Southern Tibet : vol.1 / 211 ページ（カラー画像）

0211	Southern Tibet : vol.1
南チベット : vol.1

nothing but sand. After these sandy plains one enters great arid mountains, which
in his own opinion, ought to contain minerals. The informant added that these
mountains must be the Imaus of the ancients, separating High Asia from Low Asia,
and that in them are to be found serpents of a prodigious size. After crossing these
mountains, one comes, as asserted by a Tartar merchant, to another desert of 20
days' march. One must be armed when travelling in these regions, for the Tartar
nomads living in the neighbourhood have mastiff dogs, the most furious and cruel
in the world, and more like wolves than dogs.

Here at last we suspect Tibet. The Imaus, Himalaya, may indeed be said to
serve as a boundary between High Asia and the Indian plains. Tibet, the concep-
tion of which, in spite of d'Andrade's journey, is still very vague, is regarded as a
part of Tartary, as was sometimes the case even 200 years later. The Caucasus
and Paropamisus are identified with the mountains of Nagrakot and Ussonte, which
indeed are the same as Himalaya, and in them the Indus and Ganges have their
sources near each other. But on the other hand, the Imaus separates high and low
Asia. To the geographers of 1649 the whole country north of India must have
appeared as an inextricable labyrinth. So far le Blanc's narrative is interesting as
it comes in between the great Tibetan travellers Andrade and Grueber, and in
some respects his general geography has a certain resemblance to reality.¹

During his several journeys in India TAVERNIER certainly paid more attention
to pearls and jewels than to mountains and rivers, and if he gives us a glimpse of
geography, especially of the scarcely known country to the north, it is always in
connection with trade and merchandise. Thus he tells us that the best sort and the
greatest quantity of musk comes from the Kingdom of Boutan,² and again, in his
observations on the commerce of India, he mentions the trade in musk, and says that
Boutan is beyond the Ganges towards the north.³ In another place⁴ he says that
Boutan is north of Bengal. In the chapter entitled: »Du Royaume de Boutan d'où
viennent le musc, la bonne rhubarbe, & quelques fourrures«,⁵ he really gives us a

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