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 TIRTAPURI SATI.E(.

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Tirtapuri Satlej. If we compare the two branches and ask which of them should be reckoned as the original source of the Satlej, I should give this honour to the one which has the longest course and comes from the highest and most extensive glaciers. As a rule the Tirtapuri branch gets its water only from Transhimalayan glaciers. But the Tage-tsangpo belongs to the Tirtapuri branch, even if it only periodically continues as an effluence from the Rakas-tal. The length of this period is of no significance whatever. So long as the lakes are not completely cut off and becoming salt, they belong to the Satlej system. As a very important argument in favour of the Tage-tsangpo I regard, as shown before, the fact that the Chinese and Tibetans themselves have regarded it as the source of the Satlej and thus there is a historical as well as a natural argument in its favour. Under such conditions it does not signify much that the Darma-yankti occasionally exceeds the Tirtapuri branch.

Henry Strachey gives a good description of Kailas. He has heard the names of the four temples round the mountain and calls them: Nindi, Didiphu, Jungdulphu, and Gyanktang, the last mentioned situated in Gangri or Darchen. The Sar-chu, coming from the Kailas, joins the channel of Lajandåk. He knows both Dolma-la and the Gauri-Kund lake, although he never saw them. He found that the small streams La-chu and Barka were the only permanent affluents to Cho Lagan from the Gangri mountains.

In attempting to find a channel of effluence from Cho Lagan he went a good way westward towards Changchung and was »floundering about the swampy ground for a long while seeking in vain for the channel that did not exists. To escape observation from Parka he passed at night along the northern shore towards the east and found the La-chu 150 feet wide and 3 feet deep as a maximum. Two miles farther on he crossed the Parka river, which was like the other, but a third smaller in width and depth.

On October 5th he continued eastward at a little distance from the shore of Rakas-tal, until he reached the eastern horn of the lake.

»A mile on, we came to a large stream Ioo feet wide and 3 deep, running rapidly from east to west through a well-defined channel: this was the outlet of Manasarowar. It leaves that lake from the northern quarter of its western shore, and winding through the isthmus of low undulating ground, for four miles perhaps, falls into Rakas Tal in the bight formed by the projecting headland above mentioned. Two or three miles to the eastward, we saw the back of an odd looking eminence, in the face of which was Ju-Gumba, a Lama-shrine on the west

I I insert here, as Pl. X, the new edition, for 185o, of Berghaus' map: Spezial Krrte vom Himalaya in Kumaon, Gurhwal, Sirmur, &c. &c. (Compare Pl. IX). The title of the map is the same as for the edition of 1835. Only the following words are added: Für die zweite Auflage dieser, zum Atlas von Asia gehörenden Karte sind die Untersuchungen benutzt, welche die Brüder Strachey über die geographische Lage der »heiligen Seen» von Tübet, über die Schneegränze und über die Glätscher des Himalaya in den Jahren 1846-1848 angestellt haben. The map will therefore not only serve as a good illustration to Henry and Richard Strachey's journeys, but also show the knowledge of our region as it was in 185o.