In the narratives of the first European travellers in Tibet and even in the diaries of the missionaries who lived for many years in Lhasa, we find nothing concerning the high mountain ranges situated north of the Tsangpo.
But if we direct our attention to the Chinese geographers we shall find a good deal of positive information about the labyrinth of mountains situated north of the river. As in other parts of Asia the Chinese have also here been the forerunners of exploration, and till not very long ago they have even provided European maps with all that was to be found on them, so far as the country north of the upper Tsangpo was concerned.
On the following pages I will give some extracts from the Chinese sources together with the necessary discussions.
Let us first turn our attention to the beautiful map of D'ANVILLE, published under the title: Carte generale du Tibet ou Bout-tan et des Pays de Kashgar et Harm Dressée sur les Caries et Memoires des RR PP .esuites de la Chine et accordée avec la situation constante de quelques Pays voisins. Par le Sr d'Anville, Geographe Ord.r" du Roi. Avril 1733. This map was published in DU HALDE's Description de la Chine, and in d'Anville's Nouveau Atlas de la Chine, 1737. The map which had been drawn by the Jesuits by order of Emperor Kang Hi was engraved at Peking, and a copy was sent to Paris and presented to the King and remained in his private library at Versailles till the epoch of the revolution. Copies of the same maps, translated in China, were also delivered by Father du Halde to d'Anville, who was a famous draughtsman and the King's geographer. His business became to make a reduction and digestion of the Chinese maps. But the copies he got were not complete and the translator of the geographical names had not been very careful. Therefore several mistakes entered d'Anville's maps, for which he could not be responsible. Only the detailed original maps of Tibet, which were inserted in du Halde's Description, have been copied by d'Anville in a more exact way. On the great general map of Tibet, of which Pl. I is a reproduction, d'Anville has changed the co-ordinates for some places, and has by this, as
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