearby village. Until noon she translated into French and English rare m anuscripts the lamas loaned h e r from the m onastery’s e x ten ­ sive library. She need ed help with the ancient literary Tibetan, b u t since these texts of N agarjuna’s (an early B uddhist philosopher, the Father of M ahayana) had been lost in the original Sanskrit, the scholar was elated at the find. M idday m eant a break for a hot tub, followed by m ore work. At four she dined on a thick soup of locally grown vegetables. Dessert m ight be a com pote of stewed fruit. Again A lexandra bent to deci­ ph e rin g the texts until she retired to bed at nine. She had given the larger, lower room to Yongden, because the bright frescoes on the walls disturbed h e r rest. No hint of n eurasthenia kept her from sleep­ ing wonderfully well, and it seem ed b u t a m om ent until the conchs woke her, proclaim ing a nother dawn.

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A lexandra felt that she could go on living in this m an n e r for a thousand years. O f course there were occasional diversions. Lam aism is a form o f B uddhism that can be actively practiced only by monks. T h e laity supports the religion, in practice the gom pas, which is best done by bestowing gifts. At Kum Bum , greatly revered as the b irth ­ place of Tsong Khapa, the fo u n d er of the Yellow H at reform s, wealthy pilgrims frequently m ade an offering of a special feast for the breth ren . It was a welcome change from the routine tsam pa and tea, and although A lexandra couldn’t attend the banquet, she was always b ro u g h t a portion of the meal. She particularly relished “a certain M ongolian dish macie o f m utton, rice, Chinese dates, butter, cheese curds, sugar-candy, and various o th er ingredients and spices, all boiled together.” Savory momos— m eat enclosed in a ball of baked pate a n d steam ed—were a n o th er favorite. T hese gave the lie to an old T ibetan proverb, “To eat lam a’s food requires jaws of iron.” At the end of N ovem ber 1918, A lexandra wrote to Philip with tears in h e r eyes. It wasn’t because a letter from him h ad finally reached h er four m onths after mailing, n o r even due to w orry over Yongden, dangerously ill with influenza. She was tenderly nursing him, although she had a high fever herself. No, the ru sh of sentim ent came at learning of the Armistice from some English missionaries who h a d h e a rd the news before she did. O nce the flu ran its course—the pair caught their share o f that deadly worldwide epidem ic—A lexandra and Yongden sewed a huge French tricolor and trooped it to the top o f a nearby m ountain. T h e valley below showed green b u t patchy, the slopes splashed with touches of golden poplars. T h e sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky. Ceremoniously, they unfurled the banner, which had em broidered on it a com m on Tibetan prayer of thanks: “Lha gyalo! De tamche pam! Victory to the Gods, the Dem ons are Vanquished!” T h e pair watched with satisfaction as the flag flapped in the breeze. Kum B um was su rro u n d e d by m any lesser monastic establish­ m ents, which occupyied m ountain nooks and crannies. T h e m onks, nuns, and herm its u nderstood the efficacy of sending a message to the universe. But David-Neel had the m ore practical intention of inform ing others that the mighty Allies had defeated the d rea d H uns. If the great struggle in E urope was done, the little war for Tibetan independence was being waged m ore fiercely. T h e monks,

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who d id n ’t shrink at fighting, were arm ing to defend Kum Bum and its treasures. Recently a nearby gom pa had been pillaged and b u rn e d by Chinese irregulars. T h e b re th re n fled and took revenge by killing a Chinese interpreter, dicing his body in pieces and serving u p his h e a rt as a tasty morsel. No w onder that A lexandra slept with a loaded pistol u n d e r h e r pillow an d kept two fast horses always saddled in the stable. N either fear n o r tem ptations provoked by watching trains of yaks driven into the hills an d beyond by hard-bitten m en would lure A lexandra from h e r cell until she was ready. Subsisting largely on tea and a strange vegetable that tigers were supposed to eat, she went into retre a t for the n ext six weeks to delve d e e p er into h e r studies. She was out and about by m id-February when, a h int of spring in the air, the New Year celebration took place. Kum Bum , located to the n o rth o f the villages and grazing lands of Kham , was also accessible to the populous T ibetan speaking portions of Kansu and Szechuan (China) to the east, an d it could be reached by the Mongol horse breeders to its n o rth and west. For this festive holiday, pilgrims and nom ads p o u re d into the monastic precincts to view its m iraculous tree and to have a good time. L egend held that after Tsong K hapa’s birth, attended with p o r­ tents, the umbilical cord was b u ried and from it grew a tree that becam e an object o f worship. Pious visitors arrived to make offerings of ornam ents and jewelry, a m onk built a hut, and so the fam ed gom pa began. In the 1840s the clever and learned French priest Evarist H ue sojourned at Kum Bum , writing of the tree, grown large a n d venerable, “We were filled with an absolute consternation of astonishm ent at finding t h a t .. . there were u p o n each of the leaves well-formed Tibetan characters, all o f a green colour, some darker, some lighter than the leaf itself.” T h e priest an d his com panion were eager to convert the natives to their b ra n d o f the m iraculous, and so they m inutely exam ined the leaves for fraud an d tore off some- bark. B ut the young bark also exhibited the “outlines of characters in a germ inating state, and what is very singular, these new characters are not infrequently different from those which they replace.” In d eed , Kum Bum m eans “ten th o u ­ sand im ages.” As usual, David-Neel was indifferent to miracles, and she scarcely

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m entions the tree. But she observed with interest the pilgrims who arrived at the site hoping to see some wonder. T h e surroundings, especially at night, added a touch of magic. Snow covered the m o u n ­ tains and the monastic city, a n d soaring m any-tiered tem ples and hum ble hom es alike sparkled in the glow from innum erable lamps and candles. Red-garbed trapas carried resin torches, which glinted steadily in the frosty air. T h e populace surged th ro u g h the streets, and all, both rich and poor, were dressed in their best. T h e w om en proudly showed off headdresses o f 108 braided plaits, gleam ing with b u tte r and bedecked by red and green ribbons. T h e Golog w om en— nom ads from the m ountains—ad d e d a kind of m ande of large cups of silver, turquoise, and coral, as well as a bowler hat resem bling those w orn by Bolivian Indians. T hey clanked as they m oved with the deliberation o f treasure galleons. Most am azing were the m any stat­ ues m ade of b u tte r upon which the folk gaped and m ade endless comm ents. T hese tableaux, com posed o f flour pasted over wooden fram es and then d renched in b u tter o f various colors that quickly froze to give a glassy sheen, could be images of famous kings or sages or fan­ ciful dragons or o ther mythical beasts, even a scale m odel of Lhasa com plete with a tiny Dalai Lam a about to en te r his palace. Executed with great care by the tem ple artists, the figures were to be adm ired for only the night o f the fifteenth o f the first m onth, which culm inat­ ed the New Year celebration. T hey were destroyed by daylight and the b u tte r sold as healing salve. W hatever its potency, it couldn’t com pare with a blessing received from the incarnate dakini (m other goddess), who was u sh ered about the exhibits with all the pom p of a visiting archbishop. R esplendent in the flowered robe given h e r by the Panchen Lam a, A lexandra m oved in state, the crowds furiously attem pting to prostrate them ­ selves or kiss h e r hem . She could only nod in appreciation to h er worshipers, since a cordon o f guards continually beat them off. T h e folk seem ed grateful for the blows. As for the skeptical Frenchw om an, she was rem in d ed of an incident in the career of M adam e Du Barry, Louis X V ’s favorite mistress, w hen she was first presented at Versailles. O f h e r descent from h e r carriage, gorgeously attired, she later rem arked, “I would have liked to have been at a window to see myself pass.”

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W hat caught u p A lexandra and took h e r outside herself was not adoration, which she reg a rd e d as p ro o f of the aspiration of the com ­ m on folk to h igher things, b u t the trill o f a M ongol flute accom panied by the irregular clang of copper cymbals. In the m idst of a fawning mob this music, like the breeze over a cam p of nom ads on the vast steppe, thrilled the form er diva to the bottom of h e r heart. T h e far distances called to her, and she was b o u n d to succumb sooner or later to h e r lust to roam . Being alone in the wilds, no one in sight, cam ped u n d e r a tent . . . that tu rn e d h e r on. In the spring of 1919, the civil war heated up. T h e central governm ent at Peking, which had ruled over Am do and Kham (referred to on older m aps as In n e r Tibet), although weakly and thus benignly, was losing its grip altogether. T h e T ibetan tribesm en, good fighters, were in continual revolt. Breakaway armies fought one an o th e r and brigandage flourished, especially am ong the fierce m ountain Gologs (literally “heads on backwards”), who delighted in stealing mules from the Chinese generals. T h e Dalai Lam a seized this opportunity to d em and the total independence of all Tibet. But real­ istically, he had few troops to send to the frontier, a m o n th ’s forced m arch from Lhasa over the w orld’s worst roads. So along the SinoT ibetan m arches anarchy reigned, and to p araphrase Hobbes, life was short, brutish, and chancy. A lexandra was inspired to go on some delightful jaunts. At a day’s walk lived forty nuns in their “Fortress in the Sky,” a povertystricken gom pa atop a m ountain su rro u n d e d by other needlelike peaks o f som ber red hues. A lexandra and the cheerful nuns got along well. T hese wom en thou g h t nothing of tram ping over the entire country on a pilgrim age. T h e ir absolute faith and quiet courage helped to fortify their resolve. A lthough she refused an offer to take u p residence, they went together on hikes, climbing slopes so steep that the m iddle-aged a d v en tu rer had to be hoisted along like a package. She found it exhilarating to attain ru in ed tem ples and shrines w here herm its had m editated centuries ago. O n the way down, Yongden, p ro u d as a ram leading his flock, entertained the party with songs. H e even flirted with the p rettier nuns. S um m er found David-Neel at the head of a small expedition— including Yongden and several arm ed servants— headed for the

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b a rre n b u t entrancing region of Lake Koko N or to the northw est of Kum Bum. This was a year o f pilgrim age— every twelfth— and caravans m ight arrive at the lake from farthest Mongolia, circum am ­ bulating its considerable breadth. Going a ro u n d sacred m ountains or lakes is essential to what the French scholar R. A. Stein has called “the nameless religion” of Tibet, by which he m eans the m atrix of age-old p o p u lar magical beliefs and practices covered over by a B uddhist patina. T h e clear, high lakes were particularly em ployed for divina­ tion, p eering into the future, and within their depths they concealed a variety of spirit beings, so that Tibetbans were fearful o f eating one in the guise of a fish. This jo u rn e y to the lake lasted ten days a n d for a time the party was lost. B ut with the aid o f a ru d im entary m ap and pocket compass, A lexandra led the way to Koko Nor, a m ini-ocean for these parts. T h e area was a rugged plain lacking even a single village. T h e great salt lake, together with m ountain ranges on the horizon n ear and far, broke the m onotony of the steppe, which was scarcely fit for grazing. A lexandra adored the solitude, the loom of a snow capped peak reflected in the wavery blue water. H ere was a landscape she knew deep down in h e r soul. Yet cam ping on the banks of this icy sheet had its drawbacks. It was impossible to buy or beg food, and although one shivered with cold at night, the mosquitoes were rav­ enous. T h e re was also the th reat o f bandits. In .1864 the e xplorer D utreuil de Rhins had been m u rd e re d in this vicinity. Some years after A lexandra’s visit, two Frenchm en, Louis M arteau and Louis D upont, disappeared w ithout a trace. So the little party, as it circled a ro u n d the flat expanse, kept a sharp watch, alert for danger. T h e Am erican missionary Robert Ekvall, who lived in Amdo in the 1930s, wrote in Tibetan Sky Lines, “A hairlike rift in the blue may m ean a lance, a n d the fork of a gun rest. . . enemies and a raid. T h e bold outline o f a distant m ounted figure is sure to b ring a sense of uncertainty, even m enace.” According to A lexandra, th ere was an invariable etiquette fol­ lowed w hen one party ap proached another. For exam ple, she was jogging along placidly w hen one o f h e r retainers w arned o f an arm ed band approaching. Quickly, she reached into h e r saddlebag for a revolver, while Yongden and a n o th er m an rode forw ard in a show of force. A lexandra’s horse took off, and w hen she tried to dism ount,

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she found herself stuck in the saddle. Luckily, the intruders decided they were weaker, or less certain, and they beat a hasty retreat. S trength was m easured by a p arty’s n u m b er of weapons and their quality— m any guns were old blunderbusses—and its determ ination to fight. A com m on greeting in this region was, “No closer, friend, or I’ll shoot!” T h e weaker party m ust advance slowly and explain itself; to ru n would m ean a hail of bullets in the back, no questions asked. At the sacred lake on the b o rd e r of Tibet, Mongolia, and China, A lexandra m et m ore pilgrims than bandits, when she m et anybody at all. T h e water, d eepenin g in shade from azure to turquoise to lapis as the sun w aned, com pelled h er gaze for hours on end. O ne evening three odd-looking characters planted their tent n ex t to the traveler’s. Dressed in shabby oranges and reds topped off by faded sheepskins, they were Bon priests, necrom ancers of the ancient faith who knew charm s to kill a fetus in the womb or conversely to anim ate dry bones. Life in the open, and the practice o f their occult rites, had given the m en the knowing, crinkled faces o f sages. A lexandra was intensely interested in this sect, and some of h er best writing would make use o f dubious tales about its followers. O n a different occasion, in Kansu on the edge of a prim eval forest, a Bon disciple jo in e d h e r com pany for protection against robbers. T h e m an wore his long hair, w rapped in re d m aterial, as a turban. She fed. him well a n d learned that he was going to jo in his m aster ju st then p e r ­ form ing a cerem ony on a hill some distance away. T h e rite was designed to quell a dem on who had been angered by one of the clans that inhabited the region. A lexandra was dying to observe the ngagspa (sorcerer) at his trade, b u t his disciple assured h e r it was impossible. T h e Bon priest couldn’t be disturbed d u rin g the lu n ar m onth it took to perform the rite. T h e always curious orientalist was not about to be p u t off, for the ways of the ancient religion were little known and m uch feared. She m ade the B onpo into a sort of prisoner, having h er servants watch him carefully. H e went on feasting, grinning, showing no interest in r u n n in g away. A lexandra soon u n d ersto o d that the disciple had been trained in telepathy, and he was able to send his m aster “a message on the w ind.” Sure enough, once their party crossed the Kunka Pass and came o ut on the T ibetan plain, a troop rode up at full speed, dism ounted,

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and offered A lexandra presents of cerem onial scarves and butter. T h e ngagspa had sent his emissaries to beg the foreign lam a not to visit him. N one b ut his initiated disciple would be perm itted to approach the spot w here he had built a secret shrine. A lexandra wasn’t boorish enough to persist, especially since the ngagspa h a d so vividly dem onstated his powers of telepathy. Magical occurrences were frequent in Tibet. A lexandra recorded them as they happ en ed , often providing a rational explanation for the phenom ena. She speculated th at the country was hospitable to these psychic sports because of its consistently high altitude, the great silence in which it was bathed— perm itting one to h ear a n o th e r’s thoughts—and, above all, due to the absence of cities, crowds, and electric devices. T hese caused whirlpools o f distracting energy. T h e n , too, the Tibetans were placid and open; to them the spirit world seem ed as com m onplace as their m ountains, steppes, and lakes. Mystical training was, in the first place, the clearing away of the distractions of the m ind. T h e jo u rn e y to Koko N or h ad been a fine test of en d urance, a w arm up for the final jo u rn e y that David-Neel was contem plating. By Septem ber 1919, she was pleased to be back in h e r comfortable house at the monastery. For h e r Kum Bum , with its pitched roof, Chinese style buildings that flew bright-colored banners and housed h u n ­ dreds of chanting m onks and silent m editators—b u t above all a treasure in m anuscripts—was a tru e paradise. It is ironic that Kum Bum served Jam es Hilton as the m odel for Shangri-La in Lost Horizon. H e located his hid d en lamasary far to the west in the Kun Lun range, w here in fact there is nothing. T h e n ine­ teenth century Abbé Evarist Hue, on whose writings Hilton adm itted he drew, resem bled the fictional Father Perrault, the ancient abbot of Shangri-La. H ue came to dispute with and convert the lamas, b u t he succum bed to the lure of study. Unlike Perrault, he never lost his Christian vocation, and rath e r than don a B uddhist robe he left. O f all the early missionary travelers to Tibet, H ue was the most inquisi­ tive, and he blandly rep o rted strange goings-on. Abbé H ue gave no hint of any elixir o f imm ortality or fountain of youth associated with Shangri-La. It is disappointing that Hilton, who knew little about Tibet, attributed Perrault’s living for a couple of centuries to “d ru g taking an d deep-breathing exercises.” Kum

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B um did have a notable school o f m edicine, specializing in the collection and prep aratio n of curative herbs. H ue noted that “the pilgrims who visit Kum Bum buy these rem edies at exorbitant p ric e s/’ H e accurately described the T ibetan physicians’ m ethod of urinalysis: “T hey exam ine [the p atient’s urine] with the most m inute attention, and take the greatest heed to all the changes underg o n e by its colour; they whip it from time to time, with a w ooden spatula, and they p u t it up to the ear to ascertain how m uch noise it m akes.” David-N eel re m a in e d surprisingly silent on any aspect of T ibetan medicine. She was afflicted with arthritis and sciatica, but h e r rem edy was to ignore the pain. W hen it becam e unbearable she dosed herself with paten t medicines containing some narcotic. However, she was intrigued by the disputations engaged in by the novice lamas before receiving their higher degrees. While the entire faculty looked on, a m aster would question his pupil on the intrica­ cies o f B uddhist doctrine, standing over the seated, anxious young m an, teasing him by alternately proffering or w ithholding the huge woolly cerem onial cap of a graduate. O r two candidates would debate philosophy, clapping hands or ju m p in g up and down to emphasize a point. All questions a n d answers consisted of m em orized portions o f scripture. Still, the emotions of the participants were real, for the loser, in disgrace, h a d to carry the w inner o f the debate on his shoulders th ro u g h o u t the grounds. A lexandra, a woman, no m atter how learned could not engage in debates with the male lamas. Since winter was not the season for gadding about, she took to h e r reading. She inform ed Philip that she need ed one m ore year at the m onastery to complete h e r translations, and would he please send m ore money? Otherwise his wife m ight have to w ander about like a nom ad or a beggar. W hen translating m anuscripts had lost its charm , she tu rn e d to a deep form of m editation, shutting herself in tsams. Specifically, the term refers to certain small boxlike structures that used to be m ain­ tained on the outskirts of every monastery. H ere m onks who were already trained to isolation shut themselves up for m onths or years at a time— or forever. David M acdonald described the cells as tiny, filthy, devoid o f any light whatever. Once a trap a took the vow of lifelong retirem ent, it was unbreakable. T h e door th ro u g h which he entered his cell was bricked up and a little food placed outside a trap once a

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day. If this lay u ntouched for several days, the cell was broken up, to disclose a w ithered corpse. According to M acdonald, ‘’Many o f the herm its become mentally afflicted, while others become fanatics.” Their view was that the virtual denial of life assured them of attaining nirvana, eternal bliss. T h e French orientalist had nothing so ambitious in m ind. T h e tsams she en tered in the winter of 1919-1920 was not so strict as cus­ tom ary and took place in h er own quarters. David-Neel’s purp o se was experim ental: she m eant to create a tulpa, a ph an to m being voluntarily p roduced by powerful concentration o f th o u g h t and the repetition of prescribed rites. She describes the incident b u t unfortunately not the process in Magic and Mystery. She claims to have succeeded, although in a way that frightened h e r thoroughly. A tulpa, unlike a tulku, which is the successive incarnation of a particular personality (such as the Dalai Lama), is a tem porary p h e ­ nom enon that is willfully created. It may take any form w hatever b u t is most often in h u m an shape. T hese tulpas coexist with their creator and can be seen sim ultaneously with him. T h e tulku, on the contrary, does n o t coexist with his ancestor. Usually, the tulpa is sent to p e r­ form a definite mission. However, once the th o u g h t form is given sufficient life to pass as a real being, it may free itself from its origi­ n a to r’s control. Folklore in T ibet and elsewhere tells tales o f the created being tu rn in g on its m agician-father and killing him, a n d we are rem in d ed of the fictional Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. In his com m entary to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Evans-Wentz wrote that ’’m edium s in the O ccident can, while entranced, au to ­ matically and unconsciously create materializations which are m uch less palpable than the consciously pro d u ced tulpas by ex u d in g ‘ectoplasm ’ from their own bodies. Similarly, as is suggested by instances o f phantasm s o f the living rep o rted by psychic research, a thought-form may be m ade to em anate from one h u m an m ind and be hallucinatorily perceived by another, although possessed o f little or no palpableness.” In traditional Eastern thought, there is no h a rd line betw een the real a n d unreal. A dream or a vision is as actual or illusory as a m o u n ta in , the p e rc e p tio n o f w hich d e p e n d s on th e viewer. “Inasm uch as the m ind creates the world o f appearances, it can create any particular object desired,” continues Evans-Wentz. “T h e

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process consists of giving palpable being to a visualization, in very m uch the same m an n e r as an architect gives concrete expression in three dim ensions to his abstract concepts after first having given them expression in the two-dim ensions of his blu e-p rin t.” In A lexandra’s case she in tended to m anufacture an entity that h a d n ’t existed previously b u t of a certain type—a fat, innocent, and jolly m onk. T h ro u g h a focused m editation that lasted for m onths—somewhat like a prayer that asks for the intervention o f o n e’s yidam, or guardian deity— the ph an to m m onk was form ed. His appearance became fixed and lifelike. By then, with the com ing of mild weather, it was time for A lexandra to take a com plem ent o f retainers, equipm ent to match, and to roam in the Koko N or region. T h e m onk tagged along, walk­ ing by h e r w hen she rode and stopping as they m ade camp. Sometimes the illusion ru b b ed against her, palpably touching her. Worse, the jolly fellow grew lean an d m ean, troublesom e looking and acting. T h e tulpa h ad escaped his m aster’s control. W hat A lexandra had scoffed at came to pass. To m ake m atters m ore complicated, others began to see the fellow and to speak to him. A lthough he did n ’t answer, his presence had to be explained. Years later, A lexandra wrote calmly of the experience, claiming to have found it am using, but at the time she was beside herself. She felt that the incident called into question h e r motives in studying tantric Buddhism . She w ondered if she was destined to take the left-hand path of the sorcerer? Typically, w hen som ething of real im portance h ap p en ed , A lexandra kept it from Philip Neel. W ith h e r usual determ ination, A lexandra decided to dissolve the ph an to m before m aking for Lhasa. T h e tulpa clung tenaciously to life, and he only disappeared after six m onths of h a rd struggle and after she had again asked for the intervention o f h er guardian diety and steadfastly perform ed the a p p ro p riate rites. How to explain the affair? T h e orientalist adm itted that she herself did not know for certain b u t was unwilling to dwell on it. In western C hina the year’s crops had failed, and by fall, 1920 there were outbreaks o f famine and pestilence. At C hengtu in n e a r­ by Szechuan one h u n d re d people a day were dying of cholera. T h e peasants were starving, and even honest folk had tu rn e d to m u rd e r and robbery. Talks betw een C hina and T ibet had failed, local gover­

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nors were tu rn in g into warlords, fighting and pillaging one another. Alexandra, nearly penniless and growing ragged, h u n g on at Kum B um waiting for funds. To Philip's dem ands that she re tu rn to Algeria she tu rn e d a deaf ear. A lexandra David-Neel had sworn to go w here no white wom an had been before. She would reach the h e a rt of Tibet, capital of B uddhist Central Asia, traveling on foot and w ithout a tent if need be, begging h e r way. Akin to the simple h erdsm an of the high grassy steppes, the peasant on a small plot in Kham , or the fierce Golog in his m ountain fastness, a splendid vision o f the holy city rose before her eyes: Shangri-La. It was the d rea m she h ad as a child, the carry­ over from h e r past life as a nom ad or a b andit queen.

T h ro u g h the early w inter of 1921, A lexandra and Yongden bent to their studies. T h e young m an of twenty-three, who had been m ade a novice at fourteen, wished to become a gelong, or p ro p e r monk. Because he h a d n ’t underg o n e the usual training, he was obliged to pass a special exam ination. Meanwhile, with the aid of a pair of m ag­ nifying spectacles, A lexandra w orked th ro u g h the nights translating texts by N agarjuna. T h e T ibetan books from which she copied were actually collections o f block-printed single sheets., N agarjuna’s most famous work, The Diamond Sutra, is contained in one h u n d re d such volumes o f a thousand pages each. If the task seem ed daunting, David-Neel was glad to be counted as practically the sole female m em ber of—in Evans-Wentz’s phrase— ’’that noble b an d o f translators and transm itters who in o u r time have a dded fresh effulgence to the Light born o f the East.” Flourishing in the second century A.D., N agarjuna was the first teacher publicly to teach the suprem e doctrine of the Voidness, which though it dated to G autam a himself, had been previously elucidated only to highly advanced disciples. N agarjuna form ed the bridge from Sanskrit to the n o rth e rn languages, from the select few to the aspiring many. M arpa, the g u ru of Milarepa, the poet-sage, acted as a hu m an bridge in a m ore literal sense, tram ping over the Him alayan passes in all w eathers, loaded down with sacred books, carrying on his back the wisdom of India to Tibet. David-Neel, too, would span not only gran d distances on the m ap o f Asia, b u t m ore im portantly the cul­ tures o f East and West. She was able to leap the daunting chasm between m editation and action. T h e peasants and nom ads of Ajmdo

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could not fathom the foreign lam a’s researches, b u t w hen she stepped forth from h e r cell, they w orshiped h e r person. T hese folk were labeled “people o f the extrem es” by the m ore sophisticated inhabitants of Lhasa. To A lexandra they looked ro m a n ­ tic at a distance, skin shining like bronze. T h e m en d ra p e d th em ­ selves in capacious cloaks that b ru sh ed the earth; the wom en sported vivid cottons of red, blue, and green, scarves dangling from their waists. Both sexes wore ro u n d or pointed bonnets trim m ed with fox or lamb skins. Up close, they were grimy and unw ashed, b u t she found them pleasant smelling. It was com m on for bystanders to p ro strate them selves as A lexandra passed. T hey were convinced she h ad solved the m yster­ ies a n d could foretell the future in a bowl of water. Particularly w hen she d o n n e d h e r yellow vest em broidered with gold and silver flowers, a gift from the Panchen Lam a, the effect was electric. H ordes clam­ o red for h e r healing touch, and the local Moslems came in droves, certain she m ust be a prophet. T h u b te n N orbu, b ro th e r to the Dalai Lam a and form er abbot o f Kum Bum , writes o f being p u t into a sim­ ilarly em barrassing position: Sometimes, because I am recognized as the reincarnation of [a ven­ erated] Rinpoche, people came to me and asked for my blessing. I used to tell them that I had no power to give them a blessing . . . and that perhaps I was more in need of blessing than they were. . . . But they would reply that what I thought of myself did not matter, that they believed I must be a great person to have deserved such a high rebirth. Then I used to say a prayer with them . . . . T h u s David-Neel, in the m inds of the com m on folk, was elevated to the lineage of beneficent incarnations. M ore willingly, she herself stepped into the ranks of a m ore questionable b u t colorful lot— the varied explorers of Tibet. Because they generally came to the Sacred Realm against the wishes of its rulers, Peter H opkirk has aptly term ed them “trespassers” and “gatecrashers.” Always they a tte m p t­ ed to reach the near-legendary capital o f the Dalai Lama. T h e first E uropean to visit Lhasa, H opkirk claimed, was a Friar Odoric in 1324. H e set out from the Franciscan mission to the c ourt of the G reat K han at Carnbaluc (Peking) to re tu rn to Italy via u n c h a rte d C entral Asia, a ro u te hom e n o t so different from

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A lexandra’s. However, on the way he hop ed to find the lost Christian kingdom of P rester J o h n . T h e re were N estorians am ong the Mongols, although the followers of this fifth-century Syrian heresy had a d o p ted abominable practices, u n h e a rd o f in E urope, such as “washing their lower parts like Saracens.” T hey probably influenced the ritual of T ibetan Buddhism , which Abbé H ue declared to be sim­ ilar to the Catholic. O doric wrote an account of his jo u rn e y in which he stated: I came to a certain great kingdom called Tibet, which is on the con­ fines of India proper, and is subject to the Great Khan. . . .The chief and royal city, Lhasa, is built with walls of black and white, and all its streets are well-paved. In this city no one shall dare to shed the blood of any, whether man or beast, for the reverence they bear a certain idol which is there worshipped. In that city dwelleth the Pope [Dalai Lama] who is the head of all idolaters.

T h e friar reached his hom e in 1330„and his tales of Tibet were em broidered and retold by the plagiarist who called him self Sir J o h n Mandeville. All E urope thrilled to this im poster’s account of his jo u rn e y to fabled Cathay. This is the first instance of the recu rrin g fascination with T ibet shown by W estern missionaries, dream ers, and scholars. It is also a fine exam ple o f an arm chair au th o r filc travelers’ tales for his own use. In terest died dow n until the seventeenth century when Portugal planted a colony at Goa, India. Jesuit priests struggled over the Him alayan passes, still searching for lost Christians. T h e Tibetans welcomed them , and a mission was established at Shigatse. In the e ig h te e n th century, the C apuchins fo u n d ed a mission in the B uddhist capital. T h e young Italian priest Ippolito Desideri, a Jesuit, lived a n d studied at Sera monastery, learning about the religion he h o p e d to show as false. Eventually, the lamas grew to resent the influ­ ence of both the Jesuits and C apuchin fathers at the Dalai L am a’s court, and by m id-century their missions had disappeared with scarcely a trace. T h e British, after securing their rule in the In d ian subcontinent, sent a different sort of envoy n o rth over the m ountains. W arren Hastings of the East India C om pany dispatched a young Scot, George Bogle, to open up trans-H im alayan trade and to gain intelli­

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gence of Russian and Chinese influence in Tibet. T h e Panchen tried to tu rn Bogle away, claiming he was subject to the Chinese E m p ero r “whose will it was that no M oghul, H industani, Patan, or Fringy be adm itted to his realm .” Fringy was the Scotsman’s corru p tio n of philing, or foreigner. Bogle won the Panchen’s friendship for Britain, b u t both he and the Lam a died soon after of smallpox. T h e eccentric English scholar T hom as M anning, a friend of Charles Lam b, accom panied a Chinese general to Lhasa in 1811 and had an interview with the Dalai Lam a. Although M anning dressed as an Oriental, he was contem ptuous of B uddhist custom, infuriated the lamas, and had to flee Tibet. In contrast, Abbé H ue succeeded in 1846 in becom ing the first missionary to Lhasa in over a century. He lived there unm olested until, jealous of his influence on the Regent, the Chinese Ajnban ord ered him out. W hen H ue published two vol­ um es of his firsthand experiences, set down in a lively, open style, the pedants o f his day denounced him as a credulous fool. Toward the end of the century, feeling th reaten ed by both the Russians and British India, the decrepit M anchu em perors connived with fearful lamas and greedy nobles to keep the people of Tibet, and the Dalai Lam a, in total ignorance of events in the outside world. T h e L and of Religion was closed to disturbing foreign influences. T h e policy invited evasion, and the British took to dispatching Indian secret agents across the border. T hese pundits, disguised as traders, carried concealed compasses and chronom eters, and by counting their paces they m anaged to survey m uch o f the frontier country. Alexandra, too, on h e r jo u rn e y to Lhasa, lacked p ro p e r scientific equipm ent for m ap making; n o r was she as m ethodical as the most famous of the pundits, Sarat C h a n d ra Das, a Bengali who found his way into Kipling’s Kim. T h e high T ibetan official who unwittingly helped him to attain the capital was flogged and then drow ned in the river. His family’s properties were confiscated, his soul c ondem ned to hell, and even his reincarnation— a small boy—was persecuted. T h e frontier officials were severely punished. This m ade their fellows desperate to catch any philing rash enough to clam ber up to the roof of the world. T h e prohibition only m ade T ibet seem m ore mysterious and alluring to outsiders. T h e form idable geographic barriers that su r­ ro u n d the country are not insurm ountable. T h e Russian Colonel

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Nikolai Prejevalsky m ade two attem pts to reach the capital from Siberia. O n the first he lost fifty-five camels to the harsh winter before tu rn in g back. O n the second try, in 1879, he had the su p p o rt of the czar. “N or was he going to take any truck from bandits,” writes Peter H opkirk, “being accom panied by an escort of seven carefully chosen Cossacks, all e x p e rt rifle shots, who had sworn to go th ro u g h Tire and w ater’ with him .” As a secret weapon, he b ro u g h t pictures of Russian actresses to seduce officials. A w eek’s m arch from the holy city, Prejevalsky’s expedition was stopped by two officials backed by h u n d re d s of w arrior monks ready to die to defeat the Russian invasion. W hen the colonel d e m an d ed to know why he could not proceed, an official replied, “All the laymen and m onks of this T ibet o f ours have frequently had sad experiences w hen we ex ten d ed kindness to foreigners. Together we have sworn a sealed covenant not to allow foreigners to en ter T ibet.” B ut if m asculine bluster failed to clear a way, what of womanly determ ination com bined with evangelical zeal? T h e missionary Annie Taylor, who resem bled A lexandra in spunk and diminutive size, got on well with the cheerful T ibetan travelers w hom she h oped to con­ vert, b u t she had set herself the goal of bringing the Christian gospel to the Dalai Lam a in person. She e n d u re d a four-m onth jo u rn e y from w estern C hina over a tortuous road o f ice and snow; she crossed high freezing passes and nearly starved to death, only to be in ter­ cepted a few days short of h e r destination, betrayed by a form er ser­ vant. Taylor d e m a n d e d provisions from a military chief, then tru d g e d back the way she had come. W hen she arrived at Tachienlu, Szechuan, in April 1893, she h ad covered 1,300 miles in seven m onths and survived the rigors of a T ibetan winter. A lthough the plucky missionary spent m any years in Sikkim serving God and awaiting a n o th er opportunity, she never attained Lhasa. T h e surest m eans of gaining Lhasa was to shoot one’s way in, as did the B ridsh expedition u n d e r Colonel Francis Younghusband. He was not in com m and of its w ell-equipped army, and witnessing the slaughter of monks who threw themselves in front of m achine guns caused the young officer to tu rn from diplomacy to the mystical. Accom panying correspondents were sickened, and th ro u g h their reports to their papers tu rn e d Parliam ent against the Anglo-Tibetan C onvention. B ut Y ounghusband rem ained a hero to the public, who

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understood that the em pire had scaled the Himalayas, and southern Tibet was open to the British and firmly closed to others. Y ounghusband had wished to attain Lhasa by the most intriguing m ethod of all: deception. T h e Indian pundits had d o n n e d disguises, and so had the Japanese B uddhist Ekai Kawaguchi, who sojourned at a T ibetan m onastery in 1901. T hese were Asians, and it was a m ore difficult task for the Swedish Sven H edin to im personate a B uriat Mongol. T h a t same year, starting from Chinese Turkestan (Sinkiang), he came within a five-days’ m arch of Lhasa before being detected. In 1906 he arrived in India with the intention of crossing into Tibet. L ord Curzon, from London, privately backed the already famous e x p lo re r’s m apping expedition. B ut a new governm ent at W hitehall tu rn e d thum bs down, ord erin g the Swede arrested. T h e house of Rothschild had alerted them to H ed in ’s being a czarist agent in search of gold fields. Still, the Swede slipped in th ro u g h Ladakh. H e spent two years in southern Tibet m apping rivers and m ountains, discovered the source of the Indus, and eventually published twelve volumes of m u n d an e prose and exquisite maps. T h e British knighted him , to which he responded by su p porting G erm any in both world wars. Traditionally explorers have been male, dom ineering, and n either imaginative or pleasant. H einrich H arrer, of Seven Years In Tibet fame, fits the bill. T h e most successful incognito previous to A lexandra’s was th at o f Dr. William M ontgom ery M cGovern, a canny British professor o f ori­ ental studies who passed him self off as a native caravan porter. Climbing up from India, he slept in cowsheds with the oth er m en, lived on jerky, and struggled th ro u g h heavy snows to reach Lhasa a full year before A lexandra, also at the lu n ar New Year. T h e re he becam e terrified of a hostile mob. H e gave him self up and, due to the pro-British bent of the Dalai L am a’s chief minister, was kept u n d e r protective guard for a m onth while he recuperated. M cGovern was sent down to India with an escort. H e had seen enough to write a book—in A lexandra’s wry phrase— about his m isadventures. A lexandra had read or h e a rd o f most of h e r predecessors in what we may term “the little gam e” of sneaking to Lhasa. From their failures she learned what not to do. Although she envied “Sweed H adin” his m odern equipm ent, especially a stove, she refused to

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grow overly d e p e n d e n t on porters and she avoided showing any­ thing o f value. W hen she requested Philip in Algeria to construct a camp bed for her, she o rd ere d it be m ade severely plain. She was used to traveling along unknow n tracks, avoiding even peasants, some o f w hom were descending to banditry. She had the flexibility to change h e r itinerary instantly in o rd e r to outwit the British secret service, which tried to keep tabs on her, or local T ibetan officers. A lthough A lexandra was em barrassed over others seeing h er in tat­ tered garm ents, ultimately rags w ould prove h e r best protection. Gradually, the Frenchw om an took the m ental steps necessary to shed h e r old self and assume the identity that would win h e r through. In February 1921, in the thin light of a T ibetan dawn, a small car­ avan exited th ro u g h the gates of a venerable m onastery in Am do province. A few mules carried baggage, but the four native “boys” went on foot. W rapped in crude sheepskins and w earing fur hats, yak-hide boots encasing their feet, their breaths steam ed in the painfully dry air of midwinter. Across their chests were slung b a n ­ doliers o f am m unition, and they carried single-shot rifles with pride if not military precision. A head of the pack strode a short, square lam a in a red cloak lined with fur, face nearly buried in a huge fur bonnet. T h e tem p e ra tu re had sunk to below zero Fahrenheit. After m arching a while into the hills, the lam a tu rn e d to stare at the white buildings and red palaces of Kum Bum , its roofs m olten with the fire of sunrise. She u ndersto od she m ight never again see this sight. Yes, she . . . for the bulky figure was A e x a n d ra David-Neel, em barked on h er greatest adventure. No sooner had A e x a n d r a ’s party taken to the low road that ran betw een steep ea rth e n walls than they ran into a long caravan of camels a n d drivers com ing the opposite way. T h e road was so n a r­ row, either she or the camels would have to back up for at least a mile. T h e M ongol drivers felt, and A e x a n d ra agreed, that it would be far easier for her. B ut h e r boys took this as a loss of face and refused. She was obliged to back them , or they would lose all confi­ dence in her. While A e x a n d ra hesitated, the situation quickly deteriorated as the camels fell to biting one another. A M ongol lifted his gun, and now to back off m eant being shot down. A e x a n d ra scrambled to the top of the bank for an overview, then signaled to h e r boys to unsling

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their rifles. T h e Mongols, im pressed with their o p p o n e n ts’ rank, or their fairly m odern weapons, backed down. T hey had a job to tu rn the camels a round, tied as they were nose to tail in strings o f ten. Once the cum bersom e m aneuver was done and the passage left free, A lexandra climbed into a small cart and traveled with assum ed dig­ nity along the road. She had won the loyalty of h e r men. O n the sly, she slipped the Mongols two Chinese dollars for their trouble. By noon the tem perature had soared fifty or sixty degrees and the sun shone brilliantly in a sky of delft blue arched over clay yellow earth. T h e party slowed to shed some clothing, b u t since they were d eterm ined to cover forty kilometers d u rin g daylight, they w ouldn’t rest until dark. T h e ir leader set the pace, and when they came to a treacherous ford across a stream she did n ’t hesitate to plunge in first. As the barely visible western m ountains tu rn e d som ber gray, sunset dying out b ehind their peaks, the travelers searched for a safe spot to camp. Perhaps in the lee of a hill they would be sheltered from the bitter night winds, and bandits, growing ever bolder, couldn’t easily surprise them. This evening they were lucky to fall in with a friendly clan of nom adic shepherds. A lexandra scoured the plain for yak chips— good fuel—while the boys g athered a little wood, lit a fire, a n d p u t up the tents. Yongden, the most trustworthy, tended to the animals, which had to be guarded. T h e n the form er opera singer, clutching h e r bowl, m ade the ro unds of the camp, shamelessly begging for milk— she was a vegetarian n un, she claimed— and blessing the nom ads’ sheep and yaks. She would sleep peacefully tonight, deli­ cious curds in h e r belly, head cradled on folded clothes beneath which nestled h e r revolver. T h u s passed a typical day on the road to Lhasa, a jo u rn e y that, with detours b u t not really tangents, was to take three full years and end in spectacular success. By February 1921, David-Neel felt herself growing older and m ore troubled by arthritis. A lthough she assured Philip that she yearned to re tu rn hom e, first she would accomplish what had become an obsession. She had num erous reasons to attem pt Lhasa: prestige, fame, the pleasure of revenge on those who forbade it. Besides, what a story it would make! However, som ething d eep er called to h e r from this everlasting goal of travelers and pilgrims. In one sense she was content to w an­

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d er over the steppes like any nom ad. But Lhasa drew h er in the same unreasoning way it still draws pilgrims from distant Mongolia: in greasy rags, they advance the whole way by prostrating themselves full-length on every third step, until each forehead is one big bruise while their eyes sparkle from the light within. Never m ind the d a n ­ ger or discom fort or hum iliation, A lexandra h ad determ ined to make the journey. T h e n why did she take so long to reach h e r goal? T h e traveler m oved concentrically, Kum Bum as approxim ate center, along a wheel within a wheel over the face of so-called In n e r Tibet, western China, Mongolia, and down to southw estern China before she m ade a last dash across the treacherous Po country to T ibet’s capital. She d id n ’t plan this b ut responded to events, specifically setbacks in try­ ing to reach Lhasa. H e r m ental gyroscope stayed on course, and the long, ro u n d ab o u t jo u rn e y would prove its own rew ard as well as eventually successful. B ut it all began badly. At Sining, the first sizable town en route, A lexandra was told by the chief of the Christian mission, the R everend Ripley, that a m oney o rd e r sent to h e r by Philip had been lost. She supposed the Chinese postal authorities had pocketed the sum, ten thousand francs, m ore than enough to keep h er going for a year. Even if Philip was willing to replace the sum, it w ouldn’t reach h er for some time. A lexandra fell back on any hospitality she could find, including that o f brigands. T h e traveler wasn’t above sharing a cam pfire and a bowl of hot b u tte red tea with these gentlem en, who m ust be distin­ guished from com m on thieves. T h e ir calling was considered h o n o r­ able an d they followed a code of ethics. Punctilious brigands a n nounced their attack beforehand, allowing victims room to defend themselves. Although they tried not to kill anyone, they appreciated a spirited fight, after which they left the losers a m ule and enough food to reach safety. Tim es were so h a rd in parts of Amdo and Kham that all the m en of a village w ent out to rob, while the women defended their homes. Euphem ism s arose to describe the trade: pillage was term ed “m aking com m erce” or “g athering roots.” A gen­ tlem an brigand, before stealing a m ount, m ight intone the formula: “My horse is tired. W ould you m ind lending me yours?” “It is natural that there should be brigands in T ibet,” wrote

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Charles Bell. H e cited the wildness of the country with its vast em pty spaces and that “by tradition and instinct the people are nom adic . . . hardy, living the simple life in clear, cold air, courageous, mobile, and fond o f ad venture.” But their m eans of subsistence were precarious and the m en at times found themselves robbing m erchant caravans to feed their families. At other times these same brigands, even the fierce Goloks, would come to Lhasa as peaceable traders. T hey would not be arrested n o r would they h a rm anyone. In the shadow of Amne Machin in eastern Tibet, Alexandra once attended a festival of bandits at their m ountaintop shrine; this was nominally Buddhist and contained such offerings as spears, broken guns, and flapping prayer flags. Each highwayman added a colored banner auspicious to his birthdate. T he group, which surely included some m urderers, showed no signs o f bad conscience but enjoyed th em ­ selves by intoning chants exalting the deeds of mythic knights who roam ed primeval forests slaying dem ons and rescuing maidens. Tim e was kept by striking an iron rod on a large caldron of bubbling soup. A photo taken by A lexandra shows a strapping Kham pa, jeweled dag­ ger hilt in evidence, staring unabashedly into the camera. He is not a fellow to fool with. However, in old age brigands often atoned for their deeds by going on pilgrimages or becoming monks. O ne rich and respected m an who entertained the traveler had given up robbing only when his son was discovered to be the incarnation of a G rand Lama. A lexandra had to keep h e r wits about her. Once, cam ping with a questionable bunch, she strung a ro p e across the bottom of h e r tent and d u rin g the night tripped up a robber. A nother time she took a whip to a sturdy K ham pa intent on having h er knife. Because not all brigands were honorable and the conditions of survival went from bad to worse, outright am bush was a real danger. In 1922, the saintly Dr. Albert Shelton of the Am erican mission hospital in B atang was senselessly g u n n e d down on the road, although he was traveling with the prince of the region and an arm ed escort. In uncertain country, A lexandra kept well ahead of h e r party, dressed in a dirty old robe like a Chinese peasant woman. Hobbling along, she looked too poor to rob, and she could scout for h e r m en who followed. These were outfitted like soldiers and m ade a great show o f their arms. A lthough the w arning signal was a pious chant, Alexandra knew she was waging partisan warfare.

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H e r pench an t for disguise—in particular as a harmless old crone— com bined with an occasional judicious show of force rem inds us of the tactics em ployed by Lawrence of Arabia in his campaigns. G ranted the huge disparity in the size o f the forces they led, both these w arriors p refe rre d using wiles to guns, and they were willing to expose themselves to h arm before jeopardizing their m en. T hey both a p p e are d w here least expected, th o u g h t always ahead of the enem y’s moves, an d never lost sight o f their distant b u t realizable goals. T hese are classic guerilla tactics which necessitate a feel for the country and its natives that Lawrence m anifested in the deserts of Arabia and David-Neel on the steppes of C entral Asia. O f course, the com parison oug h t not to be stretched. A lexandra, a B uddhist and a woman, better und ersto o d the consequences of violence. She claimed that she carried arm s while traveling only to satisfy the desire of h e r boys to play soldier. She herself could hardly imagine an enem y she could not outwit. But this, too, is a posture. In fact A lexandra knew the thrill of e ntering a dense forest, weapons loaded, attentive to any rustle am ong the trees that m ight indicate an am bush by bandits. She enjoyed herself, m uch as did Lawrence set­ ting o u t to dynam ite a Turkish railway train. As A lexandra’s party traveled south along the b o rd er of Am do and Kansu, famine prevailed and cholera raged; tigers and leopards were com ing o ut o f the woods to eat corpses. Yongden played tunes on a tin whistle to keep away the beasts, and m ore practically, he spread w ord th ro u g h the villages that his mistress was an ancient sor­ ceress. D onning h e r necklace of 108 pieces of h u m an skull, she ad o p ted the air of a dakini. Peasants appeared with their h o rd ed morsels, anxious to reverse the plagues afflicting them . A lexandra had to work for h e r an d the boys’ su p p e r by blessing the new barley crop, the sheep and goats and pigs, exorcising the house w here they were p u t up, and divining for its ow ner w here a recently deceased relative would be reincarnated. It was useless to declare such business to be rubbish. H ad she done so, the locals would suspect h e r of being a Christian missionary. In areas that were predom inately Chinese, A lexandra d ro p p ed h e r T ibetan disguise a n d attem pted to look E uropean. Amusingly, she was so accustom ed to life on the steppes that she had come to look like a T ibetan n u n of high rank. And to think like a Buddhist.

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Once a Chinese coolie, who with others had done some work for her, attem pted to grab away the bag of copper pennies out o f which Yongden was paying the men. Everyone w anted to beat him , but when the others w eren’t looking A lexandra tossed the thief a silver dollar. H e seized it and ran off. A lexandra knew she had been unjust b u t she had sensed the poor fellow’s desperation. Com passion was m ore im portant than justice. Still, A lexandra could take revenge on those who offended h e r personally. She usually received all the hospitality a visiting dignitary ¿might expect. Abbots o f both B uddhist and Bon m onasteries wel­ comed her, while the peasants plied h e r with fresh eggs or barley flour. B ut on one occasion, when h e r party arrived at a village soaked after a day’s trek in the rain, the folk were ru d e and grudgingly assigned h er a campsite. It tu rn e d out to be the com m on toilet. A lexandra, furious, spat three times and solemnly cursed the vil­ lagers, not only in this lifetime b u t in the next. She strode off, declar­ ing that she was going to sleep in a field and, to do so comfortably, would stop the rain. W ithin an h o u r the sky was filled with stars. N ext m orning the h eadm en arrived to offer an excuse, but Yongden, often mischievous, seized a flashlight. H e snapped on the light, terrifying the simple peasants. T h e n he invoked the flame within the lam p to do the bidding of the angry dakini. T h e village was cursed and not even their lam a’s prayers could save them . Leaying the folk in consternation, the party m arched off. A lexandra felt they had gone too far, b u t Yongden, like a son to her, refused to countenance any slight. H e r servants were sad, certain their mistress’s curse wOuld take effect. By sum m er 1921, the w anderers were tram ping th ro u g h the forests of western Szechuan, braving dow npours and m udslides— A lexandra praised h e r rubber-soled Am erican boots—and crossing swollen rivers on rickety bridges of braided bam boo rope. O ne such span looked so unsteady, they spread planks atop it. T hey began to inch across, rocks falling from a cliff almost on their heads. Yongden called to h u rry up, and no sooner had the boys and mules got over then the entire bridge crum bled into the rushing water. U p w ent the party into the perpetually white m ountains, trudgin g along the steep, narrow paths hem m ed in by walls of snow. In her published works such as Tibetan Journey, David-Neel liked

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to presen t herself as hale and hearty, a French voyageur in a Jam es Fenim ore C ooper novel. She appears to be always good hum ored, ready for any adventure. B ut in letters to h e r husband she was m ore candid, adm itting that she suffered greatly from arthritis and even depression. She w ondered if she would ever succeed in her goal of reaching Lhasa. She was not, as she sometimes has been presented, an Amazon, b u t rath e r a norm al although extraordinarily plucky woman. Will, and the pow er of an idea, drove h er onward. Officials caused m ore problem s than did bandits, often being one in the same. T h e Chinese tried to fleece the travelers, b u t the Fren ch w o m an could th re a te n th e w rath o f h e r consulate at C h engtu— known as “Capital of the West”—or in a pinch invoke Y ongden’s British passport. W hen a Chinese petty b u rea u c rat refused to let them leave his village without an official stamp, that is to say a bribe, A lexandra refused, threatening to re p o rt him to Peking as an abuser of lamas. H e backed down. T h e Tibetans could be th o rn ie r to deal with. In early September, the party was well entertained by the rich abbot o f Dzogchen gom pa in Kham near the Yangtse. Alexandra, who earlier had been reduced to eating a dried sheep’s head that gave h e r boils, delighted in feasting Chinese style with the cultivated abbot. Dessert came first, followed by dum plings, stews, fish, and m eat and finally soup. Perhaps she dined too well, since soon after they left she came dow n with digestive difficulties that she term ed enteritis. She decided to proceed to Bhatang, fu rth e r south on the Yangtse, to be n u rsed at the mission hospital presided over by the highly reg ard ed missionary, Dr. Shelton. However, on a grassy plain A lexandra spotted two m ounted m en who were playing a fanfare and carrying a flag displaying a heraldic lion. Behind them rode a fat, ostentatious official (gyapon) from whom she sensed trouble. Lhasa had newly asserted its authority over this area, and the gyapon was sent from the capital to investigate thievery. In a m om ent, his force of twenty-five soldiers appeared, head ed by a sergeant. T h e official inform ed A lexandra that foreigners could proceed no farther into T ibet without a special passport. She m ust re tu rn to the m onastery to await one. Very likely he supposed the philing was b o u n d for Lhasa, and to let h e r pass would cost him dearly. A lexandra dem an d ed that the detachm ent let her proceed. She

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described h e r dysentery in graphic detail. T h e gyapon acted sym pa­ thetic, b u t A lexandra soon discovered that he d rea d e d a powerful official at Tachienlu— the British consul in Szechuan—whose orders he was obeying. Although this region was anarchic, the British rem ained influen­ tial. If A lexandra had known how interested in h e r w hereabouts the G overnm ent of India rem ained, she would have becom e a ngrier and m ore concerned. T h e Foreign an d Political D epartm ent o f the viceroy’s office issued the following com m uniqué on O ctober 21, 1921: “Perhaps the m inister at Peking may be able th ro u g h the Chinese governm ent or his French colleague to secure re tu rn o f the French n u n who is rep o rted to be trying to en te r Eastern T ibet.” A lexandra’s disguise as a dakini, while im pressing the locals, does not seem to have fooled the T ibetan or British officials. However, it was not until Decem ber 6 that the viceroy’s office learned this was the same wom an on whom they had kept a careful dossier: “We did not realize that the French n u n was the well known Mme. Neel who crossed the frontier of India some years ago despite orders to the contrary. We hope she still can be tu rn e d back.” O n the spot in Kham a standoff ensued. A lexandra was d e te r­ m ined to press forw ard and the official and his soldiers were equally determ ined to stop her. Fear of being ban n ed from the country altogether m ade h er act cautiously. She agreed to leave the district, bu t by h e r own route. She now in tended to go northw est to Jyekundo. This alarm ed the gyapon, because not only did th at town lie on the direct caravan route to Lhasa, it was also headquarters for a dangerous enemy, a Moslem Chinese general who was waging u n re ­ lenting war on the native tribes. T h e official, ordering the sergeant to draw up his men, insisted that A lexandra re tu rn to the monastery. B ut secure in h er right, she tu rn e d her back on the soldiers. T h e Tibetans becam e frightened at the th o u g h t of killing a E uropean. T hey shouted the traditional benediction—’’L ong life!”— while the gyapon b urst into tears. Still they kept h e r su rro u n d ed . G rasping h er sturdy walking stick, the dum py Frenchw om an attacked with the dis­ patch of a grenadier—whack! whack!—she cleared a path. She called to Yongden to bring h er revolver and th en th reaten ed to shoot herself. T h e m en were afraid o f both the practical and karm ic consequences of such a deed.

