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

HENRY STRACHEY'S INFORMATION.

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stretching northward. To a certain extent it was represented as such on themap of the Tibet Frontier Commission, with several mighty peaks on the very edge, peaks which together formed a border range. This view of Strachey's was, however, not at all in accordance with the maps of Klaproth, Ritter and Humboldt, nor did it impress Hodgson in the least. It is not easy to say who was least wrong, those fighting for one gigantic range, or Strachey's informant speaking of a plateau-land with detached, irregular hills. This last description seemed to be confirmed by Nain Sing.

A name that will occupy our attention later on appears already in this article of H. Strachey. Giving the names of the 13 chief districts of Gnari, he mentions amongst them Bongba (or Bongbwa) Tal, north of the Gnari mountains, consisting of two divisions, viz. Bong-meth, that is lower, and Bong-toth, that is upper Bong, the two districts being under separate Puns. The district Bongthol we find on the map of the Pundits at the upper Singi-kamba or Indus. The real great province of Bongba is situated further east.'

H. Strachey on his map (Vol. II, Pl. XI) to this paper shows the Tise or Kailas as not rising on the very range of »Gangri Mountains», but from a spur south of the range.

A few years later H. Strachey wrote of the supposed Maryum range: »Nari-Mangyul is separated from Nari-Khorsum by a natural landmark, viz. a transverse mountain ridge running from the N. face of the Indian watershed, more or less to the N, across the breadth of the central upland, and itself constituting a great watershed that divides all Nari and Utsang into two main basins of drainage. The major axes of both these lie parallel to the longer direction of the table-land, till they attain the further extremities of Bocl and Nari respectively, where they become deeply sunk, and turn rather abruptly through the Himalaya to enter the plains of India.»2 It has been proved above that this view cannot be said to be correct.

One or two extracts from Richard Strachey may be of interest. Concerning the passage into Tibet from Kumåon or Garhwål, he is struck by the sharp contrast and sudden change of relief: »After weeks have been spent in traversing mountain after mountain, of the seeming interminable succession of which the eye begins to tire, while the incessant roar of the torrents that rush by begins to weary the ear, we are here suddenly arrested by seeing spread out before us a plain, that without sign of water, of vegetation, or of animal life, stretches away, as far as the eye can reach, in a north-westerly direction; behind which rise mountains that gradually fade away in the distance, with here and there only a peak lightly tipped with snow.»3

He points out that even from the time of the earliest missionary travellers in

I At another place H. Strachey speaks of »Bongba, or Little Bong, a political or geographical connection of the great Bong-Madma, on the N.E.» Journal Royal Geogr. Society, Vol. 23, 1853, p. 13.

2 Journal Royal Geogr. Society, Vol. 23, 1853, p. 8.

3 Journal Royal Geographical Society, Vol. 21, 1851, p. 62.