The Nyang-chu had been better mapped by Turner, 8o years earlier, and the Ki-chu was on d'Anville's map called Kaltiou R., and much improved by Nain Sing. 1
Desideri's precious manuscript was not yet known. But the Ta-ch'ing map existed. The main Tsangpo and everyone of its tributaries were mapped. The sources of the Brahmaputra were incomparably better surveyed by the Chinese than by the Pundit. So far as the course of the Tsangpo is concerned everything was known before and the Pundit made only a few discoveries of snowy mountains to the north, which are hardly possible to identify from any earlier map. He travelled in the easiest and most comfortable part of Tibet, along the lasam which was, of course, the first and most important line already for the Chinese surveyors to follow. And still the Pundit's merit is enormous, as the Chinese statements had to be controlled and all geographical co-ordinates fixed. Thus his journey always remains, from a geographical point of view, an epoch. The next step should be a complete exactness and precision, carried out by triangulation and with that task Ryder's and his comrades' names are for ever associated.
But in order to make real geographical discoveries Nain Sing had to direct his attention further north as he did on his great journey between Leh and Lhasa. In the whole interior, north of the Tsangpo, only a few lakes and one or two rivers of the Chinese map may be identified, although the situation is here erroneous. As to the mountains they are completely useless all over the Chinese map. But the highest class of fresh discovery was only to be made in those parts of northern Tibet where PRSHEVALSKIY, A-K-, BOWER, WELLBY, LITTLEDALE, BONVALOT and myself have travelled, for those parts were left blank on the Chinese and all other maps.
I The enthusiastic Petermann says of Nain Sing's journey that it »zu den staunenswerthesten Thaten gehört, welche die an kühnen und abenteuerlichen Reisen so reiche Entdeckungs-Geschichte Inner-Asiens zu verzeichnen hat. Mögen uns Muth und Ausdauer eines Antonio de Andrada imponiren, der 1625 von Kaschmir (!) aus zu Fuss und ohne Führer, nur von zwei Knaben begleitet, die öden Schneegebirge nach dem oberen Setledsch überschritt, oder eines Pater Desideri, der 1715 von Kaschmir durch das nördliche (!), seitdem nicht wieder betretene Tibet nach Lhasa gelangte, oder der Patres Grüber und Dorville, die 1661, und der Lazaristen-Missionäre Huc und Gabet, die 1845 bis 1846 von Peking über Sining und die Gebirgsketten des nordöstlichen Tibet, vielleicht die höchsten der Welt, unter furchtbaren Anstrengungen Lhasa erreichten, aber keinem von ihnen steht der junge brahmanische Schriftgelehrte (Pundit) nach ...» Petermann's Mitteilungen 1868, p. 234.
IIIFカラー高解像度