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Poor Yongden was equally taken in by h er perform ance as A lexandra strode tow ard h e r tent. H e quickly hid the weapon and the d ram a fell a little flat. Still, the gyapon was sufficiently cowed to p erm it h e r to travel w here she pleased. H e gratefully acquiesced to h er terms: yaks, supplies, an escort. A lexandra felt satisfied with h e r victory, tem porary though it m ight be. She now realized the British would keep up their surveillance. O ne day from a distance high on a snowy perch, the adventurers looked down to a valley with over two thousand yaks in line, divided in groups, hastening to the shrill cries of the cowboys who drove them . Large fierce dogs circling the yaks em phasized their m asters’ com m ands. It was a caravan bringing tea to Lhasa. W hen it had passed, A lexandra and h e r boys descended to the road. Yongden bowed to the g ro u n d three times.

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Jyekundo, u n d e r the control o f a Chinese Moslem warlord, was as m uch a military garrison as a town. Its nondescript baked m ud houses straggled up a bare hill tow ard an overlooking gom pa of no distinction. T h e place failed to boast a single indoor toilet. At twelve thousand feet, set am ong frosty m ountains on the edge of the C hang Tang, “Desert o f Grass,” it had a m oderate sum m er climate. B ut win­ ter prom ised to be bitter, and A lexandra, low on funds, was living in a leaky shack on top of a roof. She fought off the tem ptation to make a dash for Lhasa, some six weeks away. She was leery of an o th e r clash with T ibetan officials, who had been alerted by the G overnm ent of India and were on guard. So she a n d Yongden vegetated while water leaked from the roof onto h e r books and the wind whisded th ro u g h crevices to torm ent h er joints. In late October A lexandra wrote to Philip that, although h er heart b o th ered her, it would be preferable to get outdoors and search for another harbor for the winter. T h e fastidious traveler was offended by the dirt and lack of sanitation in the town. She was head ed n o rth ­ west to the Mongol camps in Sinkiang, w here she h o p ed to re n t a warm felt-lined yurt from the shepherds and to stay d u rin g the cold m onths. T h e summits she saw from h e r ro o f were already w hitened, b ut perhaps the snows would not block the passes for an o th er m onth. T h e attem pt lasted ten incredible days and failed. T h e pair couldn’t struggle th ro u g h drifts u p to their waists, and their horses’ hooves froze. Big gray wolves tracked the little party, one lean one coming particularly close. Yongden wanted to shoot him a n d use his skin to carpet their tent, b u t A lexandra p refe rre d to try to tam e him.

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He was the leader, the most agressive and the hungriest. She took a chunk o f m eat and m oved cautiously toward the wolf, then tossed it to him. H e seized it in his jaws and b o u n d e d away. T h e wolf re tu rn e d b u t the game could not continue because A lexandra had not even scraps of food to spare. Back w ent the pair the way they had come. Yongden found th ree room s in a better house, b u t by m idw inter A lexandra was seized by “cabin fever.” Firing a little stove, she kept h e r room at a tolerable forty degrees Fahrenheit d u rin g the day, b u t at night it grew m uch colder. O utside the w eather was dry and the sun shone in an azure sky. A lexandra, tired of aching joints, decided they would fight their way th ro u g h to the warm valleys of the south w here orchids bloom ed the year long. Again they set out. T hey walked for weeks, crossed m ountain passes with snow up to their knees, slept in caves and nearly froze, and finally ran out of food. Fortunately, they were intercepted by T ibetan officials, who w hen they found a cam era on Yongden, d e m an d ed that the pair tu rn back. This time A lexandra exacted horses, fuel, and m oney for the re tu rn trip. At Jyekundo she w anted to start imm ediately for the Gobi Desert, b u t the Moslem army com m and er— described by a British general as “a keen, energetic, honest, good m an”— im plored h e r to wait for w arm er weather. This general, Sir George Pereira, arrived at jy e k u n d o from Peking on J u n e 23, 1922. H e was a well-bred gentlem an after A lexandra’s own heart. She, in h e r fifties, had rheum atism and he, nearing sixty, lim ped from a childhood riding accident. His record in com bat in the W orld War was heroic, and in spite of a troublesom e digestion, he loved to roam the wild, far corners of the O rient. This splendid representative of the m atu re British Em pire, a charm ing, unassum ing scholar educated u n d e r C ardinal N ew m an had e x p eri­ enced a ro u g h journey. H e was weakened by h u n g e r and thirst, his pack animals perished, and he had survived by the generosity of a passing caravan. Nonetheless, Sir George was as eager as A lexandra for fu rth e r adventure. T h e pair m et daily to take tea, and the Frenchw om an, in h e r best robe, showed the Englishm an the few sights of interest. T h e fellow explorers shared their most recent exploits. Sir George had hu n ted th ro u g h the m ountains of Szechuan in hope of bagging a giant panda, even at that time a rare anim al that no E u ropean had shot.

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He missed the prize, coming dow n with frostbitten toes instead. How ever the B uddhist A lexandra felt about such useless slaughter, she knew she needed Sir George’s help. Stymied by petty b u re a u ­ crats, she was getting no closer tow ard h e r elusive goal. Sir George was b o u n d straight for Lhasa on a secret mission for the British Foreign Office, a n d he stayed in touch with the G overnm ent of India th ro u g h Sikkim. H e left at the end o f the m onth, waited at C ham do until early Septem ber for perm ission to continue—which was granted d u e to Charles Bell’s influence at Lhasa— then he jo u rn e y e d for six weeks over a difficult m ountainous route to the capital. Sir George was well received and gran ted an interview with the Dalai Lama. In spite o f deteriorating health, the general traveled d u rin g the n ex t year along the wild TibetanSzechuan frontier, w here he died at Kanze of a bleeding ulcer. H e was a careful surveyor, and had he lived would have received the gold m edal o f the Royal G eographical Society. Sir George was a genuinely brave m an, and although he was w arned about bands of brigands, he refused to travel in an arm ed caravan. Perhaps as a result, he becam e enchanted by Tibet. In a re p o rt to the Foreign Office, he wrote o f “. . . the a p p a re n t happiness of the villagers. I have seen the children ru n n in g about, playing games, and heard the laughter of the elders, and there seemed to be a free­ dom o f care about the Tibetan peasantry, very different from village life in China.” This foreigner could truthfully state, “W herever I have been in Tibet I have received nothing but kindness and hospitality.” Sir George surely felt that his end was near, because he did a thing uncharacteristic o f explorers: he shared his m aps with a perfect stranger. A lexandra, who often navigated by instinct, now possessed m ore definite guidance. In retu rn , she plied the general with inform ation about the area w here he was to lose his life. Both travelers were intrigued by the poorly know n country of southeast Tibet, lying betw een Yunnan, China, and Lhasa. O ne afternoon after tea a m ap was lying open on the table, and with the tip of his finger Sir George traced the supposed course o f the Po River. “My inform ation is that th ere are several accessible passes above the springs, w here the river rises,” he said. “If you went that way to Lhasa, you would be the first.” Alexandra was stunned. She had not said directly that she was

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going to Lhasa, but Sir George had shown her the route. He acknowl­ edged that it would be a jo u rn e y fraught with danger. T h e inhabitants of the Po country were deem ed savages, maybe cannibals, and anyone foolish enough to enter their dom ain supposedly never came out. After giving A lexandra his lefthand blessing and a ro ugh sketch m ap, Sir George departed. To M ajor (soon Colonel) F. M. Bailey, who in 1913 had explored p a rt of the Po region a n d lived to become the successor to Charles Bell at Gangtok, he wrote on July 28th: “I m et Mme. Neel, the French B uddhist lady, at Jyekundo, she had gone from Kansu via Kantze to Jyek u n d o and [she] left the day after on h er re tu rn to Sinning and Lanchow.” T h e latter two destinations were to the northeast past Kum B um and the Koko N or Lakes, and in the opposite direction from Lhasa. True, A lexandra was headed that way at first. B ut chivalrous Sir George, who was aware of the wish of the G overnm ent of India to keep h e r from the Tibetan capital, cov­ ered for her. H e deceived his own governm ent about time and place, although m erely by relating a partial truth. His reasons are m ade clear in his confidential re p o rt to the Foreign D epartm ent of the G overnm ent of India: At Jyekundo I met Madame Neel, the French Buddhist lady of some 50 summers, the only European I met between Tangar and Gyantse. She had been some years in China and had spent a year at Kum Bum monastery learning Tibetan and studying Tibetan books, and then she had adopted as a son an ugly Tibetan lama, whom I at first mistook for a Hindu waiting maid, who speaks English fluently. . . After a study of Buddhism in Mongolia she is going to return to her husband in Tunis. Though told that she was very anti-British, it struck me that on the contrary she was well disposed, as she spoke of all the kindness she had received in India and said that British rule was the only thing for India. T he only thing that struck me was that she did not seem to like British influence in T ib e t. . . Despite Pereira’s somewhat m istaken time fram e, his re p o rt con­ firms A lexandra’s own account o f h e r studies and travels (recalling that he may have considered eastern T ibet to be “C hina”) and tells us that she h ad already decided to adopt Yongden, who was actually ra th e r agreeable looking. She h a d even told Sir George the truth about h e r age!

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A lexandra was stuck in hated Jyekundo until funds arrived from Philip. She and Yongden m ight w ander the streets in rags, b u t she continued to acquire Tibetan books, which she sent on to Peking. By now Yongden was in his early twenties, and although slight and scarcely taller than A lexandra, a m an of m any talents. Besides acting as h e r secretary and helping with translations, he baked bread, cooked, washed linen, gathered wood, stitched together the rem ­ nants of their clothing, and perform ed any oth er task called for at the m om ent. In re tu rn he received not a ru p ee in salary, thus raising him from the class of servant to that o f gentlem an. Yongden, like his mentor, was celibate, and he had decided to devote his life to helping A lexandra in h er quest—so she inform ed Philip. H e r husband m ust officially adopt and provide for him, because according to French law she herself could not. Once Philip m et Albert, he would be happy to have him. W ho was “Albert”?— m erely Yongden with an anglicized nam e to suit his position, if not his attire. In any case, Philip’s acquiescence was a fond assum ption on h er part. A lexandra spent nearly a year at Jyekundo schem ing h e r d e p a r­ ture. She and Yongden could watch caravans o f yaks tru n d lin g by on the route from Tachienlu across the Desert of Grass to Lhasa. O ne day w hen the frustrated adventurers were w andering the m uddy streets, a huge K ham pa, brandishing an antique sword, dashed from a house and was quickly followed by a score of fellows trying to catch him. A lexandra inquired of some wom en and learned that the w ar­ rior took him self for an incarnation of Dickchen Shenpa, m inister to King Gesar o f Ling, the hero of the T ibetan national epic that bears his nam e. Because King Gesar’s enem y the King of H o r had reincar­ nated in town in the form of a young lad, when Dickchen dow ned too m uch chang, he roared off in search of the evildoer. T h e o th er m en always stopped him from harm ing the poor boy. A lexandra was delighted to learn that Dickchen was a w andering minstrel who sang passages from the long poem , which she supposed to have originated over one thousand years before. N ext day she slipped in am ong the w om en g athered to hear him; the m en sat opposite, everyone on a bit o f carpet on the d irt floor. T h e m adm an was now composed, chanting, gesturing, all the while staring at a sheet of blank paper. A lexandra adm ired his stature and figure, his

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h andsom e features and bright, flashing eyes that at times seem ed to reflect an in n er world o f visions. Singing in the Kham dialect, the b ard played out the num erous roles of the colorful epic and even provided his own accom panim ent by im itating trum pets and o ther instrum ents. T h e audience, who had listened to the story m any times before, in te rru p te d on occasion with cries of, “Om viani padme hum!” (Hail to the jewel in the lotus!) T h e blank p a p e r was p u t in front of the p erfo rm er because on it he envisioned what he was about to sing. T h e m instrels of the poem have com m itted it to their subconscious m em ories and are able to call up passages w hen they wish. While some scholars claim th at King Gesar is a mythical personage, Tulku T h o n d u p Rinpoche wrote (in 1996) in an introduction to a new translation: “Gesar was a real p e r­ son and his victories were tru e events. . . . Gesar’s influence on the spiritual and social life o f his people is still felt in m any parts of Tibet, Mongolia, Buryatsia, Kalmykia and Tuva [Russia].” A lexandra invited the m instrel to perform the epic in private, to which he agreed after she assured him that King Gesar would not be denigrated. As the m an chanted, she and Yongden both scribbled, a n d in six weeks they had p ro d u ce d the most com plete w ritten copy in existence. A lexandra realized the m instrel lived m ore in the time of Gesar (the T ibetan “h o u r o f glory” in the seventh an d eighth centuries) th an in the present. H e would often disappear to w ander over the grasslands dream in g of his old life as com panion to the g reat cham pion of justice. B ut in earnest, he insisted he was Dickchen and could transm igrate back and forth between past and present. Once, in m idw inter with tem peratures down to below zero Fahrenheit, the K ham pa b ro u g h t the foreign lama a fresh blue flower—sent to h e r by Gesar himself. T h e g ro u n d was frozen, the nearby Yangtse covered with ice six feet thick, and this species of flower norm ally bloom ed in July. W here on earth had he gotten it? Equally puzzling was the prediction by Dickchen, based on the epic, that the Panchen Lam a would flee to China in exactly two years. A lexandra scoffed, b u t on h e r way to Lhasa in 1924 she was shocked to learn that h e r friend, fearing for his life, had indeed taken refuge in Chinese territory. Even the boy supposed to be the evil King of Hor, then a novice m onk of ten, seem ed to possess an appropriately

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vicious nature: he delighted in killing birds with stones and pum m eling his fellow novices. T h e re were too m any local versions of the epic for A lexandra to produce a definitive text! But since the historical King Gesar had been a K ham pa, their version was the most com prehensive. T h e tale of heroism, of knight errantry, is nominally B uddhist b u t pervaded by an earlier spirit of magic and wonders. Gesar, an incarnate god, rides a golden, winged stallion into battle against the dem ons of the four directions. H e is the great hero, the tiger-god o f consum ing fire, sometimes fitted out in gold arm or and at other times all in turquoise, including helm et, shield, bow a nd arrows. H e is fond of quick changes and appears indifferently as a hum ble blacksmith’s apprentice o r the god N am thig Karpo, clad in white and riding a goat, or in the m ore suitable guise o f the handsom e, irresistible king who uses his soulful black eyes and enchanting smile to seduce his worst enem y’s wife. T h e re is a touch of Rabelais about this ram bling tale, sung n o t in classical T ibetan b u t the dialect o f whichever region the b a rd finds himself. Gesar, like B uddha, comes to banish ignorance, b u t he is not squeam ish about using force. After he has slept with the queen, and she has fed him dainties and quickly hid d en him w hen h e r h usband the King o f H o r comes hom e—n o t u n d e r the bed b u t ben eath the kitchen floor— Gesar cleaves the cannibal-dem on-king’s head in two. T h e n he gives the villain’s spirit, which is w andering in the Bardo (purgatory), precise instructions on how to avoid hell and reach the W estern Paradise. Sinners are to be redeem ed. T h e epic, H om eric in its proportions, functions on several levels. T h e simple folk love to hear it over and over, for it both reflects their concerns and transports them to magical realms. B ut as m ade clear by Chogyam T ru n g p a Rinpoche, this is a serious treatise on courage: “Gesar represents the ideal warrior, the principle o f all-victorious confidence. As the central force of sanity he conquers all his enemies . . . who tu rn people’s m inds away from the true teachings of B uddhism . . . that say it is possible to attain ultim ate self-realization.” Sakyong M ipham Rinpoche, T ru n g p a ’s son, adds in a forew ord to a new translation, The Warrior Song of King Gesar, “H e represents o u r dream s; o u r hopes o f overcom ing incredible odds; of being victori­ ous and kind at once; of being vast and at the same time noticing small pebbles alongside the ro ad .”

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This sounds like a description of David-Neel’s m idw inter jo u rn ey to Lhasa. T h e enemy, to be found in o n e’s own m ind, is cowardice. H e r attraction to Buddhism , allegedly a passive faith, can be better u n d ersto o d if seen in this light. O nce she overcam e her doubts and fears, she attained h e r birthright, h e r self. T h e n no official, no army, no em pire could stop h e r from going w here she pleased. In early August 1922 A lexandra, after selling two mules to reduce h e r cavalry to five, h ead ed a small party traveling northw est tow ard the Gobi in C hina’s Sinkiang province. T h e Moslem general loaned h e r a couple o f his soldiers as an escort and a two-wheeled baggage cart. To Philip, she h inted about following an old caravan route, rich in B uddhist lore, to Sam arkand, Russia, from w here a rail­ road, ran to Paris! It isn’t likely she was serious. T h e czarist em pire had startled the world by becom ing the Soviet U nion, and its eastern provinces were the scene of civil strife and epidemics. A lexandra adm itted that she was zigzagging, which greatly m ul­ tiplied the distance to h e r goal. H e r letters m ight be intercepted and rea d at any time. Earlier she had w arned Philip that he m ight not h ear from h e r for a lengthy p eriod because she was h ead ed w here th ere was no post office. No matter, he m ust not send out a search party, which would p u t h e r life in greater danger. David-Neel proceeded at a leisurely pace. She spent N ovem ber an d D ecem ber at Kanchow on the edge o f the Little Gobi ju s t below the G reat Wall. In a drafty house where she and Yongden had to sleep w ithout a fire while the th erm o m eter p lunged to below zero, they polished their version of the Gesar epic, consulting several texts. Curiously, she com plained that m any of its incidents were too risqué, and the edition that she finally published in English in 1934 is (alas!) properly Victorian. T h e scholar h ad high hopes for h e r progeny and mistakenly supposed that the Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling would m ake a best-seller. Instead, it rem ains the least know n of the great world myths. In J a n u a ry 1923, with a light sprinkling o f snow on the ground, the tem p e ra tu re barely rising to the twenties Fahrenheit in the glare of the noonday sun, the party saddled up their mules and set off across the desert. Occasional low dunes were followed by stretches of spiny grass. T hey saw almost no one, b u t som ew here in this region A lexandra had h e r finest o p p ortunity to observe a lung-gom runner.

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O ne day, peering th ro u g h field glasses, she picked up a m oving black spot far in the distance. As she watched, this tu rn e d into a m an h e a d ­ ing tow ard them with incredible rapidity. T h e orientalist was thrilled as she realized she would be the first W esterner to verify the rem a rk ­ able feats of these adepts, who are sometimes said to fly. She reached for h e r camera. A trusted retainer w arned h e r to keep h e r distance; she m ustn’t stop the lam a or speak to him because it would kill him. T h e skeptic in A lexandra doubted this, b u t she had to respect even the grossest superstition if the people believed it. Reluctantly, she studied the r u n ­ n er b u t took no pictures. She saw that his face was perfectly calm and his gaze fixed on an im agined object far, far away. R ather than ru n , the lung-gom-pa lifted him self from the g round, proceeding by leaps. H e looked like a ru b b er 8 ball that bounced each timé it touched the ground. H e wore ragged monastic garb. In his right h a n d he held a phurba (magic dagger) and app eared to use it as a staff though it was high off the ground. Lung-gom -pas were expected to continue in their even, grounddevouring stride for days on end w ithout stopping for food or water. In the vast, nearly em pty countryside of n o rth e rn Tibet, such a feat m ight be term ed practical. Only certain lamas indulged in such trav­ eling, an d their training was as curious as the accom plishm ent. N ot really athletes, they were mystics who h a d m editated for years in a dark hole. B reathing exercises, chants, and visualizations were repeated until the adepts were able, from a seated posture, to leap straight u p out of the hole. A nother portion of the training consisted of going about for long periods in heavy irons, so that w hen the chains were rem oved, the practitioner felt feathery light. As in tumo breathing, skill at lung-gom was acquired by clearing the m ind of distractions, followed by perfect concentration on a diety. It was both a mystical practice and a necessity in the T ibetan wilds. Soon A lexandra would have to call on this a rt to survive. After traversing b a rre n country that rem in d ed h e r o f the Sahara, and reaching Anhsi in Sinkiang, A lexandra wheeled h e r party aro u n d for a gran d flanking move. She wasn’t d e te rre d by the cold, for although the occasional inns were miserable, sleeping on their Mongol-style hangs was comfortable. This was a cem ent platform on

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which bedding was placed a n d u n d e r which horse d u n g was b u rned. It smelled bad b u t kept the sleeper warm. However, a tu rn a ro u n d M ongolia was ruled out by the hosdlities between pro- and antiBolsheviks. In early April the expedition arrived back in Lanchow, w here A lexandra took decisive steps. She sent on h e r books, certain valuables, and good clothes to the French Bank of Indochina at Shanghai. She dismissed h e r loyal T ibetan retainers, gave up the cam p bed Philip had sent her, and h e r snug tents as well; not even h e r beloved tub was spared. From here on the once-particular Parisian would travel lean, d e p e n d in g on h er adopted son to do the tasks she couldn’t m anage. In May A lexandra crossed the dry, dusty land o f Kansu u n d e r a scorching sun th at raised the te m p e ra tu re to ninety degrees Fahrenheit. W hen night came, it plum m eted forty or fifty degrees to leave h e r a n d Yongden shivering in their sheepskins. Since she was taking quinine, she likely had a touch of malaria, b u t she w orried m ore about h e r son’s violent fever until it abated. O n they traveled, A lexandra carried in a sedan chair by two porters while Yongden b ro u g h t up the rear. Still in poor health, he p ro d d e d a couple of mules with baggage. T h ro u g h the narrow gorges of Shensi, the po o r w om an sweltered in h e r bouncing black box. T h e inns were filled with verm in, and often she p refe rre d to spend the night dozing outside the front door in the chair. She inform ed Philip that she was sending him two arti­ cles for the Mercure: one on “Socialism Am ong Primitive Tribes,” the o th er a hum orous aside on how to travel cheaply in China. Toward the end of Ju n e , held up by seemingly ran d o m fighting, A lexandra arrived at C hengtu, Szechuan. Typically, she lodged with missionaries, in this case French Catholic nuns who ran a hospital. Again she was sick with dysentery and saw a doctor at the Institut Pasteur. H e insisted that she live there so he could begin a course, of treatm ent. T h e weary traveler m oved in, reveling in good food and a lush garden. But she declined a series of injections of a supposedly infallible rem edy because she was afraid of the hypoderm ic shots. Living genteelly, she m ended, helped along by the sizable French com m unity showering praises on h e r head. T h e consul gave a recep­ tion in h e r honor, which she attended with a slight fever, and he d em a n d e d that she accept a loan o f money.

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A lexandra also dined with the Catholic bishop at his palace, w here she and Yongden were offered such unaccustom ed luxuries as wine and cigarettes, coffee and cake. T h e clergymen presen t never spoke of religion, b u t they nevertheless encouraged their country­ wom an to jo in forces with the church. T h e bishop considered h e r an apostate b u t a very impressive one. Fearful of being thw arted, A lexandra concealed h e r destination from everyone. T h e allegedly Republican governm ent at Peking— still refe rre d to as “the E m p e ro r’s household”— held the allegiance of a wavering n u m b er of Chinese provinces. From Canton, Sun-Yat-sen influenced m uch of the south, while most larger coastal cities were dom inated by the E uropean powers. J a p a n was powerful in the n orth, and the situation in the west was bloody and anarchic. T h e governor of Kansu was m aking war on the rebel governor of Szechuan, who had called on Yunnan to send troops to his aid. A lexandra, h e a d ed south across these provinces, exp ected to e n counter famine, brigands, c o rru p t officials, and lots of adventure. In mid-July A lexandra took to h e r sedan chair, traversing m uddy roads, torrential rivers, and a com bat zone in southern Szechuan. She found herself in the m idst o f the retreating n o rth e rn army. T h e soldiers tried to stop her, b u t she chatted with the general an d got a pass. N ext she came to the re a r g u ard digging in to im pede the enem y advance. She felt sorry for the m en, boys really, some holding parasols or fans. It rem inded h e r of a scene from Madame Butterfly. At a deserted village, h e r coolies rebelled and laid down the chair. Madame h o p p e d out and th reaten ed to beat them , if not worse, and so they carried h e r onward. She w anted to stop to watch the battle, b ut the shrieking coolies persu ad ed h e r to go a ro u n d th ro u g h a rice paddy. She found the mosquitoes a nuisance. M ore serious were the native bandits form ed into sufficiently large armies that they defeated the regulars. T h e Lolo tribe h a d the nasty habit of kidnapping foreigners for ransom . So with m uch evad­ ing and m aneuvering, trekking in paddy m u d up to their knees, Alexandra and Yongden reached Likiang in late September. This last Chinese town in northw est Yunnan was dom inated by a n o th er tribe, the Mossos. B urm a was to the south, T ibet to the north, and already there were Tibetans nearby. Staying at a Pentecostal mission w here she was cordially received, although the food was plain, A lexandra

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wrote to h e r husband that she was ready to begin on the hard part of h e r adventure. She crossed the M ekong River by a preposterous rope and pul­ ley, a m eans o f traversing a river that would soon look positively m odern. T h e n , after paying a call on an isolated French priest, she wrote h e r “d ear M ouchy” that he would h e a r from h e r in the spring. She was going to try som ething that h er academic colleagues with big reputations would not dare. Poor Philip in Algeria h ad a dream about his e rra n t wife shivering in the shadow of a m ountain, h e r fire gone out, the snow drifting over h e r tent . . . only the icy stars knew h e r whereabouts. H e awoke startled, certain that either he or she was m ad. H e m ust do som ething. Philip acted in his own way and m ade a difference. H e contacted the French Foreign Ministry a n d they alerted their am bassador in L ondon. Le Comte de Saint-Aulaire explained, in a note dripping with politesse, the p urpose o f A lexandra's jo u rn e y to the one m an who could from such a distance offer h e r protection: the Marquess C urzon o f Kedleston, the British Foreign Secretary. L ord Curzon was im pressed by A lexandra’s daring, though he may have th o u g h t h er m ad. H e requested that Viscount Peel, then the viceroy, instruct the p ro p e r In d ian officials to ensure A lexandra’s safe conduct. Instructions m ade their way th ro u g h the India Office to the govern­ m ent of India, w here they were received by the Political D epartm ent an d com m ented on by a series of bureaucrats whose signatures are illegible or m ere initials. T h e first of these com plained on August 22, 1922: Madame Neel is a lady of somewhat doubtful antecedants who was last heard of in the autum n of 1921 on the Sino-Tibetan frontier. She was then said to be contemplating a journey to Lhasa. The French govt, now state that she will shortly cross India on her return from a journey of exploration in the Pamirs, and ask ‘that she be made welcome.’ ‘Pamirs’ is probably not used by the French govt. In the strict geo­ graphical sense, b u t . . . In the vague sense of ‘High Asia,’ and Mme Neel may be simply coming down from Tibet via Gangtok or Leh, or even direct from Lhasa via Gyantse. Even so the puzzling question arises of how the French govt, knows of her whereabouts. . .

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It is not quite clear what the French govt, expect the Govt, of India to do. The latter cannot be expected to go to trouble to provide positive facilities for a lady with Mme Neel’s record. Possibly all that is expected is that the G of I should refrain from arresting her as an undesirable! T h e second official com m ented that the Foreign Office in L ondon “know nothing whatever about Mme. Neel.” A th ird had no com m ent and a fourth rem arked: “It is difficult to form any opinion of this lady’s activities . . . I should gather she is a French agent of some im portance.” Finally, on A ugust 28, the Political Com m ittee translated L ord C urzon’s generosity into carte blanche for the G overnm ent of India to take “such action as may a p p e ar desirable,” which in effect m eant that “M me Neel’s m ovem ents [will be] dis­ creetly w atched.” T h e French N un, a spy, was to be spied u pon, providing she could be found. A lexandra, however, along with Yongden had launched herself into the unknow n.

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From David-Neel’s farthest penetration of the Gobi at Anhsi in M arch 1923 to the northw est corner of Yunnan province, adjacent to w here she designed to slip into Tibet, is a distance of over a thousand miles n o rth to south across western China. T h a t is as the crow flies, b u t she and Yongden had proceeded m ore like turtles, m aturing their plans as they went. By the time the pair arrived at the Abbé O u v ra rd ’s parish on the right bank o f the M ekong in late October, they had likely covered at least twice th at mileage. T hey were on the m arch since leaving Jyekundo in August o f the previous year. T hey h a d traversed desert, jungle, and rice paddy, e n d u re d scorching heat an d freezing cold—often in the course of a single day. T h e travelers were w orn out a n d u n d ern o u rish ed , health shaky, a n d the kind abbé looked concerned w hen they d e p a rte d his mission on short notice. R um or was A lexandra’s m ost feared enemy. I f T ibetan officials got wind o f h e r intentions, they would g uard the few roads to Lhasa with greater care. Although the abbé had proved warmly cordial to strangers, A lexandra fooled him with a story about going on a search for rare plants. Inspiration had come from a chance m eeting with the Am erican botanist Dr. Joseph Rock, who ten d ered h e r an offer, nat­ urally refused, to plant h u n t with him. His large expedition, with its comings and goings, nevertheless provided good initial cover for the two outlanders to stray across the border. Rock would be responsible for spreading the erroneous idea that Am ne M achin, in the region o f Koko Nor, was a peak hig h er than Everest. His 1930 article in National Geographic contributed to the mysterious, Shangri-La quality of Tibet, w here even the supposedly highest m ountain on earth could go u n rem ark ed for centuries.

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O ne b right au tu m n m orning, his guests bid the ingenuous Father O u vrard adieu and h eaded toward the Kha Karpo range. T h e snow m ountain, glittering as a diety, g u ard ed the threshold o f the mysterious land. T h e explorers wore typical Chinese dress, while two coolies carried a week’s provisions and a light tent m ade by Yongden. It would have been unthinkable for a E uropean w om an to carry h e r own pack. Alexandra, after evading the curiosity of botanist and priest, now had to rid herself o f the servants. T h e party spent its first night in a vultures’ cem etery w here on occasion the locals slaughtered an old m ule in o rd e r to lure scores of the winged scavengers that they would bludgeon to d eath for their feathers. T h e site was littered with bleached bones, b u t A lexandra had eyes only for the highest o f the m ountains, illum ined by a full m oon in a starless sky. It was the season for pilgrims, come from the four directions, to tram p the long way a ro u n d the sacred Kha Karpo. Am ong these pious folk, who spoke a variety of dialects, A lexandra in tended that she and Yongden should blend—T ibetan m o th er and lam a son. Com plaining that h e r feet were bruised and needed rest, which was true, she discharged the coolies one after the other. Paid and fed, they were sent in opposite directions to m eet eventually and share their confusion. In directing one of the boys to a mission bearing a package of clothes for the poor, A lexandra gave away m ost o f h e r and Yongden’s w ardrobe. She did not leave them with a single blanket. B ut they still had too m uch to carry, and they had to sacrifice a w ater­ p ro o f groundsheet. T h e ir kitchen equipm ent consisted of one all-purpose alum inum pot, a lam a’s wooden bowl for Yongden, an alum inum bowl for A lexandra, a case containing a knife and chopsticks, and two cheap foreign spoons over which she was to nearly kill a m an with h e r new autom atic pistol. A lexandra reluctantly gave u p h er therm os. T hey took so little because they m eant to pose as arjopas, the m endicant pil­ grims who in large num bers roam from one sacred spot to another. Many of these, while keeping back a few coins for Lhasa, begged for their supper. It was considered m eritorious for people to aid them . T h e pair headed for the D okar Pass, gateway to T ibet proper, and at first they walked only at night th ro u g h the heavily forested district. T h e track itself was sufficiently rough, b u t in the dark they

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knocked into trees or fell against thorny bushes. Although tortured by thirst, the pow er o f will dulled their pain and drove them on— aided by small doses o f strychnine. W hen taken homeopathically, this deadly poison is a central nervous stim ulant and energizer. However, a slight overdose can result in a condition in which one’s senses become overly acute and one sees and hears what isn’t there. This p a r­ tially explains why at first, A lexandra peopled the forest with spies and felt like a h u n ted animal. T h e n came an odd series o f incidents. Strange, feverish mirages arose before the pilgrims. W hen the pair spotted crows p erched on a tree branch, the black birds circled a ro u n d them , m aking highpitched noises like laughs. Yongden declared these were really feathered dem ons who played tricks with fire and music at night to seduce travelers from the right path. T h e o rthodox young lam a adm itted that his great-grandfather had been a renow ned magician. T h e n , to disperse the mysterious birds, Yongden recited form ulas and m ade the appro p riate ritual gestures. A lexandra’s unease deepened, accentuated by tram ping through the darkness to the accpm panim ent o f panthers roaring in the bush: H e r bones h u rt from sleeping by day on the gro u n d h id d en u n d e r a pile of m oldering leaves. Even a pleasant m orning d u rin g which the interlopers ap proached the Dokar th ro u g h a beautiful valley white with frost tu rn e d bitterly cold as they began to ascend. T hey reached the pass by evening, the threshold o f the guarded region. Tibetans h a d planted a ro u n d it the usual flags inscribed with prayers. But even these seem ed m artial an d threatening to the weary, d rugged m o th er and son. T h e two were welcomed to the L and of Snows by a sudden bliz­ zard of sleet. Missing the path down, they began to slip and each had to fix a sturdy staff in the g ro u n d for support. T hey squatted on their haunches until two in the m orning while snow fell, b u t w hen a faint m oon rose they were able to descend. T hese staffs were furnished with sharp iron tips and were de rigueur for treks th ro u g h the Tibetan wilds. By now the travelers h ad d o n n e d heavier clothes m ore suited to the weather. Yongden dressed in lam a’s robes, while A lexandra p u t on suede boots from Kham , a coarse, heavy dress in layers with long sleeves, and an old red sash twisted about h er .head. B ut none of this clothing could com pare with the fleecy sheepskins worn by natives to keep out chill blasts.

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O n the far side of the Dokar, bizarre happenings continued. In a glade by a river a leopard came by to sniff. Yongden was asleep. A lexandra, rem em bering h e r Bengal tiger, condescendingly shooed the cat on its way. T h a t same day the travelers stum bled u p o n a vil­ lage u nm arked on any m ap. T hey saw an oriental fantasy of palaces and villas in m iniature, su rro u n d e e d by deer parks. T h in k in g it real, they retreated to cover till evening and fell asleep. W hen they awoke the strange town was entirely gone. Yongden insisted that it could not have been a pro d u ct o f both their imaginations. A vision, yes, b u t real in its own way, which he h a d dispelled with magic words and signs. Perhaps it was the work of som eone who wished to h in d e r them . A lexandra took the affair with a grain of salt. W hen Yongden w arned that soon they would confront m aterial villagers, soldiers, and officials, who would be suspicious of strangers, she assured him she would cast a spell over them . Feeling m ore herself, A lexandra revelled in the unbridled freedom o f a pilgrim who carries all she owns on h e r back and is liberated from worldly cares. T h a t evening she even perform ed the chod rite, a mystic dance that involves certain form ulas and exhortations to the gods and dem ons to aid the p e r­ form er in freeing the m ind from attachm ent. W ithin a few years she had become a naljorma, a female mystic. A lexandra perfected h er outward disguise as the pair moved along. She m ade braids out o f je t black yak’s hair and to match that color rubbed a wet stick of Chinese ink on her own brow n hair. She wore huge earrings in native style and pow dered h er face with cocoa and crushed charcoal to darken it; her hands she blackened with soot. T h e proficiency with make-up learned in h er operatic days helped gready. Equally im portant was the role she ought to play, and quickthinking Yongden devised one. W hen a group of pilgrims w ondered aloud if the silent old woman— transfixed by dazzling white peaks jutdng into a cobalt blue sky—were a pamo (a medium), he assured them that she was. Elaborating, he said his father had been a ngagspa (sorcerer), and therefore his old m other was a sang yum (literally “secret m other”), the spouse of a tantric lama. This instilled caution in the sim­ ple folk they had encountered. T he pilgrims dreaded to offend even the consort of a wizard, w hether he was living or dead. After offering m other and son tsampa and dried meat, they hurriedly went their way. T h e food was welcome, since the travelers carried only a small supply.

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Yongden! s strutting as a lam a skilled in the occult arts was bo u n d to cause complications. For a while the pair continued to avoid villages, skulking th ro u g h before dawn and concealing themselves at daybreak, watching the stream .o f pilgrims flow past. Yongden tried to cadge food, tea, and inform ation from these sojourners from eastern and n o rth e rn Tibet, and in re tu rn they often d em anded he perform Mo. This fortune-telling by m eans such as counting beads o r staring into a bowl of w ater had as its object anything from p re ­ dicting the future to discovering a lost domestic animal. It would have been unthinkable for a Red H at lama to refuse an honest entreaty an d besides, he was sure to reap a rew ard. Between m other a n d son positions were now reversed: he was courted for his knowl­ edge, while she dum bly scoured their pot or did some other chore. Ten days out, they reached the majestic Salween River, where they accepted a kind lam a’s hospitality for the night. T h e countryside in a u tu m n had an eternal springlike freshness. T hey w andered on the river bank u n d e r a w arm sun and the pebbles u n d e r their feet seem ed alive; m o th er an d son were strangely suffused with joy. They were en tering a mythical region called Pernako by the Tibetans. It was a sort of Prom ised L and, the subject of an old prophecy that predicted B uddhism would be persecuted in Tibet, b u t “h ere they would find a land good to live, their religion would revive and even­ tually spread th ro u g h o u t the w orld.” While the congruence o f the prophecy with actual events today is impressive, the Tibetans who relocated there in the nineteenth century did not find the territory—the lower Tsangpo Valley, on the frontier o f India w here Assam meets B urm a—terribly cordial. They often fought with the local tribes, and in 1910 they were caught in the path o f an invading, m arau d in g Chinese army. Colonel Eric Bailey, who en tered the region in 1913 to survey and m ap for the G overnm ent of India, com plained of leeches in the woods and indoors “every species of fly which bit or stung.” Yet A lexandra and Yongden spent a delightful few days loitering along the beautiful river valley. T h e travelers had left behind the pilgrim ro ute aro u n d Kha K arpo and need ed to invent a new excuse for their wandering. A m inor loss briefly shook their confidence. A lexandra carried a small compass that she took pains to conceal. After a night spent in

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a cave, she was putting on h e r overdress, which served as a blanket, w hen she discovered the in stru m en t was missing. If such a foreign object was found, it would give them away to officials who m ight h u n t them down. Frantic, the pair backtracked and finally located the compass, although A lexandra adm itted the m ishap set h e r h eart to pounding. Even their small tent could give them away. After ascending the Tondo-la (la m eans pass) at 11,200 feet and once again descending, the weary walkers pitched their tent by a stream. T hey d a re d to use it only u n d e r cover of darkness. In the m orning a large party o f pil­ grims overtook them and begged Yongden to tell their fortunes. O ne farm er w anted to know how his cattle were faring d u rin g his absence. M ore serious was the plight o f a young girl with sore feet who feared being abandoned on the trail. Such was the fate of those who failed to keep up on the arduous tram ps; they m ight fall victim to wolves or perish from starvation. Lam a Yongden was both compassionate and clever. H e slowly counted the beads on his rosary, tossed pebbles in the air, and con­ sulted the auguries. H e concluded that a wicked dem on had swelled the girl's legs and that it m ust be exorcised by stopping for three days at a chorten (a burial m o n u m en t containing a relic), which they would soon encounter. H ere the pilgrims were to observe a cerem ony that the lama explained in detail: these simple folk had to recite a spell th at en d ed in a bleat, “B haaah!” Yongden m ade them practice it m any times over until they got it right. At least the girl would enjoy a m uch-needed rest. T h e bum pkins, overaw ed by the lama, reluctantly allowed him to leave an d began to spread stories about his magical powers. At a nearby village, Yongden enthralled the whole population and the monks from the gom pa with tales of faraway places and his m aking of Mo. T h e peasants b ro u g h t him gifts, which he graciously accepted, while Alexandra, squatting in the dust, grew uneasy. She u ttered a pious expression that secretly m eant, “Let’s beat it!” Yongden had to su rre n d e r his newly won celebrity and a comfortable lodging to tram p off with his m other. T h e scolding she gave him m ade him sulky for days. However, it was next his tu rn to berate her for a potentially fatal misstep. T h e pair had stopped in m idm orning to boil tea beside a prim i­ tive aqueduct. A dozen villagers gathered to watch, w ondering who

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they were. Yongden, chewing on tsam pa, refused to utter a word. A lexandra grew flustered and hu rried ly washed the teapot. She for­ got that the water would reveal h e r white skin to the locals. Doubtless these folk had never seen a E uropean in the flesh, b ut they felt sure they were tallish dem ons with white eyes and gray hair. N othing could be m ore ugly or dangerous. T h e people o f T ibet were natural­ ly friendly and helpful to strangers, especially pilgrims, b u t they had been led to believe that all philings wished to destroy their religion. So it was no jok in g m atter w hen three soldiers jo in e d the crowd. T hey d e m an d ed to know w here the travelers were bound. Yongden calmly spoke up, saying that he and his m other had m ade a pilgrim age to Kha K arpo and were retu rn in g to their own country, Amdo. T hey loaded u p and started off on the road to Lhasa, leaving the villagers to argue about w hether they were or were not Mongols— half-wild savages b u t at least not philings. A lexandra b rea th e d a sigh of relief. M other and son tru d g e d on th ro u g h a cultivated, hilly landscape that was still green although it was nearly winter. T h e valleys of so u th ern T ibet are so favored climatically that they can grow a win­ ter crop. Food was for sale at the m onasteries, which often owned the land w orked by the farmers. But ironically, monks were m ore world­ ly th an the com m on folk, a n d they m ight recognize A lexandra as a philing. So the travelers would h u rry by the walls of a gom pa in the early m orning darkness and cam p in the woods; at dawn, Yongden would re tu rn for supplies and intelligence. In one instance, becom ­ ing hopelessly m u ddled in a pitch black night, they decided to lie down w here they found themselves, w ithout shelter or a fire. They slept painfully on rocks. T h e first rays of light revealed they were cam ped directly beneath the walls of a m onastery in which lodged an im portant official. While A lexandra scurried off to the nearest field, Yongden went in to barter. H e re tu rn e d loaded down like a mule, and they breakfasted luxuriously on b roth thickened with wheat flour an d then continued on to a pilgrim s’ camp. T h e good-hum ored folk came forward to be blessed, and A lexandra chatted with the w om en about h er yak-hair tent in the Koko N or region, h e r flock of sheep, and her favorite holidays. She was no longer a philing b u t a nom ad of the steppes, free as all h e r breed.

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Soon thereafter, A lexandra found an old fur-lined b o n n et on the trail. It was the sort w orn by the wom en of K ham and would both com plete her disguise and w arm h e r head on the cold heights rising betw een them and Lhasa. But Yongden w arned h er against touching it. Tibetans believe that to pick up a hat, although it falls off o n e’s own head, ensures bad luck. T h e Frenchw om an laughed an d stuck the greasy fur onto h e r pack. T h e ir luck did change, b u t for the better. A close e ncounter with a pombo, posted by Lhasa to g u ard the road and interrogate suspi­ cious characters, tu rn e d out well. Officials, soldiers, and m onks were all on the alert against foreigners. This pom bo carefully scrutinized Yongden b u t ignored his m other squatting in the dust, then gave the pilgrims a ru p ee as alms. A lexandra was so nervous she felt that needles were piercing h e r brain. She n e e d n ’t have worried, since her son’s twice-told tale was becom ing as polished as a jewel. C ongratulating themselves, the pair h u rrie d upw ard tow ard the n ex t pass, the To-la. At the gusty summ it, prayer flags flapping, they shouted to the ice-blue sky the traditional salutation:"L/za gyalo! De tamche pant! Victory to the Gods! T h e Demons are Vanquished!” Alexandra soon found herself a guest of ordinary Tibetans while posing as a beggar. Already she had adopted certain habits of the country, such as blowing her nose with her fingers, sitting calmly on a dirt floor spotted with grease and spit, or wiping her soiled hands on her dress. Now, however, she would face additional affronts to her ingrained sense of cleanliness, offered out of hospitality. She was to live as did the comm on folk and to converse with women in a way that had never been done by a European. At the hom e of a wealthy villager, she had to eat anything that came her way. It was unheard of for beggars to turn down food put into their bowls. Here, at least, the householder was too frugal to offer the Tibetan luxury she most dreaded: maggoty meat. T h e travelers gained valuable inform ation at this place. Later, David-Neel, when creating h e r own legend, claimed to despise poli­ tics and to carefully avoid any involvem ent in such m atters. In fact she was, and had to be, a shrew d political observer. H e r sympathies lay with the Panchen Lama, who had treated her kindly and whom she found m ore philosophical an d open-m inded than the T h irte e n th Dalai Lama. T h u s she seem ed ready to believe the worst o f the gov­ ern m en t at Lhasa.

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A lexandra listened attentively as the farm ers com plained of a rro g a n t officials sent from the capital and of taxes levied to pay for the new, m odernized army. She w ould be quick to inform h e r rea d ­ ers that the m en of the b o rd er regions were trusted only with old, o utm oded rifles. Some of them secretly p refe rre d the governance of the defunct M anchu Em pire, which had been distant and light. T he K ham pas particularly were in d ep e n d e n t to the point of anarchy, and it was for good reason A lexandra was able to im personate one. Well briefed on w here the pom bos held sway, the pilgrims tra m p ed on. Feeling confident, they sought out habitations w here the lama could tell fortunes or the m other beg from door to door. One housewife called them in for a meal and p o u red into their bowls curds and tsampa. A lexandra began to mix the two, forgetting h er fingers were d ark from wet ink recently applied to h e r hair: Black streaked the milky tsam pa.. As the good w om an drew near, A lexandra hastily swallowed the entire bowl of nasty tasting stuff. Still less appetizing was a m eal served by a p oor couple who ex ten d ed the hospitality of their hovel on a bitter night. T hese folks were no better off than beggars, so Yongden offered them the rupee given him by the generous pom bo, in o rd er to buy som ething decent to eat. T h e m an exited a n d trium phantly re tu rn e d with a parcel. By the em bers of the tiny fire, A lexandra m ade out a stomach. She knew that sewed up in the stomach were the kidneys, heart, liver, and entrails of the animal. T hese had b een decaying in there for weeks to create what Tibetans considered a delicacy. T h e housewife m ade a stew from this gelatinous horror, the children fell upo n the scraps, which they devoured raw, and then bowls of the foul soup were p re ­ sented to the guests. A lexandra had crawled into a corner, groaning. Yongden announced that his m other was ill, b ut beneath his b reath he m u ttered that she always escaped the worst of it. He bravely gulped a full portion of the nauseating liquid. Not surpris­ ingly, he too fell down sick. T h e family joyfully feasted on the rest, smacking their lips, while the n u m bed travelers drifted off to sleep. T h e pair had become true T ibetan wayfarers. If the trail led down and then up several thousand feet, it was gladly climbed. Officials delegated by Lhasa, each feeling obliged to dem onstrate his im portance, com bed the villages in o rd er to tax the inhabitants. T he two beggars dodged them or, half-smirking, pleaded for alms. They

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lingered along the Nu Valley, chatted with its farm ers, then struck o ut into unknow n, barely explored country. A utum n leaves tu rn e d gold and p u rp le were set off by the evergreens. Sometimes a fine snow sprinkled the grass to lay down a magical carpet. B ut this fairyland au ra could be shattered by the suspicious stare o f a nosy lama, or the w hispered ru m o r that philings had been seen in the neighborhood—usually taken to be Chinese. A lexandra an d Yong­ den reverted to nighttim e tram ps, once again fearful of discovery. T h e lack of privacy am ong hum ble Tibetans caused the retiring Frenchw om an problem s. Once so fastidious, a hot bath struck h e r as a m em ory from a form er life. Going to the toilet in front of others rem ained trying. Aside from em barrassm ent, she couldn’t afford to divulge the articles h idd en b eneath h e r volum inous dress. She had to com plete h e r arrangem ents in the early m orning darkness before their hosts stirred. She d arkened h e r face with soot from the bottom o f the cooking pot, then poked Yongden awake. T hey w ould position their heavy m oney belts containing silver coins—accepted currency— and, in A lexandra’s case, gold jew elry given to h e r by the late m aharaja of Sikkim. This h o a rd was sufficient to get them m u rd e re d m any times over. T hey tucked away compasses, watches, a n d maps, a n d finally they secured their pistols, always kept loaded. A lexandra w anted to carry a cam era in h e r pack, b u t it m eant a d d e d weight and if found would have m ade h e r position very precarious. She had been tu rn e d back earlier on that score, and therefore her precautions had become meticulous. She recorded every­ thing she did bring, never m entioning a camera. Most significant, th ere exist no photos of the four-m onth journey, an o p p ortunity for docum entation the traveler w ould have seized. T h e n what o f the var­ ious photos of Lhasa erroneously credited to A lexandra David-Neel? M ore on this later, although w hen she did pack a cam era, it was as likely to be up-to-date as h e r seven-shot autom atic pistol. At the house of a well-off farm er on the bank of the Salween, the usual difficulties were com p o u n d ed by his incredible stinginess. T h e m an, having lost a cow, d e m a n d e d that Yongden predict w here he should find her. After m uch hocus-pocus on the p a rt of the lam a— and to his astonishm ent—the cow tu rn e d up on schedule. T h e farm er was so im pressed that he insisted the lam a bless his household and every one of his cattle and pigs. Yongden had to read scripture and

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sprinkle holy water th ro u g h o u t the extensive stables. Finally, the travelers’ rew ard was served u p — a thin soup of dried nettles. T hen they were shown to their sleeping places on the dirt floor far from the fire. O u t of respect, the lam a was given a bit of ragged carpet on which to curl himself. Tibetans, except for the highest class, traditionally slept naked, curled up like a cat. O ften the peasants crawled into the same ver­ m inous sheepskins worn d u rin g the day. A lexandra watched as the daughters of the household perform ed this act, first stripping to the waist to reveal u p p e r arm s and breasts encrusted with dirt. But the weary pilgrims com forted themselves with thoughts of a warm breakfast n ex t m orning. It was the custom to rew ard a lama lavishly for m aking a successful prediction. At break of day the im posters had scarcely finished secreting their gear w hen the mistress appeared. She kindled the fire and p o u red into their unw ashed bowls the rem ains of last night’s greasy broth. To add insult to injury, the old m iser d e m an d ed an addi­ tional blessing from Yongden, who was obliged to grant it. Once on their way, the cheated lam a h u rle d a traditional curse at the farm ­ stead: “May the wool never grow on your sheep's backs, your cattle prove b arren , and your fruit trees be blighted!” M other and son bu rst o ut laughing, echoed by the babble of the Salween, which chim ed in, “Foreigners, you have m uch to learn about the L and of Snows.”

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“If you look at the m ap of the country n o rth of B u rm a,” wrote the British officer Eric Bailey in his No Passport to Tibet, “you will see a strange physical form ation. Following from n o rth to south are three enorm ous rivers, close to each other, the Yangtse, the M ekong and the Salween. . . . Now look at T ibet [i.e. to the west] a n d you will see a large river, the Tsangpo, flowing due east th ro u g h the southern and most populous parts of the country.” So m uch a te rra incognita was this land that geographers, knowing the Tsangpo originated in dis­ tant western Tibet a ro u n d M ount Kailas, were puzzled as to w here its waters eventually flowed. This and other geographical mysteries were finally solved by in trepid explorers such as Bailey, nearly all of whom were trespassers. T h e Tsangpo becomes, in the tangled m ountains of eastern Tibet, the B rahm aputra, which before it joins the Ganges to debouch into the Bay of Bengal, forms the he a rt and veins of present-day Bangladesh. Similarly, the Yangtse constitutes the m ain artery of China, while the Salween descends th ro u g h Y unnan a n d B urm a to the sea. T h e M ekong snakes down th ro u g h Vietnam to w iden into a m arshy delta no American o f o u r generation is likely to forget. While coursing th ro u g h the L and of Snows the rivers are m ore rapid and not so broad. Because they are older even than the Himalayas and rise in what Sven H edin d ubbed the Trans-Himalayas, d e e p e r into Tibet, the rivers have had to cut their ways th ro u g h the massive m ountains to the seas, creating steep, impressive gorges. Tibetans have devised a variety of hair-raising schemes to cross from one bank to the other.

