National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Ibo   MAPS OF THE SIXTEENTH GENTURY.

If, therefore, both in the coast-lines of the Indian peninsula and in the orographical arrangement of the interior, the influence of Ptolemy has completely disappeared on Gastaldi's map, we find still a last trace of his hydrography in the topographical situation of the Indus and the Ganges, as well as their principal tributaries. All the feeders come from the southern side of the Himalaya. Chesimur, Kashmir, is situated on the upper course of the main Indus which comes from Naugracot, in the neighbourhood of which is also the source of the Ganges. It is difficult to identify the Satlej, unless it is the great tributary on the bank of which is a town called Capelang. That Moltan is placed on the lower course of the same river and Lahor on one of its tributaries signifies nothing, for such mistakes are very common in much later years.

In the regions north of the Himalaya the greatest confusion prevails. There is no sign of a Tibetan highland, nor of a country Tibet, though Fra Mauro had entered it on his map a hundred years earlier. Tangvt Pro. is placed north of Regno de Camvl, and Diserto de Lop north of Diserto de Camvl, on which a legend speaks of the horrors of the desert. The »Stagno» between the two deserts may be Lop-nor. But everything is upside down, and to find some more traces of Marco Polo we have to leave the basin of Lop and enter the basin of Sir-darya. This river is called Tahosca, or, on the Prima Pars Asiæ, Tachosca. It takes its rise in a meridional range of mountains, at the foot of which is Marco Polo's »large town» Lop. Proceeding westwards we find Ciarcian, Poin, Caschar, Cotan, Caschar, all well known from Marco Polo. Kashgar has thus been marked twice. Acsu is also there, on the same tributary as a second Lahor. All these towns are situated on the Sirdarya and its tributaries. But we have no right to blame Gastaldi. He has certainly done the best he could with the material existing at his time. Regarding Lop, for instance, his map agrees with Marco Polo's text: »Lop is a large town at the edge of the Desert, which is called the Desert Lop ... On quitting this city they enter the Desert.» I And we must not forget that Marco Polo has hardly anything to say of the mountains and rivers of these regions.

In opposition to Fra Mauro, Gastaldi has no lakes in or near the Himalaya. Only Abia f., Ab-i-amu fluvius, comes from a lake further west. On one of the Chinese rivers flowing eastwards we find the towns Turfan and Camul.

Taken as a whole Gastaldis map does not teach us anything new of the countries north of the Himalaya, and it could not, for no new material had been collected since Marco Polo. And still the general appearance and arrangement of

though he means the other place of the same name, and not the Nagrakot which has given Himalaya its temporary name.

Speaking of Tavernier Lévi has the following note • »Les monts de Naugrocot sont l'Himalaya. Naugrocot, sous la forme moderne: Nagarkot, est un temple et un pèlerinage célèbre du pays de Kangra, qui est situé à l'Ouest de Simla, au Sud-Est du Cachemire. Au XVIIe siècle, on étend ce nom à toute la chaîne qui sépare l'Inde du Tibet.» (Le Népal, Vol. I. p. 93.)

I Yule's Marco Polo, Vol. I, p. 196.

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