1847.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 1255 



guiding the attention of him who has to traverse the regions speculated upon ; 

 and, from the perusal of Humboldt, Klaproth, Grosier, Remusat, Prichard, 

 and from comparison of what they say with De Coros, Gerard and Moor- 

 croft, I have now filled my head with matter for questioning, and much regret 

 that I had not sufficient warning, so that what I wrote for you, six 

 weeks ago, was the mere crumbs of memory. Still however I want Klap- 

 roth's Carte de l'Asie Centrale (Berlin, 1835) and Ritter and Mahlman's maps 

 of yet later date, and therefore, though with every wish to be useful, I will 

 write no more at present lest I should iterate, merely and clumsily, what Lt. 

 Strachey will find in those, the last and best, guides, and because also one 

 evil of this conjectural system of facts is that there is no, getting one's say 

 into moderate compass ! I hope Lt. Strachey will be able to penetrate into cen- 

 tral and eastern Tibet. If he could get in that direction, as far as Siling, 

 and thence trace the boundary of China, and of Kham, as far as Assam, he 

 might solve a world of most interesting geographic and ethnographic pro- 

 blems. Siling, I am sure, is the Serica regio of the Classics, said region in- 

 cluding Tangut, Sifan, Kham, Shensi, Setchuen, in reality, and in the vague 

 apprehension of that day extending to all the proximate parts which either 

 furnished any portion of the things in commerce or lay in any of the routes 

 of the traders, so that the sub-Himalayas on one side (including Assam), and 

 Indo-China on the other, and Bishbalig on a third hand, all came to be com- 

 prised in the Serica vel Sinica regio, the nucleus of which certainly was 

 Siling, though it might and did extend thence westward over little Bucharia. 

 It would be a grand thing for geography (and ethnography) to make out the 

 alleged diiferences and identities in regard to Tangut, Sifan and Kham ; and 

 ta mark off their boundary towards China proper and little Bucharia and 

 Mongolia ; and to test the fact of a great transverse snowy range (Yun-ling, 

 Pe-ling) answering on the east to the Beluttagh on the west, and forming, 

 if it exist, the eastern term of High Asia, as Belut does the western ; and 

 to find out how it is that with such a meridional or vertical range forthcom- 

 ing between these Chinese and Tibetan countries, nevertheless so many and 

 such large rivers flow off from the latter, east and south, into China, and 

 Indo-China, &c. &c. &c. Then again, in ethnography, the power of testing 

 the meaning of the Tibetan " Hor-Sok," precisely and accurately, by means 

 of language and physical attributes,* and, by the same means, of marking 

 off distinctly the Tibetan fixed and nomade races from the Chinese, and from 

 the Scythic races (Turk, Mongol, Tongus) is a rare chance for this Mission, 



* Sogdiana doubtless included the Bishbalig- as well as Anderjan, Tashkand, 

 Khajand, &c. et intra Tnuium (adarcton) the towns on either side having always been, 

 and being 1 still, inseparably blinded. 



7 z 



