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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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NICOLO DI CONTI; TRIGAULT.

207

gives of Kashmir, a luxuriant country, surrounded by snow-covered mountains, and abundantly watered. To the east is Rebat, as he calls Tibet, with its colder climate. He has heard that some merchants travel from India through Bengal to China, while a shorter road goes through Kashmir and Tibet directly to Caigar or Kashgar, from where it is easy to reach the first Chinese city.'

In his work on Great Mogul's empire, 1631, DE LAET quotes the ancients, specially Pliny, and calls the northern mountains Emodus.2 From Belgian sources he has heard that the Ravi, Behat and Sind take their origin in the mountains of Cassimer and join near Multan. The province of Kabul borders, to the north, in the direction of Corum upon Tartaria, where the river Nilab has its origin. On the banks of this river is Attack, and below it the river joins the Indus.3

In what he says of the river Behat we remember Thomas Roe 1617, though de Laet does not find it likely that the river should join the Ganges. The climatic comparison between Kashmir and Tibet he has taken from Iarric. At Hardvvaïr is. the source of the Ganges from the rock with the cow's head. In describing the Kara-korum road from Kashmir viâ Tibbon (Ladak) to Cascar, he has more confidence in Finch, 161o, than in Xavier, 1598.4

When Father TRIGAULT, 1639, in his compilation on China, tells us that the Yellow River and the Ganges both rise from the Kwen-lun, he must have used the same source as Father Martini, who, in 1655, tells the same thing.5

I The passage runs: Regnum hoc nulli Indice regioni pulchritudine & aëris clementia cedit, etiam media estate. Altissimis siquidem circumquaque cingitur montibus, niue maxima anni parte coopertis; reliquus ager planus est, elegans, viridantibus herbis variegatus; siluis, hortis, viridariis, fontibus, amnibus ad stuporem vsque abundans. Frigidiuscula omnis regio est, idque maxime ob montes nivales; temperatior tarnen est, qua- regnum Rebat, quod ab oriente illi adiacet. Mense Maio è frigidis Rebati montibus infinita prope anserum siluestrium aduolant agmina, & in flumina, que iuxta Cascimirum, regni caput, decurrût, velut aliis calidiora, sese immergunt. — Sunt qui iter in Cataiam per Bengalam & Garagati (Calcutta) regnum, in quo Magni Mogor imperium terminatur, patere dicant. Sed mercatores qui viarum nor it compendia, Lahore Caximiram petunt, ac deinde per Rebati regnum (cujus Rex Magni Mogor socius & amicus) recta Caigarenum tendunt; atque hinc facilis & breuis ad primum Cataie emporium ... via patet. R. P. Petri Iarrici Thesavrvs Rerum Indicarum. Col. Agr. MDCXV, T. I, p. 558 et 579. Father Iarric himself has got this information from Father Jérôme Xavier, in a letter written 1598, and published in Father Jean Hay's: De rebus Japonicis etc., Antverpie 1605. See also, Brucker op. cit. p.

2 De imperio Magni Mogolis sive India vera Commentarius. E varijs auctoribus congestus. Lvgdvni Batavorum, Anno CIDIDCXXXI, p. I et seq.

3 Kabul ..., versus Comm sive arctum fines jungens cum Tartaria. In hac fluvius Nilab oritur, qui versus meridiem descendit, donec cum Indo se conjungat ... Attack à metropoli sic appellata, ad ripam fluvii Nilab, qui à Coro descendens ab Indo excipitur ... Corum is therefore a mountainous tract. Should it be the Kara-korum ?

4 Regio (Cassimere) ... vicina quidem Cascari, sed tam asperis montibus ab illa divisa, ut nullus aditus Caravanis pateat; rani pedites interdum summa cum difficultate asperos hos montes penetrant. In montanis hisce degit Regulus, Tibbon nomine ... Eadem regio fines jungit cum Regno utriusque Thebet ... The Rahia (= Raja, Regulus) Tibbon on Sanson's map 1654 comes probably from this version of Finch's Tibbot.

5 Of the Yellow River Trigault says: Et hoc est Regni Sinensis alterum magnitudine & celebritate flumen, quod extra regnum ad Occasum nascitur, è monte, qui Cunlun appellatur, quem monteur vero similibus conjecturis colligitur, eum ipsum esse, vel alium minimè remotum, è quo Ganges creditur scaturire. — Regni Chinensis Descriptio, Lvgd. Batay. 1639, p. 318.