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

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146   NAIN SING'S JOURNEY IN 1873-74, - AND OTHER EXPLORATIONS.

passed several salt marshes, such as Khai Chaka and Dakdong Chaka, where salt is broken and sold to Ladak. Chabuk was a village at 14 4co, where many nomads lived in the neighbourhood. The first 3o days led over heights of 13 700 to 15 000 feet; farther on, to Nam-tso, the country became somewhat higher. From Chabuk ten marches to Hissik Chaka the country was uninhabited. To the S.W. is the district of Gargethol. On the map the whole region about there is called Shankhor, a name, as I found, known almost all over Tibet. Gegha is a place in Gargethol; farther east the country consists of level, uninhabited plains.

Beyond Mango and Kezing and to Thok Daurakpa the whole country was uninhabited (at the beginning of September), but said to be visited by Garché-Khampas at certain seasons of the year. There is capital grazing, fuel and water. »The road lies the whole way in one of the broad open sangs . . . lying between ranges of hills running east and west. South of the Tashi Bhup Cho, the southern range runs off in a south-east direction, rising rapidly in height and forming a massive group of snow-covered peaks, known as the Shyalchi Kang Jang, the positions of several of which were fixed by the Pundit, although at a distance of from 30 to 40 miles south of the road.»

»From this snowy group flows north-wards a very considerable stream, the Shyal-chu» very swollen during the high-water period. The following passage is curious: »This stream flows into the Tashi Bhup Lake, whose south shore is about 2 miles to the north of the Pundit's road. From the eastern end of the lake a stream issues, whose waters are said ultimately to drain into the Chargut Lake, from which they emerge under the name of the Nak-chu-kha River, and flow eastward to the village of the same name, which lies on the northern road between Lhasa and Pekin. At the point where the Shyal-chu was passed by the Pundit, his road was crossed by another track going from Manasarovar to Nak-chu-kha, which passes south of the Tashi Bhup Lake, and then follows throughout its course the stream which emerges from the east end of the lake and flows to the Chargut Lake and Nåkchu-khå..»

Captain Trotter had hardly anything else to do than to accept Nain Sing's assertion and try to make the best he could of his conjectural hydrography which also was accepted on most European maps and kept its ground for nearly 20 years. For instance map N:o 6o in Slieler's Hand--Atlas for 1891 has accepted the river flowing from Tashi-bup-tso to Chargut-tso, where, however, it comes to an end, probably as its eastern continuation did not agree with the discoveries made by BONVALOT and Prince HENRY OF ORLEANS in 1889-90. But even from Nain Sing's own report, where it is said that the country he covered on his way

I DUTREUIL DE RHINS is right in supposing that Nain Sing's hydrographical system from Gangethol to the east was unreliable; he prefers to believe in the existence of a series of independent lake basins »les directions des contreforts septentrionaux de la chaîne Tarkou ou Targot confirmant cette appréciation». L'Asie Centrale, Paris 1889, p. 581.