Father Joseph's letter on borax from Tibet
A missionary's letter, printed in 1787, on how borax was gathered and traded from Tibet, learned at second hand.
Full title Letter … Containing Some Observations Relative to Borax
Joseph da Rovato
Joseph da Rovato, head of the mission in Tibet, wrote this letter about borax, a mineral traded out of Tibet toward Nepal and India. It was printed in English in 1787 and passed on to the Royal Society by Sir Joseph Banks. The card says his information came through a man sent by Bahadur Shah, not from a visit by Rovato to the borax sources himself. The atlas holds a stored copy of this text, but a keyword search of it found no passages mentioning Tartars, so nothing from it was read for this guide.
- How they knew
- From informants
- Who “Tartar” means here
- Not recorded on the card. English writers of the 1780s often used Tartary loosely for the highlands and steppe north of India and west of China, so that broad sense is the likely one if the word appears at all.
- Why read it
- It gives a small, concrete picture of mineral extraction and trade in the Tibetan highlands, told by a resident missionary and his informants.
- Watch out
- The information came through a chain of informants, so it is hearsay about the mines rather than an eyewitness report. Only this short letter is in the catalogue entry.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
mixed Part firsthand observation, part drawn from other sources.
Missionary correspondent / named informant chain
Research notes
- Information transmitted via a man sent by Bahadur Shah; not an eyewitness visit by Rovato to the mines.
Why it matters
Economic geography, extraction and trade from a regional source.
Places named
Tibet; Nepal; mineral trade