Southern Tibet : vol.3 / 162 ページ（カラー画像）

0162	Southern Tibet : vol.3
南チベット : vol.3

plateau or elevated plain between Kwen-lun and Himalaya from Humboldt, he had
nothing else to do than to say that Tibet is a very mountainous country, abounding
in wide spread plains. There is nothing original in this and no order or system
either, and how could it be in his time! The native descriptions of Tibet with
which he had long been acquainted have not helped him to add any fresh know-
ledge of the country.

Hodgson has six different proofs of the probability of plains in Tibet. The
true ox, deer and antelope types belong to the plains, therefore they live in Tibet
and not in Himalaya. There is only one language spoken in Tibet, but many in
Himalaya. The Tibetans have tháng and lúng for plain and valley, »whereas the
Himalayan tongues have no word at all for a plain, no distinct one for a valley».
But such conclusions are not sufficient for geographical purposes.

All native authorities attest the existence of ranges parallel to and north of
the Himalaya, not only in Nári but also in U'tsang and Khám. »The most re-
markable of these parallel chains, and that which divides settled from nomadic, and
north from south, Tibet, is the Nyénchhén thánglá, of which I spoke in my paper on
the Hórsók and of which I am now enabled pretty confidently to assert that the
Karakorum is merely the western prolongation, but tending gradually towards the
Kwanleum to the westward. But these parallel ranges imply extensive level tracts
between them . . . ., whilst the east and west direction of these ranges sustain Hum-
boldt's conception of the direction of all the greater chains of Asie Centrale, or
the Himalaya, Kwánleúm, Thián and Altaí, as also of that of the back-bone, of the
whole Asiatic continent which he supposes to be a continuation westward of the
second of these four chains.»

The new feature in this passage is that Hodgson is now enabled »pretty con-
fidently to assert» the relations between Kara-korum, Nien-chen-tang-la and Kwen-
lun. How could he know that Kara-korum was the western prolongation of Nien-
chen-tang-la? So late as in 1910 the part of Kara-korum which is situated west of
the Tibetan west-frontier was called eastern Kara-korum, instead of western, as if
the Kara-korum was supposed to come to an end somewhere near the frontier.
To make any assertion whether Kara-korum and Nien-chen-tang-la were a con-
tinuous system or not was absolutely impossible in 1856 and is not much easier now.
But why does Hodgson not give his sources? The Chinese have nothing concerning
this difficult problem. The natives of Tibet could not tell, because they have not
the faintest idea of the existence of a Kara-korum and an extremely vague idea of
a Transhimalaya. The whole assertion of Hodgson is taken from Humboldt's map,
Chaines de Montagues et Volcans de l'Asie Centrale, where, already on the edition
of 1831 (Fragmens Asiatiques) the Karakorum Padichah is drawn as a continuation
of the Dzang range, only with a short interruption N.E. of Manasarovar. Even the
»tending» towards the Kwen-lun is taken from Humboldt's map. In this respect
Ritter goes even further for he says of the Kara-korum pass: »Here obviously we

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