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Bailey, who presently would act as host to a triu m p h a n t DavidNeel, told of crossing above a river in 1913 while tied to a sort of saddle that slid along two twisted bam boo strands. He did not care to rep eat the strange sensation. To cross the Mekong, Captain Kingdon W ard, a noted botanist, had to tackle a contraption similar to one that A lexandra described: kicking off on the higher bank and vaulting dow n a single bam boo rope to the lower bank. Descent was m erci­ fully rapid over the roaring torrent. O n calm er streams yak-hide coracles were used to float up to six passengers across. Impossible to steer, the craft m ight get swept away in the current. In the mid1950s, w hen the American missionary Robert Ekvall row ed a high lama across the angry Yellow River in his inflatable ru b b er boat, it caused a sensation. T h e rest of the am azed pilgrims headed for Lhasa were ferried by stages in a barge pulled by horses attached to ropes. This boxy contraption nearly tipped into the swift water. Typically, the pilgrims could not swim, trusting rath e r in prayer. To David-Neel m ust go the prize for the most frightening re p o rted transit of a T ibetan river. O n the way to the town o f Zogong, she and Yongden were overtaken by two lamas acting as couriers for the governor o f the M ekong district. T h e lamas grew suspicious, and so the pilgrims, after getting away, altered their route to traverse the sparsely populated country o f the Giamo N u River, the u p p e r course of the Salween. T hey reached the station on a glorious day, and because a lama and his followers also wished to cross, they found a ferrym an at this out-of-the-way spot. A lexandra was not p u t off by the sight of the narrow band of water at the bottom of the gorge, but the crossing device looked worrisome: a single, slack cable fastened to poles fixed at an equivalent height on either bank. A lexandra, still disguised as an elderly dam e, and a young Tibetan girl were uncerem oniously b o und together to a wooden hook m eant to glide along the leather cable. A push sent them swing­ ing into the void, dancing like p uppets on a string. Down they went to the m iddle of the sag, from w here ferrym en on the far bank jerk e d on a long tow rope to haul them in. It snapped, and the pair slid back to the dip. T h e ir lives were n ot in d an g er—unless one of them suc­ cum bed to giddiness and, letting go of the strap fixed u n d e r the hook, fell backward. In that case both would tum ble into the gorge. A lexandra, who boasted of nerves of steel, d idn’t waver, but her

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young com panion, tu rn in g pale, fixed h e r eyes above. She was sure the strap was coming loose. A lexandra could see nothing w rong with the knots, b u t the girl’s te rro r began to com m unicate itself. She p ro b ­ ably knew m ore about these contraptions th an did a philing. It seem ed a question of w hether the m en would rep a ir the tow rope before the knots unraveled. W hat a fine subject for a wager! A lexandra refused to countenance failure. Steadying the lass by telling h e r she had called on secret powers for their protection, she watched a w orkm an crawl o u t the cable, upside down, the way a fly walks on the ceiling. Finally, attached once again, the couple were hauled to safety, fearing the strap m ight come u n d o n e with each jerk. O n the far side, the ferrym en cursed the hysterical girl, and Yongden, cool as ever, d em a n d e d alms for his old m other, who had been frightened to death. In truth, the pilgrims were about to ex p e ­ rience an episode that would come close to killing them both. To reach the Po country, David-Neel had to choose betw een two roads. She had a sketched m ap of the first that clung to valleys and passed by villages and m onasteries. T ram ping th ro u g h inhabited places no longer troubled the pair, for as soon as they ap proached a settlem ent they began crying for alms. This helped to keep off the huge, fierce watchdogs and often led to a simple meal with hum ble folk and a b e rth in the corner. From m onasteries the beggars sometimes purchased such extravagances as molasses cakes, dried apricots, tea, and butter. Still, back in Jyekundo, G eneral Pereira had become excited about a large blank spot on the m ap o f southern Tibet. His rem ark that nobody had ever been there m eant, of course, no white person. T h e re were problem s with this route th ro u g h an u ncharted wilderness. Any travelers m et on the path were likely to be brigands setting o ut to rob in m ore settled country. T hey m ight m u rd e r witnesses to shut their m ouths. Worse, a high pass led into the long valley, then a nother out. If heavy snow fell after they m anaged to get in, and the second pass was blocked, the travelers would be tra p p e d to freeze or starve to death. A lexandra was draw n by the lure of the unknow n. B ut she also had a chance to make h e r m ark as an explorer. She struck o ut into the wilderness across an icy stream in w eather so cold that, w hen the

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ice splintered and she got h e r feet wet and dried them with her woolen skirt, the skirt stiffened and froze. T hey had been w arned in the last village to take am ple provisions, b u t due to the exactions of the local pom bo in his fort, the folk had nothing to spare. So to warm themselves, she and Yongden cooked a soup out o f a piece of dry, dirty bacon, a pinch of salt, and tsampa. H e r father’s dogs w ouldn’t have eaten such a dish, th o u g h t Alexandra, dow ning a second full bowl. U p they climbed until sunset in the face o f a sharp wind. They found shelter for the night in an a b andoned herd sm an ’s camp. It had a roof, a h earth, and plenty of d u n g to b u rn , and the weary pair th o u g h t of it as paradise. T hey faced m ore climbing the n ext day. O n the lookout for a latsa— the jum ble of prayer flags that m arks the sum m it of a pass— they stum bled over a high ridge w ithout finding one. Instead, a vast landscape, previously h id d en from view, revealed itself to them . It was an imm ensity of snow limited at a far distance by a wall of shiny snow-clad peaks. T h e valley before them ascended gently until it reached the sum m its on the skyline. For once A lexandra was struck dum b by the overpow ering spectacle. Behind this m agnificent veil, she felt sure, was the Suprem e Face before which one could only b end one’s knee. T h e trail was obscured by snow, and the pair did n ’t know which way to tu rn . It was three in the afternoon, and to miss the path m eant being caught on the heights th ro u g h the night. A lexandra, quite in character, decided to go straight ahead. Fortunately, h er bag was light, b u t Yongden was weighted down by carrying the tent an d pegs. She forged ahead quickly th ro u g h knee-deep snow, goaded by worry, then w ondered if the lad h ad fallen behind. She glanced back. Yongden, far below, am idst the white immensity, ap p eared as a small black spot, like a tiny insect that seem ed to be crawling up the slope. A lexandra felt the disproportion betw een the giant glacier range and the two puny travelers who had pitted themselves against it. She und ersto o d the m eaning of “compassion” as it welled up in h er h e a rt for h e r com panion o f so m any adventures. She had to win th ro u g h to Lhasa—if only to save the lad whose loyalty to h e r never wavered. A lexandra plowed upw ard and, where the snow ap peared too deep to walk, used h e r long staff as a pogo stick. In waning light, she

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discovered a white m o und with a few branches p ro tru d in g , and from them h u n g icecovered scraps—the latsa at the top of the pass. She waved to Yongden who slowly jo in e d her. As she glanced ro u n d , in a stupor caused by weariness, the m oon rose. Its silvery light fell on the glaciers and high peaks a n d unknow n valleys th ro u g h which they had to proceed. T h e pilgrims blessed this land of icy giants and every little unseen creature in it. T h e n they descended from the nineteen thousand foot Deo-la, h oping to come u p o n shelter a n d fuel. By m oonlight they tru d g e d th ro u g h an eerily beautiful valley bisected by a frozen river, winds w hipping them . To stop m eant death. T h e pair had been tram ping for nineteen hours straight with nothing to eat, w hen at two in the m orning they halted. Lung-gom (trance walking) had automatically taken over w here even the strongest determ ination faltered. B ut here they found cow d u n g at a cam ping place near the stream. Once stopped, it was vital to start a fire at once. Fuel wasn’t enough; the flint and steel on which they d ep e n d ed were soaked through. Yongden suggested that his m other perform tumo—the practice o f in n er fire—while he m oved a ro u n d to keep warm. A lexandra felt she was out of practice in this occult art. But now was the time to rem em ber the teachings o f the G om chen of Lachen. She sent Yongden to collect cow droppings, and then, tucking flint and steel and a pinch of moss beneath h e r dress, she sat down to begin. She drifted into a trance d u rin g which h e r m ind rem ained concentrated. Im agined flames rose a ro u n d her, crackling, growing hig h er till they enveloped her, curling above h e r head. T h e loud rep o rt of ice cracking in the river startled A lexandra awake. T h e vision of flames subsided and she felt the cold wind against h er heated body. H e r fingers were like live coals. Confident, she struck steel against stone. Sparks leaped onto dry grass, spread to a hearty blaze. W hen Yongden re tu rn e d he was amazed, not least by his m o th e r’s fiery face and glowing eyes. Although they enjoyed their fire, she feared h er health m ight be affected. B ut the touch of the m orning sun on the little ten t roused the pair from a refreshing sleep. A lexandra never felt better. At times, the travelers h ad been suspected by the populace, but m ore usually were helped. Tibetans tried to im prove their karm a by giving aid to pilgrims b o u n d for holy places. However, the few

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poverty stricken h erdsm en that they encountered wintering in the valley betw een the two high passes were dow nright rude. They learned that the Aigni-la to the Po country might still be open if they h u rried . Yongden, glib as Ulysses, had a religious talk with one of the dokpas an d not only persu ad ed him to guide them to the sum m it of the pass b u t to bring a horse for his aged mother. T hey accom panied the cowboy to his camp w here they were lodged in the c h ie f’s own dwelling: dark, smoky, the dirt floor spotted with spittle. W hen Yongden stepped out to beg for alms, the hospitality included an attem pt to rob his poor mother. T hese bum pkins th o u g h t of banditry as good clean fun. T h e sham e fell on the victim for n ot defending his property. In this case, A lexandra was curled up before the hearth, p reten d in g to sleep b u t keeping an eye open to gu ard their packs. T h e chief, who had become curious, was on the point of setting u p o n A lexandra’s bundle; she rolled a round, calling on h e r son in h e r supposed sleep. U p she p opped, claiming the lama had w arned h e r from afar to awaken. Yongden re tu rn e d and imm ediately fell in with the game. T h e superstitious dokpas were frightened an d behaved themselves. T hey all dined on b roth m ade from yak’s innards, and Alexandra gulped three bowls of.it. She was distressed by talk of philings at the Kha Karpo. H ad these rustics h eard about them , or was the story sev­ eral years old? In T ibet there was no knowing. News m ight travel with surprising swiftness from village to village via “yak telegraph,” or it m ight linger in some out-of-the-way camp, being savored like ripe cheese. N ext m orning the travelers were glad to get going, and the guide proved tru e to his word. At the latsa that m arked the Aigni-la, Yongden offered the dokpa a few coins, b u t he w anted only a blessing. Money he would spend b u t m erit he could save up toward his n e x t lifetime. T h e pilgrims stood at the sum m it of the first and only pass they attained w ithout the usual h a rd climbing. B ut u n d e r a lowering sky, both were filled with foreboding. T h e herdsm en had been concerned about the grazing come spring. T h e g ro u n d held insufficient m oisture to grow healthy grass. To gain their goodwill, Yongden prom ised them snow if they would perform a simple rite, b u t only after he an d his m other passed over the Aigni-la. Now the pair w ondered if the dokpas had b egun to pray too soon.

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T h e air was laden with hum idity as the travelers descended across b a rre n pastures to a m arshy stream. A lexandra realized she had discovered one of the springs o f the Po Tsangpo, a tributary of the river that flowed placidly to the south of Lhasa. Despite h e r dis­ trust of maps, she assum ed the role of explorer, hoping to tru m p the professionals at their game. A lthough low on food, A lexandra was determ ined to range farther in search of additional feeder springs. So she led the way forw ard into the u p p e r valleys. In the evening snow began to fall lightly, drifting am ong black trees. It grew heavier, blocking the peaks and valleys from view, and the neophyte explorers pitched their tent in the form o f a shelter sloping against a rock, boiled tea, and went to sleep. A lexandra was awakened by a sense of painful oppression. She instantly realized they were being buried alive u n d e r an avalanche o f snow. T h e pair stayed calm, tu rn e d on their stomachs, and, heaving upw ard, broke free. T hey had to tram p the rest of the night, since a n o th e r shelter m ight be similarly sm othered. At noon the following day they discovered an e a rth e n cave w here they holed up, sleeping until the following dawn. Still the huge, wet flakes came down. U n d a u n te d , the a d v e n tu re r strode out on the w hitened terrain. Yongden, trailing b ehind, m istook snow for solid g ro u n d and p lung ed into a ravine. His frightened com panion found him lying on the snow stained by spots of blood. T h e blood only from bruises, b u t the lad had badly sprained his ankle. A lexandra, m ore upset th an h e r son, insisted on carrying him. B ut she lacked the strength to p o rt him over deep snow rid d led with pit­ falls. So the pair, Yongden leaning on h e r arm , crep t for h ours back to the cave. In the m orning, A lexandra woke to the sight of Yongden, using his staff as a crutch, attem pting to walk. His foot was swollen out of shape and could bear no weight. W hat was to be done? T u rn in g back was impossible, and so the m o th er wished to h u rry to the nearest vil­ lage for help. But this would be Po country, and the Popa inhabitants were famous as bandits, even cannibals. Leaving Yongden alone in the cave was dangerous. At night wolves, bears, o r a leopard m ight attack him. Staying p u t m eant starvation. A lexandra, deciding to take action, plunged into the snow in search of a dokpas’ camp. She walked the whole day u n d e r falling

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flakes w ithout m eeting a soul. She started back with cow chips from an a b andoned hut, w rapping them in h e r u p p e r dress. H er Chinese u n d erd ress becam e soaked, a n d the bitter wind tu rn e d it to ice. N ight fell and she couldn’t find the cave. She had an urge to cry out in the darkness b u t suppressed it for fear that, if she heard no answer, she w ould go m ad. Finally, a glim m er of light higher up showed the way, a n d at last she was reunited with Yongden, who was half dead from fright. A bowl of hot water and tea dust cheered them , and the lama h oped he would be able to walk tomorrow. If not, A lexandra m ust abandon him and save herself. W hat h ap p e n ed to him had been no accident b u t the result of his previous deeds. Pondering karm a, the pair slept soundly as the snow continued to fall until it had done so for sixty-five hours straight. N ext day they struggled th ro u g h knee-deep drifts. A lexandra had fixed h e r son a primitive crutch from a stout branch and an em pty provision bag for padding. W ith the w eather clearing and Yongden hobbling along, she was able to enjoy fine Alpine scenery and the prodigious stillness of the strange white land. B ut h e r right big toe was peeping forth from its boot, and as the tear grew, h e r foot began to freeze from the fresh snow. T hey saw no signs of people or cattle o r shelter. Darkness came and with it snow once again. T hey couldn’t take a n o th er night in the open. But the pilgrim s’ luck— or karm a—was not all bad. Ahead, A lexandra b u m p ed into a fence. She grabbed it, afraid it was illusory. She had stum bled on a herd sm an ’s sum m er camp, complete with a snug cabin and firewood and dry d u n g u n d e r the shed. By the time Yongden came up, A lexandra had a fire ro a r­ ing in the h e a rth an d was p re p a rin g dinner: boiled water sprinkled with tsampa. T h e m ere w arm th was m ore pleasing to h er than had been d in n e r at the poshest restau ran t in the old days in Paris. T h e travelers stayed on for a lazy, h u ngry day in the cabin. Yongden patched his m o th e r’s boots, and they dined on tea dust. N ext day they started before dawn u n d e r snowy skies th ro u g h a holly and oak forest of the sort pictured on greeting cards. It was Christmas Eve, and A lexandra broke off a small branch of berries, m eaning it for an unidentifed friend in Europe. In this m an n er she reassured herself that the w eakening pair would live to present it one

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day. Ironically, by the time they re tu rn e d to France the in tended recipient had died. About noon, when the travelers realized they had taken the w rong path, their chances looked grim. T hey retraced their steps to the camp, boiled snow, and d ran k the water. Yongden went to scout, while his m other reflected how h e r E uropean acquaintances, in her place, would surely give themselves up for lost, blam e each other, and curse fate. A snatch of B uddhist verse came to m ind: “H appy indeed we live/am ong the anxious, u n a n x io u s.” B ut w hen Y ongden retu rn e d , she saw that he looked pale, fever glowing in his eyes. T h a t night was a trial. By the dim light of embers, A lexandra awoke to see the lama tottering toward the door. H e m um bled that the snow was piling up and would bury them ; they had to start right away. B urning with fever, Yongden lunged for the door, showing white drifts against the blackness. H e begged h e r to come o ut into the falling snow. A lexandra shoved him inside and wrestled him down. While he fought, she recalled that the clearing outside ended abrupdy in a precipice a few feet away. She tossed an arm ful of branches on the fire and the sudden flare of light startled the young m an to his senses. H e ceased to resist h e r efforts to m ake him lie down. Dozing with an eye open, A lexandra spent the night watching over h er son. Christmas m orning the pilgrims arose with h u n g e r gnawing at their bellies. Yongden looked sane, b u t when he said that he was a m ountain god bearing a gift, his m other w ondered. Prom ptly the lam a produced a bit o f bacon fat h e ’d em ployed to w aterproof their yak-hide boots, and some leftover leather from the soling. Into a pot of boiling water went the goodies, and they d rank a beggar’s feast. T h e day was auspicious, one on which they were to m eet their first Popa. As they proceeded, the Popa em erged from a cabin and invited the travelers to warm themselves. Inside they found a dozen m en seated a ro u n d a fire—burly fellows with free-flowing hair and M ongol features. T hey questioned Yongden, who adm itted that he and his m other had crossed the Aigni-la. T h e m en thought the pair h ad come this m om ent across the snow-blocked pass. T hey m ust have flown over it! T h e Popas immediately dem an d ed that Yongden fore­ tell the answer to a b u rn in g question. T hey were in rebellion against the pom bo representing Lhasa, who had sent to the capital for

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reinforcem ents. In turn, the rebels h ad dispatched a band to inter­ cept the courier, and now they w anted to know how it would tu rn out. T h e lama stalled, knowing the ruffians would treat a false p ro p h e t summarily. A lexandra m u ttered from a corner that all would end well. Yongden went th ro u g h the story of his m other being the consort of a sorcerer. T h e Popas plied their guests with bu ttered tea, then slunk out, afraid o f such powerful magicians. A lexandra and Yongden slept well an d in the m orning tram p ed on to Cholog. Soon the whole vil­ lage g athered a ro u n d the magical beggars who had flown over the Aigni-la. T hese were presented with a true miracle— a thick tu rnip soup. T h e two gulped down bowlfuls to break a week’s fast. At dusk, as A lexandra and Yongden reached the outskirts o f a village, farm ers fled from them , w arning their neighbors that pil­ grims were approaching. Every house was barred, and at a p ro sp e r­ ous dwelling they were attacked by furious mastiffs. J. H anbury Tracy, an Englishm an who m ap p ed the Po in the mid-1950s, described these hairy beasts, each weighing up to 150 pounds, as being “the size of a small pony” and having “a crusty disposition.” H einrich H a rre r rem arked that “their usual diet o f milk and calves’ flesh gives them enorm ous stren g th .” He fought a struggle to the death with an u n fortu nate mastiff that attacked him. A lexandra defeated these yapping beasts by raining blows on their muzzles with her staff and jabbing them with its iron spike. But at this village the pilgrims received neither alms n o r a spot by the hearth. After crossing a dense forest, the pair arrived at Sung Dzong. Originally dzong m eant “fortress,” b u t by David-Neel’s day a dzong included any dwelling on a height that housed an official. A lthough the town was at the ju nction of two rivers and im portant to the Po country, it h a d n ’t appeared on h e r m ap. She regretted that her disguise, and the need to be vigilant, prevented h e r from doing any serious m apm aking. She claimed that the discovery of scientific instrum ents in h e r pack could have doom ed h er and Yongden. However, the Indian pundits of a previous generation, who entered T ibet by stealth, had carried simple concealed implements for determ ining distances. A lexandra’s therm om eter, if boiled in water—the m ethod is described by Bailey—could have indicated approxim ate altitudes from sea level. Rather, the itinerant preferred

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to rem ain wholly in the role she had chosen, to become— not merely act— the m endicant pilgrim. In that way the philing disappeared, m ost of all to herself. In the last instance, w hen m enaced by d e sp er­ ate characters, A lexandra had to be willing to employ the ultim ate W estern tool, h e r revolver. T h e Popas hated the Chinese for devastating their towns and countryside d u rin g the invasion of 1910-1911, w hen the invaders also m u rd e re d their king, whose two wives m anaged to flee with their offspring. This scorched-earth warfare had fu rth e r im poverished an already primitive district. B ut still the region celebrated the New Year in mid-January, which was according to the Chinese calendar. O n this day the pilgrims passed an isolated farm house, a n d from it em erged a n u m b er of dru n k en , raucous m en, guns slung across their shoulders. T h e m en shouted b u t the pilgrims continued on their way, seek­ ing out a cozy cave to bed down. In the m orning, a Popa showed up and quickly grew fascinated by their two cheap foreign spoons. To be rid of him, Yongden asked if he had any local cheese to exchange for sewing needles—a kind o f currency. H e did and would bring a sample right back. Instead the m an fetched one of his cohorts, a bold rascal who first fingered and adm ired their tent, then seized the spoons. T h e o ther grabbed the tent, while both cast im patient glances tow ard the farm, as if expecting the rest of their gang. If the Popas found out what these supposedly poor pilgrims carried, including gold and silver, they would m u rd e r them . A lexandra w arned the robbers to let go of h e r property. T hey laughed in h e r face, tu rn in g to pillage the packs. T h e old m other pulled out h e r autom atic and coolly grazed one fellow’s scalp. Flinging the stolen goods on the ground, the pair took off like scared rabbits. Probably a battle was about to be joined, b ut luckily a b a n d of thirty pilgrims arrived. T hey were from the N u Valley an d had already been attacked by, and fought off, Popas. But their monks, who did the fighting, were arm ed only with swords and spears. T hey were delighted to m eet com panions with guns and d e m a n d e d to see the marvels. Yongden showed them his old revolver, claiming that he had fired the shot. A lexandra was pleased to have the pilgrims hail her son as a hero, because an autom atic pistol wielded by a wom an spelled philing, if not dem on.

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T hese people were friendly and A lexandra enjoyed their com pa­ ny for a few days. T h e n she let them race ahead, while she p referred to revel in the mild winter climate and to loiter am id spectacular scenery an d lush vegetation, including orchids. K ingdon W ard com ­ m ented on the “m any kinds of small gro u n d orchids, some of them deliciously scented” that he found in southern Tibet. This was the land of p u rp le iris, yellow prim rose, and the blue poppy. T h e Frenchw om an felt the peculiar psychic atm osphere of the hidden val­ leys of the Po country where snow-clad peaks tow ered over waving fields of barley; the yogi in h e r divined a long-lost time, a paradise of youth an d simplicity. Edwin B ernbaum , writing of Shambala, on which Jam es Hilton based his Shangri-La, and which is myth for some and reality to others, rem arks: It will look like other valleys, with the same sort of trees, meadows, and streams, but a person with a heightened sensitivity will feel something in the atmosphere, a sense of greater space or freedom, which will affect him in a deep and powerful way. In addition to obtaining food and shelter there without effort, he will also find various spiritual treasures, such as sacred images and mystical texts. A special eye or awareness is need ed to see Shambala, which as B ernbaum points out ultimately lies within the he a rt and m ind of the yogi. T h a t A lexandra found contentm ent and renewal in a land peo­ pled by robbers and cannibals tells us m ore about h e r than about the Po. This pilgrim , though on the path, was neither saint n o r Buddha. A b rie f stay in a h u t with a simple couple touched A lexandra s heart. T hey h ad invited the pilgrims to share their m eager hospital­ ity. Aging, plain, the two were as ten d e r toward each other as first lovers. T h e m an h a d a goiter on his neck—com m on am ong Popas— and the w om an was w rinkled with a wen on hers. Once considered a beauty, she had been the mistress of a rich m erchant until she ran off with h e r Romeo. Now the penniless pair lived en famille with a cow, her suckling calf, and a litter of baby black pigs who m an u red the floor. T h e lovers had no regrets and, rare for Tibet, d idn’t desire chil­ dren, so w rapped u p were they in each other. T hey shared turnip soup with their guests and gave them tsam pa for the road. D uring the night, Yongden p u t a few rupees in a pot on a shelf. T h e snoring

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lovers, when they found the money, would think the gods had left it there. Alexandra started before daw n to tram p to Showa, the Popa cap­ ital. H ere she reverted to form , begging loudly at the gate of the Po king’s dwelling. In those days each of the b o rd e r regions of T ibet was a sem i-independent principality. This king was then in Lhasa but would eventually fall out with the central governm ent. A chief of brigands, he would be defeated by the Dalai L am a’s new arm y and die w andering in the m ountains. His stewards heap ed the lusty beg­ gars with b u tte r an d eggs to get rid of them . O ne last m ajor h u rd le stood betw een the interlopers an d their goal: a toll bridge across a gorge at Tongyuk, w here a dzong was placed to watch over travelers proceeding toward the capital. A bridge-keeper controlled a gate, and as the pilgrims knocked on it, he set it slightly ajar to reg ard them . T hey pounced with the eager­ ness o f cats on a mouse. T hey d em anded to know the w hereabouts o f the large party of their friends from the Nu. T h e keeper said they’d passed th ro u g h in the m orning. W hat, had not the m onks left a bag of d ried m eat for them ? No! B ut that was not like them . H ad not he, the keeper, stolen their meat? O n they went in this vein until the keeper, forgetting they n eed ed perm ission from the pom po in the fort to pass, waved them ahead. H e was glad to be rid o f such pests, while A lexandra silently gave thanks to h er friends the pilgrims who had proved useful on several occasions. Crossing forest country containing scattered villages, staying out of sight by day, the travelers supposed their jo u rn e y would surely succeed. T hey em erged on a stretch of land partly cultivated and partly pasture, which m ade A lexandra homesick for the French Alps. O ne evening, while Alexandra toyed with the idea of exploring to the n o rth, a simply dressed lama ap p e are d at their camp. H e wore a rosary m ade from h u m an bone and carried a staff su rm o u n ted by a trident. H e sat down and stared h a rd at A lexandra. T h e m an, who carried no provisions, not even a bag of tsampa, m ade h e r nervous. H e produced a skull fashioned into a bowl and took tea. “Jetsunma” he dem anded, “why have you rem oved your rosary and your rings of the initiate? W hom do you expect to fool?” Yongden began to spin a tale, b u t the tantric wizard o rd e re d him

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away. A lexandra u n derstood that deception was useless. T h e lama knew her, she could not say from where. “You cannot guess, J e tsu n m a,” he half-teased, reading h e r thoughts. “I am not who you think and I am anyone you wish.” As the pair settled down into a long conversation about B uddhist philosophy and Tibetan mysticism, the ideas of the lama, his phrases, and finally his features, began to rem ind h e r of Sidkeong, h er m u r­ dered prince. T h e n in a m om ent the lama vanished into the woods, as mysteriously as h e ’d appeared. A lexandra reassured herself that the wizard—or was it a genie?—m eant h e r well. H e had come to give his blessing to h e r jo u rn e y to Lhasa. O ne day in February 1924, four m onths after starting from Yunnan, the sojourners crossed into Lhasa territory. H ere, the year before, G eneral Pereira had been greeted by officials bearing cakes and peaches. Even poor exhausted M ontgom ery McGovern, dressed as a porter, “ran into a swarm of beggars, who followed o u r party for m ore th an a mile, gesticulating and clam oring for alms.” But no one took notice of this pair of dusty, weary pilgrims, no different from scores o f others come for the New Year festivities. A lexandra, giddy with excitem ent, spotted the golden roofs of the Potala palace. T h e sun striking them caused the roofs to glow brilliantly against the deep blue sky. T h e Potala seem ed to crown the whole o f Tibet. W ith a suddenness peculiar to the roof of the world, a storm arose, lifting clouds o f dust high into the sky. T h e palace was obscured, the trespassers hidden from any prying eyes. A lexandra in te rp re ted this om en to be good and helpful, since the plain usually teem ed with life. She assured herself that none of the inhabitants of the city d ream ed it was about to be invaded by a foreign woman! Equally m iraculous, as the p air e n te re d the precincts, u nsure where to find lodging d u rin g the crow ded holiday season, a young wom an approached. She offered them a narrow cell in a beggar’s hostel. Rem ote from the center of town,) it would make a perfect hideout. It even provided a fine view of the Potala. Once inside, Yongden d ared to declaim—in whispered tri­ um p h —Lha gyalo! T h e gods win!” T h e pilgrims had arrived at holy Lhasa.

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In 1949 the American Lowell Thom as, Sr.—broadcast m edia’s original anchorm an, although he rarely stayed in one place for long—and his son Lowell T hom as, Jr., were invited by the youthful Fourteenth Dalai Lama, or really his Regent and the Kashag (Council of Ministers), to visit his capitol. T h e sp u r was fear of M ao’s Red China, victorious over Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and massing an arm y of invasion on the vulnerable Sino-Tibetan border. T hom as was gran ted this unusual privilege because no o ther newscaster of the time had so wide an audience and was so personally familiar with im p o rtan t governm ent figures. If help was to be e xtended to Tibet, w hether diplom atic or military, it m ust come from the dom inant W estern power, the U nited States. Fortunately, both father a n d son were hardy, adventurous types, used to life in the outdoors. T h e Sacred Realm rem ained nearly as closed as ever. “T h e peaks are o u r sentinels,” runs an old T ibetan saying. Reaching Lhasa twenty-five years after A lexandra David-Neel m ade h e r heroic effort had become only slightly easier. T h e m eans of travel had not changed in h u n d red s of years: horse, m ule, o r foot, or camel from Mongolia. “Tibetans absolutely forbid travel by air, by car, or even by carriage or cart,” wrote the younger Lowell in the engag­ ing account of his jo u rn e y to Lhasa, Out of This World. Since Radio Peking h ad b egun to call for the “liberation” of Tibet, the two Americans had to start from Calcutta in July, in the m idst o f the difficult rainy season. Once inside the Sikkimese frontier, the expedition was halted by a giant landslide: “an im m ense wall o f rock, dirt and stripped tree

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trunks . . . T h e whole side of a m ountain h ad collapsed u n d e r the m onsoon rains.” T h e Thom ases overcam e this difficulty and others ranging from obdurate mules to leeches that attacked their coolies’ bare legs to the serious dan g er o f sodden, crum bly piountain trails. Up the forested slopes of the Himalayas they climbed, hoping to make it from G angtok to Lhasa in the usual three weeks. T hey crossed the T ibetan b o rd e r— n ear w here A lexandra had caught her first glimpse of the Forbidden L and— at 14,800 feet u n d e r a yak-hair rope fastened to two boulders and festooned with h u n d red s of flap­ ping p rayer flags. T hey frightened off three bushy-tailed wild yaks. Despite the biting cold of the plateau, incessant rains worked through the T hom ases’ ru b b er suits. In a pine forest they m et their first inhabitant: a huge white m onkey with a long tail and black face. T ibetan m yth holds that hum ans are descended from m onkey ancestors. T h e natives will not h arm these or other of the photogenic creatures inhabiting this land of strange, m agnificent scenery. H ere A lexandra learned to adm ire the m any-faceted yak, the sure-footed blue sheep of the peaks, and the furry black-and-white p a n d a of the eastern m ountains. H ere she befriended the bear, the wolf, and searched for the elusive snow leopard. T h e re is one end to all journeys in Tibet. Lowell, Jr. wrote, “Late that evening . . . we suddenly caught a glimpse of o u r goal— Lhasa, far off, u n d e r a range of dark m ountains— sparkling in the sunset; and the Potala, standing out above the city, its golden roofs beckon­ ing like a far-off beacon.” M ontgom ery McGovern, the British p ro ­ fessor disguised as a m ule driver, wrote of “a great and sudden thrill” on sighting the Potala: “I knew that on the o ther side of the hill on which the palace was perch ed lay Lhasa, the abode o f the gods.” Heinrich H a rre r and his com panion, after a grueling jo u rn e y through w estern Tibet, entirely u n su re of the reception they would receive, wrote that w hen they sighted the Potala, “We felt inclined to go down on o u r knees like the pilgrims and touch the g ro u n d with our foreheads.” In one way or another, all three parties would receive a royal wel­ come—M cGovern clandestinely, H a rre r in time, and the Thom ases with full pom p a n d ceremony. David-Neel, the only B uddhist am ong the lot, was the least welcome. Yet she was delighted to have arrived during Monlam, the great festival to celebrate the New Year, and she

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was determ ined to keep herself incognito and to enjoy herself to the full. T h e first of h e r sex to crash the gates of the forbidden city, she would see everything beautiful, unique, or holy. W hat did this so-called “Rome of the Lamaist w orld” look like? Lhasa, attractive or repellent, was very m uch in the eye of the beholder. At times o th er than the New Year, when its population swelled, Lhasa was a small city of some twenty thousand people, located near the bank o f the river Kyi (tributary to the Tsangpo) in a large valley with an impressive horizon o f stark m ountain ranges. A hill to either side m arked the town’s extent, and on the smaller, m ore pointed one was situated the medical college, while stem m ing from the other, su rro u n d e d by its own little village, rose the m agnificent Potala. However, Lhasa, a collection of flat-roofed, whitewashed houses of sun-dried brick, revolved a ro u n d the J o k h a n g tem ple, the St. Peter’s of T ibetan B uddhism . T h e tem ple existed before the town, which, in a way, constituted its outbuildings. T h e m arket ran right a ro u n d the Jokhang, along the avenue known as the Barkhor, and twice daily each pilgrim would circum am bulate this Holy of Holies. A lexandra decided to visit the Potala first. She adm itted its im posing appearance b u t sincerely felt th at its architects had expressed power an d wealth rath e r than beauty. O n the o ther hand, McGovern, w hen he finally came to face the Potala, “halted almost dum bfounded by its splendor. . . . [I]t possesses a simplicity and yet a stateliness o f style that cannot b u t impress even the most sophisticated.” A lexandra, who was disguised as a dokpa, a nom adic herder, w anted to en ter the Potala in a group o f similar folk. She sent Yongden to inform a couple of simple lads from the bord erlan d that they were to have the h o n o r of “m eeting” (a Tibetanism) the Potala. T hey replied they had m et it already a n d were headed for a chang house before setting out for hom e. Yongden, with an air of compassion, b ru sh ed aside their objections and offered to take them on a tour, explaining to them the names and m eanings of the m yriad deities. Surely that was preferable to getting drunk? Fortunately, the pair tu rn e d out to be as religious m inded as most Tibetans. Curiosity drew A lexandra to the Potala. She still did not approve of the worship of graven images, n o r giving fees to priests for o p e n ­

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ing doors to chapels and sprinkling a few grains of tsam pa on the altars. Yet she followed the three m en inside, head lowered and eyes cast down, as she p re p a re d to tour the huge complex, which is a cluster of buildings that then included tombs, temples, and chapels, reception an d cerem onial room s, schools, and offices. T h e do o r­ keeper, a gnom ish boy in an ill-fitting robe, insisted that she rem ove h er b o n n e t from Kham. This was a calamity. At the room ing house every act was public, and since A lexandra couldn’t ink h er hair, it had resum ed its n atural brow n shade. Worse, it looked incongrous next to the braids of black yak’s hair grown thin as rats’ tails. Ju s t such a nonsensical accident— the barking of a pet dog—had caused the unm asking of M cGovern the year before. An infuriated A lexandra had to tru d g e th ro u g h the Dalai L am a’s palace feeling like a clown. Luckily the other pilgrims ignored her, and she becam e absorbed in the labyrinth of corridors and galleries and especially in the life-sized m urals that depicted the legends of gods and the lives of saints. In the shrine rooms were e n th ro n ed statues of the m any deities of M ahayana B uddhism , bedecked with gold ornam ents and inlaid with coral, turquoise, and precious stones, before them sm oldering solid gold bu tter lamps. If these houses of the gods were bright with the glow of lamps and festooned with silken banners in white, green, red, blue, and yellow— the five mystic colors—A lexandra could also veer off to investigate d a rk e r recesses w here she found altars to the gods and dem ons of pre-B uddhist times, figures from what R.A. Stein has aptly term ed “the nameless religion,’’folkloric and magical. As the pagan gods had fought the introduction of Christianity to Rome, so the ear­ lier deities battled against the B uddhist missionaries from India bearing new teachings. Sham ans cast spells against the converts, until they themselves were subdued a n d converted by the superior magic of the holy m en. T h e n the old gods were adopted into the Tibetan Buddhist p a n th e o n o f benevolent forces. Far worse beings, hideously m alevolent b u t invisible, were sup­ posedly kept chained by the pow er of magic charm s in special build­ ings. T hey were fed symbolic sacrificial offerings and watched with great care lest they escape and devour humanity. W hen w riting about her jo u rn e y to Lhasa, A lexandra distanced herself from what she term ed the superstitious beliefs of the people; and she was troubled

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by the awe dem onstrated by the h o rd e o f pilgrims before the huge golden statues of d e p a rte d Dalai Lamas. T hese were not the teach­ ings o f Gautam a B uddha, she claimed. Bowing down to idols could not break the karmic chain of births and deaths. L ater on she would mellow tow ard the magic and mystery of a folk that m ight possess knowledge o ther than the rational. Once atop the palace—which, including its m ount, reaches to two-thirds the height of New York’s E m pire State Building— A lexandra took in the dom ain before her. Wisps o f smoke rose from huge o u tdoor incense burners. Colored p a p e r dragons sent up from rooftops danced in the crisp air. T h e triu m p h a n t traveler exulted in the pan o ram a o f Lhasa, its tem ples and m onasteries, which she im ag­ ined to be a carpet rolled out at h e r feet. Scattered am ong the sur­ ro u n d in g m ountains were what ap p eared to be toy m onasteries, some clinging to rock cliffs like eagles’ nests. T h e two peasant lads were anxious to depart, a n d so the old m other trailed after them , rem in d ed that h er stay w ould be limited. A lexandra found this capital to be a lively place inhabited by jolly folk who loved to loiter an d chat outdoors. She described the streets as large, the squares as b road a n d on the whole ra th e r clean. This conflicts with the accounts of certain o th er W esterners. Millington Powell, who went with the Y ounghusband expedition, portrayed Lhasa as “filthy beyond description, u n d ra in e d and u n p a v e d .” It m ust have been “the scene o f u n n a tu ra l piety and crim e.” To Spencer C hapm an, who arrived with a British diplom atic mission in 1936, everything seem ed “m ean and gloomy . . . repellent an d sinister.” T h e Lowell Thom ases were far m ore relaxed about their adventure, and so was H u g h Richardson, who also accom panied the 1936 mis­ sion. H e has written to us: “T h e re was one terrible street near the public latrine but the m ain square was bro ad and quite well kept. I never found Lhasa either gloomy or sinister and for m ost o f the year the intensely dry air kept dow n smells.” T h e appeal of Lhasa was also in the nose o f the beholder! A lexandra w ent often to the Jokhang, w andering from the cathedral to the shops that fairly ring it. T h e Lhasans were and are very fond of bazaars, an d in their capital, as in the Jerusalem o f Jesus’ day, tem ple and m arketplace were intertw ined. A lexandra found most retail trade in the hands, or b etter the laps, of wom en. She

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loved the m arket for its colorful folk: cunning traders, sheepskin-clad Kham pas, turquoise-bedecked nom ad women, Moslem m erchants from Kashmir, and, as H a rre r p u t it, “pretty w om en showing off their newest frocks and flirting a little with the young bloods of the nobil­ ity.” However, A lexandra was disappointed by the show of cheap alu­ m inum ware and other shoddy goods from abroad. This she blam ed on the restriction of trade with C hina in favor of inferior goods im ported from India. O ne incident p u t h e r in grave danger, perhaps m ore th an she realized. A policem an at the m arket m ade the browser nervous by staring at her. Instead of a uniform , these gentlem en were distin­ guished by a slouch hat a nd a single dangling earring. T hey were not known for their honesty and, u n d e r cover of dark, sometimes tu rn e d robber. A lexandra, reacting quickly, selected an alum inum saucepan and began to bargain for it loudly. She offered the tradesm an an absurdly low price. At first he laughed, saying, “Ah, you are a peasant, there can be no doubt of that!” T h e oth er m erchants and custom ers jo in ed in to ridicule the stupid w om an who knew nothing beyond h e r cattle and the grass­ lands. B ut as she continued h e r ceaseless twaddle, the tradesm an was ready to crown h e r with the pan. After the chuckling police­ m an had passed on, the old m o th er bought the loathed thing and scuttled away. H ad A lexandra been slower o f wit and were she caught, she would have been taken not to the civil authorities b u t to two abbots from D re p u n g monastery. For the three weeks of the festivities they had absolute rule over Lhasa and could rep rim a n d even the Dalai Lama. T h e ancient custom of their rule was necessitated by the stream ing into town of u p to twenty thousand trapas from the three great m onasteries, D repung, Sera, and G anden, m any of them socalled brawling monks. No one else could control these worldly types, who were given to drinking an d quarreling. But the D repung abbots were known to be fiercely antiforeign, and they m ight have tu rn e d the interloper over to an o utraged mob. H e r sex would n ot have protected her. M ontgom ery M cGovern watched from a ro o f in the marketplace as a naked wom an was w hipped to within an inch of her life for the illegal sale of fireworks. T h e atm osphere at the M onlam holiday was a m ixture of

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solemnity and gaiety. As a religious festival it com m em orated L ord B u d d h a’s victory over the malicious spirits that tem pted him d u rin g his meditations. McGovern rep o rted heavy drinking, rowdyism, b u t also m ore innocent activities: “T h e whole m orning [of the first day] the m arketplace was full of revelers of both sexes and from every p a rt of Tibet. T hese were singing, shouting and dancing.” A lexandra was charm ed by the w om en’s colorful outfits an d how they would spontaneously begin to sing, to stam p their feet rhythmically, and to jangle the bells they held in their hands. T h e m en jo in ed in, and slowly the frolicking groups circum am bulated the sacred Jokhang. W hat one saw d e p e n d ed on o n e’s point o f view in the literal sense. In 1921 Charles Bell, b ro u g h t o ut of retirem en t at the request o f the Dalai Lama, had been His Holiness’ guest for the M onlam festivities. From a privileged seat he watched spirited pony and foot races, wrestling matches, cavalry processions, and the beggars known as “white devils” who am used the crowd with bawdy jokes. O utside the gates, Bell sat in the reviewing stand with the highest officials to. take in the scene of sparkling blue and white tents th at dotted the plain. Men dressed as traditional w arriors com peted in contests o f archery and displays of horsem anship to win prizes of Chinese silk or bricks of tea. T h e K ham pa nom ads in their fox fur hats and heavy beads looked for all the world like a detachm ent of Genghis K han’s horde. M ore available to the pair o f pilgrims were the events that took place in the wide avenue of the Barkhor. Normally it was the scene of devout Buddhists gaining m erit by circum am bulating the cathedral, reciting prayers, and m aking obeisances. T h e shrine contained as its chief treasure a venerable image o f Siddhartha G autam a as a youth, supposedly painted from life. O n the evening of the full m oon of the first m onth (March), A lexandra and Yongden watched a procession of floats m ade of b utter—a festival with its roots in equally ancient times. O ne h u n d re d a n d eight floats presented images of deities, hum ans, and animals, the b u tte r dyed and m olded into the p ro p er shapes. It was a p arade m eant to entertain the gods. T h e pair pushed into the m idst of an enorm ous crowd. Waiting for the appearance of the Dalai Lam a, the excitem ent grew. Sheepskin-clad giants, form ing a chain, ran for sheer joy although

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they knocked others down. Proctors from D repung wielded long sticks and whips to no avail. Everyone pressed toward the center to get the best view. A lexandra found herself crushed against the wall of a house, barely able to b reathe as she watched Charles Bell’s new-m odel arm y m arch by to an English music hall tune. T h e n the T h irte e n th Dalai Lam a was carried by in a sedan chair covered with yellow brocade. T h e awestruck crowd could not have caught m ore than a slight glimpse of the Com passionate One. After the formal procession passed, nobles in their silks p arad ed by proudly, su r­ ro u n d e d by attendants holding Chinese lanterns; high lamas with m onk followers m arched along, and then came rich m erchants with their w om en in elaborate headdresses displaying their finery. Finally the populace jo in e d in, catching up the pair of interlopers in the u nfettered good hum or. People shied away from the monastic proctors with their sharp eyes an d long staffs. Since she was quite short, A lexandra usually hid am ong tall, strapping herdsm en and let them take any indiscrim inate blows. O ne day she h a p p e n ed to trespass w here the u p p e r class only was adm itted. W ithout warning, a policem an hit the old m other with his truncheon. T h e confidante of high lamas and m aharajas was so tickled that she wished to give the lout a tip. H e r disguise was so p e r­ fect th at even the police took h e r for a com m on beggar. A lthough David-Neel missed h e r m editations am ong the tranquil steppes of Amdo, she could not deny that Lhasa was the hub of T ibetan life. H ere she had to view the doings o f its lamas and officials as ju st one of the crowd. In com pensation she was able to penetrate deeply into the intim ate lives of com m on folk. T h e hostel where A lexandra and Yongden occupied a narrow cell tu rn e d out to be a caravansary of talented, eccentric n e ’er-do-wells. Dirty and ragged but unasham ed, they often slept in the open courtyard. All of them survived on what they could beg, borrow, or steal. Preem inent was a tall, handsom e, form er officer ruined by drink and gambling. C ontem ptuous of work, the captain each day strode out of the hovel, his bearing erect, courier bag slung over his shoulder, to chat with his many acquaintances. His conversation was lively, and those better off gave him what he casually requested. He retu rn ed in the evening with a full bag to feed his wife and chil­ dren. However, affairs in these lower depths did not always ru n so

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sm oothly; stealing a n d q u a rre ls, a d u lte ry a n d accusations flourished. T h e neig h b o rs w ould b u tt in, d e b a tin g th e rig h t a n d w ro n g o f th e m a tte r un til th e wee h o u rs w hen everyone w ent away d ru n k . In o n e instance, th e captain’s wife received a blow m e a n t for a n o th e r w om an, a n d th e captain th re a te n e d to b rin g suit a n d to call A le x a n d ra as a witness. T h is h a ste n e d h e r d e p a rtu re fro m th e capitol. A le x a n d ra ’s rascally frie n d s loved to sing th e songs o f th e rebel Sixth Dalai L am a, n ic k n a m e d M elodious Purity. She o w n ed , a lo n g w ith a variety o f o th e r T ib e ta n songbooks, a boo k o f th e S ix th ’s lyrical verses, d e v o te d to his affairs w ith his sw eethearts. O n e verse begins, “T h e y call m e th e P rofligate/F or m y lovers a re m any.” In h e r Initiations and Initiates, A le x a n d ra re la te d th a t a half-secret cult was p a id to th e Sixth by th e low er classes o f Lhasa. Supposedly, a m yste­ rio u s r e d sign m a rk e d th e ho u ses w h e re h e w o uld m e t his lovers. She saw L hasans, as they p assed by, to u ch th e ir b ro w to th ese signs— a m a rk o f d e e p respect. O f th e Sixth, th e O x fo rd scholar M ichael Aris has w ritten , “H e s p e n t his n ig h ts w ith th e girls o f his choice in th e tow n o f L hasa a n d in th e Shol village a t th e foot o f th e Potala.” At any rate , u n til th e a d v e n t o f th e F o u rte e n th Dalai L a m a, th e Sixth was alo n e in lin king th e p in n ac le o f T ib e ta n society w ith its h u m b le r elem ents. A le x a n d ra ’s sym p ath etic view o f th e Sixth is a n o th e r e x a m p le o f h e r b o n d in g , in im a g in atio n a t least, w ith th e outlaw. W h e n she t u r n e d to w ritin g fiction, th e tra n g re s s o r o f th e m o ra l co d e c ould b e fo u n d a t th e h e a r t o f th e action. T h e M ongol chieftain, L a jan g K han , w ho o v e rth rew th e Sixth Dalai L a m a a n d se n t h im in to exile, rem in isced th a t “h e h a d a w o n d e rfu l c h a rm , q u ite u n lik e o rd in a ry peo p le. H e was tre m e n d o u s ly b o ld .” A le x a n d ra s h a re d n o t only these traits o f c h a ra c te r w ith M elodious P urity b u t his c e n tra l d ile m m a : how to p u r s u e e n lig h te n m e n t in a n u n c o n v e n tio n a l, w orldly m an n er. To take th e analogy a b it fu rth e r, a fte r th e Sixth was sp irite d off to C h in a a n d d ied in 1706, s u r r e n d e r in g his p re s e n t life, b io g ra p h ies a p p e a r e d th a t claim ed h e h a d survived a n o th e r forty years a n d led a secret life as a w a n d e rin g pilgrim . T h e c o n v en tio n al “facts” o f his b io g ra p h y could n o t e x p la in his in n e r life (or lives), n o r th e calm a n d dignified m a n n e r in w hich h e finally acted fo r th e g o o d o f his people.

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T h e re v e re n c e T ib e ta n s accord to th e Sixth Dalai L am a, a n d A le x a n d ra ’s fascination w ith his verse, is re la te d to a n o th e r custom th a t u n ite d all classes o f Lhasans: th e scapegoat. T h is was a m a n w ho willingly assu m e d th e m isfo rtu n es, th e k a rm a , o f th e populace. By b ein g d riv e n o u t o f tow n o n th e a p p ro p r ia te day, he p u r g e d the citi­ zens o f th e ir collective guilt. D u rin g th e w eek p re c e d in g th e c e re m o ­ ny, th e scapegoat was e x p e c te d to w a n d e r a b o u t c a rry in g an e n o r ­ m ous h airy yak tail. H e co u ld d e m a n d m o n ey o r goods o f anyone, a n d woe b e tid e th e o n e w ho refu se d . A le x a n d ra sp o tte d th e fellow in the m ark et; if th e offering was too m eager, h e th re a te n in g ly raised th e yak tail, a n d th e s h o p k e e p e r quickly gave m o re . A c u rse from the scapegoat was c e rta in to r u in a m e r c h a n t’s tra d e . T h e v o lu n te e r g a in e d a small fo rtu n e d u r in g his a llotted time. T h e n , a fte r a c e re m o n y p e rf o r m e d by th e Dalai L am a, th e scapegoat was obliged to flee to a n e a rb y w ilderness. C row ds a lo n g th e ro u te o u t o f tow n w ere d e n s e r th a n any A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden h a d g o t­ ten m ire d in, a n d th e police m o re p re e m p to ry in b e a tin g th e m back. T h e crow d c la p p e d a n d w histled— to chase o u t evil— as th e scapegoat in a coat o f fur, face p a in te d h a lf w hite, h a lf black, was h u r r ie d past by officials. A lth o u g h his exile w ould be tem p o rary , th e b a d luck a ccrued by tak in g o n o th e rs ’ sins nearly always p ro v e d fatal to the greed y one. T h e p rev io u s scapegoats h a d d ie d p ro m p tly a n d p a in ­ fully o f n o a p p a r e n t cause. T h a t ev e n in g L hasa c e le b rate d its d eliverance for a n o th e r year. A le x a n d ra recalled th a t p e o p le c o n g re g a te d o u td o o rs, talking, la u g h ­ ing, a n d d rin k in g chang. B eggars, d e a f o r b lind, e a te n u p by leprosy, rejoiced as m errily as th e w ealthiest a n d h ig h est class citizens. She m et acq u ain tan ces w ho insisted o n tre a tin g th e old m o th e r a n d son to a variety o f dishes in a re s ta u ra n t. A le x a n d ra , a g re a t fan o f T ib e ta n cooking, p ro n o u n c e d h e rs e lf pleased. T h e final c e re m o n y o f S e rp a n g o c c u rre d th e n e x t day. W eeks in p re p a ra tio n , it took place a r o u n d the Potala b u t especially in th e vast c o u rty a rd at its base. T h o u s a n d s o f m onks c a rrie d h u n d r e d s o f large m u ltico lo red silk b a n n e rs . D ignitaries p ro c e e d e d in state u n d e r canopies, while d ru m s b e a t a n d b a n d s played, in clu d in g fifteen-footlong tru m p e ts b o rn e o n th e sh o u ld e rs o f several m en . T h e ir solem n m usic filled th e w hole valley w ith a n u n e a rth ly so u n d . E lephants p lo d d e d along, esco rted by p a p e r d ra g o n s p e rfo rm in g all m a n n e r o f

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antics. Y oung boys d a n c e d ritu a l steps w hose origins w ere lost in antiquity. P e rch e d o n th e rocky m o u n ta in sid e , A le x a n d ra , o n e a m o n g m any, took in this a rra y o f s p le n d o r u n d e r th e b r ig h t b lu e sky a n d th e relentless su n o f th e Asian p late a u . T h e b rillia n t colors o f th e cro w d ’s dress, th e alabaster hills in th e distance, alm ost h u r t h e r eyes. L hasa lay a t th e b e g g a r’s feet, a n d she felt am ply r e p a id fo r all th e fatigue a n d d a n g e r she h a d u n d e rg o n e . H e re in d e e d was a scene w o rthy o f S hangri-L a, a m o m e n t th a t has d isa p p e a re d fro m e a rth . Since th e C hinese invasion in 1949, th e festival o f S e rp a n g exists only in cans o f film sto re d in archives a n d o n th e p ages o f A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel’s w riting. In The People of Tibet, C h arles Bell tra n sla te d th e blessing th a t offi­ cially closed th e N ew Year revelries: “L h a sa ’s p ra y e r is e n d e d . Love is now in v ited .” I n early fall 1921, a fte r nearly a year, his so jo u rn at th e capitol cam e to an en d . It h a d p ro v e d n o p a ra d ise for th e canny d ip lo m at, w hose curly h a ir was tu rn in g w hite. H e h a d e n c o u ra g e d th e b u ild in g o f a small b u t m o d e r n a rm y a n d in th e process received th re a ts o n his life, possibly in sp ire d by th e C hinese. H e r e tu r n e d to his estate in E n g la n d to w rite his books o n T ibet. B ecause th e ir basis is m o re political a n d official, they nicely c o m p le m e n t th o se o f DavidN eel, w ho was m o re c o n c e rn e d w ith B u d d h ism , th e tec h n iq u e s o f mysticism, a n d herself. A fter two m o n th s o f g a d d in g about, A le x a n d ra left th e capital as quietly as she h a d e n te re d . She su p p o s e d th a t she was th e first W estern w o m an to b e h o ld th e F o rb id d e n City a n d th a t n o o n e sus­ p e c te d she h a d b e e n th ere . W h e n M o n tg o m e ry M cG overn d e p a rte d L hasa th e year before, h e w e n t u n d e r a rm e d escort to p ro te c t him . A le x a n d ra m erely took th e p r u d e n t step o f p r o m o tin g h e rs e lf to a m iddle-class w o m an w ho o w n ed two m o u n ts a n d was a c c o m p a n ie d by h e r m a n s e rv a n t (Yongden). I n My Journey to Lhasa she claim ed th a t b ecause she h a d b o u g h t n u m b e rs o f books a n d in te n d e d to h u n t for m o re in th e so u th , she n e e d e d the horses to carry th e baggage. I n fact, she a n d Y ongden h a d b o th c a u g h t influ en za a m o n g th e h o l­ iday crow ds a n d they w ere d o w n to skin a n d bones. T h e ir m o u n ts c a rrie d them. T h e su n sh o n e b rig h d y th e last tim e th e p a ir ro d e p a st g a rd e n s w h ere th e trees w ere d resse d in A p ril’s p ale new leaves. A fter she h a d

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crossed th e Kyi R iver a n d a s c e n d e d to a pass, nostalgia g r ip p e d A lex an d ra. She stole a final glim pse at th e shabby, sp le n d id capitol, above w hich floated th e Potala like a castle in a fairy tale. T h e pilgrim , w ho in six m o n th s w o u ld be fifty-six years old, called dow n the tra d itio n a l blessing o n all s e n tie n t beings w ho lived th ere . T h e n she set h e r face away fro m th e holy city. T h e new sm en , th e Low ell T h o m a se s, w o uld s p e n d only a few weeks o n th e ro o f o f th e w orld, guests o f th e F o u rte e n th (and c u rre n t) Dalai L am a. At th e tim e h e was fo u rte e n , alread y very in te r ­ ested in th e w o rld a b o u t him . In S e p te m b e r 1949, it was th e ir tu r n to leave L hasa, b e a rin g a n u r g e n t m essage for th e P re sid e n t o f th e U n ited States. T h is failed to im p ress th e spirits th a t g u a rd th e passes to the fo rb id d e n land. T h e p a rty h a d scaled th e 16,600-foot K aro-la a n d w ere trav elin g in c a rav an w h e n Lowell, Sr. was th ro w n fro m his horse a n d b adly sh a tte re d his rig h t leg below th e hip. T h e in ju re d m a n was w ra p p e d in a sleeping b a g a n d b o rn e along on a n a rm y cot u n til th e cold, w indsw ept d a rk n e ss fell, w h e n f o rtu ­ nately th e p a rty re a c h e d shelter. Lowell, Jr. w rote: “T h a t first n ig h t was o n e o f th e w orst D ad has ever e x p e rie n c e d . T h e shock a n d e x p o ­ sure b r o u g h t o n h ig h fever a n d fre q u e n t fainting. It was a lo n g g asp ­ ing n ig h t o f agony a n d w o rry in j u s t a b o u t th e m ost out-of-the-w ay spot you can fin d o n this p la n e t.” T h e T h o m a s e x p e d itio n stru g g led for days to get its w o u n d e d m em ber, c a rrie d by b e a re rs, to G yantse, w here they knew th e re was a doctor. T h e y crossed th e sam e m o n ­ strous, freezing te r r a in as h a d A le x a n d ra twenty-five years earlier. She was nearly as ill a n d h a d n o servants to rely on. At G yantse th e T h o m a s p a rty reste d , b e frie n d e d by th e In d ia n garrison. T h e y c o n tin u e d by m o u n tin g th e p a tie n t in a s e d an chair, the poles o f w hich w ere set o n th e sh o u ld e rs o f ten stro n g m en. It took sixteen g ru e lin g days to trav erse th e two h u n d r e d miles over the H im alayan passes to G angtok, a n d Lowell, Sr. was cruelly b o u n c e d and jo stle d th e w hole tim e. F ro m th e re th e T h o m a se s w ould fly to C alcutta a n d th e n to th e U n ite d States. T h e sen io r Low ell's leg, h e a lin g incorrectly, h a d to be b ro k e n again a n d p ro p e rly s e tr His son p e rsonally de liv e re d th e Dalai L am a’s d iplom atic n o te to P re sid e n t H a r ry T ru m a n . T h e dignified plea for assistance was w ritten in T ib e ta n ch a ra c te rs with a bam b o o p e n o n p a p e r m a d e fro m s h ru b b a rk . T h e p re sid e n t, w ho was soon

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to o r d e r A m erican tro o p s in to K orea, refu se d to h e lp T ib e t o r to recognize its in d e p e n d e n c e . L a n d lo ck e d a n d isolated, th e S acred R ealm could n o t c o u n t o n A m erican s u p p o rt. Ironically, T ru m a n , th e lev el-h ead ed politician, sig h e d wistfully as Lowell, Jr. p o in te d o u t th e r o u te o f his jo u r n e y o n a m ap . H e h a d lo n g d r e a m e d o f visiting L hasa, b u t h e s u p p o se d it was too late.

