Henry Strachey was an army officer

Officer (armed forces)

An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...

 remembered for his forays into western Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

 during the late 1840s.

Strachey first visited Tibet in 1846, when he surveyed the regions surrounding Lakes Manasarovar

Lake Manasarovar

Lake Manasarovar, Mapam Yumco , or Manasa Sarovar/Lake Manas , is a fresh-water lake in Tibet Autonomous Region of China approximately from Lhasa. To the west of Lake Manasa Sarovar is Lake Rakshastal and towards the north is Mount Kailash...

 and Rakshastal

Lake Rakshastal

Lake Rakshastal is a lake in Tibet, lying close to the west of Lake Manasarovar and Mount Kailash. The Satluj River originates at Rakshastal's northwestern tip. Despite its close proximity to Lake Manasarovar—over the road to Purang County, Lake Rakshastal does not share the lore of worship with...

. His second occurred in 1849, when he and his brother Richard briefly entered Tibet by following the Niti Pass out of Garhwal

Garhwal Division

Garhwal is the north-western region and administrative division of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand which is home to the Garhwali people. Lying in the Himalayas, It is bounded on the north by Tibet, on the east by Kumaon region, on the south by Uttar Pradesh state, and on the north-west by...

, a region in the northern India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n state Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand , formerly Uttaranchal, is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the Land of Gods due to the many holy Hindu temples and cities found throughout the state, some of which are among Hinduism's most spiritual and auspicious places of pilgrimage and worship...

.

Although both these visits were unauthorised, Strachey's reports on these areas won him the Royal Geographical Society

Royal Geographical Society

The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...

's Patron's Medal in 1852. Between them he served as member of the 1847-1848 Ladakh

Ladakh

Ladakh is a region of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of the Republic of India. It lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent...

-Tibet boundary commission

Boundary Commission

Boundary Commission may refer to:* Boundary Commissions of the United Kingdom* Boundary Commission between the United Kingdom and Ireland* Boundary Commission of the Pacific Northwest* Boundary Commission of Maine...

.