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

Finally the following words of Witsen are worth quoting: »Lop is a sandy
desert, which is situated to the west, and outside the Chinese Wall, beginning at
the 37° N. lat., at the mountain of Imaus, where the city of Xacheu or Sachion is
situated . . .¹ This proves that even so late as in 1692 the Imaus is confused
with the Kwen-lun, and that the enormous highland of Tibet is practically unknown,
in spite of the journey of Grueber and Dorville. This conception also agrees with
Witsen's map, where Tibet regn. occupies a little corner west of Turchestan, and
where only some detached mountains separate India from Central Asia.² I have ex-
pressed the opinion that Ptolemy's Imaus, Emodus and Serici Montes must have in-
cluded not only the Himalayas, but also all the other parallel systems up to Kwen-
lun. Witsen, as all his predecessors since Ptolemy, has had the same view, and we
have to wait still a few years before the mountains of Tibet decidedly begin to crop
out from the maps, not simply as isolated border-ranges, but as one solid upheaval
of the earth's crust.
Witsen certainly had a great influence on the maps of northern and central
Asia for some years. I have inserted Pl. XXXV as an example of this type.³ On
it we find several of the names introduced by Witsen. But there are also great
discrepancies from Witsen. The source of the Ganges is much further north, and
the sources of the Sir-darya still further north. Chaparangute is located at the very
source of the now meridional Ganges, and north of it Turchestania comes in
between India and Thibeti Reg., where Thibet or Tobbat is the capital. On Wit-
sen's map Tibet, Turchestan and Tangut lay from west to east; on the present map
they fall nearly from north to south. Tiobetz Ansky and Tebetzami are as before.
South of the source of the Yellow River is a Belorum R., instead of Belor Mons,
and south of it Barantolæ Reg. with its capital Lassa sive Barantola with the true
legend: Hæc Vrbs Sedes est Summi Pontificis Tartarorum Occidentalium. It would
seem bewildering that Thibeti Reg. is separated from Lassa by such an enormous
distance, nearly the half of Asia; but Thibeti Reg. is, as so often before, meant as
Ladak and Baltistan, and this country is placed at the upper Sir-darya instead of
the upper Indus. In reality the Indus and Satlej describe a curve or bend north of
the source of the Ganges, but on the map Pl. XXXV the source of the Ganges is
some ten degrees north of that of the Indus. Ever since the time when Ptolemy
was abandoned the exaggerated dimensions of the Ganges have been responsible for
the horrible deformation of the whole interior of Asia. From all points of view
Gastaldi's map of 1561, Pl. XVII, was far more exact than anyone of the later.