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

198   MAPS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

narrative we read: I »The first town they passed in returning was Gourtche, the last town dependent upon Kachemire, and four days' journey from the city of Kache-mire: from Gourtche, they were eight days in reaching Eskerdou, the capital of Little Tibet; and in two days more they came to a small town called Cheker, also within the territory of Little Tibet ... In fifteen days they came to a large forest, on the confines of Little Tibet, and in fifteen days more they arrived at Kacheguer, a small town which was formerly the royal residence, though now the King of Kacheguer resides at Iourkend, a little more to the north, and ten days' journey from Kacheguer.»

There is no room for a doubt; all the names mentioned by Bernier are entered on Visscher's map. Visscher's Kachaure is simply a carelessness for Kachemire, and in Gourtche the c has been read as e. If Visscher had recognised Bernier's Kacheguer and Iourkend as Marco Polo's Cascar and Yarkan, he would not have placed these cities on the Ganges, though, after all, he is less to be blamed than Sanson d'Abbeville who, on another of his maps (Pl. XXX), has them on the Sir-darya. And Visscher was justified in following Bernier's text: »They say that Kachguer lies to the east of Kachemire inclining somewhat to the northward.» The route in question is not the ordinary Kara-korum road, which starts from Leh and not from Skardo or Iskardo, and which first reaches Yarkand and then Kashgar; it is a more westerly road Bernier has heard of, which does not touch Yarkand at all.

As Bernier's narrative was published for the first time in 1670,2 Visscher's map cannot possibly have been published before that year.3

Now, as Kircher's map is from 1667, and Visscher's from at least three years later, Visscher has not needed to read China Illustrata, for he has found all the material of Grueber ready on Kircher's map. All the names he uses appear on the latter: Lassa, Cuthi, Cadmendu, Hedonda, Mutgari, Battana, Benares, Cadampor, and Agra. His Belor Mons and Consagni Mons Lapideus are directly copied from Kircher, even the horizontal perspective and the shadows, as well as the Montes Tibetici. He has followed Kircher's example in adopting Martini's source of the Hwangho, origo flu. Crocei, but retained, between it and Lassa, the mysterious lake of Chiamay. The Mongol name for Lassa, Burantola, which probably appears for the first time on Kircher's map, he has regarded as superfluous. Kircher is also the first to mention and to represent the name of Nepal on a map.

Pl. XXXIII shows us a reproduction from CANTELLI's map of 1683, published by V. KORDT.4 The sources of the Indus and Ganges are as usual, the Satlej is rudi-

I English Edition of A. Constable, p. 427. Bernier got his information from merchants from Kashgar whom he met in Kashmir.

2 Histoire de la derniere Revolution des Etats du Grand Mogol, Dediée Av Roy, Par le Sieur F. Bernier Medecin de la Faculté de Montpellier. A Paris MDCLXX.

3 Dr. E. W. Dahlgren tells me that, according to the best sources, Visscher's Atlas Minor dates from about 1680. Under such conditions Sylvain Lévi's and my own efforts to prove that the map in question cannot have been published before 1663, and 167o, should practically be superfluous.

4 In Materialiy po Istoriy Russkoy Kartografiy. The complete title is : La Gran Tartaria diuisa nelle sue parti principali da Giacomo Cantelli, da Vignola, conforme le relazioni, the s'hanno da