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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

saroar and Lanka, but without regarding the latter lake as the source of the
Ganges.
Anquetil du Perron does justice to the Lamas of the monasteries of La-
pama. The Lama surveyors ask them the name of the river which, N.W. of the
Manasarovar runs to the west, and the Lamas living on the lake answer: Latschou,
the same river as the Satloudj of the Indian map. Then they ask the name of the
river which issues from lake Lanken and goes to the west, and the Lamas of the
place answer: Lanctchou or the river of Lanken, the same river as the Sardjou-
Gagra of the Indian map. The explorers ask if the Ganges is not a continuation
of these rivers. And the Lamas answer that the Ganges is farther west passing
Tschaprang, the place visited by d'Andrade in 1624, who believed that he had
discovered the source of the Ganges, while, probably, he has only seen lake Lan-
ken. ¹ But, unfortunately, Anquetil du Perron confounds Tsaparang with Deuprag
on the Ganges, at the confluence of the Alaknanda. Then he remarks that the
Lama explorers give two sources to the Ganges, one from Kentaïssé and the other
from Lanken, and below the junction of the two they put in the name Ganga or
Ganges. But as thus, nolens volens, the Gagra was taken for the Ganges, »the first
and real source of the Ganges rests unknown, as it was before the pretended dis-
covery by the Chinese Lamas.»
We must remember how very little really was known at the time when
Anquetil du Perron wrote. No Moorcroft had been at the place, and the
only Europeans who had seen the lakes, Desideri and Freyre, had not even men-
tioned their names. The more detailed report of Desideri was unknown at the
time. Anquetil du Perron forgot that the Lama map had been executed with
the special and express view of finding the source of the Ganges. And, of course,
it was not easier for him or even for Rennell than it had been for d'Anville to
make out the complicated hydrography of these places.
Under the heading: »Le Tsanpou & le Brahmapoutren sont le même fleuve»,
Anquetil du Perron gives a very clever and interesting essay in his work. The
natives had told Father Tieffenthaler that the Brahmaputra takes its origin from
the Manasarovar. Father Régis had left the question as to where the river really
goes to unsettled, but he had thought it most probable that the river finally turned
S.W. to the neighbourhood of the mouth of the Ganges. And Anquetil du Per-
ron adds:
c'est à dire, que ce fleuve sera cette Mer de la Carte Indienne, qui, allant à l'Est ou
Sud-Est, passe audessus de Neipal, de Tschoukra, traverse une grande partie du Tibet, & vers
les limites de cet Etat, tourne au Sud-Ouest, & coule près de l'embouchure du Gange.
He tries to find from the narratives of Bernier and Tavernier something
to support his view, but they only know that the river comes from the frontiers
of Tibet.