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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of Mecon is independent of Lago di Chiamay, and has its own course from far away, from the unknown mountains of Tartari Mogori.

Comparing now the map in Ramusio, Pl. XVI, with Jacopo Gastaldi's Tertia Pars Asie of 1561, Pl. XVII, we find, on the latter, much more detail, both in hydrography and nomenclature. The hydrography is in perfect accordance with the text of Ramusio. Six rivers leave the lake, the three eastern joining to form Sian or Menan F. The next, the river of Martaban, leaves the lake at a place called Chia-mai and has the name Caipumo f. Then follows Aua f. with the cities Aua and Pegu, and finally the Caor F. of the older map, nameless on the latter. On its banks are the Cities Gor, Camotai, and Chirote, and it joins the easternmost branch of the Ganges delta much further from the coast of Golfo de Bengala than on Pl. XVI. Both maps have in the delta the cities Catigang and Bengala, of which the former must be Chittagong. The Island Sornagon, missing on Pl. XVII, may be Sundarbans?

On Pl. XVI Lago de Chiamay is represented as a real Madre dell' acque: it receives no affluents from anywhere, but still emits four enormous rivers. On Pl. XVII it receives at least two strong feeders from the mountains between India and China. Here the lake is called Cayamay Lago; it sends out four rivers, though the eastern has three heads.

North of the lake (Pl. XVII) we find the Kingdom of Macin, which probably is Mahåchin or Great China used by Persian writers as synonymous with Manzi, for in Persian parlance Machin and Manzi were identical.' There are also two cities, Amuyin-macin and Toloma, reminding of Prshevalskiy's Amne-machin and Soloma at the upper Hwangho.2 But this is only a coincidence, for Gastaldi has only tried to reconciliate Barros' lake with Marco Polo's geography, as the latter did not, naturally enough, know of any such lake. We have therefore to think of Marco Polo's Province of Aniu, in Ramusio's version Amu, in Pauthier's Aniu.3 Toloma is obviously Marco Polo's Province of Coloman, which in most versions is called Toloman.4

Barros, on the other hand, is responsible for the two names Caor and Camotay, and he has even a Kingdom Caor in the mountains north of the lake, leading our thoughts to the Garo Hills, the western foot of which is washed by the Brahmaputra. But on Pl. XVII the name has been changed into Gor, and the river is a boundary between the Regno de Camotai and Regno de Verma or Burma. As the city of Verma is placed on a river which joins the Ganges delta further south, and as there is no river situated between the Caor and the Ganges on Pl. XVI, the Caor must needs be Brahmaputra, which becomes much more evident on Pl. XVII.

As to the province and city of Caor, alias Gor, we find it mentioned by Terry in 1616: »Gor, the chiefe Citie so called, it is full of Mountaynes. The River Persilis

LAGO DE CHIAMAY.

I Yule's Marco Polo, II, p. 35.

2 At Kyakhti etc. p. i 5o.

3 Yule, op. cit. p. 12o.

4 Ibidem p. 123.