Southern Tibet : vol.3 / 253 ページ（カラー画像）

0253	Southern Tibet : vol.3
南チベット : vol.3

In spite of the 500 miles unknown, Saunders has drawn on his map one range
north of the Tsangpo. This was an easy task, which had been tried before, and
indeed it seemed very likely that the mountains north of the Tsangpo must be pa-
rallel with the Himalayas and with the valley of the river. But when Saunders
leaves this ground where he has every probability on his side, and proceeds to the
north-east, he is completely lost. Here it is impossible to follow him. For he says
that Huc and Gabet crossed the Gangri range, which they called Tant-la. Com-
paring this statement with Dufour's map of Huc's journey, one arrives at the con-
clusion that the missionaries must either have crossed the range twice or not at all;
or, their route must have followed it parallelly for a very long distance from Mur-ussu
to the place where they finally crossed it, an explanation which cannot be gathered
from Huc's book. Here Saunders has fallen into the same error as so many others
who, with insufficient material, have tried to explain the orography, and instead con-
founded the systems and joined two different systems into one.

Remembering Saunders' own words that the Gangri Range is only known at its
extremities, one feels surprised to read a few lines lower down: »Parallel with the
Gangri Range, but at a distance generally of 70 miles, the plateau itself has been
recently explored along a route between the Pangong Lakes and Lhasa.» For how
could he know that it was 70 miles when the »range» was unknown between its
extremities.

Saunders reminds us of the fact that the Kwen-lun Mountains are known to
be situated between the Tibetan plateau and the Gobi Desert at the western ex-
tremity of the plateau and as far east as 81°30', and that the range which was
crossed by Huc and Prshevalskiy south of Koko-nor was »said to be a continuation
of Kuen lun by various authorities». This »appeared to be more probable than any
other theory». Saunders has drawn it as one continuous range on his map. At
90° E. long. the Kwen-lun consists of at least five different ranges. When these
were discovered and partly explored by Prshevalskiy, who would have been so tact-
less as to say that Prshevalskiy made no discoveries here, as the whole length of
the Kwen-lun was already marked on Saunders' map! A map of a country where
nobody has ever been has of course no value at all.

Finally Saunders alludes to the way in which he has arrived at the con-
struction of the different ranges on his map. He even reproduces Brian Hodgson's
map of 1857 on the same scale as his own, to show the difference of the represen-
tation of Himalaya in both cases, and, as he says, »thus the comparison of the two
is facilitated as much as possible». The same can be said of the Nien-chen-tang-la
and Gangri Mountains. These have been improved very much indeed from the
material brought back by the Pundits.

East of Lhasa and stretching to the N.E. he has entered on his map a range,
which from beginning to end is an invention of his own, for not a suspicion of it
exists in reality. It is pierced by some considerable rivers. He says of its creation:

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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