THE GREAT CENTRAL CHAIN AND THE SOURCE OF THE LANGZHING-KHAMPA• 45
chain, most probably extending from N.E. to S.W. and that all the high mountain ridges which he has seen with his own eyes stretching N.W. to S.E. are only subordinate ranges shooting out from this central chain. His reason for supposing such a central chain is that the Kailas or a continuation of it throws off the waters of the two largest rivers in India in opposite directions, the Indus to the N.W., and the Brahmaputra to the S.E. Such a place, he thinks, must be the most elevated land, unless one should suppose the Kailas range to be lower than the ridges that branch off from it. He heard that people constantly travelled from the sources of the Indus and the Brahmaputra to Ladak and Tashi-lunpo but he never met anybody who had been beyond the Kailas, but several who had made the circuit of it. And he adds; »so we shall probably remain long in the Clark respecting the country that lies to the N.E. of Mansurowar». And he was right in this supposition!
As to the Satlej he says that its chief branch, or that which has the longest course, issues from Rawun Rudd Lake, or Langa-Cho, and about the Indus that geographers are indebted to Lieutenant l\ICCARTNEY (Macartney) for putting it right for us. For Macartney ascertained that the Indus »ran past the capital of Ludak, and Roodok, a place of some note, famed for its lakes of salt and borax, half way between Leh and Garoo». It is strange that he could accept such erroneous information, remembering that the Lamas had placed Rudok correctly already a hundred years earlier. Otherwise his inquiries gave the same result as Moorcroft's exploration. Thus he found that the river issuing from Rakas-tal was indeed the Satlej, and the river passing Gartok, and which was called Eekung-Choo, was a branch of the Indus.
In speaking of the origin of the Satlej, Captain Gerard refers to Major Rennell, whose Lanktschou, or Langchoo, for the upper Satlej, is the same as the Langzhing-Choo or Langzhing-Khampa, as the river is called in Chinese Tartary (Pl. IV). He could not ascertain the meaning of 'zhing' but it appeared to have nothing to do with the name of the river, for the Indus he found named Singe-Choo, or Singzhing-Choo, as well as Singzhing-Khampa, the last word meaning river. He thinks, with Rennell that if the latitudes and names of rivers as given by the surveying Lamas had been accepted, the maps of India would have been much more correct than they were. Some degree of dependence might still have been placed on the authority of the natives, especially as they insisted that the Ganges issued from the S.W. foot of the Himalaya, and that the river from the Manasarovar was a different one, and called Langchoo, or Satlej, which was represented as having a very long course, as is actually the case. Captain Gerard met more than one hundred people who had travelled up the Satlej, not exactly to its source, but to within ten or twelve
miles of it to the place whence the road turns off to the Manasarovar. All the ac-
counts agree that the largest stream issues from the western corner of Rawun Rudd,
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