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

HODGSON AS AN EPIGON OF REAL GEOGRAPHERS.   I II

roth's conscientious attempts to draw only such rivers that exist in reality. Corn-pared with Klaproth's map, Pl. III, that of Hodgson looks like a caricature.

»Southern Tibet or Bodpa Yeul» occupies the Tsangpo valley; the name is north of the river. South of the river is Utsang or the Central Province of Tibet,

19 — it is curious that the Central Province can be situated south of Southern Tibet. If Utsang is situated south of the river, it is strange that Tamchok-kamba could be the western boundary of U. And if Nyenchhen-thangla is the northern boundary of U, one cannot see how Sangwa gyamda can be its eastern boundary, as it is situated east of Nam-tso, which, if Hodgson's map were at all as good as d'Anville's or the Ta-ch'ing map, is a good long way north of Nien-chen-tang-la.

Some of Hodgson's articles were reprinted in a separate volume in 1874.' So far as the Nien-chen-tang-la is concerned there is nothing new beyond those passages which have been quoted before. He returns to the question of nomads of Mongol and Turkish race in Northern Tibet and finds witness in »the facts that all its hill ranges are taghs, and all its lakes m irs, both T6rki words».2 We do not need to enter on this extraordinary view. In a Postscript, p. 27, he quotes Major MADDEN, who, May 1846, in a letter to Hooker wrote of »the disgraceful state of our maps of the Himalaya, which insert ridges where none exist, and omit them where they do exist». Which was said about the Himalaya where many Englishmen had travelled in 1846. Except Bogle, Turner and Manning not one had ever touched the Tsangpo-valley. And even these three Englishmen have not a word to say of the Transhimalaya. In how much higher a degree could not Madden's opinion about the Himalaya be applied to the Transhimalaya!

The result at which we arrive is that Hodgson, who promoted science in so many directions, did not add an inch to our knowledge of the Transhimalaya. Sometimes he says that the existence of the range is beyond doubt as he has found from native information, but he never relates what the natives told him. Everything he has to say can, as I have proved, easily be found in Klaproth's, Ritter's and Humboldt's works. His map of 1857 does not even show the state of knowledge regarding the mountain system, — for the year 1857. For the mountains north of the Tsangpo were, although mostly absurd, far better represented 124 years earlier, — on d'Anville's map. On d'Anville's map some parts of orography are correct, namely Kentaisse for Kailas, and the ranges Co'iran—Tchimouran—Larkin for Nienchen-tang-la proper and, finally, the fact that he gives us an idea of the existence of several ranges north of the Tsangpo. On Hodgson's map everything is wrong, even those parts which were correct 124 years earlier. Neither can we, in this connection, use Lessing's words that he has brought much both true and new, but

I Essays on the Languages, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and Tibet : together with further Papers on the Geography, Ethnology, and Commerce of those countries. Part II: On the Physical Geography of the Himalaya. Extracted from the Selections from the Records of the Government of Bengal, No. XXVII. Calcutta 1857. (Reprinted from the Jour. As. Soc. Bengal for 1849.)

2 L. c. p. 35.

!I[