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

crossed the Mariam-La mountains, which were called »the watershed between the
Brahmaputra and the Sutlej«. He returned to British territory by Thäjung.
The other Pundit had in the meantime made a route survey of his journey to
Gartok. Both reached headquarters of the Survey on October 27th, 1866. The
result of the journey was 1200 miles survey, 31 latitudes, 33 heights determined by
boiling water, and notes. It was no exaggeration when Montgomerie said this Pundit
had performed a feat of which a native of Hindustan, or any other country might
well be proud.
Montgomerie summarises in the following words the western part of the »johng-
lam or tsalam«: it »crosses the Kailas range by a very high pass, descends to about
15,000 feet in Ngari Khorsum, the upper basin of the Sutlej, and then coasting
along the Rakas Tâl, the Manasarowar, and another long lake, rises gradually to
the Mariham-la Pass, the watershed between the Sutlej and Brahmaputra, 15,500
(feet)«. The very high pass mentioned here can only be the Jerko-la, as there is
no other pass on the road between Gartok and Rakas-tal. Montgomerie understood
that the lakes belonged to the system of the Satlej, although he was mistaken in
reckoning the Gunchu-tso to the same system. Maryum-la cannot be said to be the
watershed between the Satlej and the Brahmaputra, as the basin of Gunchu-tso,
which has no outlet, comes in between the two. And it is interesting to notice that
on Nain Sing's own map there is even a low mountain ridge drawn between the
»Gunkyud Cho« and the »Some Chu« of the Manasarovar.
Curiously enough, everybody listening to this important paper, to which we shall
have to return later on, did not seem quite to have understood the real hydrographical
situation. Sir H. RAWLINSON, after the paper, said, talking of the course of the
Brahmaputra, that »it had been followed down carefully from its source in the Ma-
nasarowar Lake to Lhasa«, thus putting the problem back a hundred years to the
standpoint of Tieffenthaler and forgetting that the Pundit followed the river in
the opposite direction. In his address of 1868 MURCHISON speaks still of the ex-
tensive plateau beyond the crests of the Himalaya, which stretches west and east
from Mount Kailas and the Manasarovar Lake to Lhasa in Great Tibet, and, like
Rawlinson, he says the Pundit returned »along the banks of the Brahmaputra to the
source of that river in the Mansarowar Lake«.¹ The two famous presidents do not
seem to have realised the existence of one of the most important watersheds in Asia
between the Brahmaputra and the Manasarovar. And still the title of Montgomerie's
paper, and that of another paper of his: Report of a Route-Survey made by
Pundit* —, from Nepal to Lhasa, and thence through the Upper Valley of the
Brahmaputra to its Source,² clearly enough give a general idea of the situation.
I turn to the part round the lakes as represented on Nain Sing's classical map,
Pl. XIII, of his journey in 1865—66, and compiled with admirable skill by Capt.