1847.] On the Aborigines of the sub- Himalayas, 1241 



all west of which, to the Belur, composes the province of Nan, and 

 ail east of it, to the Peling, the province of Kham, provinces extending 

 respectively to Turan and to China. Tibet, however arid, is no where 

 a desert,* and, however secluded, is on every side accessible ; and 

 hence it has formed in all ages the great overland route of trade, and 

 may even be called the grand ethnic, as well as commercial, highway 

 of mankind ; its central position between China, India aud Turan having 

 really rendered it such for ages, before and since the historic sera, 

 despite its snowy girdle and its bleak aridity. Hence we learn the 

 supreme importance of Tibet in every ethnological regard. Its maximum 

 length is about 2000 and maximum breadth about 500, miles : the long 

 sides of the triangle are towards India and little Bucharia : the short 

 one, towards China ; the truncated apex towards Turan or Great 

 Bucharia, where the Belur within the limits of Tibet has an extent of 

 only one degree, or from 35° to 36° N. Lat. ; whereas the base towards 

 China, along the line of the Peling, reaches through 8 degrees, or from 

 28° to 36 °N. Lat. Just beyond the latter point, in the north-east 

 corner of Kham, is Siling or Tangut, the converging point of all the 

 overland routes, and which I should prefer to include ethnologically 

 within Tibet but for the high authority of Klaproth, who insists that 

 we have here a distinct language and race, though certainly no such 

 separating line in physical Geography, f Siling or Tangut being open 

 to the plateau of Tibet as well as to those of little Bucharia and Son- 

 garia, though demarked from China both on the north and east by the 

 Khilian and Peling respectively. 



South of the whole of Tibet, as above defined, lie the sub-Himalayas, 

 stretching from Gilgit to Brahmakiind, with an average breadth of 

 100 miles, divided climatically into three pretty equal transversal 

 regions, or the northern, the central and the southern, the first of 

 which commences at the crest or spine of Hemachal, and the last ends 

 at the plains of Hindustan ; the third lying between them, with the 

 great valley of Nepal in its centre. The valley is of a lozenge shape, 



* In the next plateau of hig-h Asia, or that of little Bucharia, the vast desert of Cobi 

 oj;Gobi, which occupies the whole eastern half of that plateau, has ever formed, and still 

 does, a most formidable obstruction to transit and traffic. 



t It must be admitted however, that the Bayam Khar of Klaproth seems to divide 

 Kham from Tangut, Klaproth cites Chinese geographers. 



7x2 



