The mere mention of Csoma’s dressing himself up at Sabathú, at the “Governor’s” request, in his national costume, will elicit a smile, and we may well ask how a poor wanderer through the immense distances of Central Asia and Tibet was able to carry with him on a journey, already of five years’ duration, his Hungarian costume, in which to appear on festive occasions?
But on the matter of Csoma’s dress we have the following statements:—
In the oft-quoted letter to Captain Kennedy, para. 7, he writes, “From Teheran I travelled as an Armenian” (in 1821). Moorcroft, in his Diary, edited by Dr. Wilson, mentions on the 16th July 1823, “On my journey to Dras, I was met by Alexander Csoma de Körös, an European, in the garb of an Armenian, who had travelled from Hungary to Tibet.” Dr. Gerard, writing from Kanum in September 1829, says, “Csoma is poor and humbly clad, and dresses in the coarse blanket of the country.” See also letter from Captain Stacy to Dr. Wilson, dated 3d August 1829. In Dr. Campbell’s report on Csoma’s [[20]]death, we read that he had “a suit of blue clothes, which he always wore, and in which he died.” Dr. Malan writes as follows, dated 8th December 1883: “I remember Csoma’s dress quite well. I never saw him in his best (if he had one), but I always met him in the Library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, of which I was Secretary during my stay in Calcutta. He wore a jacket very much like a loose shooting-jacket with outside pockets, of the common blue cotton cloth of India; he wore a waistcoat of figured red, brown, black, or yellow stuff of Indian manufacture, and trousers of a kind of light-brown stuff, cotton stockings, and shoes.”
This disposes of the question of Csoma’s dress.
Now as regards his studies. The reason which induced Csoma to devote his best talents for so many years to Tibetan will become evident in due course, but it was certainly not the mistaken fancy attributed to him of having discovered a resemblance between it and the Magyar tongue.
Thirdly, we have the statement contained in Part II. of Baron Hügel’s work, p. 165, where we find Csoma’s name mentioned in a foot-note. Hügel calls him there his “friend;” but if we understand the Baron rightly, his remark will be taken rather as a reproach against Csoma for not furnishing the Baron with information regarding the names of the two Tibetan mountains Mer and Ser, which Csoma, always ready to impart all he knew, must have found himself unable to supply.
There is an incident described in Baron Hügel’s work (vol. i. p. 303) which appears to us strange. It refers to the occurrence of the 18th of November 1835, when the Baron was at Srinaggur and met two Englishmen there. The Baron writes thus:—
“I proposed to my English friends that we should erect something like a monument in memory of the travellers who preceded us in Kashmir.… The following inscription was proposed by me:—
“ ‘Three travellers in Kashmir, the Baron Charles [[21]]Hügel, T. G. Vigne, and Dr. Henderson, have caused the names of all the travellers who preceded them in Kashmir to be engraved on this black stone, namely, Bernier, 1663; Forster, 1786; Moorcroft, Trebeck, Guthrie, 1823; Victor Jacquemont, 1831; Joseph Wolff, 1832.’ ”
Csoma’s name is not mentioned here; yet we have proofs that Csoma travelled in and through Kashmir on three different occasions before Hügel: first, immediately after he overcame the dangerous route through Central Asia and Afghanistan to the Punjab, namely, in 1822, in April and May; and again, on returning from Leh in July; and, for the third time, in the winter of 1822–23. Csoma reports in the letter to Captain Kennedy (para. 12), “I left Kashmir on the 2d May 1823, after I had passed five months and six days with Mr. Moorcroft.”