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“A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel has n e v e r g one to T ib e t.” So w rote J e a n n e Denys in h e r scandalous Alexandra David-Neel au Tibet (1972). T h e e n ra g e d D enys h a d s p e n t a d e c ad e try in g to m ake th e case th at D avid-N eel was a ch a rla ta n . U nlike la te r b io g ra p h e rs, w ho have uncritically r e p e a te d th e D avid-N eel m ythos, she th o ro u g h ly re a d the a ccounts in E nglish o f e x p lo re rs w ho h a d c o v ered sim ilar te rra in . D enys’ m ainstays w ere C olonel F red erick Bailey a n d H a n b u ry Tracy; the fo rm e r h a d e x p lo re d in T ib e t te n years e a rlie r th a n th e F ren ch w o m an , th e la tte r ten years after. H ow ever, in the m ain these two k now ledgeable w riters d o s u p p o rt D avid-N eel’s Journey to Lhasa, with differences in d escrip tio n a c co u n te d for by th e ir trav elin g in s u m m e r in b e tte r e q u ip p e d parties, while A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden w ent in winter, disguised, fearful, a n d often d e s p e ra te fo r a m eal. D enys criticized h e r bête noire for vagueness o n dates a n d places an d for n o t displaying m aps o f C e n tra l Asia o n h e r walls. B u t this so jo u rn e r h a d le a rn e d to d istru st th e often false a ssu ran ce given by m aps a n d p r e f e r r e d to follow th e in fo rm a tio n she could glean from natives. T ru e , she told L aw re n c e D u rre ll in a n interview for Elle th at she g ra n te d h im in 1964, “I am foggy a b o u t d a te s.” It was a c o n ­ stitutional aversion, since she also lo ath e d clocks a n d n e v e r cared a b o u t th e e x a ct tim e. C ertainly, th e re w ere co n trad ictio n s in th e w o m an ’s character, w hich D enys play ed u p o n , calling h e r derisively “an actress.” D enys was a s sid u o u s in c a rr y in g o u t h e r v e n d e tta . She c o rre s p o n d e d w ith F re n ch dip lo m ats in Asia a n d with C hristian missionaries w ho h a d k now n th e traveler in th e Sino-Tibetan m arches

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d u r in g th e Second W orld War, b o th C atholic a n d P ro te stan t. B u t th e ir m em o ries h a d fad ed, a n d besides, they cou ld know n o th in g o f h e r e a rlie r jo u rn e y s. O n e valid p o in t m a d e by D enys is that, while D avid-N eel often p o k e d fu n a t th e m issionaries, she w o u ld t u r n to th e m in tim es o f n e e d , rare ly to be refused. A le x a n d ra ’s travail in th e Po c o u n try cam e u n d e r D enys’s closest scrutiny. A dm ittedly, h e r g e o g ra p h y ten d s to w a rd th e hazy, a n d h e r findings a re at slight v ariance w ith those o f Bailey, w ho d id m e tic u ­ lous c a rto g ra p h ic w ork in th e Po. I n fact, he h a d w ith h im a B ritish a rm y surveyor. T h e F re n ch w o m a n knew early o n o f B ailey’s efforts, since she re f e rr e d to a B ritish officer w ho h a d b e e n to Show a, the P o p a capitol. A fter h e r a d v e n tu re , she m et th e m a n a n d sw ap p ed stories w ith him . Technically speak in g , A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel was n o t a n e xplorer, since she c a rrie d n o m e a s u rin g e q u ip m e n t a n d m a d e n o m aps. As P eter H o p k irk has n o te d , “[H ]er c o n trib u tio n to th e scientific e x p lo ra tio n o f T ib e t has b e e n nil.” B u t th e g e n tle m e n o f th e e x p lo rin g profession, in c lu d in g su p erb ly tra in e d B ritish officers, h a d n o difficulty in accepting h e r as o n e o f th em . A fu rth e r m ystery rem a in s. T h e English version o f Journey in cludes e ig h t p h o to g ra p h s allegedly ta k e n by D avid-N eel in a n d a r o u n d Lhasa; these have tu r n e d u p in re c e n t books a n d m u se u m shows, c re d ite d to her. O n e , o f petty tra d e rs fro m L hasa, she m ay have s n a p p e d elsew here. A le x a n d ra d e v e lo p e d a flair for c a p tu rin g th e wild yet genial looks o f n o m ad ic types. B u t she took n o p h o to s in L hasa because she c a rrie d n o cam era. B ra h a m N orw ick, a T ib e ta n ist o f lo n g stan d in g , p o in te d o u t th a t in th e F re n ch version o f Journey, p u b lish e d several m o n th s a fte r th e English, th e a u th o r a d m itte d to n o t b rin g in g a c a m e ra because it w ould have b e e n too bulky a n d liable to be discovered. N orw ick suggests, “T h e y [the photos] h a d b e e n ta k e n by T ib e ta n p h o to g ra p h e rs in Lhasa, a n d this e xplains . . . how th ey w ere m a d e w ith o u t exciting suspicion.” H ow ever, it is n o t likely th a t th e re w ere any T ib e ta n p h o to g ra p h e rs a t th a t tim e, especially w ith access to a d a rk ro o m . We d o know o f at least o n e re s id e n t N epali p h o to ­ g rap h e r, a b o u t w h o m we a re told by M o n tg o m e ry M cG overn: “H e was som ew hat a c q u ain ted w ith th e m ysteries o f p h o to g ra p h y , a n d while I was c o o p e d u p as a p ris o n e r he w e n t a r o u n d th e city a n d took several p ictu res for m e .” T h e N epali, a m e m b e r o f th e good-sized

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artisa n c o m m u n ity at L hasa, m ay have h a d ties to J o h n s to n a n d H o ffm a n n o f C alcutta, a com m ercial studio th a t also h a d ag en ts in N ep al a n d s o u th e rn T ibet. A n o th e r r e la te d m y ste ry is th a t o f th e c u rio u s p h o to o f A le x a n d ra , Y ongden, a n d a little L hasa girl p o se d against th e back­ d ro p o f th e Potala, w hich a p p e a rs r a th e r like a stage set. Denys, certain it was faked, m a d e m u c h o f th e shot, while other, m o re reli­ able w riters have su g g ested it m ay be a com posite. B u t if th e p h o to is view ed in th e orig in al larg e r size in w hich it a p p e a r e d in 1926 in Asia m agazine, b e fo re it was s h ru n k to suit a boo k fo rm a t, it regains its n a tu ra l d e p th . M oreover, th e tra v e le r sent this single p h o to to h e r h u s b a n d as his C hristm as p r e s e n t for 1924. It is a n a d d itio n a l item o f p ro o f, as in te n d e d , th a t A le x a n d ra ’s jo u r n e y took place in the real w orld. J e a n n e D enys was a w ould-be orien talist w ho p r e f e rr e d to c a rp r a th e r th a n seek k n ow ledge in th e field. M uch o f h e r tira d e consists o f a long, fatu o u s dig ressio n o n E a ste rn them es. M ore om inously, an a p p a re n t anti-Sem ite, she becam e convinced th a t A le x a n d ra ’s fath e r an d m o th e r w ere Jew s w ho spoke Y iddish at h o m e. H e r a ttitu d e was typical o f th e F re n c h u ltra rig h t, b u t because D enys was accurate on o th e r p e rs o n a l m atters, we c a n n o t dismiss th e suggestion o u t o f h a n d . T h e lib ra ria n o f th e Paris Alliance Israelite has stated th a t a search o f th e ir files t u r n e d u p n o m e n tio n o f L ouis o r A le x a n d rin e David. Still, A le x a n d ra u se d to speak o f h e r ancestor, K ing David, an d as w ith G enghis K h a n she se em e d to be re f e rr in g to b lood lines. T ow ard th e e n d o f h e r life, she b ecam e in trig u e d w ith the th em e o f Jesus as th e c u lm in atio n o f th e H e b re w p ro p h e ts . T h a t, a n d a couple o f o th e r h ints, a re all we p rese n tly know o f th e m atter. E ven in h e r e x tre m e old age, A le x a n d ra re m a in e d re tic e n t a b o u t h e r p e rs o n a l life. F orgotten, in th e im age th a t she p ro je c te d , w ere h e r e a rlie r identities as a s tu d e n t radical, a b o h e m ia n , an o p e ra singer. To o n e c o n fid a n t— h e r d o c to r— she e n tru s te d the secret o f h e r ex c u rsio n o n th e left-h a n d p a th o f T a n tra . For h e r re a d e rs she a d o p te d th e d e ta c h e d pose o f a re p o rte r. N o r d o even h e r p erso n al letters reveal th e h id d e n w om an. Ja cq u e s Brosse was c o rre c t to claim th a t she fea re d to say too m u ch . B u t in p rivate, A le x a n d ra told a still m o re h a ir-ra isin g tale o f h e r jo u r n e y th a n she w ould p re s e n t to the public.

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A le x a n d ra w rote to Philip o n h e r arriv al at L hasa o n F e b ru ary 28, 1934, h e r first o p p o rtu n ity since she set o u t from Y u n n a n th e prev io u s October. She in fo rm e d h im o f h e r success, a d m itte d th e trip h a d b e e n an act o f lunacy, a n d a ssu re d h im she w ould n o t a tte m p t it ag ain for a m illion dollars. She a n d Y ongden w ere n o t m u c h m o re th a n skeletons, a n d they h a d g o t by o n stim ulants, th a t is th e h o m e ­ o p a th ic strychnine. B u t she was really p la n n in g to com e h o m e — if only she co u ld fig u re o u t how to collect h e r b a g g a g e — r a r e books, a n c ie n t m an u scrip ts, a n d objets d ’a r t— th a t was strew n across C h in a in th e k e e p in g o f F re n ch ban k s, officials, a n d especially m issionaries. Philip m u st help. A le x a n d ra d id n ’t m ail this le tte r a t once. T h e T ib e ta n postal system , only a y ear old, was m ainly e m p lo y ed , in th e w o rd s o f M o n tg o m e ry M cG overn, “as th e m ost efficient m ea n s o f k e e p in g th e unofficial E u ro p e a n i n tr u d e r o u t.” B oth letters a n d tele g ra m s w ere u se d to d ispatch w arn in g s fro m th e capitol to b o r d e r stations. F urth er, n o t only stam ps b u t “a sm all p re s e n t to th e p o s tm a n ” m a d e th e m ail go. As far as G yantse, a t any rate , w h e re it w o uld h av e to be tra n s fe rre d to th e B ritish p ost office in th e fo rt overlo o k in g th a t city. F ro m th e r e a le tter could be se n t to th e o u te r w orld. H a d A le x a n d ra m ailed h e r le tte r to Philip in A lgeria fro m elsew here in T ib e t, h e n e v e r w ould have received it, a n d she w ould have b e e n quickly detected . A le x a n d ra c o n tin u e d to w rite to h e r h u s b a n d a gainst th e tim e w h e n she could post th e letters. I n M arch she w ro te th a t b o th she a n d Y ongden h a d th e flu a n d w e re c o u g h in g u p b lo o d , a lth o u g h they w ere b e g in n in g to recover. S he was an x io u s to leave L hasa, a b o u t w hich she claim ed to b e n o t very curious. I t h a d b e e n a g re a t jo k e to com e h e re in defiance o f b o th th e B ritish a n d T ib e ta n g o vernm ents! T his is a side o f A le x a n d ra , w eary a n d cynical, totally a b sen t fro m th e hero ic p ersonality she w o uld p re s e n t to h e r re a d e rs. She also m a d e d e m a n d s o f a practical so rt o n Philip. O n his n e x t trip to Algiers h e m u st ask th e g o v e rn o r to use his influ en ce w ith th e p ress o n h e r behalf. H e sh o u ld stress th a t h e r fa th e r h a d b e e n a n in flu en tial p u b lish e r a n d a D ep u ty in 1848. She w ished to b ecom e a n Asian c o rre s p o n d e n t for a m ajo r new spaper. I n April, a fte r a difficult e x c u rsio n to view G a n d e n m onastery, fo u n d e d by T song K h a p a a n d th e fo u n ta in h e a d o f th e Yellow H a t

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reform s, A le x a n d ra c o m p la in e d th a t she was feeling h e r age. She h a d p u rc h a s e d a p a ir o f scraw ny horses to cross the tre a c h e ro u s snowy passes o f th e H im alayas in s p rin g — tre k k in g w ould have killed h e r a n d Y ongden b o th — a n d she claim ed she n e e d e d m oney. H e r necklace o f g ra d e d , nearly solid gold coins given to h e r by th e late M ah araja o f Sikkim was m e a n t to serve as th e m o n ey o f last reso rt. A le x a n d ra k e p t th e necklace a secret fro m Philip. C h arles Bell bitingly c o m m e n te d a b o u t A le x a n d ra th a t “travel­ ling as a beggar, h e r o p p o rtu n itie s w ere lim ite d .” Because o f th e disguise in w hich she took such d elight, th e p ilgrim h a d b a r r e d h e rse lf fro m th e h ig h life o f th e capital o r its c o n tin u in g e d u c atio n al and intellectual trad itio n s. O n h e r way o u t o f tow n, she passed th e Jew el P ark, th e Dalai L a m a ’s s u m m e r palace. She w o n d e re d how he would re a c t if he h a d le a rn e d o f h e r p resen ce. In fact, th e O m n icie n t O n e was aw are o f h e r feat a n d h e looked th e o th e r way. A le x a n d ra ’s disguise as a m e n d ic a n t h a d w o rn p re tty thin. H u g h R ic h a rd so n related to us an a n e c d o te told h im by T s a ro n g S h a p p e , th e comm a n d e r-in -c h ie f o f th e T ib e ta n arm y, a b o u t a w o m an h e th o u g h t was D avid-N eel. O n e o f T s a ro n g ’s servants anxiously r e p o r te d to him “a s tra n g e n u n w ho actually h a d a towel!” H e h a d d e te c te d h e r in th e act o f bathing. U nm istakably this was A lexandra, whose obsession w ith cleanliness h a d overcom e h e r p ru d e n c e , m ark in g h e r as a philing. T h e y e a r b e f o r e T s a r o n g h a d c la n d e s tin e ly in te r v ie w e d M cG o v ern a n d s h e p h e r d e d h im o u t o f L hasa. A r e f o r m e r a n d a se lf-m a d e m a n , h e was secretly w o rk in g to o p e n T ib e t to th e w orld. B e c a u se h e was p e rs o n a lly close to th e Dalai L a m a , h e w ould h a v e r e p o r t e d A le x a n d r a ’s p re s e n c e to th e T h i r t e e n th . B ut, especially d u r in g M o n la m , th e y b o th d r e a d e d th e w ra th o f th e m o n k s o f D r e p u n g . B est to ig n o re th e i n te r lo p e r lest th e y c re a te a nasty in c id e n t. O n e m u st n o t take A le x a n d ra ’s p re te n s e o f a cool objectivity too seriously. H e r ro u te , w ith all its d e to u rs a n d circu m am b u latio n s, h a d always b e e n a im e d at L hasa— since h e r first glim pse o f th e S acred Realm a d e c ad e before. By early A pril, how ever, she was as d e te r­ m in e d to leave as she h a d b e e n to inv ad e it. W h a t she could n o t forget was h e r tra m p th ro u g h th e Po, th e w arm , fec u n d valley w h ere d u rin g J a n u a r y wild orch id s grow. So special is this c o u n try th at

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som e T ib e ta n stu d e n ts o f th e a n c ie n t texts h o ld it to be th e location o f Shambala, o r p a ra d ise, k n o w n to W esteners as S han g ri-L a. R in g e d by m assive snow m o u n ta in s glistening w ith ice, sp iritu a l p o w ers a re n e e d e d to fin d th e way th ere . T ravelers will find food a n d shelter, p e rp e tu a l y o u th a n d h e a lth , a n d they will n o t wish to leave. A le x a n d ra h a d felt so m e th in g o f this, a n d she tu ck e d d e e p w ithin h e r th e secret o f th e lush, care fre e valleys. N ow she set h e r gaze to w a rd th e snowy peaks sta n d in g b etw e en h e r a n d acclaim. B u rn in g w ith a lo n g -n u r tu r e d am bition, A le x a n d ra p u t aside h e r d re a m o f rep o se. A n u n e v e n tfu l jo u r n e y o f th re e weeks o v e r ru g g e d te r r a in in clu d e d a sto p o v er at S a n d in g m o n a ste ry to visit D orjee P h ag m o , th e “T h u n d e r b o lt Sow,” a p erso n ificatio n o f fem ale pow er, w ho u n fo rtu n a te ly was n o t at h o m e. T h e ra g g e d p a ir d e s c e n d e d o n David M acd o n ald , th e B ritish T ra d e A g e n t a t G yantse, in early May while h e was calm ly d o z in g in th e fo rt o n th e hill o v e r­ loo k in g town. To th e w eary a d v e n tu re r, th e ir m e e tin g was a crucial m o m e n t. She la te r claim ed th a t instinct cau sed h e r to rev eal h e r iden tity to th e B ritish. Really, she h a d n o choice b u t to th ro w h e rs e lf o n th e m ercy o f h e r old antagonists. N e ith e r she n o r Y o ngden h a d got m u c h better, a n d e x h a u ste d , they co u ld n o t go o n w ith o u t h elp. M acdonald, w ho h a d serv ed u n d e r C harles Bell, knew his duty. H e q u e stio n e d A le x a n d ra a n d th e n w rote hastily to th e viceroy: Mme. inform ed me that she left Yunnan seven m onths ago and en te re d T ibet by an unknow n ro u te disguised as a T ibetan lady. . . . She appears to have avoided C ham do an d oth er places w here T ibetan troops are stationed. She traveled th ro u g h the Po country[,] Gyam da [and] thence to Lhasa, and rem ained there for two m onths in disguise . . . Q uestioned why she visited T ibet she simply states that h e r object was to collect religious books and see the country, b u t o th e r­ wise she is very reticent in h e r reply. She now intends travelling to In d ia via the C hum bi valley , . . [S]he proposes visiting America. T h e r e in th e terse w o rd in g o f a c o m m u n iq u é is th e essence o f My Journey to Lhasa. H a d J e a n n e D enys r e a d those w ords, she m ig h t have s p a re d h e rs e lf a d ec ad e o f furious effort. I n any event, th e d a rin g o f A le x a n d ra ’s e x p lo it o v ercam e b u r e a u ­ cratic scruples, a n d th e B ritish e x te n d e d th e ir hospitality. M acd o n a ld

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s h e lte re d th e w ayw ard traveler, fed h e r a t his table, e x p e d ite d h e r mail, a n d even lo a n e d h e r th e su m o f fo u r h u n d r e d ru p e e s. T h e T ra d e A g e n t was n o t a w ealthy m a n , a n d a fte r re tire m e n t his fam ily was obliged to r u n a b o a rd in g h o u se at K a lim p o n g for th e B ritish statio n ed th e re . (T his has b e c o m e th e H im ala y a n H otel, well k n o w n to travelers fro m m an y nations.) M o re im p o r ta n t th a n m oney o r the gifts o f c lo th in g fro m his d a u g h te r V ictoria so th a t A le x a n d ra m ig h t arriv e in I n d ia in style, was M a c d o n a ld ’s a g re e in g to verify his g u e st’s stay at L hasa. H e knew th e capitol a n d w ould have b e e n im possible to fool. H ow ever, th e half-Scottish official w aited u n til A u g u st 21 to sign a n d d a te a le tte r to th a t effect. T h e re a so n is readily a p p a re n t: It was th e n th a t h e was re p a id his loan! T h e travelers took m ost o f M ay to m e n d . A le x a n d ra was sick a n d disp irite d for days. A lth o u g h th e h a n d fu l o f B ritons a t G yantse— in clu d in g C a p ta in Perry, M a c d o n a ld ’s son-in-law — w ere clearly in awe o f her, she felt fo re ig n a m o n g these w hites w ith th e ir stiff m an n e rs. O n c e a g a in she h a d t u r n e d h e r back o n T ib e t a n d was b e g in n in g to r e g r e t it. O v e r d in n e r at a table c o v ered w ith linen, p o rcelain, a n d silverw are, e v e ry o n e se ate d d e m u re ly a n d c h a ttin g about n o th in g , th e v e te ra n o f th e ste p p e s h a d to stru g g le to keep from tears. Still, by th e e n d o f th e m o n th she was re a d y to leave for In d ia . C rossing fro m th e w in d sw ep t plain o f G yantse to th e flow er-filled C h u m b i Valley, h o m e to th e M a c d o n a ld clan, A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden d a w d le d fo r n in e days. T h e y stayed in com fortable d ak bungalow s a lo n g th e way. M a c d o n a ld ’s wife, in fo rm e d o f h e r co m in g over th e te le g ra p h line, p a m p e r e d a n d fa tte n e d th e a d v e n tu re r. A lthough A le x a n d ra w ould pose in p ilg rim ’s garb for a p h o to g ra p h taken in C alcutta, h e r e x p lo rin g s w e re a t a n e n d . It was re a s s u rin g to learn fro m V ictoria W illiam s th a t sh e h a d tre a te d th e y o u n g w o m an kindly a n d k e p t h e r sense o f h u m o r, because h e r letters to Philip were rasp y a n d d e m a n d in g as ever. A le x a n d ra , aside fro m w a n tin g m oney, o r d e r e d h e r som etim e h u sb a n d to e m ploy th e A rgus p ress agency to clip articles c e rta in to be w ritten a b o u t her. H e sh o u ld k eep n o t only h e r letters b u t the envelopes p o s tm a rk e d T ib e t. L e t a n y o n e w ho w ished d o u b t her, she would h av e th e p ro o fs handy. So ab so rb e d was A le x a n d ra in self­ p ro m o tio n th a t w h e n she h e a rd h e r frie n d G e n e ra l P ereira h a d died

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in th e m o u n ta in s o f w estern C hina, she m u tte re d only th a t it was an a p p ro p r ia te d e a th for an old soldier. B u t while restin g at C h u m b i, A le x a n d ra was tro u b le d by n ig h tm a re s in w hich she reliv ed scary m o m e n ts o f th e jo u rn e y . She w ould awake in a w a rm b e d shivering, o vercom e by a surge o f fear. B ew ildered, she im a g in e d she a n d Y ongden w ere lost on th e trail, clim bing u p w a rd , tiny a n d frail a m id st th e im m en se snowy peaks. A lth o u g h A le x a n d ra rejoiced in m o d e st com fort, she c o u ld n ’t re g a in th e s tre n g th necessary to a tte m p t crossing th e H im alayas, even m o u n te d . So M a c d o n a ld ’s o ld e r d a u g h te r, A n n ie (C aptain P e rry ’s wife), lo a n e d h e r a d a n d y a n d p o rte rs to c a rry th e c o n ­ veyance. T h is h a rd y w o m an h a d to be to te d o u t o f T ib e t like a package, in little b e tte r sh a p e th a n th e in ju re d Low ell T h o m a s, Sr. It was n o th in g to be a s h a m e d of. T h e L a n d o f Snows, fo rb id d e n th e n a n d still a difficult c o u n try in w hich to travel, does n o t yield its secrets lighdy. A le x a n d ra p u t b e h in d h e r th e stin g in g p late a u , th e blizzard h a u n te d m o u n ta in s, a n d like Conway, th e h e ro o f Lost Horizon, r e e n ­ te r e d th e w orld o f everyday. She cam e d o w n to th e fetid air o f th e tropics at rainy season to be th e g u est o f th e B ritish R e sid en t at G a ngtok, Sikkim. T h is was now C olonel F re d erick (Eric) Bailey, th e e x p lo re r, w ho h e ld c o u rt w ith his wife L ady Irm a . A le x a n d ra was well received, a n d she was c o rre c t to claim th a t ev ery o n e a d m ire d her. I f she d e te c ted a n air o f reserv e in th e R e sid en t’s tre a tm e n t o f her, it m erely e x p re sse d th e am biguity felt by agents o f th e G o v e rn m e n t o f In d ia . T h e y felt obliged to la u d h e r b u t w ished she w ould go so m e ­ w h e re else. Bailey h im self—a tall, h a n d s o m e m a n o f b e a rin g w ho spoke in a soft voice— h a d b e e n a d a re d e v il as a y o u n g officer. H e disobeyed o rd e rs by e n te rin g T ib e t a n d c h a rtin g th e course o f th e T san g p o River. T ra m p in g a p o rtio n o f th e sam e g r o u n d as A le x a n d ra , h e was m o re m eth o d ical if less im aginative. Badly w o u n d e d in th e G re a t War, Bailey m a n a g e d to c a rry off a secret m ission in Russian T u rk estan ; e m p lo y e d by B olshevik intelligence, h e was se arc h in g for th e B ritish spy, C a p ta in Bailey! By 1924 th e colonel h a d settled d o w n to a d m in iste rin g Sikkim a n d p u r s u in g his passion, collecting r a re butterflies. His im p o rta n t books o n T ib e t w ere w ritte n later. A le x a n d ra sensed th a t m o st o f th e B ritish officers w ere je a lo u s o f

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her. T h e y c o u ld n ’t fath o m how this dim in u tiv e, frail F renchw om an and h e r o rd in a ry -se e m in g Asian son h a d b e a t th e m at th e ir own gam e o f heroics. T h e ir wives, such as L ady Irm a , th e only child to L o rd C ozens-H ardy, w ere intelligent, c h a rm in g , a n d decorative. B ut w hatever his p e rs o n a l feelings, C olonel Bailey was the m a n best able to c o m p re h e n d A le x a n d ra ’s achievem ent. R eversing th e ex p u lsio n o rd e r o f his predecessor, C harles Bell, h e invited h e r to stay as long as she liked at G angtok. T h e R e sid en t could n o t h e lp th e w e a th e r in his L illiputian capitol, w hich was h o t a n d sticky. Prices h a d shot sky-high. A le x a n d ra was am a z e d how native servants, previously submissive, h a d becom e almost scornful o f th e ir E u ro p e a n em ployers. She w o n d e re d why the British to le ra te d such behavior. D u e to h e r isolation, she h a d n o t realized how th e w ar s o u n d e d th e d e a th knell o f th e old colonial society. As well, she was tro u b le d by m em o rie s o f friends she h a d know n fro m a tim e th a t seem ed lo n g past. T h e P a n c h e n L a m a h a d fled to C hina. T h e old m a h a ra ja a n d D aw asandup th e in te r p re te r w ere d e a d . All she h a d left o f P rince Sidkeong w ere gold trinkets, valuable b u t o f cold com fort. G a ngtok no lo n g e r stru ck h e r as a ro m a n tic hideaw ay. D esperately, she h o p e d for a le tte r fro m h e r d e a r M ouchy, fro m w h o m she h a d n ’t h e a rd in a year. H e r in q u iries a b o u t his h e a lth w ere truly anxious. A le x a n d ra was overjoyed w hen , o n J u n e 9, 1924, she received w ord fro m h e r h u sb a n d . In rep ly in g , she attacked a F rench novel by Pierre B en o it— a bo o k she h a d n ’t r e a d — set in th e S ahara. It was the rage in Paris, a n d she w ished to h e a r o f n o triu m p h b u t h e r own. Im p a tie n d y w aiting th ro u g h th e rain y season for fu n d s with w hich to re tu rn h o m e , she accepted the invitation o f F ren ch Franciscan m is­ sionaries to occupy a b u n g a lo w at P a d o n g in th e D arjeeling district. Once ag ain m issionaries w ould p ro v id e h e r w ith sh e lte r free o f charge. H e r e th e a ltitu d e was higher, a n d she could b re a th e m o re easily, as well as b eg in w ritin g o f h e r a d v e n tu re s. T h e s e she in te n d e d to serve u p to th e public while still w arm . M onsoon rains fell th ro u g h o u t th e sum m er, tu rn in g th e streets o f the village to m u d . T h e bungalow , a fo rm e r post office, was small a n d leaky. A le x a n d ra felt like a p risoner. She h o u n d e d Philip fo r money, to w hich he a g re e d , th o u g h it took tim e to a rra n g e . W h a t s u rp rise d him was his wife’s d e c la ratio n th a t she w ished to ru s h h o m e to

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his arm s. S he a ssu re d h im h e r travels w ere finished b u t a d m itte d th a t she n e e d e d a place to w rite th e articles A m erican e d ito rs w ere c la m o rin g for. A le x a n d ra refu se d to face th e reality th at, a fte r a n absence o f n e a rly fo u rte e n years, she h a d ab d ic a ted h e r m a rria g e . S oon letters a rriv e d to c h e e r h e r exile: first o n e fro m th e p re s id e n t o f th e G e o g rap h ical Society o f Paris, th e n o n e fro m th e F ren ch a m b a ssa d o r to C hin a, a n old acq u ain tan ce. H e was seeking a g o v e rn m e n t subsidy to be m a d e available to h e r a t Peking. Professor Sylvain Levi, th e re n o w n e d Sanskritist, se n t his w a rm c o n g ra tu la tio n s a n d a n offer for h e r to lectu re a t th e S o rb o n n e . M o re im m ediately, h e r e f e rr e d h e r to his son D aniel, consul a t Bombay. O nly Philip r e m a in e d aloof, norhad fu n d s a rriv e d to pay h e r debts, a b o u t w hich she was sc ru p u lo u s, a n d passage to France. T o w ard th e e n d o f A ugust, A le x a n d ra receiv ed a sufficient sum a lo n g w ith a n o te fro m Philip, tak in g th e m in e ra l w a te r c u re a t Vichy. E lated, she a ssu re d h im she in te n d e d to sp e n d th e w in te r a t th e ir h o m e in B one, b u t she h o p e d h e w ould h e lp h e r to give c o n feren ces at Paris in th e sprin g . B u t th e n e x t m o m e n t A le x a n d ra a d m itte d th a t h e r tru e d e stin a tio n was A m erica. H a v in g b e e n raise d in B elgium , she felt a s tra n g e r a m o n g th e F rench. She was m o st u se d to those she lu m p e d to g e th e r as “A nglo-S axons.” S he was c e rta in to succeed in th e N ew W orld. Philip, even h a d h e w ished it a t this late d a te , could n e v e r ho ld o n to his co m et o f a wife. N o w o n d e r h e felt m elancholy a n d h y p o c h o n d ria c . A le x a n d ra p ro m is e d th a t once she a n d Y ongden a rriv e d h o m e , they w ould c h e e r h im u p . W ith h e r star in th e ascen­ d a n t, she d id n o t c o n sid e r how Philip h a d blocked h e r o u t o f his em o tio n al life. W orse, she d id n o t realize th a t b rin g in g h o m e a n o th e r m a n — n o m a tte r how re la te d — was m o re o f a n a ffro n t th a n h e r h u s b a n d co u ld swallow. W hile A le x a n d ra p r e p a r e d to leave th e H im alay an re g io n for C alcutta, a stra n g e re g re tfu ln ess c re p t over her. T h e n ig h tm a re s h a d t u r n e d to d re a m s o f a beau tifu l, peaceful valley w h e re o n e was fo re v e r y o u n g a t h e a rt.

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In his a u to b io g ra p h y A lan W atts w ro te o f “th a t in cred ib le a n d m ysterious R ussian lady H e le n a P e tro v n a Blavatsky, w ho fo u n d e d the T h e o s o p h ic a l Society in— o f all places— N ew York City in 1875.” Fifty ye a rs la te r A le x a n d ra D a v id -N e el d r e a m e d , p e rh a p s , o f e m u la tin g h e r p re d e c e s so r’s feat. At least she in stru c te d Philip Neel, b e a re r o f a P ro te sta n t n a m e , to obtain fro m th e F re n ch p re s i­ den t, a H u g u e n o t, a le tte r o f r e c o m m e n d a tio n to th e consul a t N ew York. C ircu m stan ces, in c lu d in g a lack o f re a d y m oney, w ou ld a lte r this plan . I n O ctober, A le x a n d ra received in sta n t acclaim in C alcutta, a wel­ com e c o n tra s t to h e r h u s b a n d ’s coolness. T h e n e w sp a p e rs w ere filled with stories a b o u t her. As she a rr a n g e d for h e r valuable b e longings to be s h ip p e d fro m S h a n g h a i via C olom bo to A lgeria, she was b eset by m any sm all p ro b lem s. G o v e rn m e n t o f I n d ia officials w e n t o u t o f th eir way to h elp . T h e G 6 v e rn o r o f F re n c h In d o c h in a p re s e n te d h e r with a p arcel o f la n d o n w hich she m ig h t b u ild a h o u se , so th a t she w ould have a p ie d -a -te rre in th e O rien t. She was a t B e n a res in J a n u a ry , w here she b e g a n to o u tlin e th e story o f h e r j o u r n e y to Lhasa, in the larger sense, in th re e hefty volum es. At Bom bay, w hich she re a c h e d in early F e b ru ary 1925, A le x a n d ra had to c o n c e n tra te h e r th o u g h ts. T h e Revue de Paris u rg en tly cabled for h e r T ib e ta n m em o irs, a n d th e A m e ric a n m ag azin e Asia p ro m ise d an a d v an ce o f th re e h u n d r e d a n d seventy-five dollars fo r th re e articles. T h e cash settled th e q u e stio n o f how A le x a n d ra ’s a d v e n tu re s w ould first a p p e a r: serially, a im e d at a n a u d ie n c e in te reste d in th e East b u t by n o m ea n s specialists o r inclin ed to B u d d h ism .

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A n a p p ro p r ia te to n e o f d e ta c h m e n t, yet o p e n n e ss to th e w o n ­ d ro u s, w h e n once she h a d m a s te re d it, in fu sed th e a u th o r ’s m ost successful a n d influential works. H e r o rig in a l a c co u n t o f h e r jo u r n e y to L hasa— w ritte n in English, n o t tra n sla te d , a n d p u b lis h e d in five m o n th ly installm ents th e n e x t year— is travel w ritin g a t its m ost com pelling. T h e s e Asia articles a re fresher, m o re tru e , a n d quite d iffe re n t from A le x a n d ra ’s la te r b o o k -le n g th accounts, w h e th e r in E nglish o r F rench. W h e n th e a d e p t o f tan tric m ysteries m e t th e fam ous I n d ia n p o e t R a b in d ra n a th T agore, h e re in fo rc e d h e r decision to w rite for a wide if literate public. At a lu n c h to h o n o r th e N obel la u re a te , A le x a n d ra m a n a g e d to becom e th e c e n te r o f atte n tio n . T h e d ire c to r o f th e M usée G uim et, w ho was r e t u r n in g fro m A fghanistan, insisted th a t she install at th e m u se u m a g e n u in e T ib e ta n B u d d h is t c hapel. Since a t th e G u im et she first sta rte d d o w n th e ro a d to L hasa, th e sugges­ tion gave h e r p a rtic u la r p lea su re. T agore, too, p ro v e d e n c o u ra g in g , a n d at a priv ate interview h e o ffered to h e lp place h e r articles in L a tin A m erica, fro m w hich h e h a d recently r e tu r n e d . To this day, A le x a n d ra has a d e d ic a ted follow ing a m o n g Latins. Ironically, Professor Sylvain Levi actually la u n c h e d D avid -N eel’s w orldw ide re p u ta tio n , b u t by re m in d in g h e r th a t success m u st b e g in at Paris. His son D aniel, w h o m sh e ’d k n o w n as a boy, se co n d e d his f a th e r ’s u rg in g th a t she p ro c e e d directly to th e F re n c h capitol. Levi was w o rk in g h a r d to assure A le x a n d ra ’s triu m p h in h e r n a ta l city. H e could scarcely wait to delve in to h e r collection o f fo u r h u n d r e d r a r e T ib e ta n books a n d m an u sc rip ts, a n d h e re q u e s te d a catalog at once. O nly Philip re m a in e d aloof, claim ing h e lived in too sm all a h o u se to acco m m o d ate h e r souvenirs, especially a c e rta in y o u n g m an . A le x a n d ra , re m in d in g h im w h a t old friend s they w ere, ig n o re d th e hin t. O n May 4, acco m p a n ie d by Y ongden a n d m o u n d s o f b aggage, A le x a n d ra la n d e d a t Valencia, Spain, h o p in g still to ren d e z v o u s with h e r h u s b a n d in th e so u th o f F rance. S pan ish custom s, a fte r tak in g a look a t h e r books, robes, m asks o f th e su p p o s e d devil d a n c ers, a n d o th e r u n u s u a l m em en to s, in d ic a te d they w o uld p r e f e r she c o n tin u e to Le H avre. T h is m e a n t she was n o t to see Philip u n til m o n th s later, b u t it p laced h e r a t th e dooi to Paris. She r e s p o n d e d to th e ch allenge by a n attack o f h e r old nem esis, facial neu ralg ia. H ow ever, o n la n d ­

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ing, h e r a d m ire rs w ere m any, c o n g ra tu la tio n s p o u r e d in, a n d th e n she— a n d surprisingly, Y ongden— b e cam e th e talk o f th e town. F ro m th e m o m e n t o f A le x a n d ra ’s a rrival at th e railway station, she h a d to suffer th e p o p o f flashbulbs a n d the intrusive questions o f re p o rte rs . A lth o u g h she c lu n g to h e r stated aversion to th e w orldly life, th e r e tu r n e d pilg rim h a n d le d interview s w ith aplom b. She p e r ­ m itted th e m e n a n d w o m en o f th e Paris press to see in h e r w h at they wished: F re n c h h e ro in e in th e m o d e o f J o a n o f Arc, m agician, studious orientalist. T h e m o st am u sin g , a n d telling, o f these in te r­ views— by o n e S im one T ery— was n o t p u b lish e d u n til M arch 31, 1926, in le Quotidien: Mme. David [still no husband!] has the air of a very tranquil woman. She wears well a high bonnet of black velvet, strange, pushed down on her head, which serves to bring out the pallor of h e r face—but, this detail aside, she resembles the average French housewife [literally, “all the m others of families”]. She speaks in a soft voice, a little sharp, with­ out ever raising her voice, as though she were telling her neighbor about the illnesses o f her children or [trading] kitchen recipes. Mme. David has a h o rro r of “chic,” of lyricism and easy success. For jo u rn a lis ts o f h e r day a n d b io g ra p h e rs o f ours, th e h a n d ie st m eans o f cd p in g w ith this formidable c h a ra c te r w ho h a d b ro k e n the implicit rules a gainst a w o m an th in k in g a n d acting heroically was to dom esticate her, to p r e te n d she was like o th e r w o m en e x c ep t r a th e r bizarre o r freaky. A long w ith this view goes the n o tio n th a t A le x a n d ra was the p lay th in g o f som e im p e rio u s Destiny. Philip N eel u n d e rs to o d that it w ou ld be im possible for his wife to re su m e th e role o f a b o u r ­ geois h o m em a k e r, b u t it was b ecause she h a d freely chosen a life o f study a n d discipline, o f a d v e n tu re a n d loneliness. T e ry ’s re m a rk s o n Y ongden w ere n akedly racist: He is dressed in a m onk’s habit, small and face, a small flat nose and narrow and alert in Tibetan, m oving very rapidly his ten intones some weird chants to m ake your with in h u m a n cries.

squat, with an impassive eyes. H e speaks of things sharp fingers. T h e n he skin crawl, interspersed

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p e rc e iv ed a bit o f th e tru th . F or two years a fte r h e r ree n try , DavidN eel b ec am e once ag ain a p e rfo rm e r, a lth o u g h in th e guise o f a n itin e ra n t lecturer. First, w o rry in g over M o u ch y ’s h e a lth a n d th e m is u n d e rs ta n d in g b etw een th e m , she p re s s e d for a m e e tin g w ith h e r h u s b a n d . T h is was finally ach iev ed shortly b e fo re C h ristm as 1925 in a side p a rlo r o f th e H o te l T e rm in u s, n e a r th e railw ay statio n at M arseilles— n e u tra l g r o u n d . A tense con v ersatio n e n s u e d b e tw e en A le x a n d ra a n d Philip to w hich Y o ngden was a witness, a lo n g w ith w h o m e v e r else h a p p e n e d to overhear. T h e en gineer, in his m id-sixties, r e ta in e d a d a p p e r a p p e a ra n c e . H is h a ir h a d t u r n e d gray, a lth o u g h h e b la c k e n e d his m u stach e. H ow ever, m o n s ie u r’s boiled collar a n d stickpin-in-thec ra v a t elegance was hopelessly o u t o f d a te in th e 1920s. A lbert— th e anglicized version o f Y ongden’s first n a m e — was d re sse d in a m o re au courant s trip p e d suit a n d tie, w hich fit his stubby fra m e w ith o u t grace. O nly in th e guise o f a tan tric lam a, a tulku, d id h e a p p e a r h a n d s o m e , slightly re se m b lin g th e late M a h ara ja S idkeong. T h e s e days w h e n traveling, A le x a n d ra fav o red a p r im suit, sta rc h e d w hite blouse, a n d a b e re t set squarely o n h e r b r o a d fo re ­ h e a d . B e n e a th th e am p ly c u t clothes h e r b o d y r e m a in e d slim m er th a n it h a d b e e n . B u t th e coquettishly p lu m p fig u re th a t c o u ld be e n h a n c e d by th e latest Parisian m o d e r e m a in e d only a d ista n t m em o ry fo r Philip. T h is w om an, stra n g e to him , h e r face d ee p ly lin ed fro m e x p o s u re to h a rs h w eather, eyes k een b u t h a rd , re se m b le d som e e r r a n t un cle r e tu r n e d fro m a voyage to far sh o res a n d set to rela te his lengthy, in credible tales. A fter m e a n in g le ss kisses o n b o th ch e ek s a n d th e obvious e x ch an g es, A le x a n d ra b e g a n to ex to l th e virtu es o f th e y o u n g e r m an: “We have b e e n to g e th e r for eleven years in th e wilds. A n u m b e r o f tim es we h av e nearly fro zen to d e a th , b e e n set o n by savage dogs, b e a te n off b a n d its. As a m a tte r o f h o n o r, you m u st h e lp m e a d o p t this boy, w ho I tre a t as m y son.” “I w o n ’t stop y o u ,” Philip re p lie d . “I d o n ’t th in k it is a g o o d idea. B u t I d o n ’t u p h o ld a n o ld -fash io n ed law th a t d e m a n d s you ob tain m y p e rm issio n .” “I th o u g h t to have a son w o uld give you p le a s u re ,” A le x a n d ra r e m in d e d him . “A lbert could acco m p an y you o n y o u r walks— h e is very a m u sin g .”

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W h a t th e y o u n g m a n o f twenty-five said, o r w h a t h e felt, can only be im a g in ed . “ I n e v e r o p p o s e d you in a n y th in g ,” Philip r e m in d e d his wife. “I gave yo u fre e d o m to leave m e, to ro a m a r o u n d th e w orld. I have h e lp e d y o u to satisfy y o u r taste for things Asiatic.” T h e F r e n c h m a n ’s g lance to w a rd Y o n g d en sh o w e d th a t h e r e g a rd e d h im as a rival. A le x a n d ra , aw are h e r h u s b a n d was co n ­ c e rn e d a b o u t o ld age, tu r n e d wily. “A lbert has p ro v e d his loyalty,” she a rg u e d . “Isn ’t h e b e tte r able to care fo r you th a n som e stra n g e servant?” Philip, as ever, s u rr e n d e re d : “ Do w h a t you wish, I will give you the necessary a u th o riz a tio n .” B u t th e neg o tiatio n s b ro k e d o w n over the q u e s tio n o f m oney. A le x a n d ra , p u ttin g aside th o u g h ts o f A m erica, d e m a n d e d a large su m to b u y a h o u se in th e so u th o f France. Philip took u m b ra g e a t h e r offer th a t h e co u ld com e to stay in it w h e n e v e r h e w an ted . T h e discussion flared into a q u a rre l, spilled in to th e lobby to th e a s to n is h m e n t o f th e h o tel guests, a n d e n d e d o u t in th e s tre e t w ith b itte r w ords b a rk e d back a n d forth. Fortunately, M arseilles was n o t a tow n to c are a b o u t a h u s b a n d a n d wife fig h tin g o v e r a y o u n g m an. D id th e s tre e t fight com e to curses o r blows? We can’t know because A le x a n d ra , e m b a rra sse d , h a d m u c h o f th e c o rre s p o n d e n c e from this p e rio d b u r n e d a lo n g w ith o th e r m ate ria l she c o n sid e red co m prom ising. At any rate , th e sto rm h a d blow n over by M arch o f the follow ing y e a r w h e n Philip a g re e d to w ire h e r six th o u s a n d francs tow ard h e r living ex p en ses. H e r in h e rita n c e h a d b e e n e a te n u p by the p o stw a r inflation. A le x a n d ra th a n k e d M ouchy fro m th e b o tto m of h e r h e a r t a n d a d d e d th a t she n e e d e d peace o f m in d to com pose a far m o re co m p licated w o rk th a n Journey, w hich she c o n sid e red a story o f a d v e n tu re . In o r d e r to m ake e n d s m eet, a n d for th e publicity, D avid-N eel lau n c h e d a series o f conferences. T h e first was h e ld a t th e S o rb o n n e in th e a u tu m n o f 1925, u n d e r th e sp o n so rsh ip o f P rofessor Levi; it p ro v e d as colorful a n d successful as those to follow. In th e sam e lecture hall w h e re she" h a d sat as a s tu d e n t, a n overflow a u d ie n c e listened breathlessly as “th e first w hite w o m a n to rea c h L hasa”— a p h ra s e she u se d in h e r ad v e rtisin g — told a tale o f d a rin g , disguise, and h a rd ih o o d , a n d even let d r o p m orsels o f in fo rm a tio n o n the

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secret, exotic tan tric rites. Still, she was careful to strike a po se th a t if n o t scientific was a t least dispassionate. To A le x a n d ra ’s su rp rise , Y ongden u p s ta g e d his m o th e r a n d b r o u g h t crow ds to th e ir feet c h e e rin g his im p rovisations o f T ib e ta n poetry. She claim ed h e h a d p icked u p his style fro m w a tc h in g T agore. D eclaim ing in his la m a ’s outfit, his p o e try — w hich she w o u ld tra n s ­ late— was s tu d d e d w ith “coral r e d m o u n ta in s ” a n d “tu rq u o is e b lu e skies.” O r th e y o u n g lam a w o u ld e n th ra ll his listeners w ith a n a n e c ­ d o te o f ngagspas, g rin d in g h u m a n b o n e s into life-p rolonging pow ders. T h a t w in te r th e p a ir to u re d th e so u th . T h e y p a c k e d th e large m u n ic ip al casino at Nice, th e n w e n t o n to M arseilles a n d T oulon. H a n d s o m e in colorful flow ing T ib e ta n robes, A le x a n d ra received fro m h e r au d ie n c e s all th e acclaim bestow ed o n a re n o w n e d diva. B u t she d id n o t bask in h e r triu m p h . She h a te d living in hotels a n d th e ro o m s w ere expen sive. At Paris she h a d solved th e p ro b le m o f a c co m m o d atio n s by settin g u p h e r d a rk , y ak -h air te n t in th e c o u rt­ y a rd g a rd e n o f th e G u im e t a n d m o v in g rig h t in! T h e b e st she co u ld d o in th e p rovinces was to pu ll th e m attress o ff th e b e d a n d sleep on th e floor. R e tu rn in g to Paris in th e follow ing sp rin g , D avid-N eel spoke b e fo re s ta n d in g ro o m crow ds a t th e College d e F rance, th e G u im et, a n d th e T h e o so p h ic a l Society. To vary th e show, a n d likely p u t Y ongden in th e shade, she in tro d u c e d slides m a d e fro m h e r strik in g p h o to s o f n o m ad ic m e n a n d w o m en , m e rc h a n ts w ith w ares, so-called devil d a n c e rs in m asks, h ig h -u p m o n aste rie s like fortresses, a n d th e sn o w c a p p e d H im alayas. To d o c u m e n t th e ir travels, A le x a n d ra h a d tak e n h u n d r e d s o f p h o to s a n d asked Y ongden to sn a p m a n y o f her. N ow view ing these m a d e h e r m iserable. A lth o u g h she was off to L a u sa n n e , B russels, a n d L o n d o n fo r a d d itio n a l c o n feren ces a n d m o re ap p la u se , d e e p d o w n she felt b ereft. Dr. A. d ’A rsonval o f th e College d e F rance, a lea d in g psychologist a n d b o th th e o rie n talist’s academ ic s p o n so r a n d h e r doctor, d ia g n o se d th e m alad y as colitis b r o u g h t o n by nostalgia fo r th e c o u n try a n d life s h e ’d left. At h e a rt A le x a n d ra was a n o m a d w ho loved best h e r ten t, horses, a n d th e o p e n country. To keep o ff n e u ra s th e n ia , D avid-N eel w rote u p to sixteen h o u rs a day in v arious n o n d e s c rip t h o te l room s. T h e initial article fo r Asia a p p e a r e d in M arch 1926. T h e five-part series, collectively titled “A

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W om an’s D a rin g J o u r n e y in to T ib e t,” is h a r d to com e by b u t fa r m o re can d id th a n th e fu ll-len gth w ork th a t w ould follow. D avid-N eel was w o rking so diligently to c o m p lete th e latter th a t in M arch 1927, at T oulon, she c o n tra c te d a n eye in fla m m a tio n th a t b lin d e d h e r for a week. T h e n , p e e rin g o u t o f o n e eye, she re s u m e d e d itin g th e proofs. My Journey to Lhasa was su p p o s e d to be issued sim ultaneously in th e sp rin g by Plon in Paris, H e in e m a n n in L o n d o n , a n d H a r p e r in New York. A ctually th e E nglish la n g u a g e editions a p p e a r e d in early fall, the sh a rp ly a b rid g e d F re n c h o n e in N ovem ber. L u re e M iller has o b se rv e d a b o u t Journey: “In c lu d e d w ere all th e in g re d ien ts o f a fantastic a d v e n tu re : trav elin g in disguise; m istaken identities . . . a faithful c o m p a n io n . . . d a n g e rs to A le x a n d ra ’s life . . . m ira cu lo u s escapes accom plished by cleverness a n d a n alm ost s u p e rn a tu ra l g o o d luck .” C o n te m p o ra n e o u s reviews w ere mostly favorable. T h e New York Times d e c la re d th a t “as a trav eler she [A lexandra] has p e rfo rm e d a b rillia n t feat.” In L o n d o n th e Saturday Review fo u n d th e w o rk “a th o ro u g h ly a b so rb in g tale,” while in m o re sober style The Times Literary Supplement felt c e rta in th e a u th o r h a d im p a r te d “a c o n s id e ra b le m e a s u r e o f u se fu l a n d tru s tw o r th y in fo rm a tio n .” Sir Francis Y o u n g h u sb a n d review ed th e b o o k for the Journal o f th e Royal G e o g rap h ical Society fro m a u n iq u e perspective. J u s t two years e a rlie r h e h a d co m p iled G e n e ral G eorge P e re ira ’s diaries in to a consistent n a rra tiv e e n title d Peking to Lhasa. Few W esterners knew T ib e t b e tte r th a n Sir Francis. T h e “sh o rt, stocky, a n d w arm ly g r u ff little m a n w ith a bristling m o u sta c h e ”— Alan W atts’s d e scrip tio n — w ho in 1936 was to convene the W orld C ongress o f Faiths, a n d w ho lea n e d to w a rd m ystical ideas, missed th e essential n a tu r e o f A le x a n d ra ’s w riting. A fter th e obliga­ tory p raise o f h e r d a rin g a n d c o u ra g e , h e co m p la in e d , “T h e geo­ g raphical results a re very m ea g re , for th e re is n o m a p a tta c h e d to the book a n d n o m ean s o f know in g exactly w h at r o u te she to o k .” I n c o n ­ trast, P e re ira tra v e le d over six th o u s a n d miles continuously, m a p p e d every step o f th e way, a n d d ie d o f e x h a u stio n . I t was n o accident th at his precise m a p o f T ib e t a n d w estern C h in a was sent to th e British W ar Office a n d r e p r o d u c e d by th e ir perm ission. T h is e x p lo rin g by m ilitary officers was no m e re academ ic avocation, a n d it is ironic th at the B ritish sh o u ld have s u p p o s e d A le x a n d ra to be a spy. Journey to Lhasa, recently reissu ed in b o th B ritain a n d the U n ited

