 In the summer of 1624 two Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, Fr.António de Andrade and Brother Manoel Marques, came to the region looking for Christian kingdoms that had long been rumored to lay beyond the Himalayas.After a harrowing journey (they were the first known Europeans to traverse the Himalayas) they arrived in Tsaparang, where they managed to gain permission from the king of Guge to freely preach their religion throughout the kingdom, and left after less than a month.