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

the Tage-tsangpo, is met by a river from Gunchu-tso, he is wrong, for the Tage-
tsangpo goes its own way to the Manasarovar and the statement that the water
from the Guncho-tso should »sink under the ground» for a certain distance is of
course impossible as the Guncho-tso is salt.¹ The Guncho-tso is said to have two
source streams, one from the N.E., from the mountain Ta-ko-la-kung-ma, which is
also to be found on d'Anville's map, under the name of Tacra Concla; the other
comes from the west side of the pass Maryum-la, which agrees with Ryder's map in
all particulars. Maryum-la is said to be on the western frontier of Cho-shu-tê, a district
on the southern slopes of the Transhimalaya, and certainly identical with the Hor-
toshut or Toshut-horpa of which I heard several times in 1908. Of the two lakes
said to be situated west of Guncho-tso, only one is marked on d'Anville's map, but
both may be quite small and temporary.

It is worth while to notice that the compilor of the Chinese hydrography re-
gards the Mapama-talai simply as a formation of the water from Langchen-kabab or
as a part of the hydrographical system, which from several points of view is correct.
At the western side »the water», i. e. the water from Langchen-kabab flows into the
lake Lanka, or Lanken as d'Anville writes. The distance between the lakes is said
to be 60 li, which corresponds to my 5¹⁄₂ miles. As a rule the distances are very
unreliable. For if it is 60 li between the lakes along the channel, it should be 180 li
and not 120 between lake Mapama and the Kailas. And if the lake is 150 and
80 or 100 li across, its circumference must of course be much more than 200 li.
At any rate we have here a positive statement regarding the channel, and a per-
fectly true view of its character of being the continuation of the Satlej from Lang-
chen-kabab.

Finally »the water»,² i. e. the water from the uppermost Langchen-kabab or
Satlej flows out from the western side of the lake and is now called Lang-chu-ho,
the Lanctchou R. of d'Anville. From the Chinese text it seems that this name was
not used for the uppermost part of the river-course. This is doubtful. For the name
Langchen-kamba is still used for a spring on the Tage-tsangpo. But Tage-tsangpo
is at least nowadays the name of the uppermost Satlej.

Finally it is said that the Chu-kar (Chu-ka-la) comes from the N.E. and joins
the head river. Unless there are two rivers of this name, the statement is wrong,
as the Chu-kar of Strachey comes from the south. But even here it is pointed
out that the Satlej is the head-river and the Chu-ka-la a tributary.