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| 0237 |
Southern Tibet : vol.1 |
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CHAPTER XIX.
MAPS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
In his essay on the ancient cartography of Japan, Dr. E. W. Dahlgren says
that the earliest geographical knowledge of Nipon partly consists of verbal accounts,
and partly of maps.¹ With Tibet the case is so far different that the representation
on maps occurred only some 500 years after the first news of the existence of a
country with this name reached Europe, and this news is chiefly gained by the same
great traveller who the first of all Europeans made known the existence of Chi-
pangu. Turning his attention to the cartography Dr. Dahlgren points out the im-
portance of arranging the existing material in systematic order, and of fixing the differ-
ent characteristic types.² This sound principle is no doubt easier to follow for a student
of Japan, a group of Islands in the sea, with coast-lines which have gradually been
mapped in a more and more detailed way during the course of centuries, — than for
a student of a country like Tibet, surrounded by land, and lost behind inaccessible
mountain fortifications, heard of by several travellers, approached by some, and
visited or even crossed by a very few, of whom not a single one has so much as
tried to give a map of his route, and, at the most, delivered a very meagre and
confused account of what they have seen.
Under such conditions it would be a useless task to try and force the early
maps of the country north of Himalaya into a system showing a regular develop-
ment from one type to another, from one epoch to the next. The first rule I can
follow is to trace the influence of Ptolemy until it fades away under the weight of
innovations introduced by Gastaldi and others. Further it may be said that Mer-
cator represents a special type, on account of the singular way in which he draws
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