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

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so much uncertainty could prevail in Europe regarding the Ganges, which had been drawn far more exactly by the Alexandrine cartographer 1 Soo years before.

As a consequence of the exaggerated length of the Ganges, the chain of mountains, running west to east, which had been accepted by nearly all geographers and maps, has disappeared almost entirely. Only the meridional Imaus is left in the middle of a net of irregular and fantastic ranges.

One clearly sees how Ptolemy's authority begins to shake. But this was no gain for geography. Where Ptolemy has been respected, as for instance in the case of the Indus, the Oxus and the Jaxartes, the map is tolerable, but to the east and N.E. of that region nothing corresponds to reality.

We now have to consider two maps that are of the same type as that on Pl. XXVI. So far as rivers, lakes and mountains are concerned it may be called Janssonius' type. The first, Pl. XXVII, has the title: India quee Orientalis dicitur, et Insvlæ adiacentes. It is first known to us in GUILJELMUS BLAEU's »Le Theatre du monde, ou Nouvel Atlas», 1640. The second, Pl. XXVIII, is from IOHANNES IANSSONIUS' Newer Atlas, oder Weltbeschrei bung-, Amsterdam 1641, and has the title: Asia recens summa cura delineata And: Iud: /fondle. It was prepared in JANSSON's offices in 1632.

Comparing these three maps, Pl. XXV, XXVII and XXVIII, we at once see that they are founded on one and the same original drawing. The Indus is of Ptolemæan type. On the map bearing HOEIUS' name, Pl. XXVI, the river flows S.S-W; on the two others S.W. As can be seen on Ianssonius' map of Asia, of which Pl. XXVIII is a part, the source of the Ganges is much farther from the Indian Ocean than from the Glacial, and should on a modern map have to be placed in Dsungaria, 48° N. lat. instead of 31°. If the draughtsman had really felt confidence in the situation he has given to Marco Polo's Cotan, Poin, Ciarci, and Lop, he would have been alarmed at the thought that the Venetian traveller on his way eastwards from the last mentioned place to Sachiu in the province of Tangut, should have been obliged to cross the upper course of the sacred Ganges. But he has not been sure at all, and following the example of Mercator he has entered the same places once more, namely, on the great river, which we remember from Pl. XXVI, and which obviously is a forerunner to Hwangho.

On Pl. XXVI the lower Ganges had a S.S-E. course, on Pl. XXVII and XXVIII it runs to the S.S-W. No rest is given the sacred river. In the course of a few years it has been swinging like a pendulum between Canton and Bengal. And when at last the mouth gets settled in the Gulf of Bengal, the whole course of the river begins to swing the other way, while the Indus, the river cf Alexander the Great, was too firmly fixed by historical events.

Of the three rivers we shall have to work out through the following chapters, the Indus, Satlej and Brahmaputra, until I have the honour of leading the reader

I Remarkable maps ... Edited by C. H. Coote.

MAPS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.