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States, is a p ilg rim ’s tale, a n d if we w ould travel to w h ere D avid-N eel w ent, especially today, we m u st do so in th e realm o f th e spirit. T his is a book o f ex p lo ra tio n b u t only secondarily o f terrain . T h e p a ir o f pilgrim s o n th e ir way to the holy city, fo rb id d e n to o u tla n d e rs, p lu m b e d th e d e p th s o f th eir physical e n d u ra n c e , th e ir wit a n d c o m p reh en sio n , th eir faith in an y th in g a t all. O n a d e e p e r level, Journey is o f the g e n re o f a spiritual autobiography, c o m p arab le to the tales told by a n d o f th e e n lig h ten e d souls o f o th e r religions. T h e e ig h te e n th -c en tu ry H assid Rabbi N ach m an also overcam e disaster after disaster— som e o f his ow n m aking— to pilgrim age to Je ru sa le m . H e d o n n e d disguises, lied o r c h e ate d w hen necessary, b u t always h e was careful to p e rfo rm the p r o p e r rites to p ro p itia te a G od je a lo u s o f o u tlan d ish success. D avid-N eel, h e r Asian son in tow, voyaged to the m ost au ste re regions o n e a rth , b u t also w ithin th e self. She loved th e lad w ith the fierce love o f a m o th e r tiger fo r h e r cub. O n the edge o f th e hostile Po country, u n k n o w n even to ex p lo rers, the p a ir h a d to hole u p in a cave while Y ongdon n u rse d his badly dislocated ankle. T h e y h a d n o t a m orsel to eat, a n d wet a n d shivering, they w o n d e re d w h e n the snow w ould stop falling a n d if they w ould e n d as á m eal for the wolves. Yet A le x a n d ra fo u n d a c e rta in c h a rm in h e r lonely situation. She forgot h e r p a in a n d w orry a n d e n te re d into a d e e p m ed itation, seated, m otionless, silent. T h e snow c o n tin u e d to fall as th e voyager sat, m aking no effort to p e e r b ey o n d its c u rtain into th e u n c e rta in fu tu re . M ind stilled, for a tim eless in sta n t seer a n d seen becam e one. Finally, at this d e sp e ra te ju n c tu r e , A lex an d ra rea c h e d th e samadhi so u g h t by the yogi th ro u g h m editation, the u n io n devoutly p ra y e d for by the mystic C hristian. Seeing by th e clear light o f w isdom , she glim psed th e Void from w hich all stem s a n d into which all dissolves. T h e r e was, however, a limit to th e spiritual intim acy th a t DavidN eel allowed h e r rea d e rs. R a th e r th a n follow E m erso n ’s d ictu m “My life is for itself a n d n o t for a spectacle,” th e fo rm e r diva stag e-m an ­ a g ed w hat she wás willing to show. I n m atters delicate o r p ro fo u n d , she often em ployed the “twilight lan g u a g e ” typical o f th e T an tra, symbols with a double m eaning. All in all, Journey is a voyage th ro u g h space a n d psyche th a t bears co m p ariso n with classics o f th e g e n re , such as L anza Del Vasto’s Return to the Source o r G u r d jie f f ’s

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Conversations with Remarkable Men. T h e se seekers, th ro u g h e x p lo rin g the w orld a b o u t th em , illum ined a n in n e r terrain . T h e y did n ot provide th e usual geographical guidelines, b u t if m aps o f th eir w an ­ derings w ere d raw n they w ould resem ble the m a rin e r’s charts o f the early ages o f exploration: colorful, lacking detail, a n d slightly fantastic. T h e in ten t, r a th e r th a n to m islead, is to direct the re a d e r to u n e x p e c te d places. Sales o f D avid-N eel’s sem inal w ork w ere healthy from the start— nine F ren ch p rin tin g s w ithin two years— a n d translations w ere m ade into a n u m b e r o f languages, in clu d in g G erm an , Czech, Italian, a n d Spanish. T h e A m ericans, w ho c o m p a re d this su p p o sed A m azon with the c o n q u e ro rs o f th e N o rth a n d S o uth Poles, were especially partial to the book. David-N eel, whose idea o f A m erica was as fictional as A m erican ideas o f T ibet, th o u g h t o f sailing to New York to rea p m o re laurels a n d e n o rm o u s royalties. T h e dollar was very stro n g in rela ­ tion to th e franc, in the ratio o f one to fifty. B ut the web o f events was draw ing th e a u th o r in a d ifferent direction. T h e F ren ch w ere quick to a p p la u d th eir own, aw arding h o n o rs and subsidies to David-N eel. First cam e th e silver m edal o f the Belgian Royal G eographic Society, th e n the C hevalier o f the L egion of H o n o r a n d the gold m ed al o f the Societe G e ographique. To the latter was attach ed a m u ch -a p p re c iate d six th o u sa n d francs. O n e award th a t D avid-N eel accepted tongue-in-cheek was the g ra n d prize for fem inine athleticism from the F rench Sports Academy. A g rea t lover o f th e o u td o o rs, she c o u ld n ’t consider h e rse lf an athlete or trekking th ro u g h T ib e t a sport. Ironically, she received th e m edal in May 1927 w hen, h o b n o b b in g w ith the literati in Paris, she felt she was suffocating a n d h e r h e a rt tro u b le d her. H e r feet grew re d a n d swollen fro m w earing high heels. She n ev er h a d loved big cities, a n d her living in the wilds h a d confirm ed h e r solitary streak. As lo n g ago as h e r “H u r o n h u t” in the Him alayas, A lex an d ra d rea m e d o f a cquiring a ho m e with e n o u g h land on w hich to grow vegetables. T u rn in g from th o u g h ts o f Am erica, she focused on the south o f France, a lth o u g h n o t the coast, which she considered over­ built. In the fall she w ent o n a w alking to u r o f the Basses Alpes above the Riviera— p rescrib ed by Dr. d ’Arsonval to reg ain h e r health — a n d there the keen-eyed traveler discovered a likely spot. T h e G erm an edition o f Journey h a d n e tte d ten th o u sa n d francs, a n d in addition she

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was able to sell several articles, the m ost notew orthy b ein g a co n tri­ b u tio n to Man and His World, a referen ce w ork e d ited by Paul Reclus. H e was th e n e p h e w o fE lisee, A le x a n d ra ’s old m e n to r from s tu d e n t days. For a change she h a d m oney, b u t she was careful to keep Philip in fo rm e d o f h e r plans. A ccording to F rench law she m ig h t buy a h ouse on h e r own, b u t if she w ished to sell she w ould n e e d h e r h u s b a n d ’s perm ission. N ot ju s t any location w ould do. Occasionally A le x a n d ra liked to d a m n civilization a n d its works, b u t she insisted th at h e r new ho m e be accessible by rail a n d served by electricity. She u n d e rs to o d the necessity o f publicity a n d th at she n e e d e d to be accessible to th e press a n d visiting dignitaries. In May 1928, outside th e quiet spa tow n o f D igne, ninety-five miles no rth w est o f Nice, A le x a n d ra p u rc h a s e d a small villa on a hill with a good view o f the attractive s u rro u n d in g s. She n a m e d it S am ten Dzong, Fortress o f M editation. T h e ro ad to Nice, lined by trees, ra n past h e r door; a river flowed ju s t below that, a n d m o untains loom ed in the b a c k g ro u n d . A le x a n d ra invited Philip to visit h e r a n d Y ongden w hen ev er h e pleased. S am ten D zong d id becom e a refu g e for th e sixty-year-old savant, alth o u g h for w ork r a th e r th an contem plation. T h e series o f books on T ib e t she was p la n n in g to write nearly fell victim to too m u ch adm iration. F rench p re sid e n t G aston D o u m e rg u e , a m o d e ra te elected in 1924, becam e a fan o f his red o u b ta b le countryw om an. T h e p re sid e n t m ad e available to the a u th o r sixty th o u sa n d francs to u n d e rta k e a mission th ro u g h Siberia into M ongolia to study the tribes o f Soviet C entral Asia, in p articu lar the effect o f the rev o ­ lution on w om en. T h e in teraction betw een B u d d h ism a n d native sham anism fascinated her. T urm oil in the areas A lex an d ra n e e d e d to visit caused Moscow to refuse h e r a visa. Stalled, she a p p e ale d to h e r friend, th e w riter R om ain R olland, who in te rce d e d with the Soviet delegation to the L e a g u e o f N a tio n s a t G eneva. T h e ir M in iste r o f E d u c a tio n L o u n atch arsk i seem ed kindly disposed, a n d so forgetting h e r o th e r plans, the w ould-be traveler b e g a n to m ake a rra n g e m e n ts. However, w ithin a sh o rt tim e the m inister fell from grace a n d was shot. In the end, the applicant received the fam ous Soviet nyet. This a p p a re n t setback p ro v ed fortu n ate. W hile A le x a n d ra h a d to swallow h e r disap p o in tm en t, she k ept o p e n h e r contacts with the

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French go v ern m en t; she w ould n eed its backing for fu tu re e x p e d i­ tions. N o m o re ea g er to chain h e rse lf to a desk th a n o th e r authors, she s u rr o u n d e d h e rse lf with h e r u n iq u e collection o f T ib e ta n books, h er su p e rb dem onic masks, a n d o th e r souvenirs from fo u rte en years of w a n d e rin g o n th e r o o f o f th e w o rld — in c lu d in g Y ongden. A lexandra com m enced on the n e x t decade o f fruitful study a n d the w riting o f books.

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D igne, a small c a th ed ral tow n o f w inding streets, is best know n from a m em o rab le episode in Victor H u g o ’s Les Miserables. It was th e re the to rm e n te d exconvict J e a n Valjean stole silver candlesticks from the bishop who h a d b e frie n d e d him . O u t o f pity, th e good cleric lied to th e police, claim ing th a t he gave th e candlesticks away. P erhaps A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel, like H u g o ’s h e ro , was h o p in g to b e g in a new life. M ore likely, she was a ttrac te d by D igne’s th e rm a l baths, which date back to R o m an tim es a n d a re beneficial for chronic rh eu m atism . At e ig h teen h u n d r e d feet, the clim ate is nearly perfect. D u rin g th e su m m e r o f 1928, once she’d settled into Sam ten Dzong, A le x a n d ra ’s misgivings c ro p p e d up. She let Philip know the s u rro u n d in g m o u n tain s w ere too skim py for h e r taste, n o th in g com ­ p a re d to th e Him alayas. T h e re w ere trees on the property, b u t she a n d Y ongden w ould p la n t a d d itional ones: cherry, pear, ch estnut, an d lime. I f the n e ig h b o rh o o d wasn’t wildly picturesque, at least the sun shone year ro u n d a n d she could sleep on a r u g on a roofedover terrace. T h e co u n try a ro u n d D igne could boast o f m agnificent wildflowers. W ith Y ongden, A le x a n d ra e x p lo re d the m o u n ta in paths, ad m irin g gentian, edelweiss, m arguerites, a n d fields o f lavender. She e n d o rse d the air over th at o f th e seaside, a n d she b eg g ed Philip to visit th e m before the winter. People w ere scarce; only a couple o f houses stood anyw here near, a n d th eir inhabitants gave the w om an an d h e r Asian son a wide b e rth . Pen a n d p a p e r w ere the com pany she craved. A lex an d ra p lan te d a vegetable plot at h e r new herm itag e. H e r

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first crop tu rn e d o u t to be a b u m p e r one a n d she sold the excess. G row ing h e r ow n food suited h e r p io n e e rin g n a tu re a n d appeased an increasingly frugal streak she h a d in h e rite d from h e r m other. In the East, she becam e used to p in ch in g pennies, a n d a lth o u g h c u r­ rently p ro sp ero u s, she d id n o t forget th e lean years. O nce h e r Eastern acquisitions w ere th o ro u g h ly installed, she in te n d e d to w ork with the speed o f a kyang (wild donkey) b o u n d in g over th e T ib e ta n plateau. T h e new h o u se h o ld e r o rd e re d Philip to ship various objects th at he h a d saved for her, including h e r letters to him , the only journal de voyage sh e ’d m ade. Surprisingly, she d id keep a m eticulous inventory of ev erything sent from Asia to h e r h u sb a n d , dow n to n u m b e rin g each o f the h u n d re d s o f photos. W h ere was the quilt from h e r stu d e n t days, she w an ted to know, a n d books by h e r favorite a u th o rs— Flaubert, A natole France, Ju les Verne, a n d Tolstoy? Philip m ust im m ediately send o n h e r bicycle. T h e roads were pretty, a n d she w anted th e exercise o f pedaling. By th e e n d o f the year, A lex an d ra was as snug in h e r s u n -d a p p le d retrea t as she h a d b e e n at snowy L achen. B u t she was grow ing m ore d istan t from h e r academ ic m entor, Sylvain Levi, who c hided h er for n o t devoting h e rse lf entirely to works o f philosophy. H e had suggested she do a philological study o f T ib e ta n literatu re, not u n c o n n e c te d with his own labors on a dictionary o f B uddhism . T he orientalist realized th a t the au th o rity o f h e r statem ents rested on how well she stood with the professors, n ev er m in d they d id n ’t d a re venture to T ibet. B ut works for a select aud ien ce failed to pay expenses, a n d these w ere m o u n tin g alarm ingly as she ren o v ated Sam ten D zong. W ith o u t a university salary, the a u th o r d e e m e d it im practical to write esoteric treatises. Levi was an g ry th a t his fo rm e r p u p il d id n ’t tu rn over to him certain ra re m anuscripts. Dr. d ’Arsonval, who h a d su p e rse d e d him as D avid-N eel’s p a tro n , w rote to h e r am usingly th at Levi, a devoted library rat, was d isa p p o in te d th a t his favorite pu p il w o u ld n ’t give him some old T ib e ta n p a p y ru s to gnaw. T h e author, ig n o rin g the rivalry betw een th e two m en, w orked diligently. In 1929 Plon b ro u g h t o ut the F rench version o f the book th a t w ould be titled Magic and Mystery in Tibet w hen p u blished in New York in 1932. T his has proved to be D avid-N eel’s m ost d u rab le a n d p o p u la r work, having been tran slated into P ortuguese (Brazil), H u n g a ria n , a n d A nnam ite

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(Vietnam), as well as the Scandinavian a n d o th e r E u ro p e a n lan ­ guages. H ere, despite an assum ed air o f d eta c h m en t, th e a u th o r discussed the rational mystics close to h e r h eart, ad ep ts o f th e S h o rt Path to Deliverance who risked its d an g ers in the h o p e o f w inning e n lig h te n m e n t in one lifetime. T h e S h o rt o r Direct Path is c onsidered h az ard o u s in a psychic a n d even a physical sense. Its m ethods a re e x tre m e a n d u n c o m p ro ­ m ising, a n d failure can lead to a sp ritual break d o w n , a fall fro m grace like th a t o f Lucifer in the C hristian tra d itio n — from angel to devil. T his doctrine o f com plete freedom can be subject to abuse, especially since its founder, o r really its eighth c en tu ry tra n sla to r to T ibet, Padm asam bhava, was a pow erful tantric m agician. J o h n Snelling, a u th o r o f The Buddhist Handbook, writes, “H e alone possessed the occult know -how necessary to su b d u e th e dem oniac forces inim ical to the transm ission o f B u d d h ism .” However, as Snelling notes, the old sham anic spirits w ere n o t a n n ih ilated b u t c o n tin u e d to play a role in T ib e ta n B uddhism . A lex an d ra fo u n d th at those who claim ed to be on the S h o rt Path ra n g e d the spiritual a n d social sp e ctru m from b eg ­ garly fo rtu n e tellers to h ig h lamas. Fortunately for us, she was a cquainted with every sort o f T ib e ta n , from th e P anchen a n d Dalai L am as to c u tth ro a t brigands. To o u r know ledge, A le x a n d ra was the first fo re ig n er to actively p articipate in T ib e ta n tantric rites, in cluding those o f th e Left H a n d , a n d to r e p o r t back o n them . T h e chod rite, for exam ple, was know n b u t spoken o f in a whisper. David Snellgrove a n d the Italian scholare x p lo re r G iuseppe Tucci w rote a b o u t it only from hearsay. T his is h ard ly su rp risin g since chod has always involved secret oral teachings h a n d e d dow n directly from m aster to disciple. Evans-Wentz le a rn e d o f ch o d from Kazi D aw asandup a n d assisted in th e translation o f ancient texts. A lexandra, m eanw hile, p e rfo rm e d a m ild version o f chod, which she c o n tin u e d to practice after h e r r e tu r n to France. She b eg an to e x p e rim e n t w ith the so-called mystic b a n q u e t u n d e r the supervision o f the G om chen o f L achen. T h e rite is in te n d e d to be a one p e rso n d ram a , ch a n te d while dan cin g ritual steps to a d r u m m ad e from two h u m a n skulls, th e skin stretched over th em a n d p el­ lets attached; it is played like a rattle with one h a n d . A tru m p e t m ad e of h u m a n thighbone is played, a n d magical im plem ents m anipulated: the dorje, (vajra) o r th u n d e rb o lt symbol, th e tilpu, (ghanta) a handbell,

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and a th re e -sid e d m agic d ag g e r used to stab dem ons. C oordination is essential, a n d th e p e rfo rm a n c e m ust be re h e a rse d to go according to form ula, because a m isstep could p rove fatal. Traditionally, ascetics from K ham , naljorpas, whose h air plaited into a single b raid fell nearly to th eir feet, w ere m asters o f chod. O n h e r travels th ro u g h the b o rd e rla n d s, A lex an d ra h a d w atched th em dance u n d e r an infinite starry sky to th e th ro b o f d ru m s a n d wail of the tru m p e ts. T h e y looked like the d em o n s they called u p o n as they strained every sinew into intricate contortions. T h e ir faces shone as they ecstatically tra m p le d dow n th eir ow n feverish egos, d a rin g d e a th itself in th e effort to h alt w hat B uddhists te rm th e m ad race tow ard mirages. T h e initiate u n d e rs to o d th a t the dem ons envisioned w ere im agined, b u t in th e trancelike state these symbols becam e realities to the practitioner. An old lam a w a rn e d A lex an d ra to bew are o f the tigers o f h e r m ind, even if she h a d given th em b irth , o r if a n o th e r had u n lea sh e d th e m on her. O nce, cam p ed a m o n g cow herds in n o r th e r n T ibet, A lex an d ra h a p p e n e d on a funeral. She stayed to witness the cerem onies, b u t she was even m o re in trig u e d by a n earby ascetic, Rabjom s Gyatso, who had established him self in a cave a n d was a tte n d e d by two disciples, one nearly a skeleton. She guessed th a t the em aciated lam a was p e r ­ form ing chod as th e essential p a rt o f his spiritual practice, a n d she knew it was best acted o u t in a cem etery o r o th e r wild spot w here a fresh corpse h a d b e e n disposed. A long with a large g a th e rin g o f T ibetans, the foreign lam a ate a nd d ra n k copiously before th e corpse, w hich was placed in a seated position in a large caldron. Friends o f the deceased a rriv ed from all directions to b rin g presents to the bereaved family. Rabjom s Gyatso’s disciples re a d religious books over th e d e a d m an, after which he was carried to a likely spot in the m ountains. T h e body w ould be cut into pieces a n d left th ere , an offering to th e h u g e vultures. A lexandra, h e rse lf dressed in th e costum e o f a naljorpa, waited until d a rk a n d w alked to the cem etery to sp en d the n ig h t m editating u n d e r a full m oon. She was m using on the contradiction betw een the h ap p y n a tu re o f the T ibetans a n d certain o f th eir grim practices w hen she h e a rd h oarse cries rising above an insistent dru m b eat. H iding in the cleft o f a hillock, she recognized the tantric m aster's w asted-looking disciple. Playing his role in the m acabre d ra m a on an

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a p p a re n tly d e serted stage, he je r k e d his fram e into frenzied postures. H e accom panied his dance w ith staccato yells, w hich s u m m o n e d d e m o n s by n a m e to feast o n his carcass. T h e chod c elebrant is acting in a sense. H e im aginatively creates a fem inine deity in exact detail, a n d she, sw ord in h a n d , will c u t off th e acto r’s h ead , while troops o f ghouls h o v er a ro u n d clam o rin g for th e ir b an q u et. T h e n th e m erciless goddess severs his limbs, flays his torso, a n d rips o p e n his belly. Bowels falling o ut, th e a s p ira n t m u st u rg e o n th e h id eo u s d e m o n s to attack with invocations o f s u rre n d e r. T h u b te n N o rb u , th e Dalai L a m a ’s e ld e r b r o th e r a n d fo rm e r ab b o t o f K um Bum , has p o in te d o u t th a t th e cerem ony derives fro m h u m a n sacrifice in early times. “[F]or th e a d e p t p e rfo rm in g the rite o f C h o d ,” a d d s N o rb u , “th e re is a very terrible reality to the dem oniacal form th a t advances u p o n h im to sever his h e a d .” T h e c elebrant m ay easily lose h o ld o f him self a n d th e ritual, acutely feeling the te rro rs b e in g recited. A lex an d ra w atched as the em aciated m o n k a d o p te d a d efiant stance. She h e a rd him invoke th e ritual form ula: I the fearless naljorpa, I trample down the self, the gods, and the demons. H e w hirled, genuflected to th e fo u r corners, a n d sta m p e d wildly as he followed th e fo rm u la to vanquish anger, lust, a n d stupidity. All the while h e sta re d a t pieces o f th e previous day’s corpse strew n before him . B ut the disciple soon becam e m uddled. H e en tered the small tent he h a d erected, leaving the corpse to a n atural wolf com e dow n from the hills to feast on it. T h e apprentice wizard, hearing the anim al growl, took it for a dem on. “Feed o n m e!” he cried out. Furiously blowing his trum pet, he ju m p e d u p a n d collapsed the ten t on top o f himself. W hen he struggled free, face m adly contorted, he was howling with the pain of being bitten. Even the wolf becam e frightened an d backed off. A le x a n d ra felt th a t th e y o u n g m a n h a d lost his m in d a n d h e r pose as disinterested observer w ould n o t do. Giving way to sym pathy ra th e r th a n com passion, she ru sh e d tow ard him . B ut the p o o r fellow took h e r for a h u n g ry ghost from a T ib e ta n hell. H e offered h e r his flesh to eat, his blood to d rin k — before he trip p e d o n a te n t p e g a n d fell heavily to th e g ro u n d . A lexandra, h e rse lf frig h ten ed , ra n off to in fo rm L am a Rabjom s. G u id ed by a feeble light from a n altar lam p h igh o n a n earb y hillside, she fo u n d th e cave. She saw th e m aster seated cross-legged in d e e p

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m editation b u t still let fly h e r news a b o u t his disciple. She insisted that he was on the verge o f dying from the illusion o f being eaten by dem ons. T h e n aljo rp a smiled. “As he is th e victim, so he is the d e v o u re r,” he replied. B efore th e lam a’s calm, A lex an d ra began to re g re t h e r im p etu o u s action. H e h a d know n th ro u g h telepathy w hat h a d h a p p e n e d to his disciple a n d th a t she was on h e r way. Rabjom s p ro c e e d e d to lecture h e r good-naturedly, re m in d in g h e r o f how h a rd it was to free oneself from illusions a n d fanciful beliefs. H e was su re th at h e r path , although m o re refined th a n his disciple’s, was equally difficult. Illness, m adness, a n d d e a th w ere the risks o f seeking e n lig h te n e m e n t on the S h o rt Path. C hastened, A le x a n d ra agreed , a n d she stayed on for several days to study with this tantric master. T h e unw illingness o f D avid-N eel to su sp en d h e r faculty o f criti­ cism, to in a sense lose h e r m in d , w hatever obstacle it m ay have p re se n te d a m o n g the T ibetans was hailed as adm irable once she r e tu r n e d to Paris. In his in tro d u c tio n to Magic and Mystery, Dr. d ’Arsonval p raise d David-N eel as a philosophical skeptic, a disciple of Descartes, a scientist w ho h a d im partially observed a n d rec o rd e d p h e n o m e n a in T ibet. d ’A rsonval was p re sid e n t o f the In stitu t G eneral Psychologiqué, a n d his im p rim a tu r on D avid-N eel’s w ork was in te n d e d to rem ov e it from th e realm o f the mystical or occult. C o nsidering the gen eral condescension at the tim e tow ard things E astern, she was c o n te n t to h ide b e h in d this sm okescreen. Fortunately, Magic a,nd Mystery is w ritten in a sprightly style re m ­ iniscent o f D avid-N eel’s articles in Asia. It in troduces us to a gallery o f in trig u in g real-life characters: D aw asandup, the p ro fo u n d scholar who liked his bottle; the G om chen o f L achen, who despite his frig h t­ ening a p ro n o f h u m a n bones was a p u sh o v er for a pussy cat; a n d the M aharaja o f Sikkim, h an d so m e , dashing, a n d doom ed. We m eet a collection o f ngagspas a n d naljorpas, wise, m agical, sly, a n d h u m an . O f these the le a rn e d lam ina is n o t the least subtle. A bout h e r own d e e p e r self A lex an d ra w ould d ro p hints th ro u g h o u t h e r writings, b u t they m ust be w atched for with the keenness o f a cat eyeing a suspicious m ousehole. D u rin g the years 1928 to 1936, except for an occasional confer­ ence h eld in L o n d o n , Belgium , Sw itzerland, o r E astern E urope,

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D avid-N eel rem a in e d at w ork at Sam ten Dzong. O th e r th a n Philip she d id n ’t e n co u rag e visitors. Som e cam e anyway, inclu d in g a r e p o rte r from M ilan d ispatched at the b e h est o f an old acquaintance, Benito M ussolini, to interview her. In April 1931 she b e g g e d off an invitation to visit the Italian dictator at the Villa B orghese, Rom e. Professing no use for politics o f any sort, she was able to m aintain a distant friendship with a clear conscience. Even A dolf H itle r took an in terest in the orientalist’s work. She claim ed th a t der Fiihrer p la n n e d to a tte n d one o f h e r conferences, held in B erlin in 1936, b u t h a d to regretfully cancel at the last m inute. T h e swastika, we m ay note, is an ancient symbol o f lightning fo u n d in the ru in s o f Troy, a m o n g native A m erican tribes, a n d especially in Tibet. H itle r’s fascination with the L a n d o f Snows was o f long standing, a n d as a c orporal he was assigned to infiltrate a G e rm a n cult c o n ­ c e rn e d with T ib e ta n m agical rites. A ccording to O tto R ahn, his in te r­ est in D avid-N eel’s investigations h a d a practical side: h e w ished to lea rn ab o u t tumo, the b re a th o f in n e r heat. Was H itler th in k in g this early o f e q u ip p in g his storm tro o p e rs with, in M ilarepa’s p h rase, “the best clothing” in o rd e r to facilitate th eir invasion o f th e snowy plains o f th e Soviet U nion? I f so, th e Nazi dictator h a d failed to grasp the essentially spiritual n a tu re o f the practice. D avid-N eel’s Initiations and Initiates in Tibet a p p e a re d in its F rench edition in 1930. Following so close o n the heels o f Magic and Mystery, it failed to achieve an equal popularity, a n d in d e e d A le x a n d ra com ­ plain ed th at foreign editions w ere b eing held u p by the proxim ity of publishing dates. Yet Initiations, d e n ser a n d less a necdotal th a n its predecessor, rem ains indispensible to th e serious stu d e n t o f tantric lore o r even the do-it-yourself occultist. It contains m o re precise observations a n d specific m eth o d s o f T ib e ta n mysticism. M any o f these a rd u o u s practices w ere elucidated for the first tim e in th e West, a n d by one who was h e rse lf a n initiate a n d h a d practiced several of th em . Now, w hen initiations are reg u larly given en m asse in E u ro p e a n a n d A m erican capitals, the w ork is even m o re relevant. David-N eel took pains to dispel the m isconception th a t an initia­ tion necessarily m ea n t the revelation o f a secret doctrine. In h e r day, initiation was a one-to-one affair, often p re c e d e d by lengthy p re lim ­ inaries a n d testing o f the disciple by his g u ru , som etim es nearly to the p o in t o f death. Also, initiations w ere accom p anied by p articu lar

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esoteric teachings. B ut she insisted th at initiation was, above all, “the transm ission o f a power, a force, by a kind o f psychic p ro ce ss/’ It r e p ­ resents a step on the p a th to en lig h ten m e n t. It conveys the ability to see m o re deeply th a n most, o r in h e r w ords, “to find o u t who really is the p e rso n we th in k ourselves to be a n d w hat really is the w orld in which we m ove.” A le x a n d ra ’s know ledge o f esoteric tantric m eth ods was h a rd won, and because so m u ch o f trad itio n al T ib et lies in ruins, h e r exp erien ce could n o t be d uplicated today. Yet B u d d h ist teachings m ay be obtained from the m any T ib e ta n lam as in exile. T h e secrecy so insist­ ed on in A le x a n d ra ’s tim e has given way to a p p re h e n sio n th at the dharma (the doctrine) m ay be lost forever. She p re p a re d the way for T ibetan B u d d h ism to be accepted in the West, w here it m akes its hom e for th e forseeable future. T h e question does arise as to w h e th e r the G om chen o f L achen, A le x a n d ra ’s tantric master, gave h e r p e r ­ mission to reveal to th e w orld a c ornucopia o f form erly secret know l­ edge th a t h a d b e e n passed on orally to a chosen few. L am a Govinda, who was in a position to ju d g e , su p p o sed th at he h a d d o n e so. T h e g rea t P adm asam bhava w ielded only the dorje (th underbolt) to tam e a n d convert the native d em o n s to B uddhism . T h e dorje is m asculine a n d symbolizes com passion o r m eth o d . A lex an d ra wore this o n a gold rin g o n h e r rig h t h a n d ; on h e r left, a tiny bell on a silver ring, fem inine to symbolize know ledge. T h e u n io n o f th e two energies is crucial to tantric B ud d h ism , a n d possession o f th e rings stam ped h e r as an ad e p t, p e rh a p s aspiring to the status o f naljorpa. Literally this m eans, “O n e w ho has a ttain ed perfect serenity.” However, th a t was n o t in A le x a n d ra ’s ch aracter o r karm a. Initiations elucidated in a m o re technical m a n n e r the them es in tro d u c ed in Magic and Mystery. T h e a u th o r ’s n e x t book, Grand Tibet (Paris, 1933), h a rk e d back to h e r first success, as its English title— Tibetan Journey— m akes clear. T his is an account o f the a u th o r ’s adventures u p o n leaving K um B um in 1921 to travel am o n g the m e r­ chants, b rigands, a n d d esp erad o s o f the Sino-Tibetan bo rd erlan d s. It is straightforw ard a n d enorm ously enjoyable a n d deserves a w ider audience. C aptivated by the rolling, untilled steppes, the quiet and aloneness, a sim ple life u n d e r canvas, David-N eel cam e into h e r own. In an ex p e rie n ce m o re archetypally A m erican th a n E u ro p e an , the highly c u ltu re d w om an, who yet was able to relate to the wildest of

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beasts, cam e face-to-face w ith b ru te u n c a rin g n a tu re , in d e e d becam e one with the prim eval forces. David-N eel h a d always a d m ire d the fro n tie r fiction o f Ja m e s Fenim ore Cooper, a n d according to Jacques Brosse, a C o o p erian haste h a d b e g u n to show in the a u th o r ’s own w riting. In o rd e r to m eet contract dates she fell into a variety o f sloppy e rro rs. B u t DavidN eel w orked best w hen u n d e r th e p ressu re o f a d eadline, a n d each o f h e r early books was w ritten from an in n e r com pulsion a n d has a distinctive excellence. O f h e r several sh o rte r efforts, “W om en in T ib e t” (Asia 1934) was an u n m itig ated triu m p h . She boasted th a t the article was an in te rn a ­ tional success a n d th at fem ale rea d e rs from cou ntries as far a p a rt as A m erica a n d C hina w ere w riting to h e r craving m o re inform atio n .T h e piece analyzed th e m eans by w hich T ib e ta n w om en m astered a h a rsh e n v iro n m e n t a n d gained sway over th e ir m en. T h e w om en h a d achieved a de facto equality despite law a n d scrip tu re unfavorable to them , this by virtue o f inn ate in d e p e n d e n c e a n d phys­ ical stam ina. T ib e ta n w om en w ere clever a n d brave a n d th ere fo re valued by th eir husbands. It h e lp e d also th a t a large p o rtio n o f the retail tra d e was in w om en’s hands. T h e te n o r o f th e article show ed th at David-N eel re m a in e d a firm fem inist— no less th a n d u rin g the p e rio d w hen she h a d c ru sa d e d for the legal rights o f housew ives a n d u n w e d m others, still m o re for th eir econom ic in d ep e n d e n c e . In the article A le x a n d ra casually m e n tio n e d th a t she passed one su m m e r as a guest o f th e Gologs in n o rth e a st T ibet, in th e shadow o f A m ne M achin (tw enty-one th o u sa n d feet), settling dow n am idst th eir black tents a n d h e rd s o f yak a n d sheep. T h e Gologs, a tribal people, have n ev er b een c o n q u e re d , a n d even th e R ed A rm y has a g re e d to let th em be. T h e y are n o t hospitable to strangers, a n d in A le x a n d ra ’s day th eir avocation was highw ay robbery. T h e y p rey e d on m erc h a n ts’ caravans carry in g goods from C h in a into T ibet. B ut she was accepted by o rd e r o f the ru le r o f the fed e ra te d Golog tribes— a w om an chieftain. A n o th e r in trig u in g aspect o f th e article was th e a u th o r ’s assertion th at polyandry was w idespread, if unad v ertised , a n d th a t the w om en involved d id not necessarily suffer in body o r status because o f it. David M acdonald, in co rro b o ratio n , m en tio n ed certain cases am o n g the p easantry w here a w om an m a rrie d all the b ro th e rs in a family

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despite th e re b ein g five o r six! She w ould be e x p ected to b e a r each a child, a n d the offspring w ould tre a t th e eldest b ro th e r as father a nd the rest as uncles. T h u b te n N o rb u con ten d s th at the custom exists to keep lan d in one family a n d is harm less. Clearly, it has helped to keep th e p o p u latio n low, w hich p ro v ed disastrous for T ibet in c o n fro n tin g China. David-N eel, with th e help o f Y ongden, was at w ork o n m o re abstruse topics. T h e ir version o f The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling a p p e a re d in 1931 in France a n d 1934 in L o n d o n , p u blished by Rider, the venerable p u rv ey o r o f titles occult a n d Eastern. T h e au th o r w riting first in F rench fo u n d a new tra n sla to r Violet Sydney, who re m a in e d h e r collaborator over the course o f several books. David-Neel th o u g h t o f h e r as a snob a n d som etim es criticized h e r translations. W hatever th eir m erits in general, Sydney’s translation of David-N eel’s a tte m p t at a n epic a d d e d to its old-fashioned feel. T his has h e lp e d to keep G esar’s story one o f the least know n o f th e g reat national epics. Aside from re p e a tin g the tale o f chivalric heroism th a t she h e a rd in Jy e k u n d o , A le x a n d ra related a p ro p h ec y o f d eep im p o rta n c e to the C en tral Asian peoples. G esar— so goes his legend— is b o u n d to r e tu r n in som e guise a n d , at th e p o in t o f his sword, first sweep the white m an from Asia a n d th e n c o n q u e r his h om eland. A welleducated M ongol m onk, acting as secretary to a m e rc h a n t at Peking, described to D avid-N eel tow ard the close o f W orld W ar I how the Chinese natio n (he inclu d ed M ongols, T ibetans, a n d the H an ) w ould awaken from th e ir cen turies o f slu m b er to follow G esar in throw ing the occupying E u ro p e an s into th e sea, th e n sw eeping over their hom elan d with the ruthlessness o f the G olden H o rd e . She was stu n n e d by this vision o f a new G enghis K han. It has com e a b o u t in part, a n d if the w hole seem s unlikely, we m ay ask ourselves w hat m ight h a p p e n if C hina, instead o f c o n fro n tin g the rest o f Asia, becam e its leader. In a very d ifferen t vein is D avid-N eel’s Buddhism: Its Doctrines and Its Methods, w hich a p p e a re d in F rench in l9 3 6 a n d in English in 1939, and w hich once again is in p rin t in the U n ited States. In his forew ord to the E nglish-language edition, C hristm as H u m p h rey s, the em in en t British B uddhist, praised th e w ork as o u tsta n d in g b u t little known. In it th e W estern s tu d e n t could find “th e principles o f the oldest

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school o f B uddhism , th at o f the T h e ra v a d a as practiced in Sri L anka, B u rm a a n d T h a ila n d , viewed by a m in d le a rn e d in o n e o f the later traditions, th at o f T ib e t.” H u m p h re y s a d d e d that, since she h a d a u th o re d several books on T ibet, he was s u rp rise d w hen David-N eel tu rn e d back to the first principles o f h e r a d o p te d faith. H um p h rey s-first m et A le x a n d ra in 1936 on the occasion o f one o f h e r conferences in Nice. T h e y discussed h e r latest w ork at length, yet he a p p a re n tly did n o t realize th at it was mostly a re h a sh o f h e r Modem Buddhism published previous to the G reat W ar a n d h e r so journ in C entral Asia. T h e tract was ig n o re d at the tim e, a n d as early as 1926 the triu m p h a n t orientalist th o u g h t o f re d o in g it. E ditors in several capitals w ere clam oring for any m an u sc rip t o f hers. By the m idthirties d e m a n d h a d w aned as E u ro p e was faced with the rise o f fascism. T h a t A lex an d ra was able to squeeze in this project d u rin g h e r busiest decade is in itself rem arkable. However, she m e re ­ ly b o rro w ed m uch o f the tex t from the earlier work, in te rla rd in g T ib e ta n variants co n cern ed with the central them es o f B uddhism . T h e result is instructive alm ost in the how -to-becom e-a-w orkingB u d d h ist vein. H e re is D avid-N eel the rationalist. A lthough Buddhism is spiced by the faint flavor o f youthful idealism , we can find no tales of anchorites p e rfo rm in g w onders in caves high above th e e a rth , no dash in g b rig a n d s or celebrants in gorgeous robes p e rfo rm in g ancient rituals, no naljorpas m ed d lin g with cadavers in wild places in h ab ited by vultures. In ste a d we are tre a te d to h e r distillation o f th e B u d d h ist do ctrin e into a two-page chart. H e r observations on how to observe the m in d a re excellent, h e r discussion o f k a rm a essential to the novice, em phasizing th at th e concept has n o th in g to do with the W estern idea o f destiny, b u t r a th e r d e p e n d s o n free will. T h e B u d d h ist ad m o n itio n th at “by p u re deeds m an becom es p u re , by evil deeds h e becom es evil” was a m essage the 1930s w orld refused to hear. It is the essential w isdom th a t m ighty C hina in its dealings with u n a rm e d T ib e t refuses to heed. Two significant reconciliations o c c u rre d d u rin g A le x a n d ra ’s m iddle years. T h e first was with h e r origins a n d u n h a p p y youth. In the su m m e r o f 1934 she visited Brussels to pay h e r respects at the graves o f h e r parents. I f she was m oved to weep, she d id n ’t re c o rd it. She ad m itted th at the ra n c o r o f an earlier tim e h a d gone: h e r father,

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despite his reserve, she always loved, a n d now she could see h e r m o th e r as a victim o f circum stances. N ext, possessed by nostalgia, she visited h e r old b o a rd in g school, a n d th e n the seaside village w here as a te e n a g e r she h a d b e e n taken o n vacation a n d from which she sneaked away to E ngland. H ow fervently she h a d w ished to ex p lo re the wide world! Yet she now recognized B elgium as h e r native land. M ore urgently, A le x a n d ra achieved a ra p p ro c h e m e n t with h e r h usband Philip. T h e ir c o rre sp o n d en c e h a d gone on u n a b a te d d u r ­ ing h e r travels, at least w henever th e re was a post office. T h e ir rela­ tions r a n the g a m u t from affection a n d concern to rag in g hostility. Philip a p p e a rs to have given as good as he got, b u t in the end, he always sent m oney a n d his m oral su p p o rt. Now th eir relationship waxed mellow. O n occasion th e aging b u t still d e b o n a ir gen tlem an traveled from A lgeria to visit his wife at Digne. A le x a n d ra u rg ed h e r h u sb a n d to m ake fre q u e n t a n d lo n g er stays. She k ep t a w ell-heated b e d ro o m read y for him a n d invited him to spend th e e n tire w inter at S am ten Dzong. I f h e becam e b o re d with their walks a n d chats a b o u t old times, he could take the train dow n to the casino at Nice. For A le x a n d ra could spare h e r d e a r M ouchy only so m u ch time. D u rin g the sam e year the orientalist, feeling she m ust accom plish a m ore scholarly w ork to en h a n ce h e r re p u ta tio n b u t b e g ru d g in g the lack o f recom pense, set Y ongden to ro u g h in g o u t a translation of a tex t by Tsong K hapa. T h e result she m ea n t to dedicate to Professor Sylvain Levi, w ho h a d n o t long to live. Y ongden b o gged down in the archaic T ib e ta n an d A lex an d ra d ecided they n e e d e d help. She was aw are th a t G iuseppe Tucci, the Italian Tibetologist, was w orking on the sam e book, a n d she in te n d e d to b eat him to the book stores. A lex an d ra told one a n d all th a t she a n d h e r son h a d to leave for Peking. In the T ib e ta n tem ple th e re they knew o f a well-versed lam a who could assist them . Surely this was an excuse to r e tu r n to Asia, which she h a d b e e n plotting since 1926. She h a d even considered crossing the steppes with an ex p e d itio n o f m ercy fu n d e d by C itroen, the Yellow Cross, w hich was to encom pass th irty cars a n d trucks, two h u n d re d pack camels, a n d dozens o f F rench volunteers. She a b a n ­ doned th e schem e, ad m ittin g it struck h e r as m ore d a n g e ro u s th an going alone.

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It took A le x a n d ra nearly th re e additional years to com plete h e r w ork at D igne a n d to raise fu n d s th ro u g h h e r royalties a n d a g ra n t from th e F rench M inistry o f E ducation. O n J a n u a r y 9, 1937, a glacially cold night, th e p a ir o f pilgrim s b o a rd e d an ex p ress a t the G are d u N o rd in Paris b o u n d for Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow, a n d the Far East. T h e train silently left the station, slipping into th e pitch black p ierced only by falling snowflakes. A le x a d ra ’s m o o d was as gloom y as th e night.

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B eginning o n h e r new a n d final g re a t a d v e n tu re b r o u g h t th e p e r ­ petual seeker no com fort. R ather, on the tra in A le x a n d ra chafed at having to w ear pajam as a n d to sleep u n d e r blankets th at h a d covered countless others. She ra g e d at the p assp o rt re q u irem e n ts th at h a d replaced letters o f in tro d u c tio n to local notables. “I can leave c o u n t­ less tim es,” she told herself, “b u t I will n ev er arrive. N o t even the last resting place will h o ld m e .” A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden sto p p e d briefly in w intery Warsaw, to see p ictures o f them selves in b ookstore windows. T his did not lessen h e r feeling o f im p e n d in g doom , o f m enacing influences. C onsidering the d e stru c tio n th at soon e n o u g h w ould overtake this city with its cram m ed Jew ish ghetto, A le x a n d ra m ay be forgiven for h e r m o rb id ­ ity. She was p reo c c u p ied with the Bardo Thodol, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a n d certain o f its occult theories. She u n d e rsto o d th at once the anim ating spirit h a d left the body, the p e rso n was in effect dead. B ut that body, a sort o f robot, m ig h t go a b o u t its everyday tasks a n d a p p e a r alive— to th e o th e r robots d o in g the same. E u ro p e was a corpse waiting to be b u rie d u n d e r th e rubble o f the com ing war, a n d A lexandra he rse lf d id n ’t feel quite alive. Russia, the n e x t destination, at this season w asn’t likely to brin g cheer to the p ilg rim ’s h eart. As a small child, its snowy im m ensity h ad fascinated her. As a y o u n g radical in Paris, tales o f czarist cruelty h ad reach ed h e r th ro u g h exiled intellectuals. T h e n , after the revolution, the Soviet U n ion becam e the m ecca for those desiring drastic social change. T h u s it was o u t o f a long-held curiosity th at A lexandra booked a d ay ’s to u r o f Moscow— a t the d e p th o f Stalin’s purges.

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She fo u n d th e railway station heavily g u a rd e d a n d the p o rte rs w ooden a n d m ute. H e r fem ale In to u rist guide, w ho spoke perfect English, b ru sh e d aside h e r suggested itinerary in favor o f a ru sh e d to u r o f factories, c a p p e d by L e n in ’s tom b, a n d acco m p an ied by a recital o f the p arty line. A fterw ard, the guide d ep o sited the weary travelers at a fancy hotel w h ere indifferent waitresses served u p o v er­ p riced h a m a n d eggs. A le x a n d ra realized th at the average Russian c o u ld n ’t afford these prices a n d th a t the revolution by no m eans h a d abolished the antagonistic classes o f servant a n d those who could afford to be served. T h e en tire p o p u latio n a p p e a re d devoid o f spirit, d ead . W ith only a couple h o u rs left before th eir d e p a rtu re , the p a ir w ere k ept busy filling o u t a m u ltitu d e o f form s. A le x a n d ra h a d n ’t e x p e cte d to find a heaven on earth , b u t daily life in th e Soviet U n io n im p ressed h e r as a p o o r comedy, with w orse food a n d no m an n ers. She was delig h ted to claim h e r seat on the n e x t express b o u n d for Vladivostok. She d id n ’t m in d the long rid e across Siberia because at th e e n d she w ould reach Asia. She th o u g h t o f h e r d a rlin g m aharaja, now gone, a n d took solace in the love she h a d felt for C hina. She sh o u ld have know n such affairs are difficult to renew. O n the n e x t to last day o f 1937, D avid-N eel was having a pleas­ a n t lunch o n a terrace with a F rench do cto r in H ankow , a so u th e rn p o rt city on the Yangtse River. It h a d been nearly a y ear since she a n d h e r son h a d b o a rd e d th e trans-S iberian express, b o u n d east. Six m o n th s earlier the sim m ering tension betw een J a p a n a n d C hina h a d b u rst into the flames o f war. Forces o f the Rising Sun, already in con­ trol o f M anchuria, ad vanced rapidly so u th o f the G reat Wall. E u ro p e an s c au g h t d eep in the co u n try generally h e a d e d for the seacoast cities w here th eir h o m e countries m ain tain ed concessions with e x tra te rrito ria l rights. T h o se rem a in in g w ithin the folds o f the strick­ en giant, whose pow er seem ed paralyzed, fo u n d them selves glancing tow ard the skies from w hich d e a th m ight descend w ith lightning swiftness. B oth A lex an d ra a n d Y ongden (because he c a rrie d a British pass­ port) could have b e e n evacuated on a special tra in reserv ed for E uropeans. It w ould leave H ankow th e n e x t day, a n d no C hinese were allowed aboard. T h e train, b o u n d for H o n g K ong, w ould not even stop at C anton b u t w ould p ro ce e d directly to K ow loon within

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the C row n Colony. T h e consul h a d u rg e d th em n o t to miss this last o pportunity. Each car w ould have the flag o f its occupants p a in te d on the roof, a talism an to w ard off J a p a n e s e bom bs. A le x a n d ra h a d w ritten to Philip, re tire d in the south o f France, to describe the h o rro rs o f w arfare that, alth o u g h m aking use o f the latest technology, was actually a throw back to savagery. T h e Ja p an e se were slau g h te rin g young, m ale, C hinese civilians to m ake sure they would n o t becom e soldiers. T h e y were bom b in g hospitals. N e ith e r side w ould take priso ners. T h e E u ro p e an s b ehaved no better, r u n n in g for th eir lives. T h e C hinese now despised th eir fo rm er m asters. Servants, if you could obtain them , w ere o p iu m sm okers or d ru n k ard s. W hy d id n ’t A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden b o a rd the train a n d escape? She in fo rm e d Philip that, w ere she to reach H o n g Kong, she lacked sufficient fu n d s to sail to E u ro p e. B ut h e r h u s b a n d ’s drafts could m ore easily reach h e r in B ritish territo ry th a n in w ar-to rn China. In reality, th e traveler, n e a rin g seventy, sensed ad v e n tu re , a n d she had no in terest in re tu r n in g to tam e France. Instead, she decided to jo u rn e y from H ankow on a rickety steam er u p the Yangtse to C hunking, th en to travel fa rth e r west a n d p e rh a p s re e n te r T ibet via h e r old ro u te , as Y ongden was urging. She gave h e r n e x t address as in care o f th e F rench consul, Y unnan-fou. W hile D avid-N eel ch atted at lunch, she h e a rd the scream o f w ar­ planes diving dow n on the airfield. Bombs e x p lo d e d to rain debris and sp re a d black sm oke over th e neig h b o rh o o d . She w o n d e re d about the steam er a n c h o re d in the river with Y ongden, th eir bag­ gage, a n d m any others aboard. It m ade a tem p tin g target for the Japanese planes. T h e w o rried m o th e r c o m m a n d e ere d the doctor and his car a n d they sped to th e dock, b u t they could see no boat. T he w o m an ’s h e a rt sank till she lea rn e d th at the savvy captain h ad m aneuvered his tub a few kilom eters u p stream . After the attack was over he d ro p p e d back dow n, a n d m o th e r a n d son w ere happily reunited. N e x t day the steam er, packed with fearful hum anity, mainly Asian, d e p a rte d for the u p p e r reaches o f the Yangtse. How h a d the usually prescien t A lex an d ra m an a g e d to get herself booked on this floating sard in e can as vulnerable to rocks in the riverbed as to stray aircraft? She a n d Y ongden h a d arrived at Peking a year earlier in m idw inter 1937, anxious to get on with their

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research. She was im pressed by the assured b ehavior o f the C hinese a n d still m o re by th eir capitol. She felt the c h a rm o f a re ju v e n a te d Peking. A lex an d ra was a guest o f M adam e Rosa H oa, a Polish frien d from Paris, who with h e r C hinese e n g in e e r h u s b a n d lived in a lovely villa s u rro u n d e d by gardens. H e re the F renchw om an m et y o u n g Chinese intellectuals who were playing a role in b u ilding a new China. Yet each tim e A le x a n d ra left the villa to be p u lle d th ro u g h the city in a rickshaw, she felt like crying. She d id n ’t m in d the police spy w ho followed h e r everyw here, b u t the p e o p le them selves seem ed m enacing, m o re antiw hite th a n anti-Japanese. At the e n d o f J u n e th a t sam e year A le x a n d ra gladly q uit th e capitol to h e a d for W utaishan, the sacred M o untain o f Five Peaks, slightly to th e so u th ­ west b u t ju s t below the G re a t Wall. T h e trip by tra in a n d m ule was ard u o u s; however, sighting th e sum m its b ro u g h t an expansive, joyful feeling. W utaishan p ro v id e d a ru g g e d yet hospitable setting, eig h t th o u ­ sand feet above the N o rth C hina plain, for a stu n n in g com plex o f h u n d re d s o f m onasteries, tem ples, a n d s h rin e s . Its history w ent back to first-century m issionaries from In d ia w ho h a d arriv ed b e a r­ ing the tre a su re o f B u d d h ist texts. It was th e object o f an a n n u a l pilgrim age for the d ev o u t from C hina, M ongolia, a n d T ibet, a n d A lex an d ra a n d Y ongden jo in e d in observances with th o u sa n d s o f th eir coreligionists. W hile staying at Pousa-ting, the largest m onastery, she m used th a t it was probably the last tim e she w ould live in a gom pa. W utaishan, decked w ith flowers a n d s u r r o u n d e d by ad ditional g re e n a n d p u rp le m ou n tain s, nonetheless h a d an occult atm o sp h e re , p e rh a p s because o f the m any T ibetans com e to pay h o m ag e to M anjusri, who is com passion in action a n d wields th e sw ord o f wis­ dom . W hile the pair searched the libraries for an cien t texts, they also ro a m e d the m o u n ta in trails, e x p lo rin g for a secret passage, o p e n only to th e p u re o f h e a rt, th a t w ould lead one to L hasa in five days. T h e y did n o t find it, a lth o u g h long talks with T ib e ta n lam as b ro u g h t th em th ere in spirit. F rom th e lam as A le x a n d ra o b tain e d “precious pills.” T h e se supposedly contained, am o n g m an y ingred ien ts, flesh taken from the cadaver o f a rev e re d T ib e ta n h e rm it to m ake h e r im m u n e to sickness a n d assure a long life. She w ould n e e d th em to survive the g a th e rin g storm .

