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
THE MAPS IN THEVENOT'S WORK.
1
57
has been turned down 9o° to the south; the two lakes and the upper part of the river form a line running north and south, instead of east and west.
This map dates from the time before that of the Jesuits of Kang Hi. One can easily see that the farther west the more uncertain becomes the map. It was known that the river came from Odon-tala and the two lakes, but the situation was not determined. The whole country west of China proper, is, so to speak, pressed together. So, for instance, Samarkand is made a part of Tartary and Samarcandae Pars is immediately west of the great northern bend of Hwang-ho.' Thus Xamo Desertum, or the desert of Gobi, is situated in this Samarcandae Pars and just south of it is Mare nigrum Sinis Cinghai or Koko-nor. South of Koko-nor is Tibet Regnum and S. S. E. of it are the two lakes, at the source of Hwang-ho, and immediately east of them, is the range of mountains called Quenlun. Kiang R. and Usucang R., as well as Tibet R., are parts of Sifan, which includes everything Tibetan. Between Tibet and Kiang is the mysterious lake, Kia L., from which the Ganges and four other rivers begin.2
A tremendous area of the interior of Asia has been pressed together in a comparatively narrow space of country west of China proper. If we give the Upper Hwang-ho the latitudinal direction which it ought to have, instead of the meridional as on the map, and if we let the parallel ranges west and east of it follow, the Quenlun M. will correspond to the Bayan-khara-ula and the western range to the Amne-matchin, both being parts of the Kwen-lun System. Or, in one word : the map contains many real geographical features, though they have been placed in confusion and disorder.
In Thevenot's work just quoted, there is a map : Description de la Partie des Indes orientales qui est sous la domination du Grand Mogol; on which Chishmeere is situated at the sides of the Indus, and the Indus is coming from M. Caucase. East of Kashmir is Kakares and directly north of Caucasus is Usbeck Tartaria and Tartaria. The Ganges comes from the Caucasus and enters the head of a cow from whose eyes and nostrils the water again rushes out to fill a little lake, at Hardware, which is represented as a kind of secondary source of the river. So far as the northern parts of the peninsula are concerned, even Ptolemy is better than this map.
On a map of eastern Asia, in Tome III of the same work, we find the same lake east of the Ganges, from which several rivers go southwards. It is supposed to be situated in Si-fan, just a little east of Kiang Regnum, south of which is Usucang Regnum (Utsang?). North of the lake is Tibet Regnum and Xamo Desertum.
On MARTINI'S map reproduced by THEVENOT,3 the Quenlun M. is entered east of the two lakes from which the Yellow River takes its origin. Regarding
I Cp. Vol. I, p. 193.
2 Cp. Vol. I, Chapter XXV.
3 Vide Vol. I, Pl. XL VI. 8. VII.
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