国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

The great mountain systems, the *spina dorsalis* of the old world, he describes
in broad lines thus: ¹

›As to the orographic configuration of the inhabitable world, imagine a range of tower-
ing mountains like the vertebræ of a spine stretching through the middle latitude of the earth,
and in longitude from east to west, passing through China, Tibet, the country of the Turks,
Kâbul, Badakshân, Tokhâristân, Bâmiyân, Elghôr, Khurâsân, Media, Âdharbâijân, Armenia, the
Roman Empire, the country of the Franks, and of the Jalâika (Gallicians). Long as this range
is it has also a considerable breadth, and, besides, many windings which enclose inhabited
plains watered by streams which descend from the mountains both towards north and south.
One of these plains is India, limited in the south by the above-mentioned Indian Ocean, and
on all three other sides by the lofty mountains, the waters of which flow down to it.›

›The river Ganges rises in the mountains which have already been mentioned. Its
source is called Gangâdvâra. Most of the other rivers of the country also rise in the same
mountains . . .›

›Bhôteshar² is the first frontier of Tibet. There the language changes as well as the
costums and the anthropological character of the people. Thence the distance to the top of
the highest peak is 20 farsakh. From the height of this mountain, India appears as a black
expance below the mist, the mountains lying below this peak like small hills, and Tibet and
China appear as red. The descent towards Tibet and China is less than one farsakh. — Kash-
mîr lies on a plateau surrounded by high inaccessible mountains . . . The north and part of the
east of the country belong to the Turks of Khoten and Tibet. The distance from the peak
of Bhôteshar to Kashmir through Tibet amounts to nearly 300 farsakh . . .›

In the following words he speaks of the sources of the Jehlum, the Ganges
and the Indus: ›The Jailam rises in the mountains Haramakôt,³ where also the Ganges
rises, cold, impenetrable regions where the snow never melts nor disappears. Behind
them there is Mahâcin, i. e. Great China . . . The river Sindh rises in the moun-
tains Unang in the territory of the Turks, which you can reach in the following
way . . .› — the road he gives is, however, much too short to enable the traveller
even to reach the neighbourhood of Ladak; and with the source of the Indus he
cannot mean anything but ›the farthest place to which our merchants trade, and
beyond which they never pass›. He places the source of the Jehlum and Ganges
in the same mountain range, behind which China is situated; but the Indus comes
from another range in Turkish territory.

The following description of the rainfall in India is remarkable and clever: ⁴

›In provinces still farther northward, round the mountains of Kashmir up to the peak
of Jûdarî between Dunpûr and Barshâwar, copious rain falls during two and a half months,
beginning with the month Srâvana. However, on the other side of this peak there is no rain-
fall; for the clouds in the north are very heavy, and do not rise much above the surface.
When then they reach the mountains, the mountain-sides strike against them, and the clouds