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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

174

SCHLAGINTWEIT, LASSEN, DREW, H. STRACHEY.

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Cunningham must be pardoned for extending the name Kailas or Gangri to a wrong range. HENRY STRACHEY had not made the same mistake. In this connection it may be interesting to remember what Henry Strachey has to say of the real Gangri range, — not the wrong one as in Cunningham's case.

Strachey had not much occasion to come into contact with our system, but he got some glimpses of it from the lakes. From his first camp, north of the pass Lankpya Dh Ira he could see »through the opening northward a glimpse of distant blue mountains, part of the Gangri range perhaps, on the north side of the Sutlej».' From Lama Choktan he makes the following observation : The north-western horizon is bounded by the Gangri range of mountains moderately tipped with snow (2nd October), and remarkable for the deep purple-blue color of their inferior rocky parts; and about the middle of this range rises the snow-capped Peak of Kailas, somewhat higher than the rest of the line. I do not believe these mountains are nearly so lofty as the main ranges of the Indian Himalaya.» From Rakas-tal he could see the outlet valley running westwards as far as his eye reached and the Gangri mountains he saw stretching north-westward for some 3o miles. »The Gangri range continued also far to the eastward, rising out of a wide green plain, which extended between the base of the mountains . . .» He gives a good description of the Kailas as he saw it from afar, and makes it 2I o0o feet high. The openings on both sides of Kailas disclose only more mountains in the rear . . .» As he suspected, and even saw other mountains in the north-east, the view he further on expresses is the more curious. For he says : 2

»The Gangri range of mountains subsides at Tankcham-Tarjum the next east from Samo-tôkchim. Hor Tol is Jang-tang, i. e., untilled pasture ground, and belongs to the province of Gnari, subject to the Garpun of Gartokh. Beyond Hor Tol, eastward, lies the district of Tosher, by some pronounced Doshel, also Jangtang ; it is subject to the Zungpun of Saku Zing, or Saka, which is the centre of the province next east of Gnari . . . The Gangri mountains subside about Maryum La; probably the La itself is a terminating spur of the Gangri range; beyond that, eastward, extends table-land with smaller, more irregular and detached hills, all the way to Lhassa, and as far as informant knows to the northward.»

Thus Strachey regarded the Maryum-la as the eastern boundary pillar of the

Gangri range, instead of its being a transverse threshold in a longitudinal valley or a connecting link between two mountain systems. His informant alone is responsible for the table-land with small detached hills all the way to Lhasa and so far northwards as was known, — instead of one of the most compact mountain systems in the world. Strachey's informant had certainly travelled in the Tsangpo valley, from where one really can get the impression of a high and steep edge of a table-land

I Narrative of a Journey to Cho I,agan etc. — in September and October 1846. Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XVII, Part II, 1848, p. 14o. 2 Ibidem, p. 327, 323 and 33o.