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In July, after a provocative skirm ish at the M arco Polo B ridge, Ja p an e se troops sto rm ed into Peking. From the N ationalist capitol at N anking, C hian g Kai-shek tem p o rized , b u t an A ugust attack on S hanghai forced h im to d e fe n d th e nation. U n a n n o u n c e d , W orld War II h a d b e g u n in th e Pacific. S hanghai fell to the J a p a n e s e in N ovem ber a n d N a n k in g the n e x t m o n th . C hiang re s p o n d e d by shift­ ing his g o v e rn m e n t fifteen h u n d r e d miles in la n d to C h u n k in g , S zechuan. F o rtunately, in ste a d o f im m ed iately p u s h in g o n to Hankow, th e J a p a n e s e consolidated th e ir position by tak in g control of the railroads. M ilitary lines b e g a n to stabilize with the Rising S un flying over th e n o r th a n d th e coast, the Nationalists ru lin g th e m o u n ­ tainous southw est, a n d betw een a n d b e h in d th e lines, circulating am ong th e m ain stream o f th e peasantry, C o m m u n ist partisans sp read in g th e m essage o f M ao T se-tung. D avid-N eel h o p e d th a t W utaishan, a lth o u g h w ithin the Ja p a n e se sphere o f influence, was sufficiently rem o te to be ig n o re d by the soldiers. She was only sorry she h a d left h e r baggage, inclu d in g a whole library o f books, at Peking. T his becam e a blessing in disguise. Forced to p o stp o n e scholarly w ork, the a u th o r tu rn e d to the novel, to elucidate a th em e constant in h e r m a tu re th o u g h t. In S e p tem b e r 1934, A le x a n d ra h a d received from h e r French publisher com m ents o n the m a n u sc rip t o f a novel she h a d sent to them . T h e editors fo u n d it c h a rm in g a n d colorful a n d w ere certain it would m ake at least a succès d ’estime. It h a d to be cut it dow n, a n d the next year Plon b ro u g h t o u t Mipam, o r The Lama of Five Wisdoms. B ut allegedly this was th e w ork o f L am a Y ongden, who in a p refatory note c om plained ab o u t E u ro p e an s who w rote falsely ab o u t T ib e t an d its people. T h e se a ttem p ts h e supposedly fo u n d hilarious, a n d so he had p u t p e n to p a p e r to c o rre c t the m yriad m isconceptions o f his native land. T his raises th e question o f A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden’s collabora­ tion n o t only on Mipam b u t also on two m o re s u p e rb novels, all th re e of w hich have b e e n tra n sla te d into English b u t rem ain unjustly neglected. U ntil D avid-N eel’s rem a in in g p a p e rs a n d m anuscripts a re placed in scholarly han d s, we shall n ev er know precisely how the p air divided u p th e ir work. Certainly, Y ongden su p p lied the story line (from folk sources) for Mipam, a n d he likely d id a d ra ft in T ib etan , or possibly even in English. T h e novel was at first ascribed solely to

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him — the a u th o r is listed as “L am a Y ongden”— a n d it was re fe rre d to by A lexandra in private c o rre sp o n d en c e as A lbert’s book. B ut to ju d g e by style, he w rote n e ith e r the F rench tex t n o r the a u th o r ’s note. In fact, Y ongden n ev er le a rn e d m uch French. A lex an d ra was irrita te d by the astonishing success o f Ja m e s H ilton’s Lost Horizon, p u blished in 1933. It instantly sw ept Am erica, w here P resid en t Roosevelt n a m e d his vacation re tre a t Shangri-La. She m ust have su p p o sed th at a novel a u th o re d by a g e n u in e T ib e ta n lam a was b o u n d to tru m p a fabricated tale by a B riton who h a d n ev er set foot in the L a n d o f Snows. Mipam sold well e n o u g h despite the h a rd times o f the D epression, a n d it was soon tra n sla te d into a halfdozen languages. A lthough it has b e e n described to us as the T ib e ta n Dances with Wolves, attem p ts to tran sfo rm it into a film have n o t yet succeeded. M ipam , an u n rec o g n iz ed in carnation, is a fascinating, carefully d raw n character, b u t his conflicted psychology is unlikely for a T ibetan; rather, he is a David-N eel alter ego. His a d v e n tu re s a re com ­ pelling, in cluding co m m u n io n with a snow le o p a rd rem iniscent of A le x a n d ra ’s m eetings with rem ark ab le wild anim als. M ipam ’s d e te r­ m ination a n d fearlessness echo D avid-N eel’s ow n n a tu re , h e r unwill­ ingness to accept defeat. Y ongden lacked the psychological resources to create this dogged fighter who, despite his lowly origin, eventually ascends to a h ig h e r spiritual plane. A lexandra, like M ipam , h a d to do battle with h e r ow n egotism , b u t the result w asn’t as clear-cut. Little by little she sm o th e re d h e r a d o p te d son. E n co u rag ed by th eir initial success, the p a ir d ecided to cooperate o n a second novel, Magie d ’amour et magie noir. Its n a m e rightly sug­ gests a tale o f black magic, lust, a n d m u rd er. D avid-N eel, tra p p e d in a psychic paradise th re a te n e d from all sides, tu rn e d to the g e n re now te rm e d “h o rro r-o c c u lt.” Mipam, w ritten with a wry sweetness, has an u p b e a t resolution: D olm a, the h e ro ’s love since c h ildhood, by sacri­ ficing h erself helps to elevate him to the th ro n e o f th e L am a o f Five W isdom s. T h e y h a d know n each o th e r in previous lifetimes an d w ould m ee t again in th e next. In contrast Magie noir is a bitter, bleak story th at p resents a sim ilar them e: rom antic love betw een m an and w om an is an illusion a n d an obstacle to th e e n lig h te n m e n t o f both. W hile Mipam is suffused with the light o f the steppes, Magie noir plum bs the d e p th s o f u n re a so n in g desire.

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T h e novel’s h e ro G arab, a d ashing b rig a n d , falls in love with the beautiful, k in d -h e a rte d D etchem a, a prize from his. raid o n a caravan of pilgrim s b o u n d for Lhasa. She reciprocates his passion, giving him h e r virginity a n d h e r h e a rt. G arab, whose fath e r was a d em o n , makes a pilgrim age to. M o u n t Kailas in w estern T ib et to investigate his paternity. B ut a little piety u n d o e s him , as D etchem a is ravished by the very sam e d em o n . G a ra b ’s jealousy leads to m u rd er, followed by his a tte m p t to give u p the w orld by becom ing disciple to an anchorite. W h e n D etchem a seeks him o u t in his solitude, he m u rd e rs once again to p ro te c t her. Each tim e th e d e e d becom es h a rd e r to b ear because he is now conscious o f th e karm ic im plications o f his crim e. David-Neel m akes clear in h e r forew ord th at G arab was an actual pastoral chieftain o f som e w ealth, who related this autobiographical story to h e r over m any bowls o f chang. She d id n ’t d o u b t his “tale o f love a n d m agic”— the English title o f the book— especially because she was fam iliar with its m ain locale, the T ib e ta n province of Gyarong, in the southw est o n th e b o rd e r o f Szechuan. David-N eel held back from relatin g the story because it in clu ded certain occult practices a ttrib u te d to black B on m agicians. However, at W utaishan she h e a rd from two T ib e ta n lam as o f the region th at they, too, believed th a t black Bons h e ld perso n s captive a n d confined in o rd e r to d rin k the juices o f th eir p u trifying bodies— an elixir to p ro d u ce extrem ely long life. Securing this confirm ation o f strange rites o f the Left H a n d , D avid-N eel, with Y ongden’s aid, w rote a gloom y yet bril­ liant novel noir, in w hich she even described techniques she herself em ployed to w ard off falling victim to a m o re subtle vam pirism — that of love. Magie noir reflects b oth the a u th o r ’s perso n al tension c o ncerning desire a n d the tense circum stances u n d e r w hich it was w ritten. T h e monks o f the M o u n tain o f Five Peaks co n ju re d dem ons to keep their enemies at bay. T h e y en g a g ed in the wildest ru m o r m on g erin g , such as th at an a rm e d , J a p a n e se -tra in e d colum n o f o ran g u ta n s was b e a r­ ing dow n o n the sacred m o u n tain . A lexandra, since she n ev er knew when she m ig h t have to dash for safety, not only com posed on the run, b u t also she a n d Y ongden carried their sole copy o f th e m a n u ­ script on the day hikes they took to keep fit. C onditions soon grew worse. T h e ir C hinese p a p e r m oney d e p re ­ ciated to n o th in g , a n d cut off from Peking, they h a d no way to cash

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a check o r draft. T h e h a rd y travelers w ere re d u c e d to eating boiled rice a n d roots they d u g u p , seasoned with a little vinegar. A lex an d ra typically fatten ed on the excitem ent o f w artim e. She slept well a n d woke u p h u n g ry a n d cheerful. Still, as the J a p a n e se a p p ro a c h e d , she decided to h e a d for T aiyuan to the south. She su p p o sed M adam e Rosa H o a h a d fled th ere , a n d she h o p e d to b o rro w som e h a rd money. A lex an d ra a n d h e r son finally o b tained m ules a n d servants a n d set out. Disclaiming any anim osity tow ard the J a p a n e se , she took the p rec a u tio n to d ra p e h e rse lf in a F rench flag. Predictably, the ro u te was infested by black-m arket o p erato rs, bandits, a n d assassins. T h e laws, usually ig n o re d , w ere a p t to be enforced with a su d d e n severity. T h e p a ir w atched as a h a n d so m e y o u n g soldier was shot by a firing squad because he m a rrie d w ithout his captain’s consent. T h e C hinese p ro v ed m o re o f a h in d ra n c e th an did the invaders. O n e p etty official d e ta in e d Y ongden, accusing him o f carry in g a forged British passport; he m u st be an im p o ster because h e d id n ’t have fair h a ir a n d eyes. T h e pest su m m o n e d his cronies to substantiate his brilliant detective work. H e m ad e Y ongden w rite his n a m e a n d the w ord London in the R om an alphabet. A stonished by the lam a’s facility, the officials let th em pass. A le x a n d ra ’s m uleteers d eserted. T h e r e w ere no trains, no trucks, b u t th e p air obtained space in a cart th at b u m p e d along. N ot far from th eir destination, she was violently h u rle d from the cart to th e g ro u n d , limbs askew like a rag doll’s. A box o f books th a t struck h e r on the h e a d knocked h e r into a sem icom a. A le x a n d ra h a d to be lifted back into th e cart a n d e n d u re its jolts. Y ongden covered h e r with a piece o f greasy oilcloth o f the sort used over corpses being r e tu r n e d from the front. B ut h e r yogic tra in in g p e rm itte d h e r to p r o ­ je c t h e rse lf tem porarily outside h e r body. As the vehicle tru n d le d in a n d o u t o f ruts, she recalled a n ancient fo rm u la o f the Stoics: “Pain, you a re b u t a w o rd .” After n in e days on the ro a d , h u rt, e x h a u ste d , a n d filthy, A lex an d ra arriv ed at T aiyuan to find it u n d e r attack by th e Ja p an ese. H e r E u ro p e a n frien d was gone, a n d h e r e n tire fo rtu n e consisted.of four C hinese dollars. How ever, the F rench consul lo an e d h e r money, a n d in tim e Philip w ould cable h e r a considerable sum . As usual, the seventy-year-old s p u rn e d any th o u g h t o f a hospital o r m edical tre a t­ m ent. She c o u ld n ’t be so cavalier ab o u t th e daily air raids, w hich h ad

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to be sat o u t in cellars. Even this she tu rn e d to advantage, totin g the m an u sc rip t o f Magie noir with h e r in a suitcase. It is precisely because the book was w ritten u n d e r fire th a t it is relevant, in th e way o f a w ork o f art, to today’s b o n e c ru sh in g occupation o f T ib e t by the Red Army. At T aiyuan, for th e first tim e A lex an d ra was able to observe detachm ents o f blue-clad C o m m u n ist troops. T h e ir m ilitary disci­ pline a n d willingness to fight th e J a p a n e s e m ark e d a s h a rp contrast w ith th e N atio n alists. W ith h e r typical political savvy, the Frenchw om an p red ic te d a civil w ar once the J a p a n e s e w ere beaten, an o utcom e she d id n ’t d oubt. For th e m om en t, A lex an d ra once again fo u n d h e rs e lf obliged to m issionaries, B aptists this tim e, w ho received a n d conveyed m oney to her. David-N eel a n d Y ongden b o a rd e d a tra in at T aiyuan b o u n d for th e city o f H ankow , still in N ationalist h ands. T h e trip lasted th re e days a n d nights, a n d th e two were c ra m m e d in a m o n g refu g ee families u n d e r squalid conditions. T h e train was b o m b ed a n d som e died. A lex an d ra observed the futility o f flight, as villagers from th e so u th fled n o rth a n d vice versa, the m ain th in g b ein g to ru n . By the tim e o f the p a ir’s arrival in H ankow in Decem ber, they had b een accidentally spat o n by peasants, u rin a te d on by infants, and ste p p e d o n by soldiers in th e ir boots. D ue to the m illing crow ds and changes o f train, they h a d lost a d d itional T ib e ta n books, m a n u ­ scripts a n d notes. In this strategic b u t th re a te n e d p o r t city on th e Yangtse, A le x a n d ra ’s choices w ere clear: go east by the special train for E u ro p e an s to H o n g K ong a n d th e n by ship to France, o r west into the u n k n o w n . She felt disposed to lau g h at h e r ow n p red ic a m e n t, until she feared th at Y ongden a n d h e r baggage h a d gone dow n on the ferry m o o re d in the river. T h e n she realized th a t she too h a d becom e a fugitive. In J a n u a r y 1938 the travelers’ voyage u p the Yangstse from H ankow to C h u n k in g w ent sm oothly e n o u g h at the pace o f earlier times. At each p o rt passed o n the way th o u san d s o f p e o p le were ja m m e d o n to th e dock, p u sh in g a n d jo stling one a n o th e r b u t passive en masse. T h e y stared m utely as the ferry steam ed by w ithout stop­ ping. A lthough th e w inds blew bitterly, A le x a n d ra was able to m arvel at the majestic beauty o f the Yangtse gorges. She fo u n d th at form erly picturesque C h u n k in g , th e te m p o ra ry N ationalist capitol, w hich was

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c ra m m e d with officials, tro o p s, a n d refugees, h a d tu rn e d filthy a n d ill-tem pered. An o p e n dislike o f E u ro p e an s was m anifested by ch ildren scream ing the ubiquitous “Foreign devil!” a n d p elting th e p a ir with stones. T his w ar w ithout a face, the seem ingly ra n d o m violence o f air raids on th e civilian p o p u latio n , b e g a n to fray A le x a n d ra ’s nerves. T h e river was too low to p ro ce e d fa rth e r u p by boat, an airp lan e to C h e n g tu was too expensive, an d a chair a n d b e a re rs c o u ld n ’t be fo u n d a t any price. Soldiers, d esertin g from th e in e p t N ationalist army, w ere pillaging the countryside, no lo n g er acting in th e chival­ rous fashion o f th e b rig a n d s o f old. N onetheless, th e resourceful Frenchw om an was w riting to h e r h u sb a n d from C h e n g tu by early M arch. She a n d Y ongden w ere com fortably installed in a small, de ta c h e d pavilion n e a r th e F rench m edical mission, w h e re they h a d stayed a decade a n d a h a lf earlier. T h e y w atched dubiously while the doctors a n d n u rses p a in te d h u g e tricolors o n th e roofs o f the b u ild ­ ings. David-N eel h a d lea rn e d th a t flags m ad e fine targets for the J a p a n e se , who w ere d e te rm in e d to drive all E u ro p e a n s from Asia. G ood tidings aw aited th e weary, im pecunious travelers: d e a r M ouchy h a d sent th em ten th o u sa n d francs. D u rin g m ost o f th e war, while arm ies m a rc h e d a n d c o u n te rm a rc h e d , th e C hinese national post office c o n tin u ed to function— after a fashion. Magie noir a rriv ed safely in Paris in eig h t m o n th s tim e. M eanw hile D avid-N eel h ad b e g u n w ork o n a m ore im m ediate account, Sous des nuees d ’orage, o r Under the Storm Clouds. She w rote ab o u t events in C h in a at th e tim e they w ere h a p p e n in g . In Paris h e r editors w ere convinced th e book w ould sell. Ironically, h a d it a p p e a re d earlier, th e F rench m ig h t have fo u n d in Storm Clouds a w a rn in g o f th eir ow n im p e n d in g doom . At any rate, the a u th o r n e e d e d a m o re peaceful place to w rite a b o u t the hostilities. C h en g tu , c ra m m e d with refugees, a ttrac te d Ja p a n e se bom bers. A lexandra fled tow ard T ibet, h o p in g once m o re to take u p resi­ dence in a m onastery. I n m id-June, once the snows h a d m elted, the travelers ro u n d e d u p p o rte rs a n d two chairs to carry th em w estw ard over a pass 13,500 feet high. T en days later they a rriv ed a t the m iddle-sized, fro n tie r tow n o f Tachienlu. T h e y w ere buffeted by sp rin g storm s b u t elated to be in the T ib etan -sp eak in g (if Chineseruled) w orld. A lex an d ra d id n ’t know the town, b u t she was fam iliar

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with the m ixed, sem inom adic po p u latio n o f the borderlands. At eightth o u sa n d feet, the air crisp, T achienlu occupied an attractive cuplike valley. A lex an d ra took com fort in realizing th at ju s t ten miles on the o th e r side o f the w estern hills T ibetans w ere grazing th eir sheep and goats w here the forests allowed. B u t T achienlu was busy with refugees, a n d A le x a n d ra co u ld n ’t find accom m odations. T h e m onasteries held m ore troops th a n m onks. W hile families c am p ed in the steets, at the m ercy o f the weather, English m issionaries b e frien d e d the orientalist a n d offered her shelter. By m id su m m e r she escaped to a he rm ita g e on the plain of Porno San, a few miles o u t o f town. T h e p a ir liked to stroll about the n eig h b o rh o o d , David-N eel in baggy suit a n d cloak, a b a tte re d m an ’s h a t atop h e r h ead , stout stick in h a n d , Y ongden trailing after. She w ould jo t dow n notes a n d h e w ould snap photos to send to Philip or h e r publishers. N ot surprisingly, they a ro u sed the suspicion o f the Nationalist authorities. T h e C hinese officers forbade h e r from gazing at th e nearby m o u n ta in passes th ro u g h binoculars. T h e y even o rd e re d the foreign devil n o t to stare o u t h e r window at passing colum ns o f troops. A le x a n d ra m ad e the best o f a d e te rio ra tin g situation. She p u rch ased fu r robes in anticipation o f the h a rsh winter, b u t by N ovem ber she a n d Y ongden w ere practically fre e z in g in the u n h e a te d herm itage. B o th e re d by arthritis, she was too rusty to a tte m p t tu m o b re a th in g . Like th e o th e r fo re ig n e rs, she felt h em m ed in by events, n o t know ing w here to tu rn . Em blem atic o f the convulsions shaking Asia was an attack in the street on the French Catholic bishop by a scream ing mob, which nearly killed him. M eanwhile Ja p an e se bom bers p e n e tra te d d e e p e r into the west, hit­ ting C h e n g tu th re e times a w eek and, to the south, Y unnan-fou, on David-N eel’s possible escape ro u te to B urm a. She in form ed Philip that the Ja p a n e s e w ere p r o u d o f th eir m assacre at the elem entary school for boys. C ham berlain, acting a toady to Hitler, w ould not save E u ro p e. A le x a n d ra ’s jo in ts m ight creak b u t h e r b ra in w orked better th a n ever. In late N ovem ber, after A le x a n d ra h a d h e a rd from Philip about the Allied capitulation to the Nazis at M unich, she r e tu r n e d to the mission in Tachienlu. Snow fell for fifty h o u rs straight, a n d shortly thereafter th e English m issionaries o rd e re d M adam e David-Neel

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a n d son, bag a n d baggage, into the street. J e a n n e Denys, who c o rre ­ sp o n d e d with the m issionaries, claim ed th a t A le x a n d ra h a d tried to sublet h e r dw elling to a tenant, in o rd e r to live m o re cheaply elsew here a n d pocket the difference. Space was d esperately short, b u t A lex an d ra was able to tu r n to an o rd e r o f F rench Catholic n u n s who re n te d h e r an old granary. T h e w ooden sh ed h a d several room s a n d its own courtyard. After a good cleaning a n d airing, she was able to create a cozy a p a rtm e n t for h e r a n d Y ongden. D avid-N eel settled in to write ab o u t w hat she h a d recently seen o f C hina. By m id su m m e r 1939, she h a d com pleted Storm Clouds, a n d in S eptem ber Violet Sydney a rriv ed to translate the m anuscript. T his she accom plished betw een air raid alerts, w hen m u ch o f th e town g a th e re d in a nearby cemetery. C hinese a n d T ibetans, B uddhists a n d Bons assem bled in an a tm o sp h e re o f c a m arad erie a n d indifference to danger. In Novem ber, D avid-N eel was able to send off h e r French m an u sc rip t by diplom atic p o u c h from C h e n g tu to Paris. D avid-N eel’s c a rp in g ab o u t the translation m ad e Sidney anxious to escape, b u t she was stuck, with no m eans o f crossing the w ar-to rn country. H ow the w om an in h e r m idsixties m ad e h e r way o u t o f C h in a in May 1940 is unclear. Certainly, no English version o f Storm Clouds has ever ap p e a re d . T h e w ork is a n ex am p le o f p erso n al jo u rn a lism , o f re p o rtin g events as they o cc u rre d to the writer. Because o f h e r ow n u n d o u b te d im p o rtan ce she was able to endow the often trivial w ith significance. Still, this account o f D avid-N eel’s travails as once again she crossed C hina from east to west, a lth o u g h it m ay evoke a d m iratio n , lacks the truly heroic. N o lo n g er able to o r d e r h e r e n v iro n m en t, she was m o re at the m ercy th a n in c o m m a n d o f h e r servants. T h e fo rm e r dakini h a d been red u c e d to a refugee. An everyw om an, A le x a n d ra like countless o thers could flee only before frightening, im personal forces. H e r saving grace was th a t she saw far m o re clearly th a n the leaders o f h e r day. T h e m adness o f m en h a d c reated this evil, a n d they w ere going to die by the millions for it. By the tim e Storm Clouds a p p e a re d in th e sp rin g o f 1940, France was on th e edge o f a devastating defeat. Poland h a d fallen to H itle r’s blitzkrieg a n d E u ro p e was in disarray. C hina seem ed too distant to w orry over. By J u n e the G erm ans h a d m arc h e d into Paris, a n d this book w ritten a n d dispatch ed with such a sense o f urgency disap­

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p e a re d into history. A le x a n d ra w rote to Philip, who h a d re tire d to G ard in the south, th a t she was occupying he rse lf a n d Y ongden with w ork o n a n e ru d ite p ro je c t, a g r a m m a r o f sp o k e n T ib e ta n . D esperately in n e e d o f official aid, she was h opeful th at th e gram m ar, which she re g a rd e d as d ru d g ery , w ould b rin g h e r funds from the French Foreign Ministry. A le x a n d ra p re fe rre d to devote h e rse lf to a book m o re in h e r fre e ­ w heeling style, A Vouest barbare de la vaste Chine. We like to translate the title as In China's Wild West. T h e work, which w ould m eet with some p o p u larity after the war, is a study o f the b o rd e rla n d s a n d the native tribes th a t in h ab ited them . A lex an d ra lacked anthropological training, b u t she h a d a feel for w riting ab o u t the anarchic n om ads o f the Sino-Tibetan m arches a n d th e status o f w om en am o n g them . She had hop efu l things to say a b o u t th e relations betw een th e Chinese and T ibetans. In this reg io n th e two peoples h a d m ingled a n d in te r­ m a rrie d for centuries a n d w ere m utually to le ran t if n o t entirely respectful. She failed to foresee, however, th e fierce fighting betw een the C hinese occupying arm y a n d T ib e ta n K h a m p a partisans that would m ark the 1950s. D u rin g the early 1940s A lex an d ra h u n g on at Tachienlu, w ithin reach o f th e F rench consul at C h e n g tu , the Catholic m issionaries, a n d above all the post office, h e r link to Philip Neel. T h e w ar always th re a te n e d to b rin g destru ctio n closer, b u t c o rre sp o n d en c e with France rem a in e d possible, if tardy. She fre tte d ab o u t P hilip’s safety u n d e r the G e rm a n occupation a n d sent him advice a bout keep in g u p his health a n d spirits. T h e elderly e n g in e e r was failing, a n d he inform ed h e r o f his will, a d h e rin g strictly to th eir m arria g e contract. H e e x p ressed his g ratitu d e tow ard Y ongden for being such a help to his wife. O n F ebruary 14, 1941, A lex an d ra received a tattere d , grim y envelope c ontaining a telegram . Weeks before she sensed that M ouchy h a d died. O nce she saw the telegram cam e from his niece Simone, w ho h a d n u rse d him , h e r fears w ere realized. From youth, A lex an d ra h a d h a rd e n e d h e rse lf against any show of em otion. She slept on a b o a rd , re a d the Stoics, th en discovered the subtle philosophy o f G au tam a B u d d h a . She h a d consorted with magicians a n d brigands, n o t hesitating to m ake an e x p e rim e n t of love. Now she stared unbelieving at the slip o f paper, rea d in g it over as th o u g h it was in a foreign language. Tears welled u p a n d spilled

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over. Y ongden, nearby, was am azed to watch his m o th e r weep unasham edly. A lex an d ra was n o t aw are th at ju s t the m o n th b efo re Professor d ’Arsonval, h e r academ ic sponsor, h a d also died. She probably d id n ’t know th at h e r friend the P anchen L am a h a d passed into a n o th e r incarnation. T h e G om chen o f L achen, w ho w ould live on for a few m o re years, was o u t o f reach. T h e m e n w hom A le x a n d ra cared for, the braces o f h e r world, w ere gone.

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From 1938 th ro u g h m id -1944, d u rin g a p ro lo n g e d b u t vicious stalem ate in the war, A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden w ere paying guests of the F rench Catholic hospital at Tachienlu. T h e y suffered m o re from the g en eral u n c e rta in ty th a n from serious privation. K ing r u m o r ruled, a n d D avid-N eel a d m itte d she h a d no su re m eans o f learn in g what was h a p p e n in g elsew here in C hina, let alone E u ro p e. She kept in touch with the consul at C h en g tu , a n d she read , w rote, a n d collected in fo rm atio n for h e r books. B ut she c o u ld n ’t easily shake off the effect o f Philip’s death. H e r fam iliar enemy, n e u ra sth en ia , stalked her. She q uit eating, vom ited, lost weight. She felt violent pains in h e r lower back. A Chinese m edical do cto r d iagnosed the m aladay as nervous e x h a u s­ tion. T h e skeptical one h a d h e r ow n rem e d y for the problem : she got up, first beat a servant, a n d th e n Y ongden. A fterw ard she felt fine. Such acting-out c o u ld n ’t assuage the in n e r h u rt. E xpressing love or feeling g rie f w ere o p p o se d to A le x a n d ra ’s view o f herself, a n d so she tried to suppress these unseem ly em otions. T h e resu lt was r a n ­ cor against those closest to her. She fo u n d fault with Y ongden, who to escape h e r ill h u m o r sp e n t m u ch o f his tim e in little tea shops, chatting with the ow ners a n d custom ers. Form erly an abstainer, he now tu rn e d to d rink. A lthough everyone else fo u n d him agreeable, his m o th e r th re a te n e d to disow n h e r m iddle-aged son. T h e w om an of seventy-five h a d a grow ing fear o f old age a n d helplessness. She b eg an a refrain th a t she w ould often repeat: I should have died in my te n t in th e T ib e ta n solitudes. Instead, A lex an d ra soon w ould have to re sp o n d to new chal­

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lenges. In 1944, once th e snows h a d m elted, J a p a n la u n c h e d a final d e sp era te drive to divide C hina a n d secure an o verland ro u te to southeast Asia. T h e N ationalist arm ies m elted before th e onslaught, p ro fiteerin g increased, a n d the police tu rn e d m o re bru tal. Inflation soared, ru in in g the h o rd e o f teachers a n d students who h a d m ig rated to the west carry in g th eir universities o n th eir backs. M any jo in e d the R ed Army, u n d e r the direction o f C h a irm a n Mao, n ip p in g at the heels o f the advancing Ja p an e se . David-N eel, a lth o u g h she is alleged to have re a d the poem s o f this political genius based som ew hat to the n o rth , gave no clue o f it in h e r published writings o f this p eriod. J a p a n ’s kam ikaze offensive was b o u n d to fail, if only because o f the increasing presence o f A m erican forces in the C hinese southw est. “V in e g a r J o e ” Stilwell c o m m a n d e d — a lo n g w ith his arch -riv al C h e n n a u lt a n d his fam ous Flying T ig ers— while thirty-five th o u sa n d GIs built a n d ra n the w o rld ’s busiest a irp o rt n e a r K unm ing, Y unnan. From India over the h u m p o f the Him alayas cam e m o re m en, m ate­ rial, air su p p o rt. In a decisive re tre a t th at spring, A le x a n d ra ab a n ­ d o n e d h e r converted g ra n a ry a tT a c h ie n lu a n d r e tu r n e d to C hengtu. In th e capitol o f Szechuan, D avid-N eel e n c o u n te re d J o h n Blofeld, th e n a captain in the British arm y a ttach ed to th e British Embassy at C hunking. At thirty-tw o, Blofeld was an a d m ire r o f the F renchw om an’s w riting w ho h o p e d to follow in h e r footsteps. D ue to o u r ow n adm iratio n for his work, especially the au tobiographical The Wheel of Life, we m ad e every effort to contact him . O u r q u ery finally rea c h e d him in Bangkok, b e d rid d e n , in pain, b u t gracious. Blofeld has w ritten us: During the early 1940s, I happened to ru n across [David-Neel] at a very comfortable hotel at Chengtu, west China. Jokingly, I asked why she chose this luxurious abode in preference to the exhilarating hardships of a lonely m ountain cave. In reply she gave me a highly detailed description of a recent journey into Tibet, d u rin g which she had been robbed of her possessions and thus forced to retu rn im m e­ diately to a city where she could obtain credit and hope to receive funds from France. Only later did I discover that the whole long story, doing m uch credit to her self-image, was pure fiction! W hy w ould A le x a n d ra deceive a you n g m an w hom she knew to be a dedicated B uddhist? Unlike Blofeld, who forty years later was

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still shocked by “M a d am e ’s capacity for detailed decep tio n ,” we d o n ’t suppose it was a m atte r o f self-image. T h e key question is how did A lex an d ra afford an expensive hotel in the m idst o f W orld W ar II w hen she could n o t tap e ith e r h e r ow n o r h e r late h u s b a n d ’s funds? H e r F rench b io g ra p h e rs relate th a t th ro u g h th eir consul at C h e n g tu the F rench Foreign M inistry p a id A lex an d ra a stip en d o f th irty th o u ­ sand francs p e r a n n u m (about six h u n d r e d dollars). A ccording to Jacques Brosse, the consul asked n o th in g o f A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden except to be o f service to them . J e a n C halon, in a n o th e r unlikely explanation, insists th a t th e m oney was s u p p o rt for w riting th eir T ib e ta n g ram m ar, a te x t th a t after th e w ar n o p u b lish e r o r g o v e rn m e n t agency show ed the slightest in terest a n d th at was finally privately p rin te d after D avid-N eel’s death. R em em ber, this was the Vichy (or profascist) g o v e rn m e n t th a t was allegedly m aking these fu n d s available for a reco n d ite pro ject on the Sino-Tibetan b o rder, while in France the occupying G e rm a n troops a n d the Resistance sla u g h te re d one another, a n d th e Allies bom bed m ilitary a n d industrial targets. To us this ap p e ars a taller tale than A le x a n d ra ’s feigned jo u rn e y into T ibet. We suggest h e r story may have b e e n told to Blofeld, a w ell-connected B ritish officer, as a deliberate cover-up by a w om an e m b arrassed to have b e e n in the pay o f Vichy, a n d w ho with h e r u s u a l political ac u m e n realized it m ight soon p rove a real liability. We can’t blam e h e r for accepting the m oney, w ithout w hich she w ould have fallen on h a rd times. B ut the question rem a in s— d id A lex an d ra supply th e F rench consul at C h e n g tu with in fo rm atio n in re tu rn ? Certainly, the C hinese N ationalist a u th o ris e s su p p o sed th at she h ad. We are left on the edge o f w hat m ay be a thrilling spy story, b u t u n til the D igne archives are fully o p e n e d to investigators, a b io g ra p h e r can only p e e r over the precipice. A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden s p e n t a little over a year in w hat Blofeld has described as “. . . a w alled gray-bricked city affectionately styled Little Peking. Its residential lanes b o rd e re d by low grey walls pierced with b ro n ze -stu d d e d lacq u ered gates . . . a n d th e c h a rm in g c o u rt­ yards lying b e h in d p ro d u c e d a som etim es startling resem blance to the E m press o f Cities.” H e re D avid-N eel com pleted h e r g ra m m a r and also China’s Wild West, s p e n d in g o d d h o u rs listening to H itle r’s final in sa n e b ro a d c a s ts re la y e d via R ad io S aig o n in J a p a n e s e -

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controlled In d o ch in a. H e re she le a rn e d o f the e n d o f hostilities in May 1945. In late July, courtesy o f the new Gaullist g o v e rn m e n t o f France, she a n d Y ongden w ere flown to K unm ing. A fter s p e n d in g two m o n th s th ere, she flew over th e H u m p to C alcutta, again at g o v e rn m e n t expense. A lex an d ra sp en t the n e x t nine m o n th s b ased at th e G ra n d H otel. H e r a p p ro a c h in g r e tu r n to France loom ed like a H im alayan p eak on the horizon. L a ter she told intim ates th a t she u n d e rto o k it solely to settle P hilip’s estate, a n d th a t she h a d b e e n u n a b le to r e tu r n to Asia because o f h e r arthritis. I n any event, she could n o lo n g e r live th e life ab o u t w hich she wrote. W ith o u t N eel as an interm ediary, she n e e d e d to be closer to publishers, th e new spapers, th e a d u la tio n o f adm irers. T h e south o f France was th e rig h t distance from Paris. W hile w aiting for conditions in France to im prove, A le x a n d ra calmly w atched th ro u g h h e r hotel w indow as, o n the eve o f In d ia n In d e p e n d e n c e , M oslem a n d H in d u m obs alternately b u rn e d , pil­ laged, a n d m u rd e r e d o n e another. T roops with tanks a n d m achine g u n s w ere sent in to e n d the carnage. She d id n ’t suppose the E u ro p e a n s w ere any m o re m oral. She was incensed by th e ir newly a d o p te d freed o m o f m a n n e r a n d dress. She d isd ain ed w om en in u n ifo rm who show ed th eir legs. T h e b rie f shorts w o rn by h a n d so m e y o u n g officers b o th e re d her. T h e se a re the com plaints o f a w om an b o r n in th e m iddle o f th e n in e te e n th century, th e heyday of hypocrisy. I t is th e sad song o f a w om an w ho has lost h e r h u sb a n d a n d h e r prince, the m e n w ho knew h e r y o u th a n d beau ty a n d whose existence, n ev er m in d a t w h a t distance, m ad e h e r feel attractive. A le x a n d ra probably d id n ’t h e a r o f the d e a th o f h e r fo rm e r nem esis Sir C harles Bell in late 1945 in British C olum bia. K n ighted in 1922 o n his r e tu r n from a year in Lhasa as special envoy from L o rd C u rzo n ’s Foreign Office, Bell h a d becom e disillusioned with British policy in C entral Asia in the 1930s. H e saw th a t in p r e p a r a ­ tion for eventually w ithdraw ing from In d ia, B ritain was trying to accom m odate China. Bell, however, re m a in e d a sta u n c h advocate of a n in d e p e n d e n t T ibet. So m u c h so th a t w h en h e trav eled th ro u g h T ibet, C hina, a n d M ongolia in 1933-1935, h e was fo rb id d e n by the Foreign Office from giving advice to th e P anchen Lam a, th e n in exile in C hina, o r any o th e r T ib e ta n o r M ongolian officials. Bell’s last act was to w rite a m o n o g ra p h — o r ep ita p h , since it was p u b lish ed after

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his d e a th — advocating th at T ibet, L adakh, Sikkim, a n d B h u ta n be e n c o u ra g e d to form one in d e p e n d e n t B u d d h ist nation. In India, A lex an d ra h a d n o t entirely lost h e r way with military m en, especially those who w ere y o ung a n d dashing. In April 1946 a n o th e r B ritish c a p ta in , Ia n Davie (In te llig e n c e , H Q B u rm a C om m and) a p p ro a c h e d h e r for help. H e was p a rt o f an RAF expediton th at h o p e d to m ake contact with two British wireless (radio) op erato rs em ployed by the T ib e ta n gov ern m en t, one o f w hom h ad becom e gravely ill. T h e ex p e d itio n m em bers w ere staying at the G ra n d H otel, a n d Davie, who knew A lexandra's work, was excited to find h e r n am e on the register, th e sole w om an at the requisitioned hotel. H e im m ediately app lied to h e r for advice on T ibet, a n d she invited him to tea. Davie has w ritten us as follows: She said she had considered my request, and that the most effective help she could give would be to write a letter of introduction to any T ibetan officials or lamas we m ight meet on our way. This she had already written in Tibetan script, and it simply asked the recipient to extend to the b earer the full welcome of Tibetan hospitality. It proved, indeed, to be invaluable since it had instantaneous effect when we presented it to abbots and gyapons (local governm ent representatives) on o ur journey. T h e mission was successful, a n d the assistance th at A lexandra provided to its m em bers is typical o f h e r free-and-easy relations with m en o f action a n d authority. Be it C aptain Davie, Colonel Bailey, or G eneral Pereira, o r on a different level the G om chen o f L achen or the M aharaja o f Sikkim, A lex an d ra felt a co m radeship with these gentlem en, a n d from th em she was ready to learn a n d to th em she freely gave. T h a t the m e n with w hom she was m ost intim ate in h e r long life— h e r father, h u sb a n d , a n d a d o p te d son— were vacillating types d isap p o in ted A lexandra b u t p e rm itte d h e r own heroics to flourish. T h e bizarre suggestion m ade by b io g ra p h e r J e a n C halon, and p a rr o te d by R uth M iddleton, th at A lex an d ra h a te d m en simply reflects th e offical h o k u m swallowed by these writers. A lex an d ra show ed at h e r finest in the m ountains. O n a trip to Darjeeling, she rose before daw n to stand in the brisk air, w atching the sun b u rst into flower over five-crowned K anchinjunga. She recalled how som e thirty-five years ago this h a d been h e r first entic­

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ing view o f th e Sacred Realm , fo rb id d e n to h e r race, h e r sex. Yet she h a d d a re d to enter, to travel a n d learn. Now, th o u g h she m u st r e tu r n to E u ro p e, no one could take from h e r the soul o f a T ibetan. D avid-N eel’s actual d e p a rtu re from the O rie n t o c c u rre d at the Calcutta a irp o rt on the rainy m o rn in g o f J u n e 30, 1946. She ruefully b o a rd e d an airplane. As it took off with a ro a r a n d glided into the clouds, she felt n u m b to th e core. She w o n d e re d if she w ere already dead, a shadow w a n d e rin g in the b ard o . B u t no, she h a d m erely said goodbye to India, w h ere once she h a d b e e n young. W ere h e r a d v en tu res at an end? T h e r e tu r n o f A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden to Paris d id n ’t go u n n o ­ ticed in th e press. How ever, the jo u rn alists still re fe rre d to h e r in term s o f “the first white w om an to e n te r Lhasa,” o r “the great traveler a n d ex p lo rer,” episodes o f h e r life th a t w ere past. H e r b rie f stay in the capital, still suffering from w artim e shortages, was d o m in a te d by nostalgia, as she looked u p old friends, m any o f w hom w ere no lo n g er living. Yongden, who u n d e rs to o d F rench b e tte r th a n he spoke it, liked strolling the boulevards a n d going to the cinem a. H e was n o t so pleased as his m o th e r to r e tu r n to Digne. T h e y fo u n d Sam ten D zong in good re p a ir ex cep t for the fu rn i­ tu re , d a m a g e d by the police who h a d occupied the villa d u rin g the war. A lexandra, tu rn in g in h e r p ilg rim ’s staff for a stu rd y cane, could still hobble a b o u t the countryside. N e a rin g eighty, h e r stride h a d slowed b u t h e r m in d was busy with projects. China’s Wild West, a p p e a rin g in 1947, looked b o th forw ard a n d backw ard. T h e author, n o te d Lowell T h o m a s Jr., “was a keen observer [who] le a rn e d a great deal a b o u t C h in a ’s far west a n d the intrigues o f th e b o r d e r country.” A lthough A lex an d ra was pleased to have e x p lo re d C en tral Asia before its colorful, m ysterious way o f life was g ro u n d u n d e r the rails a n d wheels o f progress, she w a rn e d the W est to stop th in k in g of Asians as passive. T h e C hinese especially, ^ v e n th e peasants a n d laborers, w ere an energetic a n d able people. Asia was going to be ru le d by Asians, she stated flatly, a good p o rtio n o f it from Peking. She advised E u ro p e a n d A m erica to initiate diplom atic, cultural, a n d com m ercial relations with w hatever regim e em e rg e d from the post­ w ar turm oil. She h a d little d o u b t it w ould be led by M ao. T his cam e at a tim e w hen the U n ited States still backed C hiang Kai-shek with

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m oney a n d m unitions, a n d the Soviet U nion, taking advantage o f the civil war, h a d seized the fo rm e r Ja p a n e se railro ad concessions in M anchuria. T h e late 1940s a n d early 1950s p ro v ed a fine p rod u ctiv e tim e for David-Neel. However, h e r n e x t two books w ere n o t financially suc­ cessful. Nepal: The Heart of the Himalayas a p p e a re d in 1949 a n d India Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow in 1951. T h e titles are tran slated into English b u t the books w ere not. T h e y w ere useful in educating som e E u ro p e an s to a d e e p e r sense o f the In d ia n reality d u rin g the time the S ubcontinent was achieving in d e p e n d e n c e a n d splitting into w hat w ould becom e th re e m ajor nations. T h e a u th o r h a d significant ties to India; still, she failed to m ake it h ers as she h a d with T ibet. Most in trig u in g a b o u t these works a re th e perso n al anecdotes, in p a rtic u ­ lar D avid-N eel’s detailed descriptions o f pancha tattva, o r tantric sex rites, w hich we have discussed earlier. A lthough the events described took place in the p e rio d 1912 to 1914, she n ev er w ould have p u b ­ lished h e r account o f th em d u rin g the lifetime o f Philip Neel. B oth Nepal a n d India contain a variety o f recollections from an am azing storehouse o f e x perience. B ut the F rench in the lean post­ war years w ere p reo c c u p ied with k eeping body a n d soul together. C onditions w ere b e tte r in D igne, w here in the 1950s o th e r houses began to encroach on the n e ig h b o rh o o d o f Sam ten Dzong. DavidNeel, h e r legs grow ing worse, p u rc h a se d a car, a C itroën 4CV. T h e good b u rg h ers, w atching Y ongden chauffeur h e r a ro u n d in this m echanized tin can, d u b b e d h e r “the wife o f the C hinese.” T h a t he was h e r son a n d Sikkimese m ad e no difference to them . O n the tow n’s m ain square, nowadays n a m e d Place G eneral de Gaulle, sits the Librairie Sicard, which sells books a n d stationery. T h e proprietor, M adam e Sicard, well rem e m b e rs the fre q u e n t occasions w hen Y ongden a n d his m o th e r w ould p u tte r u p in th e C itroën. Y ongden, squat a n d nearsig h ted , w ould com e in with the order, a n d the clerks w ould h u r ry to fill it. I f they w ere too slow for th e im p eri­ ous one w aiting in the car, she w ould loudly h o n k the h o rn a n d everyone w ould scurry faster. Later, w hen she grew too arthritic to leave the house, David-N eel w ould o rd e r by telep h o n e the w riting m aterials d e a re r to h e r th a n food. Across th e square from Sicard stands L o rion Photo. H e re A lexandra h a d developed, a n d in som e cases re p h o to g ra p h e d , h e r

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old glass plate negatives for illustrations for Nepal, India, a n d o th e r works. T h e p ro p rie to r recalls the shot o f h e r a n d Y ongden against th e back d ro p o f the Potala a n d is certain it is genuine. W h at b itte r­ sweet m em ories these photos m ust have evoked in this voyager becalm ed! T h e traveler, stra n d e d , rea c h e d o u t for com panionship. She so u g h t o u t J u d ith J o rd a n , teacher o f English, in o r d e r to speak the language th at h a d stood h e r in such good stead in Asia. She h e a rd o f a w om an, M aria Borrely, who for years h a d b e e n studying Sanskrit texts on h e r own. A lex an d ra asked h e r to com e visit, a n d B orrely's son P ierre drove his m other. “A lexandra," he told us, “w anted to get to know the o th e r b ird in the countryside." At Sam ten Dzong, while the w om en talked, he was left with Yongden. It was very aw kw ard, “because he spoke only English." A few years later, in 1954, P ierre was a s tu d e n t at th e university o f Marseilles. His professor o f philosophy, G aston Berger, suggested h e ask D avid-N eel for an article to be p rin te d in the college review. She recalled the h andsom e, curly-haired y o u n g m a n a n d a g re e d to see him . She received him in the g a rd e n at Sam ten D zong dressed “in a light g ree n two-piece Italian su m m e r dress to p p e d by a h a t with a big b ird feather." She g re e te d th e nervous stu d e n t with a re m a rk th a t translates as, “H ello, good sir, I am ab o u t to e n d a m iserable life." W h en A lexandra d e m a n d e d w hat he w anted, P ierre hesitatingly b egan, “I am a s tu d e n t o f philosophy." “Philosophy, w hat do you w ant with that, sir? P resum ption! Vanity! D on't you know this W estern cu ltu re is a vacuity? It is . . . insipide! insipide!” Pausing for b rea th , A le x a n d ra r e tu r n e d to th e attack, “Bergson! T his B ergson was a cretin, Im m a n u e l K ant m entally ill, nuts. T h e y have w ritten books a n d books u p to h e re [she g e stu re d with h e r h a n d ] to fill th em with nothing. But, th o u san d s o f years ago the [Sanskrit] p o e t Valmiki said it all a n d m u ch better." T h e in tre p id stu d e n t p ressed on, req u estin g an article for the Revue d ’etudes philosophiques de Marseilles. T h e orientalist b ro k e into a lo u d laugh. Poor P ierre re p o rte d to Professor B erger th a t A lex an d ra was too tire d to write an y th in g for the review. She was eighty-six a n d a lth o u g h h e r productive capacities h a d dim m ed , they w ere far from extinguished. M onsieur Borrely, who kindly related the above anec­

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dote com plete with gesture a n d intonation, has re tire d from his post as professor o f philosophy. D u rin g the 1950s D avid-N eel edited a n d translated into French previously u n k n o w n (to th e West) Sanskrit a n d T ib e ta n texts. T hese w ere p u blished quietly a n d h a d a lim ited circulation. She was able to cull th e m from h e r m agnificent p erso n al library, w hich included over fo u r h u n d r e d ra re T ib e ta n books a n d m anuscripts. C o nsidering the holocaust th a t has taken place in T ib et a n d th e w anton d e struction of B u d d h ist artifacts, this collection o f an a d v e n tu ro u s lifetime has becom e all the m o re valuable. C ertain o f the books w ere priceless in a m o re m aterial sense, in cluding a T ibetan-M ongol dictionary w rit­ ten in gold dust. In 1954 A le x a n d ra a n d Y ongden p ublished a n o th e r folk novel, the title o f which in a rec e n t A m erican edition (1982) has b e e n r e n ­ d e re d as The Power of Nothingness. O riginally the b rie f tale o f suspense a p p e a re d u n d e r Y ongden’s n a m e alone, a n d o f th e th re e fictional col­ laborations o f m o th e r a n d son, it is the m ost recognizably novelistic— a thriller. T h e translator, Janw illem van de W etering, well know n for his ow n “Zen” m ysteries, generally credits Y ongden with creating plot, characters, a n d outline. T his story, however, was based on the actual m u r d e r o f the aged g u ru o f Kazi D aw asandup, who h a d rela te d it to David-N eel in Sikkim. C ertainly the m ain character, a loyal b u t n o t especially brave m o n k n a m e d M u n p a, has feelings close to Y ongden’s own. M u n p a finds him self tracking the m u rd e r e r o f his g u ru , a n d the tale ranges over th e Sino-Tibetan b o rd e rla n d s so fam iliar to its a uthors, even to the Gobi D esert. In th e m a n n e r o f E astern story­ telling, while the plot opens o u tw ard it sim ultaneously spirals dow n tow ard th e core o f reality, at once em pty a n d dazzling. M u n p a does­ n ’t exactly fall into a landscape, against which David-N eel was w a rn e d in h e r youth, b u t in solitary m editation he is obliged to p ain t a colorful epic u p o n a blank wall with the b ru sh o f his thoughts. Unw illing to believe the im aginary m u ra l has a reality equal to any o th e r aspect o f his life, the m o n k becom es frig h te n e d by his own m ind a n d ru n s away. L a ter he accepts the p roposition th a t the socalled real w orld is n o th in g m o re th a n a series o f pictures p a in te d on an im aginary wall. T his cleverly co nstructed piece is amiably, yet deeply, B uddhist.

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A le x a n d ra ’s search for a n intellectual co m p an io n in th e so u th o f France was finally answ ered w hen in 1953 she h e a rd o f Dr. M arcel Maille. W h en we m et him in a village n e a r T oulon, a tw o -h o u r drive from Digne, the doctor was in his seventies, retire d ; because o f his p o o r eyesight, he navigated the streets from m em ory. B u t in 1953 this d a p p e r gen tlem an was in his h an d so m e p rim e. His u p rig h t slimness a n d the way he c a rrie d him self w hen he cam e to call o n h e r ab o u t h e r health re m in d e d A le x a n d ra o f Philip Neel. T h a t she sent for h im is n o t su rp risin g since he was know n as a T ibetanist, a n d th e re w ere precious few o f these at h a n d . “She was enorm ously fat with swollen, painful knees a n d legs,” Dr. Maille told us. “She could hardly walk.” A le x a n d ra soon d r o p p e d the subject o f h e r health. She began to quiz the doctor on his know ledge o f B uddhism , in p a rticu la r the obscure tantric rites. H e was n ot abashed because he was well rea d in the texts an d m ore im portantly, after the war, h a d lived with the m onks in In d o ch in a a n d B urm a. A lexandra quickly realized th at h e re was a m an whose passion for B u d d h ist philosophy equaled h e r own. T h e aging orientalist r e tu r n e d the visit, ostensibly to consult a b o u t h e r legs. Y ongden stayed in th e car, w hich was p a rk e d th e w ro n g way on a one-way street. “H e r legs w ere terrib le ,” recalled Dr. Maille, “with varicose veins a n d bleed in g ulcers, which she w ra p p e d u p in cloth. She w ould let m e do n o th in g for h e r.” It was T ib et A lex an d ra w ished to talk about. W h en she le a rn e d the d octor was p la n n in g a re tre a t in the m o u n tain s she insisted th a t they practice the ritual o f chod. T h e te rm m eans “to cut u p ,” a n d the w orld-fam ous a u th o r u n d e rs to o d she still n e e d e d to c u t h e r ego dow n to size. “Take m e with you!” she d e m a n d e d . T h in k in g o f the terrain , th e doctor p ro tested , “B u t I can’t carry you on my back, M adam e!” A lex an d ra gave in a n d rec o m m e n d e d the ideal place in the Alpes M aritim es for the retreat; it was rocky a n d isolated, a little d a n g e ro u s to reach b u t with ancient Celtic ruins. As she spoke she recalled a n earlier tim e, on h e r jo u rn e y to Lhasa, w h en she h a d p a u se d at a n a tu ra l clearing am o n g tall trees, overcom e by th e desire to p e rfo rm the mystic dance o f abnegation. D espite the d a n g e r o f detection, A lexandra sent h e r son to fetch water, while she d r u m m e d a n d

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rattled a n d wove the arcane figures, calling on the dem ons to come to feast. O v er tim e the two T ibetanists grew closer. Dr. Maille visited as often as he could, a n d they even tran slated texts together. H e was very im pressed by A le x a n d ra ’s library a n d by h e r excellent know l­ edge o f T ib etan . ‘T w ould be searching for the m ea n in g of an obscure te rm ,” he recalled, “b u t before I fo u n d it in th e dictionary, she told me. She was always c o rre c t.” She told him stories— ’’thrilling!”— n o t fo u n d in any o f h e r books. At five o’clock a servant cleared everything away a n d they concluded with tea in the English style. W h e n A le x a n d ra suggested th at she w ished to m ove to Dr. M aille’s locale, th at she w ould give u p S am ten D zong if h e could find h e r a house on on e level, he was taken aback. “You will be my doctor,” she insisted. “W hat doctor? You refuse to take drugs. You d o n ’t give a d a m n for m ed icin e.” I n reply she looked taken aback. “At least we could talk m ore often a b o u t things T ib e ta n .” I f the do cto r was dubious, it was no d o u b t d u e to the orientalist’s habits. She h ard ly slept because o f pain, a n d she lived in a mess of new spapers, books, m anuscripts. H e w ould find h e r in h e r chair s u rro u n d e d by m o u n d s o f p ap ers, im m ersed in th e latest projects. T h e n , too, she h ad , as she ad m itte d , a difficult character. “She was a w om an o f a u th o rity who w ould n o t b ro o k co n trad ic­ tion,” recalled Dr. Maille. “She w ould d efe n d h e r ideas, even if false, tooth a n d nail.” “She was very friendly to m e a n d I liked h e r a lot, b u t th e re were times w hen I w anted to say, ‘E n o u g h !’ I could have slap p ed her. Because she was so irritating, p re e m p to ry in h e r ju d g m e n ts. She never listened to yo u r a rg u m e n ts.” A le x a n d ra ’s schem e to m ove fell th ro u g h a n d instead she took on a Russian housekeeper. Dr. Maille was relieved, b u t th eir friendship, which c o n tin u e d into the 1960s, grew ever m o re intim ate. “She d id n ’t tell m e in a form al way,” Dr. Maille told us, “b u t she ex plained to m e th at she h a d practiced sexual rites . . . sexual rites o f lefth a n d e d tantricism . She n ev er w rote o f i t . . . She m en tio n ed it to me because as h e r doctor I was n o t shocked. B ut I am p e rs u a d e d she spoke o f it with actual knowledge ”

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“I have translated a n u m b e r o f texts c o n c ern e d with tantric sex,” co n tin u e d the doctor. “T h e y m u st be re a d from two points o f view: o ne actual, the o th e r symbolic. T h e re are certain m edical observa­ tions in them . She [Alexandra] spoke o f this as an a d e p t who h a d actually d o n e these practices.” T h e ir conversation o n th e subject b e g a n w h e n Dr. Maille re m a rk e d to h e r that, in his university days, h e h a d b e e n given a h oary T ib e ta n tex t to translate for its tantric vocabulary. “My p rofes­ sor was an old p ru d e , his interests w ere strictly academ ic.” A lex an d ra ex p lain ed th at th e texts w ere n o t reliable because the tantric trad itio n was essentially secret a n d oral. “I assure y o u ,” she said emphatically, “th e re is m u ch to be gained by doing it.” Dr. Maille a d d e d th at she was ninety at the tim e o f this conversa­ tion a n d th at h e r eyes glowed with delight at the m em o ry o f the m id ­ nig h t rites. We in q u ire d w here he su p p o sed these m ig h t have taken place. H e could n o t be sure, b u t he th o u g h t e ith e r in Sikkim o r N epal.

