National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

altogether too long — more incorrectly even than Ptolemy. The fantom lake Chia-
may Lacus has been accepted since the days of Mercator. According to Hoeius,
about 1640, the Ganges has, it is true, been given its correct place and its outflow
into the Bay of Bengal, but the length of the river is, as also the course of the
Indus, according to Hondius, enormously exaggerated, and here also Ptolemy, 15
centuries earlier, was more to be depended upon. It is wonderful to see how loose
and shifting is the ground on which the cartographers of this period are standing,
as soon as they leave Ptolemy. Where he is followed, as the case is regarding
India, the Oxus and the Jaxartes, the maps are most accurate during this period.
But a frightful confusion takes place, when they throw out the mountain-range runn-
ing East and West to the North of India, and replace it by more longitudinal moun-
tains, as does Hoeius. The Satlej, which still remained in the maps of Gastaldi,
Mercator, Ortelius and Hondius, is missing in the sketches of Hoeius, Blaeu and
Ianssonius from 1640 and 1641. This is due to the slowly fading away of the au-
thority of Ptolemy, which is no advantage in a time when there was nothing better
to offer instead. Of the course of the Brahmaputra there is, if possible, still less
trace than on the map of the Alexandrian geographer.

But the eclipse did not last long. Already in 1654, Sanson d'Abbeville marks
a huge progress. He forces the Indus and the Ganges back into more real pro-
portions, and lets the basin of their sources be bordered by Mont de Caucase, which
corresponds to the Himalayas. To the North thereof, he places Tibet. Of still
greater significance is Martini's brilliant representation of China in 1655. What he
offers is built on real observations. He locates Tibet Regnum quite correctly in
the region to the West of the upper course of the Yellow River. In 1680, Visscher
is the first one who endeavoured to make use of the discoveries brought home by
Grueber and Bernier from their travels. Cantelli's map from 1683 is of great
interest. The Indus and the Ganges he traces in the same manner as do his nearest
predecessors, and the Brahmaputra is missing. Like Sanson d'Abbeville, he has a
Raia Tibbon, which in all probability can be translated by Raja of Tibet, or the
King of Ladak. In his map, a number of the geographical names of Goës are
also recurring. But still, the most interesting fact is that, over a comparatively
large territory, which, it is true, lies a little too far to the East, he has entered in
distinct writing three different names for the hidden land of the Lamas, Tobat, Thibet
or Thebet. Here we have again a feeling that the veil is being rent asunder, and
that the unknown land is appearing in view.

Witsen, in 1687, has removed Tibet yet a step to the East, which is no im-