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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

BERGHAUS, FRASER, AND RECLUS.

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Regarding the combination Trans-Himalaya Cunningham is not the first to use it. It had already been used by BERGHAUS in his Geographisches Memoir zur Erklärung und ErMu/erung der Sftezial-Karte von Himalaya. I Speaking of Hearsay's survey of the regions within the Himalaya, he says its resemblance with the survey which Webb carried out four years later of the same region is so great, that »man allen Grund zu der Vermuthung hat, die Darstellung der Trans-HimalayaGegenden sei eben so zuverlässig . . .» Thus the signification Trans-Himalaya for the regions north of Himalaya was used in Germany more than 1 o years before the introduction of the name by Cunningham. The difference between him and Berghaus is that the latter applies the name to the regions where it is at home and where it has a raison d'être. But even Berghaus was not the first to introduce the expression. He got it from English geographers and explorers. Already in 182o it was used by J. B. FRASER who has the following passage: »In all the routes of which we have accounts that proceed in various directions towards the TransHimå1ayan countries, hills covered with snow are occasionally mentioned as occurring, even after the great deserts are passed and the grazing country entered. The breadth, then, of this crest of snow-clad rock itself cannot fairly be estimated at less than from seventy to eighty miles.» 2 The expression Trans-Himalaya may even be said to have very old roots. Take Ptolemy's map (Vol. I, Pl. III), or take DIEGO RIBERO's map of 1529, where, across the upper parts of the Ganges-branches we read: Scithia extra Imaû mjtc or Scythia beyond the Imaus mountains, which is in reality the same as »Trans-Himalaya». Extra and infra are used instead of trans and cis. Extra Imaum montem is equivalent to Transimaus or Transhimalaya, though the first is applied to a region, the latter to a mountain system. The expression used by geographers of the antiquity was, geographically, perfectly correct. The case is the same with the expression Transhimalaya. 3

ELISÉE RECLUS invented another Trans-Himalaya and places it as follows : 4 »Une autre arète de croupes et de sommets, que l'on pourrait désigner par le nom de 'Trans-Himalaya', se développe entre les monts de Tsang ou Gang-dis-ri et les pics étincelants de l'Himalaya et des deux côtés épanche des glaciers.» But this range, with the water-parting, is also a part of Himalaya itself, whereas the word »Trans»

Sr      hopelessly separates it from the system to which it naturally belongs. So far as I
know the proposal was never successful. 5

iu

I N:o io von Berghaus' Atlas von Asia, Gotha 1836, p. 42.

2 Journal of a Tour through part of the Snowy Range of the Himd15. Mountains ... London

182o, p. 282.

3 Compare: Justus Perthes' »Atlas Antiques. Taschen-Atlas der alten Welt» von Dr. Alb. von Kampen, Gotha 1898, Tab. I, where we read the name: Scythia trans Irnaur. This expression, or rather the two last words, is exactly the same as my name Transhimalaya, though the latter is

only applied to a mountain system.

4 Nouvelle Géographie Universelle, VII. Paris 1842, p. 36.

5 Dutreuil de Rhins has adopted the name, in the same sense as Reclus, as for instance: »On remarquera que la frontière du Thibet et du Népaul suit z peu près le Trans-Himalaya entre la région