I n early O ctober 1955, a Saturday, Y ongden, know n as Albert, his n am e as a E u ro p e a n g entlem an, drove the car to get groceries. After he re tu rn e d , A lex an d ra a n d he ate veal cutlets for dinner. T h e y lis­ te n e d to the rad io a n d he w ent to bed. It h a d b een a day like any o th e r at S am ten Dzong. B ut d u rin g the n ig h t A lbert becam e very ill. A lexandra, aw akened, tried to b rin g his high fever dow n. First thing in the m o rn in g she sent for Dr. Maille. By the tim e he arrived A lbert— or Y ongden— was dead. H e was fifty-six, the cause of death, urem ia. “H e e n d e d u p an alcoholic,77according to Dr. Maille. “Com pletely d ep ressed because he was th o ro u g h ly u p r o o te d /7 Interview s with several citoyens o f D igne w ho knew Y ongden elicited a similar response. In the en d , the cautious Philip Neel was correct about the unw isdom o f tra n sp la n tin g the you n g Asian m an from his native soil. P art o f the p ro b lem was th at David-Neel took a “colonial77 atti­ tu d e tow ard h e r a d o p te d son, treatin g him with the condescension the British a n d F rench h a d show ed tow ard their subject peoples. Y ongden com plained th a t his m o th e r som etim es tre a te d him m ore like a servant th a n a son. She ad m itted she te n d e d always to re g a rd him as th e tee n a g e r she took into h e r service in Sikkim. W hen Y ongden was n e a rin g forty, A le x a n d ra told Philip th at he was a child in m ost ways. She was m ainly co n cern ed th at he do h e r b id d in g and be at h e r beck a n d call. T h u s she kept him d e p e n d e n t, h e r “boy.77 T h e boy h a d grow n into a thickset m an w earing thick glasses and traveling in som ber E u ro p e a n clothing th at scarcely flattered him. At D igne he was popular, going a b o u t his e rra n d s in a b e re t a n d striped

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shirt a n d blue pants. W hen a café ow ner offered h im a glass o f beer, or a p a tro n a cigarette, he d id n ’t refuse. H e lea rn e d to speak a little café French. Tongues w agged th at he was in te reste d in w om en b u t afraid of his d e m a n d in g “wife.” Certainly, Y ongden w ished to live in o r visit Paris for the am usem ents it offered. A lex an d ra p re fe rre d h e r rem em b ran ces o f times past. Y ongden m ade the best o f things. H e rose early a n d accom panied his m o th e r on h e r increasingly painful walks. W h en these becam e impossible, he grew roses, w orked on th eir books together, o r m ed i­ tated, p e rfo rm in g a th o u sa n d helpful tasks. We learn from G eneral G eorge Pereira— n ot from David-N eel— who k ept this q uiet— th at “she h a d a d o p te d as h e r son a y o u n g lam a o f the R ed H a t sect who was a m in o r ‘living B u d d h a ’ from S outh T ib e t.” Y ongden a tulku, like Sidkeong tulku, d id n ’t live long e n o u g h to express his in n ate talents. It m ay be he is already d o in g so in his n e x t incarnation. A lex an d ra never recovered from the blow o f losing h e r com ­ p a n io n o f the last forty years. W ith o u t him at eighty-six, she w ould n o t write a n o th e r significant book o n the East. Y ongden h a d been h e r last living tie to T ibet. She h a d the lam a’s body c re m a te d a n d placed the ashes in an u r n at th e foot o f a B u d d h a in th e sh rin e room . She felt th at som ething o f his tran q u il spirit rem a in e d at S am ten Dzong. Feelings aside, the orientalist h a d lost h e r legal a n d literary heir. Y ongden was to have received h e r rights o f a u th o rsh ip a n d to act as the g u a rd ia n o f treasu res she collected so passionately. DavidN eel in h e r last years, for w ork as well as c o m panionship, w ould have to tu rn to strangers. W hen L aw rence D urrell visited this “m ost astonishing w om an” in 1964 p e rh a p s his m ost in trig u in g observation was to co m p are A le x a n d ra to P rospero in The Tempest, a n d to claim that, like the S h akespearean m agician, she kept h id d e n a shy, p retty M iranda. T h a t retirin g you n g w om an— M arie-M adeleine P ey ro n n et— is now in h e r sixties, yet h e r d e te rm in e d , p o in te d face fra m ed by graying h a ir h a sn ’t greatly c h an g ed . Slim, a n d h e r m a n n e r far m o re assured, she still prefers to dress casually in pants. O riginally h ire d in the capacity o f housekeeper, she has becom e th e custodian o f D avid-N eel’s hom e, pap ers, a n d p h o to g ra p h s a n d e d ito r o f h e r po sth u m o u s works, in d ee d th e arb iter o f h e r m em ory.

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T h e two w om en w ere cast from radically different m olds. W here A le x a n d ra was b o rn a Parisienne, to a family on the political left, M arie-M adeleine was raised in F rench Algeria in a family o f soldiers. T h e b u d d in g orientalist began h e r travels as soon as she was old e n o u g h to r u n away, while M adeleine rem a in e d at hom e, d o m in a ted by a fath e r who h a d b e e n colonel o f a battalion in the Sahara. Still, she d re a m e d o f far-off places, particularly Canada. In h e r late twenties she becam e n an n y to a wealthy family a n d traveled to Aix-en-Provence. H e re , in 1959, she was rec o m m e n d e d to th e notice o f the fam ous a u th o r who, d u e to h e r b a d te m p e r a n d b izarre habits, c o uldn’t m an ag e to keep e ith e r a servent o r a secretary. O n th e first n ig h t th e r e lu c ta n t M a d ele in e s p e n t w ith A lex an d ra— the a u th o r h a d p h o n e d h e r to com e at once to h e r hotel, she was dying— she w atched the suddenly revived o ctogenarian wolf dow n h e r dinner. W h e n she w ent to p re p a re the su p p o sed invalid’s bed, she le a rn e d this was an a rm c h a ir p a d d e d with cushions over w hich w ould be d ra p e d , once A le x a n d ra was in it, an old T ib etan blanket. T h e scholar insisted th at h e r books, pencils, a n d pads be kept handy. She only drow sed a n d a vital th o u g h t m ight strike at any m om ent. She scoffed at the difference betw een day a n d night. Soon the p a ir left in the b a tte re d C itroën for Digne. M adeleine, in h ig h spirits, drove. W h e n at th e e n d o f the jo u rn e y she tried to help h e r em ployer o u t o f the car, A lex an d ra called h e r a fool. N eed in g assistance m ad e h e r furious. Yet the basis o f the relationship betw een th e two strong-willed w om en w ould be one o f d e p e n d e n c e laced with affection, a struggle betw een age a n d youth, know ledge an d conviction, th a t only M adeleine with tim e on h e r side could win. M ad elein e’s first glim pse o f Sam ten D zong was o f th &former g a r­ den, presently a b a n d o n e d to w eeds h ig h e r th a n th e car. T h e in terio r o f this little T ib e t looked still worse: low-ceilinged room s h u n g with grim y re d tapestries. T h e ra g g e d fu rn itu re a p p e a re d rea d y for the ju n k h e a p , a n d the kitchen appliances m ight have com e from there. M adeleine followed A lex an d ra as she clu m p ed th ro u g h on h e r canes, raising swirls o f dust. W h e n she shyly suggested sw eeping, the orientalist grow led. I f the novice fo u n d th e house disconcerting, its shrine, ro o m te r­ rified her. T h e smell o f incense, th e sight o f tables covered by h u m an skulls a n d phallic symbols, a tan k a on the wall th at depicted bodies

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w ra p p e d in the poses o f desire, the tiny case by the B u d d h a th a t con­ tained the ashes o f Yongden, all caused M adeleine to silently m ake the sign o f the cross. She sp e n t th at n ig h t in h e r b e d c h a m b e r in a nervous sweat. A large black spider h u n g from a beam , b u t it didn’t b o th er h e r nearly as m uch as the strange bells, b u tte r lam ps, a n d th u n d erb o lts she h a d seen strew n about, n o r the e m anations from a phurba, a bejew eled m agic dagger. B ut n o t lacking in grit, M adeleine successfully fo u g h t off h e r fears a n d becam e indispensable to h e r em ployer. L a ter on she a m u sed h erself by scaring oth ers with the p h u rb a. It was the very disarray o f David N eel’s life th at drew M adeleine to her. T h e fo rm e r’s b e d c h am b e r a n d office w ere one: a large w ooden desk a n d a w riting table—h e a p e d with books a n d p a p e rs— a chair, chests containing o dds a n d ends, in one c o rn e r a turn-of-thecentury suitcase packed w ith cam ping gear ready to go. A T ib etan altar with the usual offerings d o m in a ted one wall, a n d tankas deco­ ra te d o th e r spots. Each n ig h t M adeleine h a d to tuck h e r m istress into an arm chair, p ro p h e r feet on a cushion covered w ith cloth from h e r old cam p tent, a n d th e n m assage h e r legs covered by sores. A lexandra’s pain m ust have been constant. Ever vain, the older w om an o rd e re d the younger to w rap u p h e r legs so they couldn’t be seen. A lexandra w ould drift off b u t often aw aken to jo t dow n an idea. T h e n she w ould rin g for M adeleine to b rin g h e r tea, never m in d the hour. Aside from housekeeping, she h a d to assist the a u th o r in such tasks as p ro viding quotes, w h e th e r she knew the lan g u ag e o r not. H e r em ployer w ould n o t h e a r o f a holiday. She did help M adeleine to b rin g h e r m o th e r a n d sister o u t o f Algeria to live nearby. D u rin g the n e x t decade th e y o u n g e r w om an’s only tim e off, th re e half-days, was to a tte n d funerals. T h r o u g h o u t this p e rio d the orientalist w orked on h e r m em oirs, on rew rites o f earlier books, a n d on Four Thousand Years of Chinese Expansion, w hich accurately p re d ic te d the rise o f C hina to a w orld power. W ra p p e d in h e r claret robe, thick white h a ir p laited in a pigtail, A lex an d ra always k ept n e a r h e r a sim m ering tea pot, a m agnifying glass to d e c ip h e r small p rin t, a n d h e r daily schedule a n d notes for c u rre n t books. In the later 1960s, she saw less o f Dr. Maille, so Dr. Ju lien Rom ieu, the m ayor o f Digne, becam e h e r physician. W hen he advised h e r to get read in g glasses, she replied that she did n ot yet

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n e e d them . W hen Christm as H u m p h rey s visited his fellow Buddhist, he was “im pressed to find her, at the age o f ninety-five, correcting proofs w ithout spectacles in a room m ade dark against the sum m er sun.” Yet this adm irable, egotistical w om an, in m any ways larger th a n life, was h e a rtb ro k e n in h e r loneliness. She som etim es took a m orose pleasu re in su p posing that, as she w ould be no m ore, her T ib et was vanishing b e n e a th the tidal wave o f C hinese expansion. O nly at S am ten D zong could A le x a n d ra ru le with a n iron, if arthritic, h an d . M adeleine was o r d e r e d to attack the weeds in the g a rd e n in o rd e r to p la n t peas, beans, parsley, a n d chevril. T h e se vegetables w ould be cooked into thick soups rem iniscent o f the good meals at K um Bum . D u rin g h e r jo u rn e y s in Asia, A lex an d ra h a d b e e n m o re or less a veg­ etarian, a n d she always p re fe rre d this diet. However, she rem a in e d fond o f pasta, coffee, a n d sweets, u n h e a lth y for a w om an in h e r nineties suffering from arthritis. D u rin g the last several years she could n ot walk at all, a n d M adeleine h a d to carry h e r from chair to chair. Fortunately, she was n o t as heavy as she h a d been. O n e b o n e o f co n ten tio n b etw een the two w om en, who developed a d e e p b u t tense relationship, was D avid-N eel’s B u d d h ist reverence for all form s o f life. T h e shrine ro o m was a refuge for mice who were eating u p th e T ib e ta n rugs a n d m anuscripts. A lex an d ra refu sed to p u t o u t trap s a n d instead e x p e rim e n te d with tam ing a few o f the little creatures. Secretly, M adeleine poisoned the lot, ju s t as she surreptitiously, th e n openly, w aged w ar on the d irt and d iso rd e r of Sam ten Dzong. W h en it cam e to the realm o f ideas, the e ld e r w om an was relentless a n d the y o u n g e r one sentim ental. A lex an d ra forced h e r com panion to exam ine the fram ew ork o f h e r conventional beliefs. In tu rn , M adeleine p ro b e d for the chinks in the old stoic’s arm or. She deeply m issed h e r h u sb a n d , a n d the m ere m ention o f Y ongden’s nam e b ro u g h t a w o u n d e d look to h e r face. M adeleine was the first w om an since h e r youth to b rea k th ro u g h A le x a n d ra ’s h a rd shell. T h re e -q u a rte rs o f a c en tu ry before, h e r m o th e r’s lack o f u n d e r ­ standing left a d eep scar. Since th en , the orientalist h a d te n d e d to m easure h e r accom plishm ents against those o f m en, w h e th e r they were adm irers, teachers, o r rivals. T his relationship o f h e r last decade was m o re intim ate, m o re fem inine. T h e im perious one criti­ cized h e r em ployee for being too slow to carry out. h e r com m ands, th en affectionately d u b b e d h e r Tortue (tortoise).

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In th e 1960s curiosity seekers b o m b a rd e d Sam ten D zong with letters a n d visits. C onvinced o f D avid-N eel’s pow ers, these extravagants cam e from the four c o rn e rs with ou tlan d ish petitions. O n e S outh A m erican fell dow n a n d b eg an to kiss M ad eleine’s feet as she o p e n e d the door. N u m b ers o f w om en b e g g e d to live as celibates with o n e they su p p o sed was a g re a t m ed iu m , while o th ers e x p ected h e r to help th e m succeed in business, c u re an illness, o r com m it a crim e. A refm ed-looking w om an was eag er to le a rn if h e r d e a d h u sb a n d was w a n d e rin g in the b a rd o o r already re in c a rn a ted . P erfu m ed let­ ters h a d m ade h e r suspect his fidelity a n d she w anted to d e m a n d o f him th e tru th . A n o th e r irate wife im p lo re d the w izard o f Sam ten D zong to kill, at long distance, h e r straying spouse. A le x a n d ra chuck­ led, th in k in g o f the n u m b e r o f widows this w ould create if it w ere m a d e a g en eral rule. C aravans o f hippies often s to p p e d at D igne o n th eir pilgrim ages to the East. T h e y idolized th e sage who h a d lived a m o n g T ib e ta n herm its, b u t to h e r c red it she d isd ain ed to p ro m o te a cult o r proclaim h e rse lf a guru* Girls in m iniskirts w ere d eclared u n w a n te d at Sam ten D zong, since David-N eel co n sid e red such revealing garb in a p p r o ­ pria te for w ell-bred w om en. B ut she liked to ch at with a n d was re ju v e n a te d by h e r y o u n g ad m irers. I f they h a d re a d a book o r two o f hers a n d a little E astern philosophy, she w ould e n te rta in th em like old friends. D avid-N eel w a rn e d th at the serious business o f v ag ab o n d in g was n o t for the fain th earted o r faddish. First o n e m u st m aster the lan g u ag e o f a country. To d e p a rt w ithout m oney was a disservice to native beggars. She p ro p o se d th a t ten years o f residence was neces­ sary to speak o f a place with real authority. O therw ise, th e B u d d h ist set dow n n o dictum s, n o r w ould she assign h e r a d m ire rs m an tras to c h a n t o r exercises to p e rfo rm b ey o n d w hat could be fo u n d in h e r writings. To e n d a tedious interview she closed h e r eyes a n d dozed off. T h e ancient o n e som etim es grew m orbid. She reg u larly q u o ted th e G reek m axim : “T h o se w ho die y o u n g a re loved by th e gods.” In ste a d , she claim ed to be paying for h e r sins w ith a cruel old age a n d a ridiculous en d , a rm c h a ir-b o u n d . She lo n g ed after th e C e n tra l Asian plateau, cursing h e rse lf for leaving. She h a d visions o f dying on the steppes n e a r th e Koko N o r lakes, the e a rth b e n e a th her, above

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the infinite starry sky. T h e lam as w ould c h a n t from the Book o f the D ead to e n s u re re b irth in a m o re kindly realm . T h e n th e hu g e v ultures w ould descend to p a rta k e o f h e r body— the “sky b u ria l.” She w ould sigh, struck by the g r a n d e u r o f it. Yet A le x a n d ra realized th at, d u e to h e r own choices, she h ad b een b r o u g h t full circle: hobbled, d e p e n d e n t on dom estics. T his was rem iniscent o f h e r m o th e r’s last days, a fate th a t in th e flood o f life she h a d despised, n ev er d re a m in g it m ight resem ble hers. M adeleine p re fe rre d to distract A le x a n d ra by baking special desserts. Visitors w ere an unfailing tonic, b u t the y o u n g e r ones a n n o y ed the harassed cook/secretary. L ooking o n these youthful seekers as a lot o f u n k e m p t beggars, she once b u rst o u t th a t w ere she p re sid e n t o f th e republic she w ould b a n D avid-N eel’s books because o f the m ischief they en co u ra g e d . T h e e x p lo re r o f o u te r limits, m aking no reply, stared into space. Was it th e n she th o u g h t o f im plicating the y o u n g e r w om an in the destru ctio n o f p o rtio n s o f h e r co rresp o n d en ce? W h e n J acq u es Brosse in q u ire d o f M adeleine a b o u t considerable gaps in th e m a n u sc rip t letters, she “confided th a t u n d e r the o rd e r o f A le x a n d ra herself, she h a d very probably b u r n e d th em [the miss­ ing letters], w ith o u t know ing w hat they w ere a b o u t.” T h e se gaps in th e re c o rd exist for several tu m u ltu o u s years after h e r m arria g e to Philip, a n d they becom e ev id en t to obscure o th e r em b arrassin g instances, such as illnesses a n d d e m a n d s for money. Equally im p o r­ tant, D avid-N eel’s letters as published posthum ously in French, e dited by M adeleine P eyronnet, contain only a b o u t o n e -th ird o f those ex tan t. O ften, at precisely the m ost in terestin g m om ents, the r e a d e r is c o n fro n ted by an ellipsis. T h e fre q u e n t series o f dots m ask the reality these a u th o rs have a tte m p te d to realize. B oth w om en p e rk e d u p w h e n distin g u ish ed guests visited S am ten Dzong. T h e Bishop o f Digne, M onseig n eu r Collin, was an e ru d ite m a n with w hom D avid-N eel liked to discuss e verything from politics to th e Bible. T h e iconoclast h a d always got on rem arkably well with th e h ig h e r clergy. T eilh ard de C h a rd in was a n o th e r Catholic intellectual with w hom she k ep t in touch. O nce w hen he chided h er for n o t believing in miracles, she replied th at she m ad e them . It took a d ifferent sort o f m a n to b rin g o u t A le x a n d ra ’s sprightly, coquettish air. W h en L aw rence D u rrell interview ed h e r in 1964 for Elle, he was struck by h e r “m agnificent eyes,” h e r “small a n d beauti­

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ful e a rs” a n d “delicately designed nose a n d m o u th .” At first she was difficult, relating to D u rrell that, after first crossing the b o r d e r into T ibet, she becam e ill a n d was dying in the snows. C harles Bell, the R esident in G angtok, received w ord o f h e r plight, yet because she h a d disobeyed his order, he w ould do n o th in g to help her. “You English are n o t g entlem en!” she rem o n stra te d . W h e th e r the story is tru e o r not, the old fox liked to test people. D u rrell h a d com e p re p a re d for the eventuality. Struck by one o f the postage stam p-sized illustrations from the F rench version o f Journey— Voyage d ’une Parisienne a Lhassa taken by an o u tm o d e d plate cam era, he h a d it blown up. As he in fo rm e d us, “It show ed a y o u n g w om an o f quite exceptional beauty a n d spirituality dressed as a B u d d h ist pilgrim with beads a n d b e gging bowl an d a little p o in te d wicker h a t th at I re m e m b e re d from my ow n c h ild h o o d ”— w hen he first becam e acquainted with A le x a n d ra ’s writing. To soften A le x a n d ra ’s m ood, D u rrell p ro d u c e d the p h o to g ra p h . H e recounts h e r reaction: “Yes,” she said, “it was a farewell picture I had taken on the eve of my d eparture from Darjeeling.” T h e n becoming grum py once m ore she added most reproachfully, “I think you m ight have bro u g h t one for m e.” I replied, “Madam, I have brought four for you.” At this her face relaxed into its pretty youthful lines and she took the pictures from me with delight and said, “Ah monsieur, you see that I was once beautiful.” It was very touching, very feminine, and from then on we were firm friends. So the two a u th o rs ch atted amiably, a n d A lexandra, h a ir n o t entirely white, a p p e a re d to D u rrell as a w om an o f p e rh a p s sixty. H e re was a n o th e r triu m p h o f will over p ain by th e a d v e n tu re r who o p e n e d the h id d e n w orld o f T ib e ta n B uddhism . O r was it m e th o d — did she practice any form o f in te rn al yoga? D u rrell believed she did, a n d we are convinced th a t she kept u p som e silent practices co n c ern e d with concen tratin g th e m ind, m editatin g o n aspects o f the Void, a n d p re p a rin g to die. T antric m ethodology was A le x a n d ra ’s forte, a n d it is n o t likely th at she h a d forgotten w hat she so arduously acquired, or th at she w ould discuss it with any b u t an initiate. N earin g a c entury on ea rth , the w om an beg an to crum ble physi­

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cally. Now a n d again a tooth w ould crack a n d fall out. H e r skin itched terribly, a n d she would scratch off pieces o f flesh. However, she re ta in e d the spirit o f ad v e n tu re . At one h u n d r e d she ren ew ed h e r passport, m uch to the p u zzlem en t o f the official in charge. T his was no em pty gesture b u t the p re lu d e to a jo urney. D avid-N eel did n o t like to fly b u t in h e r m in d an itinerary h a d crystalized. Casually, she p u t the grandiose schem e to M adeleine: they w ould drive the C itroen first to B erlin w here she knew o f a doctor who claim ed to cure arthritis. T h e n it was on to Russia, driving the length o f th at vast co u n try to Vladivostok. T h e re she a n d M adeleine could em b a rk for their final destination, New York. Did she envision a tickertape p a ra d e u p Broadway? A le x a n d ra h a d th o u g h t it o u t in detail, dow n to sleeping in the car a n d cooking to trim expenses. Seeing new places w ould m ake h e r feel y o u n g a n d well again. M adeleine vetoed the proposal, a n d not to provoke an a rg u m e n t gave the excuse th at h e r legs were too long to curl u p in a tiny vehicle. T his p u t an e n d to the c e n te n a ria n ’s longheld wish to see America. I n 1969 David-N eel was p ro m o te d to the highest o rd e r o f the F rench L egion o f H onor. Scholars paid h e r hom age. R ene G rousset, the orientalist, p raised h e r e ru d itio n an d a d d e d th at his T ib etan acquaintances uniform ly held h e r in high esteem a n d accorded h e r the title Jetsunma. Similarly, the F o u rteen th Dalai L am a from his In d ia n exile spoke favorably o f the e x p lo re r in an interview with A rn a u d D esjardins. T h e spiritual lead er w anted to m eet the w om an who h a d know n his predecessor, a n d a d d e d , “We have re a d h e r books a n d we recognize th ere o u r own T ib e t.” B u t w hen the F rench g o v e rn m e n t decided to cast a b ro n ze m edal in D avid-N eel’s honor, she refused to pose. She claim ed to be too old and ugly. T h e m edal h a d to be cast from a p h o to w ithout the subject’s cooperation. She did choose the m otto to be en g rav ed on the reverse: Walk S tra ig h t o n Follow ing Y our H e a r t ’s D esire. It is from ' Ecclesiastes a n d h a d c au g h t the atten tio n o f the youthful rebel threequ a rte rs o f a c entury e a rlie r Reluctantly, A lex an d ra e n g a g ed in a television p ro g ra m about T ibet th at devoted twenty m inutes to h e r exploits. She acted strange, replying to the interview er in French, English, or T ib etan as she fancied. She c o u ld n ’t help b u t oblige the m ayor Dr. R om ieu, a n d the

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councilors o f Digne, w hen they w ished to celebrate h e r h u n d r e d th b irth d ay with a party. She d escen d ed into a d a rk m o o d for weeks before the gala. W hile M adeleine, im pressed by the m ag n itu d e o f th e occasion, tried to tidy the villa against the e x p e cte d invasion o f re p o rte rs a n d notables, h e r m e n to r took refuge in h e r T ib e ta n books, m um b lin g the syllables aloud. T h e ca m e ram e n o n the occasion shot a beatific A lexandra, ch ig n o n neatly a rra n g e d , in a robe o f C hinese silk. O n each h a n d she w ore the a p p ro p ria te rin g o f the initiate given to h e r lo n g ago by th e M aharaja o f Sikkim. She ch a tte d with re p o rte rs as zestily as she h a d on h e r r e tu r n to France in 1925. T h e m unicipality h a d c o n trib u te d c h a m p a g n e to c o m m em o rate its m ost fam ous citizen, a n d the a u th o r ’s office was tra n sfo rm ed into a b a r th at ra n g w ith toasts to h e r courage a n d longevity. G aw king locals a n d sophisticated Parisians m ad e Sam ten D zong teem like a th re e -rin g circus. T h e one-tim e h e rm it’s goodwill e ro d e d u n d e r the onslaught. She s n a p p e d at the cam erm en a n d even let loose at a tro o p o f girls from the g ra m m a r school who shyly w aited to p re s e n t a b o u q u e t o f roses. After the crow d left, A le x a n d ra c o m m u n e d for a few h o u rs with h e r T ib e ta n volumes. H o n o rs w ere as useless to h e r as old hiking boots. A lthough sitting u p rig h t in h e r wicker desk chair m ad e h o t irons ja b into h e r spine, w ork was h e r one reliable painkiller. She accepted h e r trials, once in form ing M adeleine th at suffering refines th e cha ra c te r o f m e n a n d w om en. D avid-N eel was to u ch ed w hen D igne n a m e d a pro je c te d sec­ o n d a ry school after her. A long with Dr. R om ieu, she p o re d over the plans, sad th at Philip Neel h a d n o t lived for this m om en t. H ow wise o f the councilors to m em orialize h e r before, r a th e r th a n after, death. Even m o re on the scholar’s m in d was .her will, the disposal o f h e r invaluable library a n d extensive collection o f T ib e ta n artifacts, especially the stu n n in g masks. Dr. Maille was consulted, a n d h e a g re e d to contact his good frien d Professor R. A. Stein, h e a d o f the French Asia Society. T h u s F rance’s two leading T ibetanists c o n fe rre d at S am ten Dzong. D avid-N eel w ished h e r library an d artifacts k e p t intact a n d placed w here they m ight be studied. She h o p e d th at Stein, a u th o r of Tibetan Civilization, a distinguished scholar b u t decidedly o f the old school, w ould oversee the installation o f h e r collections in Paris. In

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r e tu r n he w ould have h e r ashes strew n in the Ganges. To sweeten th e deal, she offered him certain ritual b one items. Professor Stein refused, acidly c o m m en tin g to Dr. Maille, “This w om an is not very in te restin g .” P erhaps conflict was inevitable betw een these two p ro p o n e n ts of rival versions o f the epic o f G esar of Ling. D avid-N eel was stu n g by the rejection, b u t we a re re m in d e d of an old saying th at she liked to repeat: “W ho knows the flower best— the one who reads ab o u t it in a book, or the one who finds it wild on the m o u n tain sid e?” In a panic, David-N eel cast ab o u t for m eans to assure the conti­ nuity o f h e r work. She felt th a t M adeleine was too in ex p e rie n c e d to take p r o p e r charge o f h e r legacy. A ccording to an in form ant, “Each week she w rote a n o th e r will [and] the last one was u sed .” H e r entire library o f French, English, a n d T ib e ta n books was d o n a te d to the M usée G uim et, w here she h a d b e g u n h e r studies as a y o u n g w om an. Today only the T ib e ta n books— 440 o f th em — are to be fo u n d there. H e r perso n al library o f F rench a n d English books— o f g rea t interest to a b io g ra p h e r— has b e e n scattered. D avid-N eel’s valuable collection o f artifacts was left in limbo, with the m ost u n fo rtu n a te results. Shortly after she passed away a truck cam e to carry away the precious rugs, tankas, statues, ritual objects o f bone, a n d ra re masks th at the orientalist h a d collected, with a superb eye, over h e r years o f a rd u o u s travel in corners o f Asia w here it is difficult to v e n tu re even now. M adeleine saved w hat she could, b u t twelve large containers o f these items w ere sh ip p e d to Paris. U n d e r supervision o f the executor, these were to be allocated to several m useum s. Try to find th em if you can. Only D avid-N eel’s letters a n d u n p u b lish e d m anuscripts were to rem a in at S am ten D zong u n d e r the im m ediate care o f M adeleine, supervised by h e r literary executor, Dr. M onod H e rz en o f Paris. T h e proceeds o f past a n d fu tu re publications w ould go to the m unicipal­ ity o f Digne, which becam e th e a u th o r ’s legal heir. U nfortunately, Dr. Rom ieu, a quasi-B uddhist, died before m atters could be p u t on a sound footing. In h e r will, David-N eel stipulated th at Sam ten Dzong was to becom e a tru e T ib e ta n C enter: a b u ilding w ould be con­ structed in the garden to house those on the Path— Buddhists, scholars, a n d stu d en ts— at very low cost. T h e p u rp o se was to com bine study an d m editation, to re-create the T ib e ta n institution o f tsams (deep,

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secluded m editation), b u t for W esterners, as A le x a n d ra h erself had practiced it at Kum B um . T h e schem e never cam e to fruition, a n d Sam ten D zong today is a b rie f stop on the to u rist p a th in the south o f France. O n e o f M adeleine’s first experiences h a d b een a sum m ons to wit­ ness A le x a n d ra ’s final b rea th . T h r o u g h o u t the n e x t decade h e r em ployer ra n g h e r bell persistently, usually in the m iddle o f the night, to signal the su p p o sed last act. Naturally, M adeleine lea rn e d to d isreg ard these false alarm s. Against reason, she cam e to re g a rd A lexandra as im m ortal, a n o tion abetted by h e r stro n g will, which show ed no signs o f w ithering. B ut in J u ly 1969 M adeleine u n d e r ­ stood th at th e old e x p lo re r was beyond searching for sympathy. At breakfast h e r pinch ed face h a d a blissful glow, the a fte rm a th o f an illum ination given to h e r the n ig h t before. “God, the Father, spoke to m e,” w hispered A lexandra. “H e has m ad e a g rea t light in my soul a n d I have seen the n othingness o f all th a t was myself.” T h e se words, at once C hristian a n d B u d d h ist in tone, a re a quote from A natole France’s Thais, m ad e into an o p e ra by M assenet. A le x a n d ra in the role o f the h e ro in e — a courtesan c onverted to reli­ gion, who nonetheless seduces a m o n k — h a d once su n g them . From this p o in t on the world-w eary one show ed little em otion, only a certain sweetness, an affability, th at M adeleine h a d n o t seen in h e r before. H e r m ajor re g re t co n cern ed giving u p c u rr e n t investi­ gations: the lives o f Jesus a n d Mao. She wished to a p p ro a c h the C hristian savior as a typically H ebrew p ro p h e t, a patriot, a n d to tre a t the C om m unist Party C h a irm a n as an incarn atio n o f the m ythical Gesar, rig h te r o f w rongs suffered by the Asian peoples. W h atev er else m ay be said o f David-Neel, she w ished to share the ra re know ledge she h a d acquired. She was a staunch w a rrio r in the co m m o n h u m a n struggle to be free of ignorance. David-Neel, like Conway in Lost Horizon, r e tu r n e d from h e r H im alayan paradise to the m u n d a n e w orld o u t o f a sense o f duty. T h e sadness a bout h e r life, inextricably m ixed with h e r triu m p h , was caused by the know ledge th a t she could n ot find h e r way back to Shangri-La. O n S eptem ber 8, 1969, at th re e in the m o rn in g , with M adeleine by h e r side, A lex an d ra ceased fighting for breath . T h e traveler d e p a rte d on h e r final journey.

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O n S ep tem b er 11 at M arseilles the rem ains o f A lexandra DavidN eel w ere crem ated. M adeleine a n d Dr. R om ieu w ere p rese n t, along with several old e x p lo re r friends a n d a niece a n d n ep h ew o f Philip Neel. As th e d e p a rte d h a d wished, th e re was a m in im u m o f cerem o­ ny, a n d h e r ashes w ere placed in an u r n to be k e p t with Y ongden’s at S am ten D zong un til M adeleine could tra n s p o rt th em to the River G anges. N ew sp ap ers, ra d io , a n d television in m an y co u n tries a n n o u n c e d the e x p lo re r’s d e a th — to a w orld c a u g h t u p in the V ietnam W ar a n d the p o p u la r struggle to p u t an e n d to it. Yet A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel has b e e n far from forgotten. Along with h e r obituary, the International Herald Tribune show ed a p h o to of A le x a n d ra rid in g a yak; it was captioned, “W om an on top o f the w orld.”

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In c lu d in g p o sth u m o u s works, thirty distinct titles b e a r A lex an d ra D avid-N eel’s nam e. W hile each is c o n c ern e d with th e East, at least in p art, they vary from early u to p ia n to th e highly e ru d ite , from th e form ality o f g ra m m a r to th e intim acy o f p rivate letters. H e r books ra n g e over philosophy, anthropology, orientalism , p h i­ lology, g eo g ra p h ic al discovery, historical a n d political n u a n c e , a n d th e tangle o f tantric practices. Always they a re c ra m m e d with a d v e n tu re . A le x a n d ra ’s m ost astonishing b eq u est— to use L aw rence D u rre ll’s w o rd — m ay be h e r life itself. T h is is rid d le d with as m any co n trad ic­ tions as h e r character. B o rn in th e eye o f a revolu tionary h u rric a n e , th e radical s tu d e n t ultim ately d isdained politics b u t re m a in e d a keen observer. O nce a n o p e ra singer, she late r chose to p e rfo rm on th e vast C entral Asian plateau. A stau n ch fem inist, she le a rn e d m ainly from m en , loved h e r father, h u sb a n d , a n d son, a n d was wel­ com ed as a co m p e re by th e m ost ru g g e d o f th e lot. C olonel Eric Bailey, th e n th e Political O fficer in Sikkim, in his confidential letter to the G o v e rn m e n t o f In d ia in fo rm in g th e viceroy o f D avid-N eel’s fo rb id d e n j a u n t to Lhasa, could n o t help raving a b o u t h e r “w o n d e r­ ful jo u rn e y .” G eorge Schaller, th e savior o f the H im alayan snow le o p a rd , re m a rk e d o f David-N eel, “She accom plished so m u ch m o re a n d in such [a] seem ingly offh and m a n n e r th a n m ost e x p lo re rs in th a t p a rt o f the w orld.” A lthough she ra n g e d over g re a t u n m a p p e d distances a n d c o n q u e re d te rra in from ice-clad peaks to leech -rid d en ju n g le s, she delved still m o re significantly into th e crevices o f th e h u m a n

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psyche. Ultimately, this willful w om an who was n o t above b eatin g a recalcitrant servant, this beneficiary o f turn -o f-th e-cen tu ry im p erial­ ism who defied a n em p ire, stands for individual liberty, for the full e x p ressio n o f th e “I ” th at h e r B u d d h ist philosophy d enied. David-N eel took refu g e in th e B u d d h a in h e r m idforties. H e r tru e c a re e r b eg an at a n age w h en o th ers b egin to th in k o f re tire m en t. She stu d ie d a n d m ed itate d am id th e snows o f a H im alayan w inter ensconced in a cave; m ost difficult, she su b o rd in a te d h e r will to another. T h e G om chen o f L achen ta u g h t h e r m uch. She th e n em ployed the know ledge she h a d gained to e xplore, to rec o rd , a n d to ex p lain to others. She never c u t h e rse lf off from the w orld for long b u t fo u g h t for a h e a rin g as d e te rm in e d ly as she h a d battled the b rig a n d s o f Koko Nor. T h e r e has b e e n som e c o m plaint against D avid-N eel th a t she was u n o rth o d o x . Jacq u es Brosse believed th a t because she left h e r g u ru b efo re s p e n d in g the traditional th re e years, th re e m o n th s with him , she failed to attain e n lig h te n m e n t a n d finally lacked com passion in th e B u d d h ist sense. B ut he d id n o t know th e w om an a n d d e p e n d e d on M adeleine P ey ro n n et for a description o f h e r final, illness-ridden years. In contrast, Ia n Davie has w ritten us, “She was serene, a n d the p e rso n she m ost resem b led , in a p p e a ra n c e a n d graciousness, was M o th e r T eresa.” J o h n Blofeld claim ed th a t “D avid-N eel was so deeply co n cern ed w ith h e r public im age th a t h e r m ost widely re a d books are lim ited to T ib e ta n B u d d h ism ’s p o p u la r aspects. Little is said about its spiritually o r philosophically p ro fo u n d aspects.” T his ju d g e m e n t is superficial a n d p e rh a p s p ro m p te d by envy. T h e public has d e te rm in e d which o f D avid-N eel’s books re m a in p o p u lar; it is n o t h e r d oing o r a valid criticism. T h a t h e r m o re p ro fo u n d works such as The Secret Oral Teachings, b u t especially h e r novels, are n o t b e tte r know n is largely the fault o f h e r estate, w hich does n o t know th em either. Still, DavidN eel’s w ritings have rea c h e d th e rig h t perso n s in the rig h t places far e n o u g h to m ake a difference in th eir an d o u r lives. L a m a G ov in d a, a G e rm a n w ho b e c a m e p e r h a p s m o re T ibetan ized th a n D avid-N eel, consciously followed the p a th she blazed. At Sikkim ’s royal m onastery o f Podang, h e was. pleased to occupy “the sam e ro o m in w hich she h a d lived a n d w here a strange voice h a d w a rn e d th e y o u n g M aharaja . . . o f his im p e n d in g en d

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a n d the failure o f his in te n d e d religious refo rm s.” L am a G ovinda, like David-Neel, learned from the G om chen that, “M ere goodness a n d morality w ithout wisdom is as useless as know ledge w ithout goodness.” Blofeld’s observation that David-Neel “rem ained basically a fundam entalist B uddhist to the last” is correct, if by this we m ean a follower o f the teachings o f G autam a B uddha. She took literally B u d d h a ’s injunction to accept nothing on the basis o f authority b u t to test every supposed tru th by the clear light o f reason a n d experience. I n 1972 G eorge Schaller a n d P eter M atthiessen w ere studying th e habits o f wildlife n e a r th e N epalese-Tibetan b o rd er, te rra in th a t was b o th difficult a n d politically dan g ero u s. Areas along the ro u te w ere in h a b ite d by K h a m p a b a n d s, h a rd -b itte n fro m years o f gu errilla w arfare against th e C hinese army. H a m p e re d by late m o n ­ soon rains, the p air settled into a small hotel in an isolated T ib e ta n village to the west o f A n n a p u rn a . R ain c o n tin u e d to fall, the travelers n e e d e d p o rte rs, a n d the locals refused to be o f service. So they re m a in e d in th eir sleeping bags for days a n d rea d , e n tra n c e d by A le x a n d ra ’s books, especially Magic and Mystery. E ventually th e w eath er cleared, p o rte rs m aterialized, a n d the p a ir tre k k e d on. T h e ir jo u rn e y resu lted in two sp len d id — a n d p o p u la r— travel accounts, Schaller’s Stones of Silence a n d M atthiessen’s The Snow Leopard. T en years after the d e a th o f D avid-N eel, the first all-w om en’s raft­ ing trip dow n th e C olorado River th ro u g h the G ra n d C anyon began; it was 115 degrees in th e shade, if you could find any. T h e rafters p o u r e d buckets o f w ater over each o th e r to keep cool. Som e row ed, o thers p a d d le d , a few talked. C h in a G alland, who has described this a n d o th e r a d v e n tu re s in Women in the Wilderness, w rote, “O u r g ro u p is extrem ely diverse . . . Still I know th e re m ust b e a c o m m o n th re a d th a t has d raw n us all together.” In the c h a p te r titled “H ow We G ot T h e r e ,” the a u th o r recalls m aking a m ost im p o rta n t discovery: th e life o f A le x a n d ra DavidNeel. At a tim e o f crisis in h e r ow n life, G alland identified with D avid-N eel’s d e sp air at successive early frustrations. G alland co n tin ­ u e d , “I p o n d e r the c h an g e in m y spirits th a t has com e over m e since b eg in n in g to re a d a b o u t A lex an d ra . . . the triu m p h o f im placable spirit, the d a n g e r a n d the m erit o f following o n e ’s ow n p a th , a n d the realities o f living o u t a d re a m .” A le x a n d ra in sp ired C h in a G alland to take chances a n d to com m unicate h e r victories.

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At the opposite e n d o f th e w orld, 18,500 feet high on A n n a p u rn a in N epal, Dr. A rlene B lum , lead er o f the first all-w om en’s expedition u p the g iant m o u n tain , spoke into h e r tape rec o rd e r: ‘T keep w on­ d e rin g w hen the n e x t avalanche will come. I ’m spooked . . . Risking o u r lives; G od, it’s crazy. W hy? Well, in a n o th e r six days som eone can be o n to p .” Dr. B lum was p ro fo u n d ly affected by finding a copy o f My Journey to Lhasa in a se co n d h a n d bookstore in K atm an d u . She carried the m essage o f the boo k with h e r u p th at tow ering mass o f ice a n d snow, a n d the d o g g ed d e te rm in a tio n o f the F renchw om an stiffened the w om en’s will to succeed. T h e p arty c o n q u e re d the w o rld ’s third highest peak, a lth o u g h on th e descent two clim bers, r o p e d together, p lu n g e d to th e ir deaths. Dr. B lu m ’s Annapurna: A Woman's Place surely counts as a fru it o f th e tre e o f m any images D avid-N eel con­ ju r e d u p. In A ugust 1985, sixteen years after the “sky-walker” (dakini) cru m b led to ashes, a y o u n g A m erican w om an, L eth a H adady, fo und he rse lf at the o rn ate e n tra n c e to the Jo k h a n g , L hasa’s “ca th e d ral,” festooned with flags to celebrate the tw entieth anniversary o f the People’s G o v e rn m e n t o f th e T ib et A utonom ous R egion, a n d the arrival o f th e T e n th P a n c h e n L am a to bestow his b enediction on the occasion. M any ru ra l folk, following age-old custom , h a d flocked into Lhasa for the event— com plete with M ardi Gras-like floats proclaim ­ ing th e new T ib e t a n d “Twenty Years o f P rogress.” Townsfolk, peas­ ants, a n d nom ad s sm iled broadly, only partly because they h a d been w arn ed to for weeks in advance over the lo u d sp e a k e r system that p e rm eates every nook o f the City o f the Sun. T aking th eir lead from the Dalai Lam a, the c o m m o n folk never d o u b ted th a t the Panchen Lam a, who h a d b e e n held in close custody by the C hinese g overn­ m e n t for m ost o f his life, h a d the interests o f his co u n try at heart. Tall, lanky, b lond, the w om an’s typically T ib e ta n outfit o f d a rk felt failed to disguise h e r nationality, a n d w hen she spoke it was with the slight tw ang o f the w estern plains. G lancing a ro u n d as th o u g h looking for som eone, she b e g a n to circum am bulate th e baroque, sw oop-roofed building. She h e ld h e r rosary o f one, h u n d r e d an d eight w ooden beads, ch a n tin g “O m M ani Padm e H u m !” along with o th er pilgrim s tre a d in g the clockwise p a th taken for centuries. Some

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h o b b led , som e p r o s tr a te d them selves fu ll-le n g th , o th e rs w ere absorbed in prayer. T h e A m erican’s jo u rn e y to Lhasa, h a lf a cen tu ry after the original, was trig g e re d by rea d in g a n d tran slatin g several o f A le x a n d ra ’s books. At K a tm a n d u she h a d b e e n in fo rm e d by the C hinese consulate th at she c o u ld n ’t cross from N epal into T ibet. B ut in New York they h a d assured h e r the b o r d e r was o p en , th at C hina w elcom ed tourists. Well, yes, rep lied the official, b u t th e re h a d b e e n p roblem s a n d she w ould have to obtain a visa in H o n g Kong. It was useless to p o in t o u t she w ould have to fly th e re a n d back for a prohibitive sum . D espairing, she solaced h e rse lf by having a lu n ch o f savory momos at a little d u m p lin g shop. Fighting back tears, she felt like David-N eel after h e r first glim pse o f the fo rb id d e n land. T h r e e y o u n g T ib e ta n m e n a p p ro a c h e d a n d in fo rm e d the A m erican they knew o f h e r difficulties. O n e p ro d u c e d an air ticket from Calcutta to H o n g K ong. It was hers if she a g re e d to deliver a package to Lhasa. B ut w hat a b o u t the r e tu r n ticket? T h e y h a d n one, suggesting instead she cross to G u a n g z h o u (C anton) a n d travel th ro u g h C hina by rail to K unm ing, Y unnan; from th e re a tru c k took two weeks th ro u g h the Po co u n try to Lhasa. T h a t was th e safest way because th e re w ould be a less th o ro u g h search at the T ib e ta n border. She w o n d e re d if these genial lads in th eir twenties w ere anti-C hinese guerrillas, the source o f the “problem s” alluded to. Partisans o p erated o u t o f N epal, a n d even th e Dalai L am a could n o t always control them . Besides, w hat was in the package? She was fo rb id d e n to o p e n it, th a t was the stipulation. B ut to w hom should she deliver it? She n e e d n ’t worry, a p e rso n w ould claim the parcel; they could say no m ore. She asked herself, w hat w ould David-N eel have done? C ertainly n o t tu rn back after com ing this distance. She accepted the m edium -sized package o f te n o r twelve p o u n d s — heavy e n o u g h for a b o m b — a n d w ithin two days fo u n d h e rse lf in u ltra m o d e rn H o n g Kong. At G u a n g z h o u she b o a rd e d the train a n d sp e n t the n e x t th re e a n d a h a lf days crossing C h in a in fo u rth class: ro ck -h a rd benches, co m p a rtm e n ts ja m m e d with p o o r families, the w om en w rinkled, the c h ild ren asleep u n d e r the seats, th e toil-w orn m e n chain-sm oking cigarettes. T h e toilets w ere u n u s ­ able, a n d th e aisles w ere full o f sick people. At K un m in g the A m erican lea rn e d th e T ib e ta n b o r d e r was

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closed, visa o r no. H otels in Lhasa w ere full d u e to the celebrations. She m ig h t try flying from C h e n g tu , Szechuan. B ut th ere, too, the answ er was no, a lth o u g h she was told to try again. S uddenly one day b o th the skies a n d Lhasa o p e n e d miraculously, a n d from th e p lane flying over southeast T ib e t she looked dow n on a ra n g e o f snow ­ c a p p e d m o u n tain s p lu n g in g tow ard the horizon like a school o f h u m p b a c k e d whales at sea. Finally, th e m o u n ta in o u s wave broke, and* as they glided dow n o nto the plain, the Potala glinted white a n d gold, c h a n g in g shades like a faceted d iam o n d ring. She h a d m ade the j o u rn e y th a t took D avid-N eel fo u r m o n th s o f intense struggle in a couple o f hours. T h e B a rk h o r a ro u n d th e J o k h a n g ru n s th ro u g h th e h e a rt of Lhasa, past the d in o f the m arketplace, a n d a pilgrim m u st concen­ tra te o n h e r m a n tra n o t to be seduced by colorful n o m ad s haw king th eir wares. W h e re this stre e t widens a n d the p ed d le rs th in o u t about halfway a ro u n d , th e A m erican spotted p r o p p e d against a wall by a h u g e in ce n se -b u rn e r a n elderly T ib e ta n w om an o f no distinction, a beggar, if such w ere allowed. She g e stu re d to h e r a n d the pilgrim obeyed the sum m ons. T h e cro n e deftly slipped h e r a ro lled -u p sheet o f rice paper, a n d th en , with a g ap -to o th ed grin, m o tio n ed like a wheel. She u n d e rs to o d she m u st com plete the circum am bulation. At th e tre k k e r’s hostel th a t evening w hen h e r ro o m m ates h ad g one o u t— they w ere ran d o m ly assigned w ithout re g a rd to n ational­ ity o r gender, a n d the toilet was a u n isex hole in the g ro u n d — the A m erican u n ro lle d the flimsy paper. Poorly p rin te d in T ibetan, C hinese, a n d English, it was the auth en tic cry of a peo p le g ro u n d u n d e r th e b oot o f history, d eclared abolished, yet still placing faith in th e conscience o f the w orld. “L ong live His H oliness the Dalai L am a!” it began, th en in a b rea th ta k in g unrav elin g o f language: We want to Free Tibet. We against by fore 20 celebration of [indeci­ pherable]. Go out Red China. We against Chiness Goverment. We want to How m en Right—U.N.O. We want to Justics. Justics. Justics. Long live Free Tibet! Free Tibet! T his sheet so th in as to be tra n sp a re n t, this m angled English, was sufficient if in te rce p te d by the police— an d th eir spies w ere every­ w h ere— to lead to prison, to rtu re , a n d finally the daw n gift o f a pis­ tol bullet in the back o f the h e a d for any n u m b e r o f T ib e ta n patriots.

