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

THE JOURNEYS OF TIEFFENTHALER.

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to a certain extent a compilation. ' The editor has only one reproach to make, namely, that the author does not always quote the sources from which he has got his information. However, Tieffenthaler tells us that he has wandered through several parts of India and made annotations of remarkable things. In fact his geography of India was in his own days regarded as a very important work, the result of thirty years' travel and hard work (1743-1773) He says himself that he travelled all over Oudh for a period of five years. »I have not only explored these regions myself, but I also sent a man, aquainted with the elements of geographical science, to the Kumaon mountains, to the waterfalls of the Ghogra, and even as far as the Saltus Deucaronos', to ascertain the distances of the places there from each other, and the direction of the river.» In 1765, when his means were exhausted, he went to Bengal to procure some assistance from »the famous english nation, that is known for its generosity and is philantropic to the miserables and poor», and in 1766 he started on his journey to Gogra. He made a map of the Ganges with all its bends. In his preface he mentions all the places he has seen himself. The sources he never visited. But he tells his readers, that beyond the huge glacier, from underneath which the river issues three yards deep, there is no path leading to the sources of the Ganges. And he adds that there had been a few persons, »that climbed over this icy cliff, at the risk of their lives, in the hope of reaching Mount Kela, Mahadeo's abode, and in it eternal bliss; but they either found a grave in the snow or died from hunger and cold».2 It is obvious that he has not been to the lakes either. Regarding them one can apply to Tieffenthaler his own words about the ancients, when they call, as he puts it, the actual Kumaon Imaus: »they have not seen these countries and are usually wrong in their determination of distant regions». But in one point he is decidedly right and that is when he says that the source of the Indus is to be found in the Tibetan mountains. Concerning Tibet he has heard that it is 5 months under snow. There is a very soft wool, musk and white cow-tails. The country is governed by a regent called Lama Goru of clerical rank and belonging to an order of hermits and adored as a god. There is in the work quoted above an amusing illustration of »Patala or Patära», which is the residency of the Lama Goru or Lama grù, i. e. the high teacher or high lord (magnus magister).

In the present chapter, however, we have only to deal with Tieffenthaler's maps so far as the lakes and the sources of the great rivers are concerned. As

I Sprengel says that Tieffenthaler wrote his geography of India »theils aus eigenen Beobachtungen auf seinen weiten Reisen, theils nach einheimischen Nachrichten, bei denen er aber ausser dem Aj. Acbery viele andere Landesbeschreibungen dieses grossen Reichs zum Grunde gelegt hat.» Geschichte der wichtigsten geographischen Entdeckungen bis zur Ankunft der Portugiesen in Japan

1542, von M. Ch. Sprengel, Halle 1792, ). 34.

2 Joseph Tieffentaller, S. J. A forgotten Geographer of India. East & West, Vol. V. Pt. I.

Jan.—June 1906, p. 400 et seq.

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