Lost world: Tibet

A travelogue describing the author's journey through Tibet in 1947 as one of the last Europeans permitted to enter the forbidden city of Lhasa before the Chinese invasion. His detailed account of the way of life - strange customs, opulence of ceremonies and the dress of officials and nobility, which surpassed the Indian maharajas, the splendour of monasteries and their treasures, the religious mysticism and historical background, the harshness and breathtaking beauty of nature - creates a vivid vision of this lost world. First published in 1950, this is a revised and updated version, and records the events resulting in the gradual invasion by China in the 1950s.