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

other persons I have learned, that this river of Ladak passes north from Kasmira;
and, if not the chief branch, is at least one of the greatest of those which form the
Indus. The river that flows to the east from the lakes is named the Karanali, and,
according to Hariballabh, who has seen this part of its course, after flowing a short
way in that direction, passes through the southern ridge of snowy mountains and
waters Yumila.¹

The use he made of the meagre information he obtained, gives great credit to
Hamilton's perspicacity, and we must excuse him if he could not quite make out the
complicated hydrography. Hariballabh alone is responsible for the contradictions
in the statements. When this man says the two lakes are situated between two
parallel ridges, and that the water flows from the Manasarovar to the Rakas-tal, he
is correct. But when he talks of a river flowing from each end of the Rakas-tal, or
rather from each lake, he is wrong, for, of course, either the one or the other must
be the case. If he means that one river went out of each lake, he was probably
right for the time of his visit. If he is the same man as Moorcroft's old Pundit,
he had crossed the channel between the two lakes in 1796. But as he speaks
also of the Satlej going out from the Rakas-tal, he may have visited the lakes again.
In 1812 both issuing rivers were dry and Hamilton travelled in 1814. A rise may
easily have taken place already at that time.

Hamilton does not say from which lake the Karnali starts; it flows to the
east from the lakes, by which Hariballabh must simply have meant the neighbour-
hood of the lakes. Hamilton finds the Lama map in du Halde to be in perfect
accordance with Hariballabh's information so far as the river, which Hamilton cor-
rectly recognised as the upper Indus, is concerned. Otherwise the accordance is
only a coincidence, as for instance in 1812, the hydrography had a very different
appearance to a hundred years before.

On the beautiful map, Pl. V, that accompanies Hamilton's work we find the
course of the upper Satlej. The river is shown as issuing from the western end of
the Rakas-tal. It receives from the north a small tributary and another from the
south. The Karnali is represented as issuing from the southern shore of the Mana-
sarovar. But there is no communication whatever between the two lakes, which is
not in harmony with the text, but probably depends upon later and more reliable
information from Moorcroft, whose journey was known when the map was drawn
for publication. The Kailas is not represented as a peak, but as the ›Kailasa Moun-
tains‹, beginning straight north of the Manasarovar and stretching N. W. along the
›Branch of the Indus running to Ladak.‹

He has some interesting views as to the general hydrography of the Hima-
layas.¹ He observes that the Himalaya forms the boundary between Hindustan and
Tibet and that it is perforated by many rivers, Indus, Satlej, Karnali, Gandaki, Arun,