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The. A m erican quickly tucked it away as h e r British, F rench, a n d G e rm a n room m ates re tu rn e d . N e x t day the beg g ar w om an was absent from h e r spot; she was n o t sighted until it was nearly tim e for the A m erican to fly back to C h en g tu . Each day, carrying th e m ysterious parcel tucked u n d e r h e r T ib e ta n robes, she w ent a ro u n d th e J o k h a n g , m e a n d e rin g a bit obvi­ ously th ro u g h th e m arket, b u t in vain. T h e last m o rn in g she h a d s to p p e d at a stall to buy a trin k e t from a p e d d le r w om an o f A m do, colorfully dressed a n d loaded with turquoise, w hen she felt a h a n d g rasp h e r arm . T u rn in g , she saw those w ithered lips c u rle d into a splotchy smile. She followed the crone dow n a n a rro w side alley. W ith o u t knock­ ing she e n te re d a door; th e dim ness within was fu rth e r obscured by sm o ld erin g incense, b u t the A m erican was able to m ake o u t several lam as p raying before an altar. T his was a clandestine B u d d h ist tem ­ ple. T h e religion is strictly curtailed and controlled in its old hom e. But rites are held in secret, and lads are designated an d educated as m onks while a p p e arin g ju st like their com rades. Tulkus, such as Sidkeong or Yongden, are still discovered. O ver the altar h u n g a fram ed, faded p o rtra it photo o f the F ourteenth Dalai L am a beam ing with youth. O n e o f the lamas, in h esitant English, asked the visitor if she w ould like to m ake an offering. She u n d e rsto o d , revealing the pack­ age. O p e n e d , it co ntained n o th in g m o re sinister th a n h u n d re d s o f pocketsized photos o f His H oliness, who at fifty h a d re ta in e d the aspect o f y outh b u t looked sa d d e r a n d m o re benevolent. U n d e r the p h o to was p rin te d a blessing in T ibetan. T h e A m erican grew so excited on discovering w hat she h a d b e e n lugging a b o u t th at she cried tears o f joy. T h e blessing was given to h e r by the lam a, a stu rd y K ham pa. His r u p tu r e d English re m in d e d h e r o f the “Free T ibet!” flyer. T h e Dalai Lam a, the incarn atio n o f C henresi, B odhisattva o f C om passion, blesses im partially T ibetans, C hinese, a n d philings. T h e A m erican left for New York. She h a d visited the m onasteries o f D re p u n g an d Sera, slowly b ein g resto red , which hold a few score o f friendly m onks. She h a d “m e t” the Potala several tim es— necessary because on each occasion she was ru sh e d th ro u g h by th e obviously fearful guide. R a th e r b izarre w ere the Dalai L a m a ’s private qu arters, which have b een k ept u n to u c h e d since he fled to In d ia in 1959. O n e daw n she w atched as lamas p r e p a r e d a corpse for the “sky b u ria l”

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a n d c h a n te d to guide the deceased’s soul th ro u g h the b a rd o as they w aited for the e ag er vultures to swoop dow n. She w alked m any miles to the site o f G an d en , b u t fo u n d no crow ds o f pilgrim s a ro u n d the tom b o f Tsong K hapa, m ad e o f p u r e gold a n d silver a n d e n c ru sted with jewels. T h e tom b h a d b e e n b ro k en into pieces a n d m elted dow n. G an d e n , which once h o u se d th o u san d s o f m onks a n d T ib e t’s leading university, is a shadow o f its old self. T h e A m erican realized th a t th e tru e stream o f T ib e ta n life flows u n d e rg ro u n d , disguised, in the style o f D avid-N eel, as a p o o r old b e g g a r w om an. B u d d h ism , r e tu r n e d to its roots as an outlaw faith, finds expression in artists w ho co ntinue to p a in t tankas with u n c h a n g in g devotion; in the m ark e t folk at Lhasa, who as they deal continually c h a n t u n d e r th eir b re a th the holy nam es; in pilgrim s from far places who refuse to stop sh o rt o f th eir goal. After all, S hangri-L a was n o t m ad e o f bricks a n d m ortar. Shortly after the A m erican’s d e p a rtu re , the d e sp era tio n o f the T ibetans e ru p te d in the first o f several uprisings in Lhasa, followed by ever h a rs h e r retaliation by the occupying C hinese forces. At the tim e o f w riting—A ugust, 1997— the rep ressio n o f traditional T ib etan life in th eir ancient capital has becom e nearly total. A May article in The Far Eastern Economic Review titled “Lhasa Is T u rn e d into a C h inatow n” re p o rts th at “as C hinese flock to the T ib e ta n capital”— lu r e d by w ages five tim es as h ig h as in C h in a p r o p e r — “skyscrapers a n d traffic ja m s are red efin in g the city.” Lhasa has becom e a n o th e r C hinese boom tow n on the o rd e r o f G uan g zh o u or Shanghai. T h e old city has b e e n largely dem olished, c o rru p tio n o f all sorts rules, a n d the T ibetans them selves are m arginalized. A T ib e ta n businessm an pu ts it succinctly: “Lhasa is a lost cause.” E xcept in two rec e n t A m erican movies, film ed in A rgentina an d M orocco respectively, w here a n ersatz Lhasa has b e e n constructed o u t o f c ard b o ard . T h e fantasy o f S hangri-L a rem ain s com pelling. We need to believe th a t som ew here th e re is a land o f E nlig h ten ed M asters who can teach a secret know ledge th at will free us from care a n d worry. Strangely en o u g h , A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel fo u n d th at place—ju s t w here M adam Blavatsky h a d said it w ould be— in the Him alayas. She stu d ied with th e M asters—call th em lamas, naljorpas, o r the G om chen o f L ach en — a n d she r e tu r n e d to the West with the express

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p u rp o se o f relating th at which she h a d learn ed . T his she accom ­ plished in a witty, prolific, a n d e n te rta in in g fashion. T his is the p a th o f the bodhisattva, one who p ostpones e n lig h te n m e n t so th a t he o r she m ay help to enlig h ten others. For m any centuries the T ibetans h a d am assed the know ledge of th e ancient w orld. In the form o f books o r m anuscripts they ca rrie d it o n th eir beasts o f b u r d e n fro m C hina, o r on th eir backs over the Him alayas from In d ia — som etim es they c a rrie d the precious secrets in th eir m inds. D avid-N eel rev e rsed th at process, a tra n sfe r o f the D h a rm a th at today has b e e n vastly accelerated by the outflow o f refugees from Tibet. B u d d h ism has com e to us in a m a n n e r parallel to th e tran sfer o f G reek lea rn in g to the rest o f E u ro p e after the fall o f B yzantium , a cataclysm th a t resu lte d in the Renaissance. Are we once again on the th re sh o ld o f such a pow erful fusion o f E astern a n d W estern th o u g h t a n d art? I f so, A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel’s place is in th e v a n g u a rd o f h u m a n ity ’s progress. To us personally th e re exists a sn ap sh o t from the travelogue of A le x a n d ra ’s life th at c ap tu res h e r way. In 1936 E u ro p e trem b led before the ex to rtio n a te d e m a n d s o f Hitler. Czechoslovakia w ould soon be swallowed by th e Nazis, b u t th at d id n o t p re v e n t th e o rie n ­ talist, at th e h e ig h t o f h e r ren o w n , from going to P rag u e to give a conference. W hile th e re she visited the h o m e o f the sixteenthc e n tu ry kabbalist Rabbi Loew, adjacent to a very old synagogue. In o rd e r to d efen d his people, this le a rn e d mystic h a d m a d e a golem , o r so legend held. H e c reated this being by fashioning the statue o f a m an from clay, th e n an im atin g it th ro u g h m agical sayings. T h e cre a ­ tu re possessed e x tra o rd in a ry pow ers for good o r evil. A lexandra d id n ’t believe in golems. She felt the conception was too physical. This sort o f work was best done as a mental creation. Yet, when the guard left her alone in the rabbi’s chambers, she scarcely hesitated before pulling aside the silken cord that b arred access to Rabbi Loew’s chair of office. Sitting there, she felt the electric charge of h e r lineage. T h r o u g h o u t h e r life, A le x a n d ra D avid-N eel so u g h t substance b e h in d the screen o f shadows. She, too, fashioned a p ro te c to r for h e r people: h e r works will help keep alive th e tru e T ib e ta n spirit. After a c entury o f endeavor, she d e p a rte d for th at dim sh o re to which we all jo u rn e y one day. W hat she discovered th e re is hers.

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C oncerning biographers, Leon Edel has observed, “They think too little about art and talk too m uch about objective fact, as if facts were as h a rd as bricks or stones.” We can nam e no one worse served by this state of m ind than A lexandra David-Neel. For m any years the facts of her long life were obscure, partly because she preferred to conceal h er intimacies, hu m an frailties, and even illnesses, which she considered signs of weak­ ness. Unfortunately, David-Neel’s posthumous plans for Samten Dzong, h er collection of Tibetan artifacts, and her personal papers have been largely circumvented. T here is an urgent need for these documents and photographs to be placed u n d er professional supervision and subjected to scholarly study and free access. David-Neel’s reputation deserves no less. T h e significant gaps in portions of David-Neel’s papers, coming at crucial m oments in the story of her life, have caused us to take some lib­ erties with h er spoken dialogue. T he words (and thoughts) attributed to h er are not necessarily on record. O ur m ethod rath er parallels Jo h n Blofeld’s in his autobiographical City of Lingering Splendour: “I have employed the m ethods of fiction to reconstruct conversations or to refur­ bish settings fading from memory. So all I have written records truthful­ ly either what was or what easily may have been.” In o u r case, this applies to A lexandra herself and occasionally Philip Neel or Yongden. T hird-party sources, spoken or written, and of course archival sources, are reproduced as accurately as hum anly possible. We have spent m uch of the last two decades unearthing the hidden facts of David-Neel’s life, as well as living our own in a m anner she might find sympathetic. T h e re is no use in interpreting the evidence either in the spirit of attack or hagiography. We have aimed for a m ore objective, if equally enthusiastic, work. We have been concerned to show the moral and spiritual significance of David-Neel’s life and writings, and what she continues to m ean to others.

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We began with Dorothy M iddleton’s Victorian Lady Travellers, which stirred our interest in these phenom enal, neglected women. Becoming acquainted with Mrs. M iddleton, honorary vice president of the Royal Geographical Society, has been one of the great pleasures of this endeavor. Luree Miller, in On Top of the World, wrote one chapter that shone light (in English) on corners of A lexandra’s life. A third woman, Letha Hadady, author o í Asian Health Secrets (foreword by H .H . the Dalai Lama) is the godm other of this book. We cannot thank h e r sufficiently for h er translations of idiosyncratic French, probing insights into A lexandra’s character, and arduous travel on our behalf, when she wielded camera and brush to good effect. We cite our equal gratitude to three gentlem en—in the full sense of the word—each British. Peter Hopkirk, author and foreign correspon­ dent, was generous with his time in reading the m anuscript and making suggestions for its im provement. His casual rem ark about the India Office Secret Files led us to a mine of information. This material, never before draw n on, provides the first third-party verification that DavidNeel went where she said she did. It shows why she took detours and evasions. H ere is the key to the mystery of her ro undabout route. To H ugh Richardson, dean of Tibetanists, we are m ore than thank­ ful both for his meticulous guidance and am using b ut informative anec­ dotes. O u r correspondence with Mr. Richardson, Britain’s last Political Officer for Sikkim and Tibet, grew to m onum ental proportions. T h ro u g h his eyes we obtained a view of the actual world in which DavidNeel moved. W ithout this precious knowledge, evaluating her actions would have been m ere guesswork. Lawrence Durrell provided another view of our subject, personal and incisive. We are grateful for his time, attention, and encouragem ent. We are sorry to have to thank Christmas H um phreys posthum ously for recounting his meetings with o u r subject. We have relied on Mr. H um phreys’s Popular Dictionary of Buddhism for both meanings and spellings of Buddhist terms. In general we have fallen back on the most commonly accepted forms, not necessarily those used by David-Neel, but contem poraneous with her. Consistent with that policy we have spelled Chinese and Tibetan geographical names in the fashion known to her and her time. T he choice is essentially an aesthetic one. However, the adoption of c urrent Chinese spelling of Tibetan names m ight imply a recognition of the legitimacy of their regime in Tibet—a political act we are not p rep ared to commit. Similarly o u r m aps—draw n by Letha H adady—:conform to the boundaries agreed u p o n by the Simla Convention of 1914, the Asia that David-Neel knew.

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Until now, no one had thought to interview a variety of people close to David-Neel. Doing so proved both enlightening and entertaining. O u r thanks to Professor Pierre Borrely for his candor (and imitations), and to Frank Treguier for his helpfulness. We are truly indebted to Dr. Marcel Maille for his deep learning and interest in Tibetan Buddhism, and his willingness to share his unique insights with us. Additional thanks to his charm ing wife, Michele, for her contribution to our knowl­ edge of the enigmatic one. And to Dr. Yves Requena, prolific author, physician of the soul as well as the body, for introducing us to Dr. Maille. T he intelligence conveyed by these wonderful people, and by a num ber o f tradespeople at Digne, came to us precisely when we could make the best use of it. Among institutions whose collections we have consulted, we are p a r­ ticularly indebted to the India Office Library of the British Library, London; and to the anonym ous librarian at the British M useum who directed us to the unpublished notebooks of Sir Charles Bell. These con­ tain m aterial Bell considered too personal to include in his several fine books on Tibet. T h e library of the Royal Geographical Society, London, is beyond com pare in the field of travel; one may simply reach out and take what one needs, it is all on hand. O ur thanks also to the Musée Guim et and the Bibliothèque de l’Opera, as well as the Bibliothèque National, Paris. It was our pleasure to use the specialized, but excellent, collections of the Sri A urobindo ashram , Pondicherry, a n d the Theosophical Society, Adyar, India. Closer to home, the librarians of D artm outh College, the New York Public Library, and Columbia University proved consistently helpful beyond the dem ands of their p ro ­ fession. O ur profound thanks m ust be given to the following librarians of H u n te r College, CUNY: the late Magda Gottesman, N orm an Clarius, and H arry Johnson, who obtained for us books we never dared hope were available, and from the most rem arkable places! It was a pleasure to correspond, and later meet, with Professor Robert T h u rm a n of Columbia, a scholar who knows Tibetan Buddhism firsthand, and with that intrepid traveler in his own right, Lowell Thom as, Jr. of Alaska. We profited from the advice of Marion Meade, biographer of M adame Blavatsky, an author who understands what it means to deal with a giant of a woman. Once again in Paris, our thanks to Dr. Gabriel M onod-Herzen for sharing with us memories of the woman he knew so well. In New York, Braham Norwick, Tibetanist and long-time adm irer of David-Neel, was the source of expert information. T h e enthusiasm of Dr. Arlene Blum (m ountain climber par excellence) and the comm itm ent of Valerie La

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Breche helped to keep us on track. We are obliged to Sir Jo h n Thom pson, form er British ambassador to the United Nations and to India, for his wise and witty comments on Charles Bell and the diplo­ m at’s life in the Orient. A few words on the previous biographies in French, on which we have draw n in differing degrees. Jean n e Denys’ Alexandra David-Neel au Tibet (1972) is scandalous and motivated by hatred, yet it cannot be ignored. O ne’s worst enemy often knows a good deal about one. H andle with care. Jacques Brosse’s Alexandra David-Neel: Laventure et la spiritual­ ité (1978) is out of date and print bu t interesting and fairly balanced. His judgm ents show a real knowledge of Buddhism. T he book has been unduly neglected. Je a n Çhalon’s Le lumineaux destin d’Alexandra David-Neel (1985) is a lengthy authorized biography. Chalon shows only a superficial acquain­ tance with Eastern thought. T he author lacked the advantage of certain vital sources in English. Moreover, he has hatched some theories that, out of politesse, we may term misguided. T h e value of the book lies in its feel for narrative, lively style, and extensive treatm ent of A lexandra’s younger, bohem ian days and m arriage. In English, a pallid attem pt at biography is Ruth M iddleton’s Alexandra David-Neel: Portrait of an Adventurer. This is impressionistic, unresearched—a pastel m iniature of a great woman. We wish to take this opportunity to thank our guides to the p ro ­ found world of Buddhist thought and practice: Jo h n Blofeld, Alan Watts, and Allen Ginsberg. To our astonishment, we received from Mr. Blofeld a lengthy, helpful critique of our m anuscript written from his sickbed shortly before he died. We hum bly thank our spiritual guides Chogyam T rungpa Rinpoche, and the D harm a Master, monks, and nuns of the Chinese-American Buddhist Association, Chinatown, New York. It ought to be abundantly clear we have no quarrel with the Chinese people, but only dissent for the policies of the People’s Republic in Tibet. We realize that we have m ade errors, and these we claim for o u r­ selves alone. T he good in o u r work we dedicate to the Tibetan people, wherever they may live. B arbara F o ster M

ic h a e l

F oster

New York, N.Y 1997

ARCHIVAL AND UNPUBLISHED SOURCES Bell, Charles. Unpublished Notebooks on Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim and Chum bi Valley. 4 vols., m anuscript notes 1936; Diary vol. 3-21, m an­ uscript notes 1907-1938. T h e British Library, London. T h e Political and Secret A nnual Files (1912-1930), L/P&S 11, India Office Records. T h e British Library, London. WORKS BY ALEXANDRA DAVID-NEEL ENGLISH

David-Neel, Alexandra. “Behind the Veil of Tibet.” Asza 26 (April 1926): 320-328, 346-353. Buddhism: Its Doctrines and Its Methods. New York: Avon, 1979. “Edge of Tibet.” Asia 44 (January 1944): 26-29. “A Frenchwoman Secretly H eaded for Lhasa.” Asia 26 (March 1926): 195-201,266-271. “H igh Politics in Tibet.” Asia 43 (March 1943): 157-159. Initiations and Initiates in Tibet. Berkeley: Shambhala, 1970. “Lhasa at Last.” Asia 26 (July 1926): 624-633. “Lost in the Tibetan Snows.” Asia 26 (May 1926): 429-435, 452-454. Magic and Mystery in Tibet. New York: Dover, 1971. “M oham m edans of the Chinese Far West.” Asia 43 (December 1943): 677-679. My Journey to Lhasa. New York: H a rp e r & Brothers, 1927. Reprint, Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. “New W estern Provinces of China I: Ching-hai.” Asia 42 (May 1942): 286-289. “New W estern Provinces of China II: Sikang.” Asia 42 (June 1942): 367370.

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David, Alexandra. “Auprès du Dalai Lam a.” Mercure de France 99 (October 1912 ): 466-476. “Le bouc émissaire des thibetains.” Mercure de France 176 (December 1924): 649-660 “Les colonies sionistes en Palestine.” Mercure de France 80 (July 1909): 266-275. Grammaire de la langue tibétaine parlee. Paris: n.p. n.d. “L’Iliade thibetaine et ses bardes.” Mercure de France 166 (Septem ber 1923): 714-725. L’Instruction des indigenes en Tunisie.” Mercure de France 74 (July 8): 6172. “La liberation de la femme des charges de la m aternité.” Le Monde (1908): 115-119. “Le pacifisme dans l’antiquité chinoise.” Mercure de France 67 (June 1907): 465-471. “La question du Thibet.” Mercure de France 140 (May-June 1920): 366-375. Socialisme Chinois; Le philosophe Meh-Ti et L idee de solidarité. Londres: G irard et Briere, 1907. Les theories individualistes dans la philosophie chinoise. Paris: G irard et Briere, 1909. Reprint, Paris: Pion, 1970. “Un Stirner chinois.” Mercure de France 76 (November 1908): 445-452. David-Neel, Alexandra. A TOuest barbare de la vaste Chine. Paris: Pion, 1947. Ashtavakra Gita; Discours sur le Vedanta Advaita. Paris: Adyar, 1951. Au coeur des Himalayas; Le Nepal. Paris: Dessart, 1949. Avadhuta Gita. Paris: Adyar, 1958.

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Brosse, J . Alexandra David-Neel: Eaventure et la spiritualite. Paris: Retz, 1978. Chalon,Jean. Le lumineux destin d ’Alexandra David-Neel. Paris: Perrin, 1985. Champy, Huguette. “Quelques Exploratrices.” Revue Economique 68, no.2 (May 1955): 32-35. Denys, Jeanne. Alexandra David-Neel au Tibet. Paris: Pensee Universelle, 1972. Peyronnet, Marie-Madeleine. Dix ans aiiec Alexandra David-Neel. Paris: Plon, 1973. OTHER SOURCES

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Patterson, George. Tibet in Revolt.London: Faber & Faber, 1960. Rato, Khyongla Nawang Losang. My Life and Lives. New York: Dutton, 1977. Rhys Davids, T. W. Buddhism; Its History and Literature. London: Putnams, 1926. Richardson, H ugh. A Short History of Tibet. New York: Dutton, 1962. Rijnhart, Susie. With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple. Chicago: Revell, 1909. Rockhill, William Woodville. Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and 1892. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1894. . Land of the Lamas. London: Longm ans, Green, 1891. Rodzinski, Witold. A History of China. 2 vols. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1983. Roerich, Nikolai. Shambala. New York: Stokes, 1930. Ronaldshay, Lawrence. Lands of the Thunderbolt. London: Constable, 1923. Rowell, Calen. “Nomads of China’s West.” National Geographic Magazine, 16 (February 1982): 244-263. Rudortf, Raymond. Belle Epoque. London: Hamish Ham ilton, 1972 Runkle, Gerald. Anarchism Old and New. New York: Delacorte, 1972. Sandberg, Graham. The Exploration of Tibet. Calcutta: Spink & Co., 1904. Saraswati, Ja n a k a n a n d a . Yoga, Tantra and Meditation. New York: Ballantine Books, 1975. Sanborn, Alvan. Paris and the Social Revolution. Boston: Small, M aynard, 1905. Schaller, George. Stones of Silence. New York: Viking, 1980. Schecter, Jerrold. “Official Atheism Has Killed Religion in Remote T ibet.” Smithsonian 7 (January 1977): 78-85. Scoffield, Jo h n . “Gangtok: Cloud W reathed H im alayan C apital.” National Geographic Magazine 138 (November 1970): 698-713. Shakabpa, Tsepon. Tibet; A Political History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967. Shelton, Albert. Pioneering in Tibet. New York: Revell, 1921. Shelton, Flora Beal. Shelton of Tibet. New York: G. H. Doran, 1921. Snellgrove, David, and H. Richardson. A Cultural History of Tibet. New York: Praeger, 1968. Stablein, William. “Tantric Medicine and Ritual Blessings.” The Tibet Journal /, nos. 3-4 (1976): 55-69. Stein, R. A. Tibetan Civilization. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1972. Suyin, Han. The Morning Deluge. 2 vols. London: Panther Books, 1979. Teichman, Eric. Travels of a Consular Officer in Eastern Tibet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.

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319

Thom as, Edith. Louise Michel. Montreal: Black Rose, 1980. Thom as, Lowell. With Lawrenee in Arabia. New York: Century, 1924. T h o rn to n , Richard C. China: A Political History. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1982. Tibet the Sacred Realm: Photographs 1880-1950. New York: Aperture, 1983. Tolstoy, Ilia. “Across Tibet from China to India.” National Geographic Magazine 90 (August 1946): 169-222. Topping, Audrey. The Splendors of Tibet. New York: Sino, 1980. T rungpa, Chogyam. Bom in Tibet. New York: H arcourt Brace World, 1968. Tucci, Giuseppe. Shrines of a Thousand Buddhas. New York: R. M. McBride, 1936. . Theory and Practice of Mandala. L ondon Rider, 1961. . Tibet Land of Snows. New York: Stein & Day, 1967. . To Lhasa and Beyond. Rome: Instituto Poligrafico Dello Stato, 1956. Vasto, Lanza del. Return to the Source. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1971. Waddell, Laurence. The Buddhism of Tibet. Cambridge: Wilteffer, 1967. . Lhasa and Its Mysteries. London: J. Murray, 1905. Ward, F. Kingdon. The Land of the Blue Poppy. Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1913. . Life in Eastern Tibet. London: Windsor, 1921 . The Mystery Rivers of Tibet. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1923. . On the Road to Tibet. Shanghai: T h e Shanghai Mercury, 1910. . A Plant Hunter in Tibet. London: J. Cape, 1934. Watts, Alari. In My Own Way. New York: Vintage Books, 1972. . Way of Zen. New York: Random House, 1974. Welby, M ontagu. Through Unknown Tibet. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1898. Woodcock, George. Into Tibet. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971. Yogananda, Param hansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Younghusband, Francis. India and Tibet. London: Oriental Publishers, 1910. . Peking to Lhasa. London: Constable, 1925.

vi b e y

Adyar, In d ia, xv, 23, 54-55 Aigni-la, 201, 204 A lexan dra D a vid-N eel: L aven tu re et la sp iritu a lité (Brosse), 310 ^ A lexan dra D avid-N eel: P ortrait o f an A d v en tu re r (M iddleton), 310 A lexan dra D a v id -N ee l a u Tibet (Denys),

xv, 18, 225, 310 Alfassa, M irra (the M other), xii, 52 A Vouest barbare de la vaste Chine (In China's W ild West) (David-Neel),

2 7 1 , 2 7 5 ,2 7 8 Alpes M aritim es, 282 A m ban (am bassador), 88 A m do T ib et, 110 A m itabha, 134 A m ne M achin, 166 Anglo-Tibetan C onvention, 95, 161 Anhsi, 180, 185 A n n ap u rn a : A Woman's P lace (Blum), 301 Anti-fem inism , 26 Anti-Semitism, 227 Ari, 96 Aris, Michael, 218 Arjopas, 186 A rnold, Matthew, 115 Aryans, 47 Asia, 235, 236, 240 A sian H ealth Secrets (H adady), 308 Assam, 189 A thens, O p e ra of, 41 A urob in d o Ghose, Sri, xii, 51-53 Avalokitesvara, 134 Avalon, A rthur, 58 Avatar, 55

Bailey, M ajor F rederick (Eric), 175, 189, 196, 197, 225, 232-233, 298 Bailey, L ady Irm a , 232, 233 B an de M a la r am, 52 B ardo (purgatory), 71, 103 B ardo Thodol (T ibetan Book o f the D ead),

70, 71, 259 B arkhor, 212, 216, 303 B ash k ara n an d a , 35 Basnet, Lai, 80, 113 Beijing, see Peking Belgium , 14 Bell, Sir C harles Alfred, xvi, 76-78, 85, 96, 98, 103, 105, 110, 112113, 131-136, 166, 216, 220, 229, 233, 276-277, 292, 309 B enares, Ind ia, 35, 61-64, 235 Benoit, P ierre, 233 Berger, Gaston, 280 B ergson, H e n ri, 280 B e rn b a u m , Edw in, 207 Besant, A nnie, 23, 35 B harati, A g eh a n an d a , 88 B h u tan , 103, 105 Bibliography, 311-319 Bismarck, 111 Bizerte, Tunisia, 9 Blavatsky, H ele n a P., 22-24, 235 Blofeld, J o h n , x, 33, 274-275, 299, 300, 307, 310 Blum , Dr. A rlene, 301, 309 Bodhisattva, 86, 306 Bogle, George, 159-160 Bois F leu ri school, 15 B one, Algeria, 108 B on religion, 87

I

ndex

321

B orgh m an s, Mayor, 12

Chöd rite, 188, 248, 249-251, 282

B o m in Tibet (T ru n g p a R inpoche), 109

C högyam T ru n g p a R inpoche, 178, 310 C ho-kyong, 112 C holera, 63 Cholog, 205 Chorten (burial m o n u m e n t), 109, 190 C h o rte n N yima, 108-109 Chostimpa, 145 Christ, 56 Christie, C. J., 77, 102 C h u m bi Valley, 4, 95, 231 C h u n k in g , S zechuan, 263, 267-268 C h u rch o f Scientology, xi City o f L in g erin g S plendou r (Blofeld), 307 C losed-D oor policy to T ibet, 131 Cobra, 55 College de Finance, 26 College o f Sanskrit, 63 Collin, M onseigneur, 291 Colom bo, Ceylon, 47 C o n an Doyle, A rthur, 22 C ongress o f W om en, first, 46

Borrely, M aria, 280 Borrely, P ierre, 280-281, 309 B rah m a, 47 B r a h m a p u tr a River, 196 B rah m in s, 54 B rea th in g , tumo, 51, 127-128, 200 British Library, xvi British M u seum , 22 Brosse, Jacq ues, 53, 67, 227, 254, 275, 291, 299, 310 Brussels, Belgium , 14, 25 B u d d h a , 33, 85-86 B u d d h ism , 3, 15 M ahayana, 129 o ldest fo rm of, 46 o rigin of, 85-86 in T ibet, 86-88, 213, 305 B uddhism : Its D octrines a n d Its M ethods

(David-Neel), 85, 255-256 B u ddh ist H andbook, The (Snelling), 248

B u rm a , 189 B u tte r floats, 216 B u tte r statues, 148 C alcutta, In d ia, 57-61, 235, 276 C am era, 194, 226 C a rn o t, Sadi, 28, 36 C a ro d a Devi, 60 C arvalho, L eo n, 38 Catholicism , 28 Cave o f C lear Light, 119-121, 130 C hakra (mystic circle), 60 C h alo n, Je a n , xviii, 275, 277, 310 C h am b erlain , Neville, 269 C h a m d o , 174, 230 C han g (beer), 122 C h a n g T ang, 172 C h ao E rh-feng, G eneral, 95 C h a p m a n , Spencer, 214 C h a rd in , T eilh ard de, 291 Chela (disciple), 123 C h e n g tu , 155, 169, 181, 268, 274, 303 C henrezi, 85 C hensal K ushab, L am a, 136 C hevalier o f th e L eg io n o f H onor, 243 C h ian g Kai-shek, 210, 263, 278 C hina, 95, 139, 255 T ib e ta n A u to n o m o u s Region of, 84 C hin ese invasion o f T ibet, 7 C hinese occup atio n o f T ibet, 92 C hinese R ed Army, xix

C onversations with Rem arkable M en

(Gurdjiefl), 242-243 Cook, Florence, 22 Cooke, H o p e, 113 Cooper, Ja m e s Fenim ore, 12, 254 C orpse, rites with, xiii C ourier dT ndre et Loire, 11 C ozens-H ardy, L o rd , 233 Crystal Palace, 24 C urzon , L ord, 68, 162, 183 D akini, xiii, 148

Dalai L am a, 67, 134 Fifth, xiii, 87-88 Sixth, xiii, 88, 218 N in th , 88 T enth, 88 Eleventh, 88 Twelfth, 88 T h irte e n th , see T h ir te e n th Dalai L am a F o u rte en th , xix, 84, 85, 98, 144, 2 2 1 ,2 9 3 , 304 finding, 92-93 selecting nex t, 135 D arjeeling, 277 D arjeeling-H im alayan railway, 66 d ’Arsonval, A., 240, 243, 251, 272 D as K a p ita l (Marx), xvi

322

I

ndex

David, A lex a n d rin e B o rg hm an s (m other), 11-16, 32, 44, 139, 257 David, Jacq u es Louis, 11 David, Louis E ugénie A lex an d rin e M arie, 13, see also David-Neel, A lex a n d ra David, L ouis Ju les (brother), 13-14 David, Louis P ierre (father), 11-14, 16, 19-20, 30, 3 2 ,3 6 , 37, 4 0 ,4 1 , 44, 256-257 David-Neel, A lex a n d ra archival a n d u n p u b lish e d sources on, 311 as ch a n te u se A lex a n d ra Myrial, 3738, 40, 42 chosen by G om chen , 130 chro no lo g y of, vii-viii credo, xi d e a th of, 296 d ep ressio n, 62 described, 4, 6, 31, 40, 44, 282, 291-292 d iet of, 289 disguised as m an, 163 earliest conscious m em ory, 19-20 early life of, 9-17 early travels, 34-38 English works by, 311-312 E nglish w orks co n c ern e d with, 313314 F rench works by, 312-313 F rench w orks co n c ern e d with, 314 h o n o rs a n d subsidies to, 243 h u n d r e d th birthday, 294 as im poster, xv influence of, xi as Jetsunma, 208-209, 293 a n d jewelry, 82, 194 as L am p o f W isdom , 134 letters of, xvii-xviii life of, ix-x m e n an d , 38-39, 277 n e u ra sth e n ia of, 28-29, 124-125, 273 o th e r sources co n c ern e d with, 314319 rh eu m a tism , 126 sales o f works of, 243 T h ir te e n th Dalai L am a an d , 89-91, 97-98 tiger an d , 100-101 a n d Tortue (tortoise), 289 travel an d , 17 trip to Lhasa, 163-209

voyages of, vii works by, 311-313 works c o n c ern e d with, 313-319 D avid-N eel F o u n datio n, xi Davie, Ian , 277, 299 D aw asan du p, Kazi, 65, 69-72, 83, 251 D e-chen, 119 Delibes, Leo, 37 Denys, J e a n n e , xv, 10, 18, 29-30, 54, 225-226, 2 2 7 , 2 7 0 ,3 1 0 Deo-la, 200 Descartes, 251 D esert o f Grass, 176 D esideri, Ippolito, 159 D esjardins, A rn a u d , 293 Devadasi, 49 D ham m apada, 1 D haram sala, xix Dharma (doctrine), 57, 253 Dharma Bums, The (K erouac), xi D h a rm a Master, 310 D iam o n d M o un tain , K orea, 137-138 Diamond Sutra, The (N ag arjun a), 157 D ickchen S h en p a, 176 Dictionary of Buddhism (H u m p h re y s), 17 D igne, xvii, 244, 246-247, 279 D irect Path, see S h o rt P ath D o k ar Pass, 186 Dokpa, 201, 212 Dorje, 92, 248, 253 D orjee P hag m o , 230 D orjieff (Russian M ongol), 94, 136 D o u m erg u e , G aston, 244 Doyle, A rth u r C o n an , 22 D re p u n g abbots, 215 D re p u n g m onastery, 87, 215, 304 Dri, 118 D rolm a, Yeshe, 68, 72, 80, 113-114 D u Barry, M adam e, 148 D u p o n t, Louis, 150 D u rrell, L aw rence, xix, 225, 286, 291-292, 308 D zogchen g om pa, 169 Dzong, 205 Ectoplasm , 154 Edel, L eon, 307 Ego, 31 Ego and Its Own, The (Stirner), 31 Eiffel, G ustave, 28 Eiffel Tower, 28 E igh teen Kinds o f Voidness, 130 Ekvall, R obert, 150, 197

I Eliot, Sir C harles, 86 E lle interview, 225, 291

Ellis, H avelock, 31-32 E n lig h ten m e n t, 99 E pictetus, 16 Evans-Wentz, W. Y., 70, 154, 248 Far E astern Econom ic R eview , The , 305

Ferlinghetti, L aw rence, ix Forbidden Journey (Foster a n d Foster),

x “F ortress o f M e d itatio n,” see S am ten D zong Foucaux, P h ilipp e-E d w ard, 26 Four T housand Years o f Chinese E xpansion (David-Neel), 288

France, A natole, 296 Free Love, 23 Free T hought (David-Neel), 42 F re n ch F oreign Ministry, 275 F ren ch L egion o f H o no r, 293 F re n ch N u n (code nam e), xvii F re n ch S ports Academy, 243 From R ousseau to P roust (Ellis), 31 G alland, C hina, 300 G a n d e n m onastery, 87, 228, 305 G anges River, 62, 297 G an g to k, Sikkim, 70, 233 G arab, 265 G arrison , O m ar, 50 G au g u in , Paul, 32 G e d h u n Choekyi N yim a, 134-135 Gelong , 157 G enghiz K han , 66 Geographie universelle (Reclus), 30 G eorge V I, King, 58 G erm any, 111 G esar o f Ling, King, 176, 177, 178, 255 G h anta , 248 Ghat, 62 G iam o N u River, 197 G insberg, Allen, ix, 310 Goa, In d ia, 159 G o ld en H o rd e , 255 Golems, 54, 306 Gologs, 148, 149, 254 Gomchen (great herm it), 99, 112 G o m ch e n o f L ach en , 117-130, 251, 253, 272, 299 G om pa (m onastery), 73, 144 G ou ld, B. J., 104

ndex

323

G ovinda, L am a, 113, 129-130, 253, 299-300 G rand Tibet (David-Neel), 253 G re at G am e, xvi, xvii, 77 G reat War, 110, 117 G rousset, R ené, xvi, 293 G u an g z h o u , 302 G u eth, A n to n (Nyanatiloka), 47 G u ru R inpoche, see P ad m asam b h ava G yalin g (oboe), 72 Gyantse, 3, 70, 221 Gyantse T ra d e Agency, 136 Gyapon, 169 H adady, L etha, 301-305, 308 H aip h o n g , 37 H ankow , 260-261, 263, 267 H anoi, 38 H arre r, H ein rich, 162, 205, 211 H ashish, 32-33 H astings, W arre n , 159 H au sto n t, J e a n , 39-40, 41, 43 H ea v en Lake o f the G oddess, 93 H ed in , Sven, 133, 162, 196 H enry, Emile, 36 H ertzel, Sir A rthur, 53 H erze n , Dr. M onod, 295 “H ig h A rt” (David-Neel u n p u b lish e d novel), 39-40 H ilton, Ja m es, 76 H im alayan H otel, 231 H ippies, 290 Hitler, Adolf, 252, 275 H oa, Rosa, 262, 266 H olm w oo d , Miss, 24 H o m e, Douglas, 22 H op ëla, Q u ee n , 113-114 H o p k irk , Peter, xvii, 158, 161, 226, 308 H u b b a rd , L. Ron, xi H ue, Evarist, 147, 152-153, 160 H u g o, Victor, 19, 22, 38 H u m p h re y s, Christm as, 17, 255-256, 2 8 9 ,3 0 8 In dia, 34-35, 46-56 In d ia n I n d e p e n d e n c e , 276 In d ia n Mirror, 57 In d ia Office, Secret Files of, xi, xvii I n d ia Office Library, 309 In dia Yesterday, Today an d Tomorrow

(David-Neel), 34, 279 In d o ch in a , 37-38

324

I

ndex

Initiations a n d Initiates in Tibet

(David-Neel), 218, 252-253 I n n e r T ibet, 110 In n o c e n t III, 88 In stitu t Pasteur, 181 In tern atio n al C ongress o f M oral E ducation, 55 Intern ation al H era ld Tribune, 297 Into the U nknow n (N ational G eo g raph ic Society), xviii Ja p a n , 274 Jesus, 56, 296 Jetsunm a, title, 208-209, 293 Jew el Park, 229 Jo h n s to n a n d H offm an studio, 227 J o k h a n g tem ple, 212, 214, 301 J o r d a n , Ju d ith , 280 J o u rn a l o f th e Royal G eographical Society, 241 Ju g g e rn a u t, 48 Jy e k u n d o , 172, 173, 176 Kabbala, 22 Kali, 58 K alim pong, Ind ia, xix, 66, 89, 231 K a m a Sutra, 49 K anch in ju n ga, 123-124 Kanchow, 179 K andom a, xiii K angs, 180-181 K ansu, 167, 181 K ant, Im m a n u e l, 280 Kanze, 174 K arm a, 86, 256 Karo-la, 221 Kashag, 210 K atm an d u , 302 K aw aguchi, Ekai, 162 K erouac, Jack , xi Kha K arp o ran g e , 186 K ham pas, 145, 215 K ham T ibet, 110 K im (Kipling), 160 Kipling, R u dy ard , xvi, 160 K ir tan, 58 Knight, C aptain, 72 K oran, 28 K orea, 222 Koros, Csom a de, 133 K ottu ran , G eorge, 68, 113 K rishna, 48 K shatriya caste, 85

K uan Yin, 33 K um B u m m onastery, 138, 142-153 K unka Pass, 151 K un m in g, Y unnan, 274, 276 Ku-sho, 112-113 Kyang (wild donkey), 247 Kyi River, 212 L a (pass), 190

L a B reche, Valerie, 309-310 L ach en monastery, 112, 118 G o m ch en of, see G om ch en of L achen La G oulette, 44 L ajang K han, 218 L ake K oko Nor, 87, 150 L a L am pe de Sagesse (David-Neel), 29 L a lum ineaux destin d'A lexandra D a v id N eel (Chalon), 310

Lam aism , 71, 146 L a m a o f Five Wisdoms, The (M ipam )

(David-Neel, Y ongden), 263-264 L am as, 34, 71 L am in a robe, 103 L am p o f W isdom , D avid-N eel as, 134 Lanchow, 181 Langy, C lare de, 34-35, 44-45 L a R iv e Gauche, 30 L atin Q u arter, 26 L atsa, 199, 200 L aw rence, T. E., 27, 131-132, 167 L e n in ’s tom b, 260 L e o n a rd , M aurice, 23 L eo p o ld II, 16 L epchas, 67 Les M iserables (H ugo), 246 L e sortilege d u mystere (The Spell o f M ystery) (David-Neel), 21

Levi, Daniel, 234, 236 Levi, Sylvain, 10, 234, 236, 247, 257 Lhasa, 5-6, 212, 305 D avid-N eel trip to, 163-209 L ibrairie Sicard, 279 L ikiang, 182 L ingam , 48 Little Peking, 275 Loew, Rabbi, 306 Lolo tribe, 182 L’O p era-C o m iq u e, 37 L o rio n P hoto, 279-280 Lost H orizon (Hilton), xi, 76, 232, 264 Ltiuis-Philippe, 11 L o un atch arsk i, 244

I L um bini, xviii, 100 L u ng-gom , 104, 200 L un g -go m -pa (ru n n e r), 180

M acdonald, David, xvii, 3-8, 23, 94, 230-231, 254 M adras, In d ia, 53 M adu rai, In d ia, 47-48 Magical occurrences, 152 M a g ic a n d M ystery in Tibet (DavidNeel), xiv, 65, 247-248, 251 M a g ie d ’am our et m agie n o ir (DavidNeel, Y ongden), 264-265 M ah a tm a , 4, 23 M ahay an a B u d d h ism , 86, 129 Maille, Dr. M arcel, 282-285, 294, 309 M a ith u n a (sexual u nion), 50, 60 M aitreya, xiii-xiv M a Lat, 107 M a n a n d H is World (Reclus), 244 M an ch u dynasty, 139 M an chu ria, 260, 279 M andeville, Sir J o h n , 159 M anjusri, 262 M an n in g , T h o m a s, 160 M a n u a l o f Colloquial Tibetan (Bell), 77 Mao T se-tung, 210, 263, 274, 278, 296 M arpa, 157 Marseilles, 238 M arteau , Louis, 150 M arx, Karl, xvi Mary, Q u e e n o f Scots, 27 M assenet, Ju les, 37, 38 M atthiessen, Peter, 300 M axim s (Epictetus), 16 M aya, 74 M cG overn, Dr. William M ontgom ery, 1 6 2 ,2 0 9 ,2 1 1 , 2 1 2 ,2 1 5 , 2 1 6 , 220 M cM ahon, Sir H enry, 103, 110 M cM ahon line, 110 M eade, M arion, 309 M edicine, T ib e tan , 153 M eenakshi, 49 M eenakshi tem ple, 48-49 M e h ta n a n d a , xii M ekong River, 183 M elodious Purity, see Dalai Lam a, Sixth “M em oirs o f an Actress” (David-Neel), 39 M enan der, 71 M ercure de France , 10, 43, 18.1

ndex

325

M iddleton, Dorothy, 308 M iddleton, Ruth, 79, 277, 310 M ilarepa, 69, 70, 127, 157 Miller, L uree, 56, 76, 241, 308 M ipam (character), 264 M ip a m (The L am a o f Five Wisdoms)

(David-Neel, Yongden), 263-264 M odern B uddh ism a n d the B uddhism o f B u ddh a (David-Neel), 10, 256 M o fortune-telling, 189

M oghuls, 47 M om os , 146

M onastic life, 143-145 M ongolia, 95, 138 M on lam festival, 211, 215-216 M o n o d -H e rze n , Dr. Gabriel, 309 M opa (oracle), 70 M organ, Elisabeth, 15, 22, 26, 32 Moscow, 259-260 Moses, William Stainton, 22 M oslem L eague, 58 Mossos, 182 M other, th e (M irra Alfassa), xii, 52 M o th e r T eresa, 299 “M ouchy” (nicknam e), 43, see also Neel, Philip M u n p a (character), 281 M usée G uim et, xvi, 26, 33 d o n atio n s to, 295 Mussolini, Benito, 252 M y f o u m e y to Lhasa (David-Neel), xv, 220, 230, 241-242, 301 Myrial, A lex a n d ra (novi de plu m e), 3738, 40, 42 Mystic b an q u e t, 248-249 N ach m an , H assid Rabbi, 242 N ag a rju n a, 145, 157 N agasena, 71 N a ljo rp a (adept), xiv, 98-99, 188, 249, 253 N am th ig K arpo, 178 N ank in g , 263 N ap o leo n III, 12, 19 N a rth a n g , 135 N a tio n a l Geographic article (Rock), 185 Neel, Philip, xvii-xviii, 9-10, 20, 41-43, 56, 62, 80-82, 96, 107-108, 111, 124, 138, 176, 183, 234, 237, 238, 239, 257, 271 N epal, 100 N epal: The H ea rt o f the H im alayas

(David-Neel), 279

326

I

ndex

N estorians, 159 New York City, 235 N ew York Times , xv, 241 N ga gspa (sorcerer/w izard), xiv, 151, 188 Nice, France, 240 N irv a n a , 86, 154 N o P assport to Tibet (Bailey), 196 N orbu, T h u b te n , 158, 250, 255 N orb u lin g k a (su m m e r palace), 229 Norwick, B rah am , 226, 309 N u Valley, 194 N yanatiloka (Anton G ueth), 47 O ccultism, 20 O doric, Friar, 158-159 Om m a n ip a d m e hum! (Hail to the jew el in th e lotus!), 177, 301 O n Top o f the W orld (Miller), 308 O p e ra o f A thens, 41 O rientalism , 32 “O rig in o f Myths a n d T h e ir Influence o n Social Justice, T h e ” (DavidNeel), 42 O u te r T ib et, 110 Out o f This World (Thom as), 210 O u v ra rd , Abbé, 185 O w en, R ev eren d , 118-119 P ad m asam bhava, 86-87, 99, 107, 248, 253 P adong, 233 P alden L ham o , 89, 93 Pali, 47 Pallis, M arco, 118, 122, 125 Pamirs, 183 Pamo (m edium ), 188 P anam a C anal, 36 P ancha tattva, 279 (also see T antric sexual rites) P anchen L am a N inth, 7, 87, 132, 133-134, 233, 272 T enth, 134, 301 Eleventh, 134-135 Paris, 240, 278 Paris C o m m u n e o f 1871, 111 Passang, 61 Peaks a n d L am as (Pallis), 118 Peel, Viscount, 183 Pegyai L am a, 144 Peking, 134, 138, 139, 262-263 Peking to Lhasa (Pereira), 241 People o f Tibet, The (Bell), 220

P eople’s Republic o f C hina, 95 P ereira, Sir G eorge, 173-175, 231232, 241, 286 Perry, A nnie, 232 Perry, C aptain, 231 P ey ro n net, M arie-M adeleine, xviixviii, 79, 286-291, 295-297, 299 P h ilin g (foreigner), 6 P h o to g ra p h s, p h e n o m e n o n with, 98 P h u rba (magic dagg er), 117, 180, 288 Plague, 140 Plato, 28 Po country, 165, 175, 198 P o dan g m onastery, 73-74 Poland, 270 Pomar, M arie Duchess d e (Lady Caithness), 26-27 Pombo (guard), 192 Porno San h erm itag e , 269 Pondicherry, Ind ia, xii-xv Popas, 202, 204, 206 P opu lar D ictionary o f B uddhism

(H u m p h rey s), 308 Po River, 174 P ortrait o f the D a la i L a m a (Bell), 131

Potala Palace, 6, 87, 209, 211, 212214, 304 Po T san gp o tributary, 202 P o u r L a Vie (David-Neel), 35-36 Pousa-ting, 262 Powell, M illington, 214 P ow er o f N othingness, The (David-Neel, Yongden), 281 Prejevalsky, Nikolai, 161 P rester J o h n , 159 P rotestantism , 28 Q uotidien, le, 237

Rabjom s Gyatso, 249, 250-251 Rachilde, M., 10 R a g d o n g (long tru m p e t), 72 R ah n , O tto, 252 R am akrish na, 59, 60 Reclus, Elisée, 25, 30, 31, 36 Reclus, Paul, 244 R ed Army, Chinese, xix Red H ats (sect), 71 R ein carnatio n , 29 “Religious Power o f T ibet, T h e ” (David-Neel), 34 R equ ena, Dr. Yves, 309 R etu rn to the Source (Vasto), 50, 242

I R e vu e de Paris, 235 R e vu e d'etudes philosophiques de M arseilles , 280

Rhins, D u treu il de, 150 R ich ard son , H u g h , x-xi, xvii, 132, 2 1 4 ,2 2 9 , 308 R im b au d , A rth ur, 32 Ripley, R ev eren d , 165 Rock, Dr. Jo se p h , 185 Rockhill, W. W., 68 Roerich, Nicolas, xix R otan g, xiii-xiv R olland, R om ain, 244 R om ieu, Dr. J u lie n , 288, 293, 294, 295, 297 Ronaldshay, L o rd , 69, 117-118 Roosevelt, F ranklin D., 264 Rosy Cross, 22 Royal C o nservato ry o f Brussels, 16 R u m tek m onastery, 103 Russia, 111, 259-260 S ad dh u (holy m en), 62 S a dh an a (practice), 50, 58

Saint-A ulaire, C om te de, 183 Sakyong, 99 S akyong M ip h am R inpoche, 178 Salon des indépendants, 32 S alw een River, 189, 196 Sam adhi, 49, 127, 242 S am ten D zong (“Fortress of M editatio n ”), 244, 278, 287-288, 295-296, 307 Sam ye m onastery, 87 S a n g yum , 188 S anskrit, 10, 35, 63 San nyasin (renunciate), 35, 62 Saraswati, Sri A nan da, 32 S arat C h a n d ra Das, 160 Satori, 17 S atu rday R e vie w (L o n do n), 241 Scapegoat, 219 Schaller, G eorge, 101, 298-299, 300 Schary (Am erican daredevil), 4 Scientology, C h u rc h of, xi Seances, 22 Secret B ro th e rh o o d , 23 Secret O ral Teachings in Tibetan B u ddh ist Sects, The (David-Neel),

ix, 129, 299 S ensual versus sexual, 81 Sepoys (In d ia n troops), 94 Sera m onastery, 87, 304

ndex

327

Serious Letters to Serious Fnends

(Duchesse de Pom ar), 27 S e rp a n g festival, 219-220 Seven P illars o f Wisdom (Lawrence), 132 Seven Years In Tibet (H a rre r), 162 Sex, T antric, 50-51 S exual rites, tantric, xii-xiii S exual versus sensual, 81 Shakti , 50, 60 Sham bala, 207, 230 S h an gh ai, 263 Shangri-L a, xi, 76, 138, 152, 305 Shelton, Dr. Albert, 166, 169 Shensi, 181 Shigatse, 132, 135, 159 Shiva, 48, 50, 114 S h o rt Path, 99, 248 Showa, 208, 226 Sian, 142 Siberia, 260 Sicard, M adam e, 279 S id d h arth a , xvi, 85, 216 S idkeong T ulku, Prince, xvi, 66-69, 71, 72-75, 79-82, 96-97, 102-103, 106-107, 112, 113-114, 117 Sikkim, 64-83, 84, 102 Sining, 165 Sino-Tibetan border, 110 Sky burial, 291, 304-305 Sm ith, A dam , 31 Snellgrove, David, 248 Snelling, J o h n , 248 Snow L eopard, The (M atthiessen), 300 “Socialism A m o n g Prim itive T ribes” (David-Neel), 181 Society G eo g rap h iq u e m edal, 243 S o rb o n n e, 27, 234 “S oul,” xiii-xiv Sous des nuees T o r age (U n d er the Storm Clouds) (David-Neel), 268, 270

Soviet U n io n, 259-260 Spiritualism , 22 Sri L anka, 256 Statesman, 57 Stein, R. A., 150, 213, 294-295 Stilwell, “V in egar J o e ,” 274 Stirner, Max, 30-31 Stoics, 16, 271 Stones o f Silence (Schaller), 300 S tro ng tsan G am po, 86 S trychnine, ho m e o p ath ic, 187, 228 Suicide, 29

328

Index

S u ng Dzong, 205 S un Yat-sen, 139, 182 Superhum an Life o f Gesar o f L ing, The

(David-Neel), 179, 255 S u p e rm in d , 53 S u p re m e Face, 199 S u p re m e Gnosis society, 20-24 Su tra (discourse), 103 Sw allow (yacht), 42 Swastika, 252 Sydney, Violet, 255, 270 T achienlu, 161, 268-269, 271, 273 T agore, R a b in d ra n a th , 57, 236 T aiyuan, 266-267 Tantra: The Yoga o f Sex (Garrison), 50 T an tric cerem onies, 60-61 T antric sexual rites, xii-xiii, 50-51 T antrism , 50-51, 106, 283-284 Tashi L am a, m o th e r of, 136 T ash ilh u n p o , 7, 87, 133 Tashi N am gyal, 124, 129 Taylor, A nnie, 4, 76, 94* 161 Telepathic m e th o d , 123 T erro rists, 36 Tery, Sim one, 237 T h a n g k a (painting), 71 T h eo sop h ical Society, xv, 23 T heo sop hy , 20 T h e ra v a d a , 46, 256 T h ir te e n th Dalai L am a, xvi, 7, 77, 84-85, 92-93, 94-95, 96, 217 A lex a n d ra David-N eel an d , 89-91, 97-98 T h o m a s, Lowell, Jr., 83, 210-211, 221, 222, 278, 309 T h om as, Lowell, Sr., 210-211, 221, 232 T h o m p so n , Sir J o h n , 310 T h o n d u p R inpoche, 177 T h o u g h t-form , 154 T h u b te n N o rb u , 158, 250, 255 T h u n d e r b o lt Sow, 230 T h u r m a n , R obert, 309 T h u to b , M aharaj, 67-68, 80 Tibet, 83-88 B u d d h ism in, 86-88, 213, 305 Chinese invasion of, 7 Chinese occupation of, 92 Closed-D oor policy to, 131 In n e r a n d O uter, 110 isolation of, 160-161 T ibetan A uto no m o us Region o f C hina, 84

Tibetan Book o f the D ead (Bardo T hodol ),

70, 71, 259 T ib e ta n B u d d h ism , 213 Tibetan B uddhism (Waddell), 94 T ibetan C ivilization (Stein), 294 “T ib e ta n Clergy a n d Its Doctrines, T h e ” (David-Neel), 43 T ibetan Jou rn ey (David-Neel), 168, 253 T ib e ta n lan gu age, 103, 123 T ib e ta n m edicine, 153 T ib e ta n New Year, 6 Tibetan Sky Lines (Ekvall), 150 T ilo ra ju n g le , 100 T ilpu, 248 Times L iterary Supplem ent, The, 241 To-la, 192 T ondo-la, 190 T onkinson, Carole, xi Torma (ritual cakes), 132 Tortue (tortoise), 289 T oulon, 240, 282 Tracy, J. H anb ury, 205, 225 T ra n g lu ng, 132 T rans-H im alayas, 196 Trapa (m onk), 71, 143 T reguier, Frank, 309 T revaux, V iscount de, 34-35, 45 T ru m a n , H arry, 221-222 T ru n g p a R inpoche, 178 Tsampa (barley gruel), 6, 203 Tsams, 153, 295-296 T san g p o River, 196 T sang po Valley, 189 T san yan g Gyatso, xiii T saro n g S h ap p e, 229 T song K hapa, 87, 106, 138, 146, 257, 305 Tucci, G iuseppe, 248, 257 Tulku, 66-67, 79-80, 112, 154, 286, 304 Tulpa, 154-155 Tumo b rea th in g , 51, 127-128, 200 Tunisia, 9, 41-44 U n ite d States, 210 Vajra, 248 Valencia, Spain, 236 Valmiki, 280 Vedantism , 63 Vedas, 28 Verlaine, Paul, 32

I V erne, Jules, 14 Vespasian, 59 Vichy g o v ern m e n t, 275 Victoria, Q u e e n , 89 Victorian L a d y Travellers (M iddleton),

308 V ietnam , 196 V ietnam War, 297 Villemain, Jacqu es, 24-25 V ishnu, 47-48 V ishnuites, 55 V ivekananda, 59-60 Vladivostok, 260 Void, 129, 292 Voyage d ’une P arisienne ä L hassa (DavidNeel), 292, see also M y Jou rn ey to Lhasa

W addell, L. A., 94 Walter, Mrs., 57 W ard, Jam es, 20, 25 W ard, K ing do n, 197, 207 W arrior Son g o f K in g Gesar, The

(Sakyong M iph am Rinpoche), 178 Warsaw, 259 Watts, Alan, ix, 129, 235, 241, 310 W etering, Janw illem van de, 281 W heel o f Life, The (Blofeld), 274 W hite, C laude, 68, 72, 77, 80 Williams, Victoria, xix, 231

ndex

329

“W om an’s D arin g J o u r n e y into Tibet, A” (David-Neel), 241 Women in the Wilderness (Galland), 300 “W om en in T ib e t” (David-Neel), 254 WoodrufFe, Sir J o h n , 58 Worker Take the M achine! Farmer Take the L a n d ! (Reclus), 30

W orld C ongress o f Faiths, 241 W orld W ar I, 110, 117 W orld W ar II, 263 W utaishan, 262-263 Yak, 80 Yama, 74 Yangtse River, 196 Yatung, 95 Yehonala, E m press Dowager, 95 Yellow H ats (sect), 71 Yidam, 155 Yoga, 35, 55, 292 Y ongden, L am a A p h u r (Albert), ix, 7, 18, 39, 120, 121, 132, 137, 140, 146, 149, 157, 167, 168, 176, 190, 201, 202, 204, 238-239, 240, 266, 273 d e a th of, 285-286 Y oun gh usban d, Francis, 94, 161-162 Y u nn an province, 185 Zogong, 197