Damna, quae inter Civitates Sericae a Ptol. numeratur eadem esse videtur ac Dam, unde nomen accepit Ducatus Dam in hac Provincia situs. Praeter aedem Regiam ac Nobilissimam Ducis, nullae sunt domus. Habitant Populi in tentoriis, partem maximam Tartar', reliqui Tibetani. Dam octiduum distat a Lhassa. Post Dam, biduo pervenis Nakcihukha ad arcem quidem ultimam, sed non ad ultimos Tibetanorum fines. Inde enim per longum iter dierum quadraginta nulla amplius aedificia extant, sed sola tentoria obvia habent Viatores. Incolae omnes sunt Nomades, interque armenta Jak, Boves nimirum sylvestres ingenti numero pascunt. Lacte, Butyro, bubulis ovillisque carnibus nutriuntur; aliudque nullum est ciborum genus, quam hoc unum, quod offerant peregrinis. Die quadragesimo ad Bicihu venies. Bicihu fluvius est maximus, quem trajicies navi devectus constructa pellibus. Quum diem integrum navigaveris stationem tenebis nocta in Insula ejus fluvii exigua. Inde rursus diluculo solvens sub meridiem in littore stabis. Ad ripas fluminis tibi spectanda statim objicitur Gens alia Nomadum frequentissima. Hinc Zolomam absoluto itinere mensis pervenies. Zoloma vero discedens eris die quinto in Coconor, ad fines Septemtrionales Provinciae Kiang Tibetanorum. Hanc esse puto, quam Tangut appellant.
This is Georgi's version of della Penna's description of the road. But Georgi has not improved the original text.' Bicihu is della Penna's Bic'iù, the Bri-chu or Mur-ussu , Zoloma is Gurban Solom gol , according to KLAPROTH,2 though this itinerary, which, as we have seen, is at least partly, derived from communications given by VAN DE PUTTE, crosses some of the highest and most inhospitable mountain systems on the earth, the description does not contain a word about mountain ranges, glaciers or summits with eternal snow. It is not mentioned that the pilgrims and »viatores» before reaching the »Bicihu», had to cross the immense mountain-masses of Tang-la, where Pater HUC had such great difficulties to overcome more than a hundred years later.
Georgi makes an attempt to identify the Kambalà with the mountain ranges of the classical authors and of PTOLEMv.3 The most interesting passage in this connection is the one dealing with the view to the north from Kambalà, quoted in Vol. III. E vertice Kambalà prospicitur nova quaedam series elatiorum, nivosorumque montium ad Boream. Hinc eos adorant Indi ac Tibetani viatores. At another place, p. 348, Georgi identifies these mountains with Ptolemy's Casii montes and destroys, as usual, the original meaning of the missionaries. Magna deinde est erga montes Casii, sive Kusii Indorum ac Tibetanorum Religio. Ubi vertices eorum montium nive albentes e longinquo conspexerint, flexis continuo genibus, & nudato capite, sacras illas, ut putant, Numinis sedes adorant. The mountains visible to the north from Kambalà, are Transhimalaya, and not the Casii montes. By identifying the two with one another, Georgi again removes the greater part of Central and Northern Tibet, though he ought to have remembered that the road from Lhasa to Koko-nor
I Cp. Vol. III, p. 25, where I have given della Penna's text.
z Nouveau Journal asiatique, Tome XIV, Paris 1834, P• I 7 7 et seq. 3 Op. cit., p. 452.
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