Early in March we find Csoma at Julpigori, where he met a sympathising friend in Major Lloyd, commanding the frontier station. This gentleman offered him every attention and hospitality, but they were declined by Mr. Csoma, on the ground that his staying with Government officers of high position would deprive him of the intercourse with natives, whose familiarity it was his chief endeavour to cultivate. There is only one more autograph letter still extant from Csoma, and this he wrote to Mr. Prinsep on the 7th of March 1836 [[137]]from Julpigori. The original is in the possession of the Academy of Sciences at Budapest:—
“Sir,—I beg leave to acknowledge that the packet containing some papers, which by the Asiatic Society’s direction you had addressed to me, on the 8th of February last, safely reached me on the 19th of the same month, having been forwarded to me by Major Lloyd’s kindness. I would have immediately acknowledged the receipt of those papers, but as I was yet at that time very unsettled, respecting my remaining here or moving from this place, I have delayed till now to write to you. I beg you will excuse me for my tardiness.
“I feel greatly obliged to you for the kind communication of a copy of His Excellency Prince Eszterházy’s reply to your letter of the 5th January last year. I am glad to know that the 50 copies of my Tib. Grammar and Dictionary have safely reached London, and that they have been also forwarded to their farther destination. I was also happy to see how His Excellency has expressed his thanks, through you, to the British Indian Government and to the Asiatic Society, for their kind protection and liberality to me.
“While I gratefully acknowledge the favours thus conferred on me through this kind communication, I am sorry that, for my own part, I can send nothing to you, not having been able, as yet, to learn anything interesting. Together with your note, I have received also the two facsimiles of inscriptions, but I am unable to give any satisfactory explanation of them. Though I admit the one to be in the Tib. character and language, I dare not say anything about its contents.
“According to your direction, I take now the liberty of addressing my letter to you through W. H. Macnaughten, Esq., chief secretary to Government, knowing that it will be afterwards sent to you. Though I feel much obliged for [[138]]the favours thus conferred on me by this kind arrangement with Mr. Macnaughten respecting my future communications to you, I am sorry that I shall not be able to send any interesting information, since I shall perhaps not visit Sikkim, Nepaul, and the other hilly tracts, being informed that the travelling in those parts would be dangerous, difficult, very expensive, and of little advantage to my purpose; but after remaining in these parts for a certain period, to study the Bengalee and Sanskrit, afterwards I shall go by water to Patna, whenever, successively, I shall visit again by water the upper provinces, devoting my whole time to the study of the Sanskrit language and to the acquirement of the principal dialects.
“Since I intend to prosecute only my philological researches, and will abstain from every statistical, political, or even geographical inquiry, if I shall write but seldom to you, and at that time also shortly, I beg you will excuse me. I hope, if I survive, and can again safely return to Calcutta, I shall be able to communicate to you the results of my studies and Indian tours. I shall want but little for my expenses, and I hope that the five hundred sicca rupees, left in your hand at my leaving Calcutta, will be sufficient during the time I intend to make my peregrination in India. Should I fail in making any useful progress in my studies worthy of the Government’s patronage, the Asiatic Society may always dispose of that money for literary purposes which you successively receive from Government on my behalf.
“Should you wish to communicate to me any papers, I beg you will address them to the care of Major Lloyd at Titalya, who will have the kindness to forward them to me. Pray not to send me the numbers of the ‘Asiatic Society’s Journal’ or any other book until I shall write to you, or shall go to Patna; but I shall be much obliged if you will favour me with any letters received from my own country.”
[[139]]
As Csoma wrote, so probably he acted. His object being exclusively literary researches, he seldom wrote letters to anybody, and to this fact is attributable the circumstance that, after the last-mentioned date, we meet with but few records of Csoma’s doings, which otherwise would have enriched the narrative of his life.
Major Lloyd writes about him as follows:—
“At the beginning of 1836, when Csoma quitted his apartments he had in the Asiatic Society’s house, he wished to study Bengalee, and I sent him to Julpigori, where he remained about three months; but being dissatisfied there, he returned to Titalya, I think, in March. He would not remain in my house, as he thought his eating and living with me would cause him to be deprived of the familiarity and society of natives, with whom it was his wish to be colloquially intimate; I therefore got him a common native hut, and made it as comfortable as I could for him, but still he seemed to me to be miserably off. I also got him a servant, to whom he paid three or four rupees a month, and his living did not cost him more than four more. He did not quit Titalya, I think, till the end of November 1837, and all the time he was there he was absorbed in the study of the Sanskrit, Mahratta, and Bengali languages. I think it was in November that he left, purposing to go to Calcutta. At one time he was intending to travel through the mountains to Katmandú, … but he seemed to have a great dread of trusting himself into Tibet, for I repeatedly urged him to try to reach Lassa through Sikkim, but he always said such an attempt could only be made at the risk of his life. I was therefore surprised at his coming here (in 1842) apparently with that intention.”
After a sojourn of nearly two years in the east of Bengal, in the neighbourhood of Sikkim, Csoma returned to Calcutta, as surmised by Major Lloyd.
Towards the latter part of 1837, Dr. Malan succeeded Mr. James Prinsep as secretary of the Asiatic [[140]]Society, and he then found our scholar in Calcutta. In 1838, Captain Pemberton invited him to join the Government mission to Bhútan, but the offer was not accepted, because there was no prospect of reaching Tibet by that route; Csoma therefore continued to live in the Asiatic Society’s rooms in his capacity as librarian. Whilst at Titalya (in 1837) a correspondence passed between himself and Mr. Hodgson; this gentleman invited Csoma to Katmandú, but when the latter found that he could not pass into Tibet viâ Nepal, the proposed visit was abandoned.
From the end of 1837 till the early part of 1842, Csoma remained in Calcutta, arranging the Tibetan works of the Asiatic Society, as its librarian. He published several scientific treatises and articles, and was engaged by Dr. Yates and other missionaries in the translation of the Liturgy, the Psalms, and the Prayer-book into Tibetan. M. Pavie writes thus:[1] “I saw him often during my stay in Calcutta, absorbed in phantastic thoughts, smiling at the course of his own ideas, taciturn like the Brahmins, who, bending over their writing-desks, are employed in copying texts of Sanskrit. His room had the appearance of a cell, which he never left except for short walks in the corridors of the building. What a pity it is,” continues Pavie, “that a scientific mind like his was so little given to writing except on his special study; but under the influence of ideas of a peculiar kind he accomplished that laborious and useful task which constitutes his glory.”
A member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Mr. Emil Thewrewk de Ponor, made an interesting communication to a Budapest journal, the “Nemzet,” on the 31st of March 1883, according to which it would appear that Josef Szabó de Borgáta, a fellow-student at Göttingen, and afterwards professor of the Lycæum of Sopron, was the first who induced Csoma to undertake a [[141]]journey to the East. This Professor Szabó was still alive, and in his ninety-fourth year in 1883.