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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

JEAN BLAEU, VARENIUS, OGILBY.

209

a country Tibet, all more or less vaguely determined on the map. The reason is, of course, that the author has drawn his information from different works and ages, and thereby created an unnecessary confusion.

BERNHARDUS VARENIUS is regarded as the most important geographer of the seventeenth century. In his Geographia generalis, 1664, he stands, however, on classic ground so far as our regions are concerned. He knows the Imaus as two ranges forming a cross, the meridional branch dividing Scythia in the two parts famous since antiquity. The source of the Ganges is placed, he says, by some at 43° N. lat., by others at 33°, and flows from north to south.

Another compilation, very well got up, was published in 1673 by JOHN OGILBY.2 He does not help us any further, however, and, as all other authors of the time, he quotes the classics, and Barros, Gastaldi, Linscouten, Herbert, Jarric, Bernier, and the rest. The Indus rises from the Mountain Parapomisus, »Ganges (now Guengam) ariseth out of the Scythian Mountains». Later on he says of the two rivers that they »come from the Northward out of the Mountains Imaus and Caucasus, by the Inhabitants (according to Castaldus) call'd Dalanguer and Nangracot, and both (as the Inhabitants affirm) spring from one Head, though some Geographers make the distance between them to be a hundred and eighty Leagues, and others but a hundred and thirty ...» The confusion is great about the northern mountains; probably no geographer of those days ever knew what the ancient writers meant by their Paropamisus, Imaus and Caucasus, not to mention the Scythian mountains of which nobody has ever had any knowledge.

The river Rawy (Ravi) is said to spring out of Mount Caximir. The administrative division of Hindustan is the traditional from Sir Thomas Roe. So is also the map, the same which in Purchas His Pilgrims Vol. IV, p. 432 is called Sir Thomas Roe's map of East India. It is of no special interest, though I insert the part of it which contains the sources of the Indus and the Ganges, Pl. XXXVII. Even the Cow's Head is conscientiously drawn at Hardware.3

I In the original text the two passages run thus : »Imaüs mons, crucis forma duabus vifs progreditur tam versus ortum & occasum, quam versus Septentrionem & Austrum. Septentrionalis pars nunc Alkai perhibetur. Protenditur versus Austrum usque ad Indiæ fines & Gangis fluvii fontes . . . Dividit Scythiam Asiaticam in duas partes, quarum illa, quæ occasum spectat, dicitur Scythia intra Imaüm montem; quæ ortum dicitur Scythia extra Imaüm monteur.» — And of the Ganges: »Fons ejus remotissimus ponitur in latitudine Septentrionali 43 graduum in Tartaria (sed quidam retrahunt ad 33 grad.). Ostium in latitudine eadem 2 2 gr. Fluit à Septentrione in Austrum. Tractus est 30o circiter milliarium Germanicoruin. Exundat singulis annis.» -- Geographia generalis, In qua affectiones generates Telluris explicantur Autore Bernh: Varenio Med: D. Amstelodami, 1664, p. 94 & 27o.

2 Asia, the First Part. Being an Accurate Description of Persia, the Vast Empire of the Great Mogol, And other Parts of India, ... collected and translated from most Authentick Authors, and Augmented with later Observations ... London 1673, p. 104, 199, 242 et seq.

3 The title of the map is Magni Mogolis Imperium. It is also to be found in Mandelslo's Voyages Celebres & remarquables, Amsterdam 1727, where it is called: Royaume du Grand Mogol, avec tous les Pays qui en dependent suivant les Relations des plus fideles Voyageurs, nouvellement donne au Public par Pierre van der Aa, a Leide. The map of 1727 was simply a reprint of the one from 1673, which was antiquated since Sir Thomas Roe's journey in 1617. It had also been republished by Thevenot in 1666.

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