Two Frenchmen and two Englishmen have, then, crossed the Trans-Himalaya before me, besides half a dozen pundits. Farther west in English territory innumerable Europeans have passed over the system, especially by the Chang-la, where I surmounted it three times. Between the Indus and the Panggong-tso I travelled over the system on November 22, 1907, by the easy pass Tsake-la.

An extraordinarily valuable contribution to the knowledge of the Trans-Himalaya was afforded us by Ryder and Wood on their remarkable journey up the Brahmaputra in the year 1904. They had no opportunity of crossing the system, or even of penetrating a day’s journey into the southern transverse valleys, but they took bearings of all the summits visible from their route. And some of these, particularly Lunpo-gangri, are among the very highest which, under a mantle of eternal snow, rise up from the Trans-Himalaya. The absolutely highest is, according to Ryder, 23,255 feet, and is therefore little inferior to Nien-chen-tang-la with its 23,900 feet. Ryder and Burrard took it for granted that these summits stood on a single continuous range, which they represent on their map as the northern watershed of the Brahmaputra. In his text (p. 95), however, Burrard rightly points out that this chain, which he calls “the Kailas Range,” is not the watershed, for in some places it is broken through by affluents from the north. Burrard commits the same mistake as Dufour, Hodgson, Saunders, and Atkinson, in assuming the existence of a single continuous range to the north of the Tsangpo. I pondered much myself over this problem, and on a general map of the ranges of Tibet (1905) I inserted two ranges north of the Tsangpo, a conception in accordance with F. Grenard’s in his Carte de l’Asie Centrale of the year 1899.

A history of geographical exploration in a region so little known as the Trans-Himalaya must naturally be exceeding short and meagre. With all my researches I have not been able to discover any other predecessors than those already mentioned—that is, in those parts of the system which lie within the bounds of Tibet—and not a single one in the central regions of the Trans-Himalaya. That such an extensive region as southern Tibet has been quite unknown till now, though it lies close to the Indian frontier, has given rise to much reasonable astonishment, and in many circles arguments and proofs, based on more or less apocryphal records and vague hypotheses, have been laboriously sought out to prove that my discoveries have not the priority claimed for them. The maps I have reproduced in facsimile, when carefully compared with my own maps, render any discussion on my part quite superfluous.

382. Altar Table with Images of Gods in Mangnang-gompa.
Water-colour Sketch by the Author.

I cannot, however, pass over in silence an insinuation that the discoveries I have made are to be found indicated on the famous wall-maps in the Doge’s Palace at Venice. The Chief Librarian of the Royal Library in Stockholm, Dr. E. W. Dahlgren, writes in a letter to me: “Only the grossest ignorance and silliness can find on these maps traces of any discoveries previous to yours.” Before my return home Professor Mittag-Leffler, Director of the mathematical school in the University of Stockholm, had sent for photographs of these maps with a very detailed description, and he has kindly placed this material at my disposal. This book is not the place in which to publish it, and, besides, the following statement which Dr. Dahlgren has obligingly drawn up at my request makes all further comment unnecessary:

The Wall-Maps in the Sala dello Scudo, in the Doge’s Palace at Venice

These maps, four in number, were constructed by the noted cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi in the middle of the sixteenth century, to take the place of older maps which were destroyed by fire in the year 1483; at least, it may be safely assumed that two of them, those of East Asia and Africa, are the work of Gastaldi.

The maps represent:

1. Asia from the mouth of the Indus eastwards to China and Japan, as well as the Pacific Ocean and part of America.