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

I18

THOMSON, HOOKER, CAMPBET.I. AND CUNNINGHAM.

understand : The northern boundary of Tibet is formed by the great chain north of the Indus, to which Humboldt, following Chinese geographers, has given the name of Kouenlun. Our knowledge of the appearance and course of this chain of mountains, by which Tibet is separated from Yarkand and Khotan, is so extremely limited that, except as to its general direction, very little can be said regarding it.» If Kwen-lun should be the great chain north of the Indus one would have to reckon all the mountains belonging to the Kara-korum system, and situated between the Indus and the Kwen-lun, to this last-mentioned system. Thomson, who visited the Kara-korum pass himself, ought not to have accepted any influence from Humboldt who had never seen the country. Here is another example of the danger of blind belief in authority. Ptolemy stopped all geographical progress for more than a thousand years by the authority of his name. And on the other hand Thomson by his own great authority made it still more likely that the Kara-korum belonged to the Kwen-lun. Although Thomson was the first European to reach the Kara-korum pass, he did not bring it in any relation to the Dzang range of Humboldt. A few years later Hodgson, as we have seen, promulgated the continuity as pretty certain, although he had never been in the country. But his assertion was only conjecture built upon maps.

Sir JOSEPH HOOKER's journeys in Sikkim, 1848-50, form an epoch in Himalayan investigation from the point of view of natural history.' His exploration brought him up to the north to the Sikkim-Tibet frontier. The peak which he called Forked Donkia and which is on the Tista watershed »is the termination of a magnificent amphitheatre of stupendous snow-clad precipices, continuously upwards of 20 000

feet high, that forms the east flank of the upper La choong. From Donkia top again, the mountains sweep round to the westward, rising into fingered peaks of extraordinary magnificence; and thence — still running west — dip to 18 500 feet, forming the Donkia pass, and rise again as the great mural mass of Kinchinjhow. This girdle of mountains encloses the head waters of the Lachoong, which rises in countless streams from its perpetual snows, glaciers, and small lakes: its north drainage is to the Cholamoo lakes in Tibet; in which is the source of the Lachen, which flows round the north base of Kinchinjhow to Kongra Lama» and belongs to Tista.

Regarding the interior of southern Tibet his experience consists chiefly in distant

views. From the Donkia pass, 18 470 feet, he took a splendid panoramic view which is reproduced in his book,2 and is of interest to us. At his feet to the north he had the lake Cho lamoo, further on a range and, »beyond this range, lay the broad valley of the Arun, and in the extreme northwest distance, to the north of Nepal, were some immense snowy mountains, reduced to mere specks on the horizon. The valley of the Arun was bounded on the north by very precipitous black rocky mountains, sprinkled with snow; beyond these again, from north to

I Himalayan Journals etc. London 1854. 2 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 124.