IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Southern Tibet : vol.7 |
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Citation Information
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| ANTONIO DE MONSERRATE. | ||||
| 32 letting the lake cover the first half of the name and the letters MA the latter half — though not completely. The name , Satanulge Zaradrus f., is indeed written by a much 'stronger hand than the . adris f., as if the intention were to point out: here is the real source of the Satlej! To which river the upper f, on the map may have belonged is, as Hosten says, impossible to guess. It is not at all likely that Monserrate has heard of the two rivers entering the lake from the east, the Samo-tsangpo and the Tage-tsangpo, though even the upper f, seems to have had a name in front. The TsangpoBrahmaputra is, as pointed out above, missing altogether. Whatever may have been the case, so much seems to be clear, that Monserrate was as uncertain regarding the hydrographical problem as so many geographers after his time. Compared with the hydrographical situation of 1908, his map is, at any rate, perfectly correct. I had also good reason to put a ? before 1590 in the table of outflow from Manasarovar in Vol. II, p. i83. From Monserrate's map it seems very probable that none of the lakes had an outlet in 1582 or whatever year the Father may have drawn his map. But on the other hand, the verbal information he and other missionaries had obtained from natives, cannot be relied upon in drawing conclusions of scientific value. The map itself, perhaps with later additions, changes or improvements, and with the names of two rivers at the east side of the lake defaced, indicates a great uncertainty regarding the hydrography. The problem has been simplified by the draftsman in so far, that there is no Rakas-tal between the Manasarovar and what he calls the source of the Satlej. Monserrate's map is wonderful in many other respects. Disregarding the complicated question of the relation between the Sacred Lake and the Indus and Satlej, he has correctly placed the sources of these two rivers quite near to one another. He knows that the source of the Indus must be situated somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Manasarovar, though he has placed it west instead of north-north-east of the lake. He knows that the Manasarovar is situated in the mountains S. E. of Casmir, though the latter name has been placed too near the source of the Indus.' He is quite familiar with the fact that the Upper Indus flows to the N. W. before it pierces the mountains and enters the plains. He does not seem to know Ladak, the country that was usually called Tibet, Baltistan or Little Tibet by other missionaries. Still a part of the N. W. flowing course of the Indus, belongs to Baltistan, and as this country is situated at the S. W. front of the Great | ||||
| Monserrate gives the following Long. and Lat. Both et Bothant : 119-32; Mansarüor : I 2I-3 2 Casmir: I 18-33 Chabul : 109-351 and refers the reader to his map. | ||||
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