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

The second Asiatic map, which was, at the same time, restored by Grisellini,
embraces western Asia, including the Black Sea and the Caspian, and contains all
the geographical knowledge of his epoch regarding this part of Asia. As a survival
from the Venetian map of 1447 it has still an unknown region with ›Scytæ non
subjecti‹, otherwise, at its easternmost edge, it gives us such modern denominations
as Coteli Hindokusj, i. e. Kotel-i-Hindu-kush. Just south of the Fontes Ghjon or
sources of the Amu-darya is Parvum Tibet with its capital Eskerud seu Tibet, per-
haps Iskardu. The north-eastern part of Hindu-kush is still called Caucasus, and
south of it is Regnum Cachemiræ. This map, therefore, does not at all touch the
region we are studying, and the information it gives belongs to a time, 200 years
later than Gastaldi.
On Diogo Homem's map of the world, Pl. XIX, the Indus is almost as usual,
while the Ganges comes from the N.E. instead of N.W. The length of both rivers
is very much exaggerated, depending on the fact that the Himalaya has been re-
moved northwards to the centre of Asia, halfway between its north and south coasts.
North of the mountains is India deserta, and south of them Desertum Indie. The
date of this map seems not to be known, and only a very few dates from Diogo
Homem's life have been preserved to our time. Most of his maps remained as
manuscripts; those known were made in about 1530 to 1576.¹

We now come to Gerhard Mercator's famous World map of 1569, of which
I have a copy on Pl. XX, representing our regions of Asia.² It is the most im-
portant cartographical monument of the sixteenth century and as such it may be regarded
as the foundation of the more recent scientific geography. It shows how difficult it
was even for the most erudite scholars to abandon Ptolemy, for Mercator does his
best to save the Ptolemæan image of Asia, and to reconcile it with the modern
discoveries. Therefore he has, with really touching perseverance and industry created
a monstrous representation of S.E. Asia, at a time when these parts were much
better known.³

The coast-lines of the Indian Peninsulæ are very good indeed, and even better
than those of Gastaldi a few years before. In the general orographical arrangement we
recognise the ranges of Ptolemy, the ›spina dorsalis‹ of all the maps, and from it
the several ramifications in different directions; the meridional Imaus, the meridional
range west of it, which is a water-parting of the Sir-darya, the Casii montes and
Asmiræi montes separating the Oechardes from the Bautisus, the Bepyrrus mons, etc.
On Ptolemy's map, the Oechardes and Bautisus run eastwards, on Mercator's
they run from south to north. On the Oechardes and its tributaries we recognise