National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CHAPTER XXIV.

MAPS FROM THE FIRST THIRD OF THE EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY.

We are approaching the renaissance in the cartography over Tibet, an epoch that is characterized by the single name d'Anville. But before we reach so far we have to remember some of his forerunners, the most important of whom are Delisle and Strahlenberg. However, I am proceeding chronologically as hitherto.

Pl. XXXVIII shows us the map of E. ISBRANTS IDES published in 1704.' Ides was sent as an ambassador through Siberia to China in 1692, and returned to Russia in 1694. He had a copy of Witsen's map with him on the journey, and improved it where it was wrong. In its corrected form the map was added to Ides' narrative. Witsen says of it: »Ides' map is to a great part taken from my map ... but he has improved it.» 2

In his text Ides does not touch our regions, and all he has to say of India is that the Great Mogul's kingdom embraces all the countries and dominions which are situated between the rivers Indus and Ganges down to the Gulf of Bengal.3

So far as our regions are concerned the likeness between Ides' and Witsen's maps is, however, very insignificant. Ides has obviously, as Witsen, used a good deal of Russian material; nearly all the lakes in the northern half of the map are

I Nova Tabula Imperii Russici, ex omnium accuratissimis, gum hactenus extiterunt. Imprimis viri Ampliss. Nic: Witzen delineationibus conflata, quam ipsa locorurn lustratione edoctus, multum emendavit Everardus Ysbrants Ides. — Materialiy po Istoriy etc. N:o XXVI. — The same map, though not reaching quite so far south, is to be found in Recueil de Voiage au Nord, Amsterdam 1727, where it has the title: Carte de la Tartarie Asiatique suivant la Relation de l'Ambassadeur de Russie publiée en 1692, which is wrong, for the map was first published in Isbrants Ides narrative: Driejaarige reize naar China te lande gedaan door den Mokovischen Afgezant E. Isbrants Ides, Amsterdam 1704. In the German edition which is at my disposal: Dreyjährige reise Nach China E. Yssbrants Ides, Franckfurt 1707, the map is wanting. In Recuil de Voiages au Nord the narrative has the title: »Voyage de Moscou a la Chine par Mr. Everard Isbrants Ides Ambassadeur de Moscovie».

2 V. Kordt: Materialiy po Istoriy etc. Kiev 1906, II, Part I, p. 27. And F. G. Kramp in Remarkable Maps, Amsterdam 1897. Ides himself asserts: »Il faut que j'avoue que je n'eusse peut-être pas pensé à faire une carte générale des Régions que j'ai parcourues, si le célèbre Mr. Nicolas Witzen Bourguemêtre d'Amsterdam ne m'en eût fait concevoir l'idée ... la carte qu'il a donnée m a servi de guide en plusieurs endroits de mon voyage, elle m'a fourni en même terns un plan, que je n'ai fait que continuer. (French edition, p. 173.)

3 German edition, p. 431.