3S6 J .] 
Thibet , Yunan and Burmah. 
377 
the Brahmaputra, Frenchmen for the Irawadi. Twenty years ago 
we see that it was an assumed fact in the map of the German geo- 
grapher Berg-haus ; though I observe that in later maps he has quitted 
the position. So possibly it may be warring with ghosts to say any 
more on the argument. It is certainly an interesting question, if it 
be a question, whether the river, on whose delta-branches stand our 
thriving ports of Rangoon and Bassein, does or does not come 
all the way from the mountains north of Rohilkund ; whether its 
sources are in the mountains of Khamtee, or are fifteen degrees fur- 
ther west. It is a question which reminds us of that of the course 
of the Niger, which the Quarterly Review, if I recollect rightly, tried 
hard to argue into the Nile, till the Landors solved the problem by 
descending to the Gulf of Guinea. We are not likely yet a while to 
find a Landor for the Tsanpo. It is not navigable, and the savages 
that border Thibet are much more unmanageable than the negroes of 
the Niger. You will find the matter ably discussed by Wilcox in 
the 17th volume of this Society’s quarto researches, and a resume of 
all the available subsequent information on the subject in an appendix 
to my account of the Mission to Ava in 1855. 
The idea that the Irawadi was the debouchement of the Tsanpo 
was first started by D’Anville. It was maintained by Dalrymple, the 
author of the Oriental Repertory. And it was revived by Klaproth, 
who supported his view by citations from Chinese geographers and 
state papers, by arguments from physical geography, and by maps 
based on Chinese sources. He insisted that the great river of Thibet 
passed through Yunan and entered the Burmese territories at Bliamo, 
there joining a river flowing from the north to form the Irawadi 
which passes by Ava. 
Since Klaproth wrote, Bliamo has been several times visited by 
European travellers, (by Col. Hannay, Dr. Bayfield, Dr. Griffith, 
Kincaid the American missionary, and as we see here by Bishop 
Bigandet), and it is well ascertained that the river which enters at 
Bliamo from the Chinese frontier is an inconsiderable one. The upper 
Irawadi was also visited in 1827 by Wilcox, not far from its sources 
in the snowy mountains of Kliamti. It was indeed ascertained both 
by him and by Col. Hannay that there was an eastern branch joining 
with the western, according to the latter about Lat. 26°. And, as 
this has been seen by no European eye, it might of course prove to be 
