There's a story that sometime in the mid 19th century an ambitious young world traveler

from Russia made her third attempt to enter Tibet.

This was no small feat.

In the 1800s there were few places on planet earth more inaccessible to Europeans.

The fabled Buddhist territory was not only protected by a foreboding and mountainous Himalayan

landscape, but in 1792 the government had ostensibly closed the borders to anyone of European

descent.

Fearing espionage by ambitious European imperialists, the powers at Beantabet agreed that it was

safer to simply keep the country isolated.

Nevertheless a handful of resourceful Europeans still managed to slip into the country from

time to time, and this determined young woman was dead set on being one of them.

On her previous attempt to enter the country the young woman had been guided by a Siberian

shaman from a tribe of nomadic tartar people.

However, while searching for an inconspicuous entry point into Tibet the two travelers became

impossibly lost, it was then that the young woman witnessed something truly astounding.

This tartar shaman had spent the entire trip with an unusual looking stone carefully tucked

under his armpit.

Many times the young woman had asked the man what it was and why he carried it.

The shaman had always refused to answer, but now that they were lost in some unknown mountain

pass the shaman stopped being coy.

We're told that when things looked especially dire the shaman took a wooden peg and stuck

it into the ground.

...