1856.] Route of two Nepalese Embassies to PeTcin. 483 



which he estimated to be as large as the valley of Nepal.* When 

 asked if Tingri maidao. was any thing like the valley of Nepal, he 

 said, ' No ! Horsemen conld not gallop about Nepal. They would 

 have to keep to the roads and pathways. But numerous regiments 

 of cavalry could gallop at large over the plain of Tingri.' " In a 

 like spirit the Tibetans themselves compare the vast province of 

 Kham to a "field," and that of Utsang to "four channels"! — both 

 expressions plainly implying abundance of flat land and the latter 

 also indicating those ranges parallel to, and north of the Himalaya 

 which all native authorities attest the existence of in Tibet, not 

 only in Nari but also in U'tsang and Kham. The most remarkable 

 of these parallel chains, and that which divides settled from nomadic, 

 and north from south, Tibet, is the Nyenchhen thangla, of which I 

 spoke in my paper on the HdrsdkJ 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, which is the meaning of the "four channels" 

 of U'tsang, whilst the east and west direction of these ranges 

 sustain Humboldt's conception of the direction of all the greater 

 chains of Asie Centrale, or the Himalaya, Kwanleum, Thian and 

 Altai, as also of that of the back-bone of the whole Asiatic conti- 

 nent which he supposes to be a continuation westward of the second 

 of these four chains. 



Upon the whole, I conceive, there can be no doubt that Tibet 

 proper, that is, Tibet south of the Nyenchhen thangla range, is, as 

 compared with the Himalaya, a level country. It may be very well 

 defined by saying it comprises the basins of the Indus (cum Satluj) 

 and Brahmaputra. 



In this limited sense of Tibet — which the native geographers 

 divide into Western, Central, and Eastern Tibet, called by them- 

 selves Nari, Utsang, and Kham, or, when they would be more pre- 

 cise, Balti, Maryiil, vel Ladak, Nari, Tsang, 17, and Kham — Gaugri 

 is the water-shed of Tibet. 



* The valley of Nepal is about 16 miles in diameter or 50 in circuit. 



t Journal at supra cit. 



% Journal No. II. of 1853. 



3 n 2 



