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
THEVENOT, KIRCHER AND OTHERS.
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Tibet, he places at least a part of it to the east of Kashmir, thereby indicating that he chiefly means Ladak. In his chapter on Kashmir, he says: Le Royaume ou Province de Cachmir, a vers l'Occident le Caboulistan: A l'Orient une partie du Tibet: Au Midy la Province de Lahors; & au Nord la Tartarie. Mais ce sont là ses limites les plus éloignées, car il est borné & entouré de tous cotéz par des montagnes, & l'on n'y peut entrer que par des détroits & des défilez. Ce Pays a quelquefois appartenu aux Rois du Turquestan, & il est de ceux que l'on appelloit Turchind, c'est-à-dire l'Inde des Turcs, ou la Turquie des Indes. — Les eaux des montagnes qui l'environnent, fournissent tant de sources & de ruisseaux, qu'elles rendent ce Pays le plus fertile des Indes ; & après l'avoir agreablement arrosé, forment une riviere appellée Tchenas, qui ayant communiqué ces eaux pour le transport des marchandises à la plus grande partie du Royaume, en sorte par une rupture de montagne, & se va decharger près la Ville d'Atoc, dans l'Indus.'
Thevenot, therefore, regarded the country to the north of Kashmir as belonging to Tartary. Still in those days Tartary was a rather wide and vague signification, though it soon began to be divided into different countries. Some fifty years before Thevenot published his Relations, Tartary was supposed to include about the same as Scythia, famous ever since Ptolemy's map. The embassador of Philip III of Spain, DON GARCIAS DE SILVA FIGUEROA, who in 1617 came to Shah Abbas the Great, wrote for instance: Il n'y a personne qui puisse douter, que cette Nation vagabonde de Turcomans ne soit sortie de la Scytie ou Tartarie Asiatique.2
I have already had occasion to quote the most important passages from Father KIRCHER, and it is chiefly for the continuity of this historical account that we have to return to him once more.3 Speaking of Goës he draws the following conclusion
regarding the roads from Lahor towards the north.
Nota tarnen hoc iter ex Laor versus Boream longius protractum, cum ex Laor per multö compendiosiorem viam, terminum suum attingere potuisset; Verùm uti hoc per Thebeticos montes iter nondum detectum erat, ita quoque illud in Usbec & Samercandam tunc temporis usitatius, etsi per ingentes ambages devium & vias undique & undique latrociniis infame, negotiatorum consuetudini se accomodans tentare coactus fuit. 4
He means to say that GOES took a quite unnecessary roundabout way to the west, and that it would have been a shortcut had he travelled from Lahore northwards across the Tibetan mountains, by which name he signifies Himalaya. But the latter road was unknown in Goës' time, and was discovered later on by Andrade. This was the cause why the road of Usbeck and Samarkand was more
I Troisième Partie des Voyages de M. de Thevenot. Paris MDCLXXXIV, p. I 70.
2 L'Ambassade de D. Garcias de Silva Figveroa en Perse '--~'- it° a° h Fspagnnl par
Monsieur De Wicgfort. Paris MDCLXVII, p. l oo.
3 Cp. Vol. I, p. 166 et seq. and Vol. III, p. 4 et seq. ~I
4 China .... illustrata, Amst. CIDIDCLXVII, p. 64.a. OI
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