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

Father GONZALES DE SOUSA and MANUEL MARQUES had made his second journey
to Chaparangue, which he reached on August 28th, 1625, he wrote a letter in which
he says: »The kingdom of Tibet or The Powerful embraces the Kingdom of Cogue,
where we live at present, those of Ladac, Mariul,¹ Rudoc, Utsang, and still two
more situated farther east. With the great kingdom of Sopo (Mongolia), which on
one side borders upon China, on the other upon Moscovy, they form together Great
Tartary.» ² In this letter exactly the same names are mentioned as those found on
Delisle's map.
From the N.E. slopes of the Naugracut mountains, a river flowing N.E. has
the legend: »R(iviere) qui sort des terres de Raja Ribron et se rend diton dans la
M(er) Noire.» Raja Rodorow or Raja Ribron is to its greatest extent situated
south of the mountains. I have not been able to find out what it is meant to be.
Rahia Rodorou was also entered on Sanson's map 1654 (Pl. XXIX). Should Ribron
be a survival of Riboch, Ribok, Riboth or any other of Odoric's and Mandeville's
versions for Tibet? ³ A river originating from the northern slopes of Himalaya, west
of Nepal, and east of Chaparangue could not possibly be anything but the Tsangpo.
But this river was still unknown, and Delisle's river flows to the N.E., and comes,
on the map, to an end in Grueber's country of Toktokai. But on the map of
Great Tartary (Pl. XLI) the river continues through Toktokai and empties itself
partly into Cinghai, and partly into Coknor. But as Coknor (Koko-nor) is in con-
nection with the Yellow River, the latter, in Delisle's opinion, has its source on the
northern slopes of the Himalaya. Still he has also a Hwangho-source after the type
of Martini, though he calls the double lake Sosama.
Delisle shows such a great and really touching reverence for the memory of
the Jesuit Fathers, that he cannot induce himself to recognise in Grueber's Koknor
the Cinghai or Mare nigrum of Martini. And therefore he has two copies of Koko-
nor on his map, one with the Chinese, the other with the Mongol name. Here is
a new example to the fact alluded to so often in the preceding chapters, that in-
formation from two different sources about one and the same geographical object
may easily lead to reiterations on the maps. We saw it already in the case of
Ptolemy's Oechardes and Bautisus, and we saw it with Edrisi's lakes of Berwan
and Tehama, the river being in both cases the Tarim, and the lake Manasarovar.
It is surprising that Delisle having marked Grueber's route on his map
does not, in this case, follow the text verbally, for Grueber speaks of »Kokonor