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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

tsangpo somewhere about half-way between the source and the confluence. Then it
crosses the Chema-yundung somewhere below its source, and finally it goes up to
the southern shore of Gunchu-tso. It has never crossed the joint Tsangpo west of
Chaksam-ferry. But it crosses the Kubi and the Chema near their sources. The
Chinese traveller has probably not even seen the Maryum-chu. He has believed that
the Chema joined the Kubi immediately below the point where he crossed the Kubi.
Therefore the Ta-ch'ing text says that the Tamchok-kamba comes partly from
Kubi-gangri and partly from Chema-yundung-pu and Tamchok-kabab. And it knows
only two principal rivers instead of three. The traveller of the northern itinerary
had, however, found that a river, which he calls Tchar tchou, came from the wes-
and joined Maryum-chu. Therefore when the results of the two surveys should be comt
bined on one and the same map, it has been supposed that the Tchar tchou and
the river from lake Djima Young rong were two different rivers, although in reality
they were one and the same. We arrive at the same result when discussing
d'Anville's map. But d'Anville has, from causes unknown to me, placed Tamchok-
kabab at the source of the river which is identical with the Kubi-tsangpo, and only
this view must, of course, be the correct one.
As the Tamchok-kabab has been wrongly placed on the Ta-ch'ing map,
the name ›Tsan po (Tam tchouk kamba), has also been misplaced, for it follows
the Chema-yundung instead of the Kubi-tsangpo. Otherwise the river which comes
from Kubi-gangri is fairly correctly laid in on the map.
It is said in the Ta-ch'ing text that the Kouben gang tsian is covered with
an enormous glacier and that it belongs to the same mountain range as Goumang
and Tam tchouk khabab. Both statements are perfectly correct. On the other
hand the statement that the mountains of Maryong should join the Tamchok-kabab
with the Changou yarak ri, which is a part of the Transhimalaya, is wrong, even
if Tamchok-kabab is placed as the Ta-ch'ing map has it. It is true that Ryder
on his map has, just south of Gunchu-tso, a meridional range forming a very sharply
marked watershed between the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra system and the Manasarovar-
Satlej system. But there can hardly be said to exist any continuous range at this place.
Straight south of the eastern end of Gunchu-tso there is a spur, which I crossed in
Marnyak-la (5,302 m.). Then I passed up the tributaries of Chema-yundung to
Tamlung-la and down the Tage-tsangpo to the Manasarovar. The Tamlung-la is a
threshold pass in a longitudinal valley and by no means situated in a mountain ridge
or range. And the difference in absolute altitude between the Tamlung-la and the
surface of the Manasarovar is only 696 meters.
The Chinese text could have added that the range, of which Kubi-gangri is
a part, continues the whole way to Langchen-kabab, for this is correctly pointed out
on the map. Whether this range, which I have called Kubi-gangri and Ganglung-
gangri, from names given me by Tibetans, continues also to Gurla Mandata, I
cannot tell. Ryder has here two parallel ranges, the southern joining the Gurla
14—131387 I.