National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

chain, most probably extending from N.E. to S.W. and that all the high mountain ridges
which he has seen with his own eyes stretching N.W. to S.E. are only subordinate ranges
shooting out from this central chain. His reason for supposing such a central chain
is that the Kailas or a continuation of it throws off the waters of the two largest
rivers in India in opposite directions, the Indus to the N.W., and the Brahmaputra to
the S.E. Such a place, he thinks, must be the most elevated land, unless one should
suppose the Kailas range to be lower than the ridges that branch off from it. He
heard that people constantly travelled from the sources of the Indus and the Brahma-
putra to Ladak and Tashi-lunpo but he never met anybody who had been beyond
the Kailas, but several who had made the circuit of it. And he adds; »so we shall
probably remain long in the dark respecting the country that lies to the N.E. of
Mansurowar». And he was right in this supposition!

As to the Satlej he says that its chief branch, or that which has the longest
course, issues from Rawun Rudd Lake, or Langa-Cho, and about the Indus that
geographers are indebted to Lieutenant McCartney (Macartney) for putting it right
for us. For Macartney ascertained that the Indus ran past the capital of Ludak,
and Roodok, a place of some note, famed for its lakes of salt and borax, half way
between Leh and Garoo. It is strange that he could accept such erroneous in-
formation, remembering that the Lamas had placed Rudok correctly already a hundred
years earlier. Otherwise his inquiries gave the same result as Moorcroft's exploration.
Thus he found that the river issuing from Rakas-tal was indeed the Satlej, and the
river passing Gartok, and which was called Eekung-Choo, was a branch of the
Indus.

In speaking of the origin of the Satlej, Captain Gerard refers to Major
Rennell, whose Lanktschou, or Langchoo, for the upper Satlej, is the same as the
Langzhing-Choo or Langzhing-Khampa, as the river is called in Chinese Tartary (Pl.
IV). He could not ascertain the meaning of 'zhing' but it appeared to have nothing to
do with the name of the river, for the Indus he found named Singe-Choo, or Sing-
zhing-Choo, as well as Singzhing-Khampa, the last word meaning river.¹ He thinks,
with Rennell that if the latitudes and names of rivers as given by the surveying
Lamas had been accepted, the maps of India would have been much more correct
than they were. Some degree of dependence might still have been placed on the
authority of the natives, especially as they insisted that the Ganges issued from the
S.W. foot of the Himalaya, and that the river from the Manasarovar was a different
one, and called Langchoo, or Satlej, which was represented as having a very long
course, as is actually the case. Captain Gerard met more than one hundred people
who had travelled up the Satlej, not exactly to its source, but to within ten or twelve
miles of it to the place whence the road turns off to the Manasarovar. »All the ac-
counts agree that the largest stream issues from the western corner of Rawun Rudd,