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

The location of Thebet reminds us of the way in which it was placed on the map in Sala dello Scudo. But it is surprising to find Hami, Turfan and Tibet placed on the banks of one and the same river, namely, the Mekong! Only the extremely meagre reports of Odoric and Andrade explain that such mistakes could be made after their journeys, though, of course, very likely Ortelius did not even know their reports.

For his map *Indiæ Orientalis Insularumque adiacientium typus*, Pl. XXII, Ortelius has consulted Gastaldi in orographical matters, as is seen both by the names and the form of Dalanguer mons, Naugracot mons and Vssonte mons, — and Mercator in hydrographical matters. Mercator's Indus is of Ptolemæan type, and such it remains with Ortelius. The Ganges is combined with the Canton river, and still it is much shorter than the Indus, which gives us an idea of the great deformation the form of the continent has had to suffer. Even in details Ortelius has followed Mercator; so, for instance, Mien, or Burma, is placed west of the Jumna: the countries are removed to the west, the rivers to the east. It is a relief to return to Gastaldi after such cartographical orgies!

Pl. XXIII, finally, is a reproduction of a part of Ortelius' map: *Persici sive Sophorum regni typus*, showing the sources of the Indus and the Oxus. The form of the Indus is, to a considerable degree changed from the sheet in the same atlas which I have represented as Pl. XXII. But the type is practically Ptolemæan. Chesmur, Kashmir, and other names on the banks of the feeders are the same as on Gastaldi's map of 1561. The mountains Dalanguer and Naugracot are artistically drawn, in horizontal perspective, the vertical perspective belonging to a much later time. They form the watershed between the sources of the Indus and the Amu-darya, a view that is generally correct, and had been adopted by Gastaldi, after the original example of Ptolemy. The lake from which Gastaldi makes the Amu-darya start, is much exaggerated in size on Ortelius' map, where it is called Abie fons. Even in our days the view that the Amu-darya starts from a lake, Chakmak, has had defenders, a view that has been definitely proved to be wrong by Lord CURZON.¹

Amongst the maps from the sixteenth century which I have seen, one, entitled *Chinæ, olim Sinarum regionis, noua descriptio. Auctore Ludouico Georgio, 1584*, (Pl. XXIV) is the first in which Ptolemy's Ganges has been completely, and in a most revolutionary way abandoned. We shall have to consider this extraordinary type in the next chapter, dealing with more famous draughtsmen, who adopted this type of the Ganges. For the present be it sufficient to say, that the two principal source branches