国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

GERHARD MERCATOR.

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many names from Marco Polo, such as Cassar, Kashgar, Samarcham, Samarkand, Carcham, Yarkand, Cotam, Khotan, Peim, Ciartiam, Cherchen, Lop, and Desertum Lop. If any fresh reliable information were the foundation of this arrangement, it would afford us an excellent proof that Oechardes is indeed the Tarim, as generally supposed. But Mercator has been far from sure, for on the southern feeders of his Jaxartes flu. we find again Iarchem (Yarkand), Cascar and Cotan, and Samarkand is also placed at one of the northern tributaries to the Abiamu or Oxus. In the latter case Mercator has followed the example of Gastaldi, in the former his own intuition assisted by Marco Polo's narrative. At any rate he has consulted two different sources and believed he had to do with quite different places. It is a confusion similar to Ptolemy's when he heard of the Tarim from two different informants and believed he had to deal with two different rivers. But so far Mercator has abandoned Ptolemy that he makes his Oechardes and Bautisus join, after which the combined river empties itself into the Glacial Ocean.

Mercator has the legend Bautisus nunc Quiam flu., in which we recognise Marco Polo's Kian or Kian-Suy, the Kinsha-chiang. Along the banks of the river he has placed some very interesting names. At the left, or west side we read Caindu at two places. He has it from Marco Polo who says: »Caindu is a province lying towards the west», by which, as Ramusio explains, is meant that it is to the west of Tebet.' Marco Polo further says: »After riding those ten days you come to a river called Brius, which terminates the province of Caindu.» This river Brius is the upper course of Kinsha-chiang, and entered on Mercator's map as the upper Bautisus, — nunc Quiam. Near Caindu, Mercator has a lake with the legend : »Lacus salsus in quo margaritarum magna copia est», directly taken from Ramusio's version of Marco Polo: »There is a great salt lake here, in which are found pearls.»

Just east of Caindu and thus in harmony with Marco Polo's text, Mercator has

both a country and a city Thebet, that is to say, on the right or eastern bank of the Bautisus. If Mercator could be used as an authority at all, those who identify the Bautisus with the great Tsangpo, should find an excellent support in his map. But the situation becomes perfectly hopeless considering the fact that the river runs to the north instead of the south, to the Glacial Ocean, instead of the Indian.2 Any attempt to reconcile 1'vlarco Polo with Ptolemy must of course be a failure.

West of the meridional Imaus Mercator has Taskent on the river Sur, Sirdarya (?), going to the Kichai lacus, Lake Aral (?); on one of the tributaries is Aczu. Further south dwell the Kirgessi, Kirgis, and there is Belor desertum olim Sacarum regio; S.W. of it is again an addition from Marco Polo: Pamer altissima pars totius continentis.

I Yule's Marco Polo, Book II, p. 53 and 56. Yule thinks Caindu is a Tibetan name, as the du should be the ordinary Tibetan do, as in Amdo, Tsiamdo, etc.

2 A short distance above the junction of the two rivers, Turfon and Camul are placed on the Oechardes, and east of the joint river, near the north coast of Asia is a place called Naiman, obviously taken from Plano Carpini and Rubruck, who both mention a people called Naiman. Rock-hill's Rubruck, p. IIO.