Tartary, or rather into Western Thibet, more particularly between
the rivers of Buspa and Schipke or Langzing Khampa, are from 2400
to 2900 toises, or 15346 to 18544 English feet. In the chain of the
Andes I found the pass of Assuay, between Quito and Cuenca on the
Ladera de Cadlud, having a similar elevation, being 2428 toises, or
15526 English feet, high. A great part of the mountain plains of the
interior of Asia would be buried throughout the year in perpetual
snow and ice, if it were not, that by the great radiation of heat
from the Thibetian plateau, by the constant serenity of the sky, by
the rarity of the formation of snow in the dry atmosphere, and by the
powerful solar heat peculiar to the eastern continental climate, the
limit of perpetual snow is wonderfully raised on the northern slope
of the Himalaya,--perhaps to 2600 toises, or 16625 English feet above
the level of the sea. Fields of barley (Hordeum hexastichon) are seen
in Kunawur up to 2300 toises, or 14707 English feet; and another
variety of barley called Ooa, and allied to Hordeum cœleste, even much
higher. Wheat succeeds extremely well in the Thibetian highlands up
to 1880 toises, or 12022 English feet. On the northern declivity of
the Himalaya, Captain Gerard found the upper limit of the higher birch
woods ascend to 2200 toises, 14068 English feet; and small bushes which
serve the inhabitants for fuel to warm their huts, attain, in the
latitude of 30-3/4° and 31° of north latitude, a height of 2650 toises
(16945 English feet), or almost 200 toises (1279 English feet) higher
than the limit of perpetual snow under the equator. From the data
hitherto collected it would follow, that we may take the lower limit of
perpetual snow on the northern side of the Himalaya, on the average,
and in round numbers, at 2600 toises, or about 16600 English feet;
whilst on the southern declivity of the Himalaya the snow-line sinks to
2030 toises, or about 13000 English feet.
But for this remarkable distribution of temperature in the upper strata
of the atmosphere, the mountain plain of Western Thibet would be
uninhabitable to the millions who dwell there. (Compare my Examination
of the Limit of Perpetual Snow on the two declivities of the Himalaya,
in the Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 435-437; T. iii. p. 281-326, and in
Kosmos, Engl. ed. vol. i. note 403; S. 483 of the original.)
A letter which I have just received from India from Dr. Joseph Hooker,
who is engaged in meteorological and geological researches, as well as
those connected with the geography of plants, says: “Mr. Hodgson, who
we regard here as the geographer best acquainted with the hypsometric
relations of the snow ranges, completely recognises the correctness of
your statement in the third part of the Asie Centrale, respecting the
reason of the inequality in the height of the limit of perpetual snow
on the northern and southern declivities of the Himalaya. In the ‘trans
Sutlej region’ in 36° lat. we often saw the snow limit only commence
at an altitude of 20000 English feet, while in the passes south of the
Brahmaputra, between Assam and Burman, in 27° lat., where the most
southern Asiatic snowy mountains are situated, the limit of perpetual
snow sinks to 15000 English feet.” I believe we ought to distinguish
between the extreme and the mean heights, but in both we see manifested
in the clearest manner the formerly contested differences between the
Thibetian and the Indian declivities.
My statements respecting the mean | Extremes according to Dr.
height of the Snow-line | Joseph Hooker’s letter.
in the Himalaya. |
(Asie Centrale, tom. iii. p. 326.) |
Paris Eng. | Paris Eng.
feet. feet. | feet. feet.
Northern declivity 15600 16626 |Northern declivity 18764 20000
Southern „ 12180 12981 |Southern „ 14073 15000
----- ----- | ----- -----
Difference 3420 3645 | Difference 4691 5000
The local differences vary still more, as may be seen from the list of
extremes given in my Asie Centrale, T. iii. p. 295. Alexander Gerard
saw the snow limit ascend, on the Thibetian declivity of the Himalaya,
to 19200 Parisian feet (20465 English); and on the southern Indian
declivity, Jacquemont once saw it, north of Cursali on the Jumnotri,
even as low as 10800 Parisian (11,510 English) feet.
[11] p. 6.--“_A brown Pastoral Race, the Hiongnu._”
The Hiongnu (Hiong-nou), who Deguignes, and with him many historians,
long considered to be the Huns, inhabited that vast region of Tartary
which is bounded on the east by Uo-leang-ho (the present Mantschu
dominion), on the south by the Chinese wall, on the west by the U-siün
territory, and on the north by the country of the Eleuthes. But the
Hiongnu belong to the Turkish, and the Huns to the Finnish or Uralian
race. The _northern_ Huns, a rude pastoral people, unacquainted
with agriculture, were dark brown (sunburnt); the southern Huns or
Haja-telah, (called by the Byzantines Euthalites or Nepthalites,
and dwelling along the eastern shore of the Caspian), had a fairer
complexion. The latter cultivated the ground, and possessed towns.
They are often called the white, or fair Huns, and d’Herbelot even
declares them to be Indo-Scythians. On Punu, the Leader or Tanju of
the Huns, and on the great drought and famine which, about 46 A.D.,
caused a part of the nation to migrate northwards, (see Deguignes,
Histoire gén. des Huns, des Turcs, &c., 1756, T. i. pt. i. p. 217; pt.
ii. p. 111, 125, 223, 447.) All the accounts of the Huns taken from
the above-mentioned celebrated work have been subjected to a learned
and strict examination by Klaproth. According to the result of this
research the Hiongnu belong to the widely diffused Turkish races of the
Altai and Tangnu Mountains. The name Hiongnu, even in the third century
before the Christian era, was a general name for the Ti, Thu-kiu or
Turks, in the north and north-west of China. The southern Hiongnu
overcame the Chinese, and in conjunction with them destroyed the empire
of the northern Hiongnu. These latter fled to the west, and this flight
seems to have given the first impulse to the migration of nations in
Middle Asia. The Huns, who were long confounded with the Hiongnu, (as
the Uigures with the Ugures and the Hungarians), belonged, according
to Klaproth, to the Finnish race of the Ural mountains between Europe
and Asia, a race which was variously mingled with Germans, Turks,
and Samoieds. (Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 183 and 211; Tableaux
Historiques de l’Asie, p. 102 and 109.) The Huns (Οὖννοι) are first
named by Dionysius Perigetes, a writer who was able to obtain more
accurate information respecting the interior of Asia, because, as a
learned man born at Charax on the Arabian Gulf, Augustus had sent him
back to the East to accompany thither his adopted son Caius Agrippa.
Ptolemy, a century later, writes the word (Χοῦνοι) with a strong
aspiration, which, as St. Martin observes, is found again in the
geographical name of Chunigard.
[12] p. 7.--“_No carved Stone._”
On the banks of the Orinoco near Caicara where the forest region joins
the plain, we have indeed found representations of the sun, and figures
of animals, cut on the rocks: but in the Llanos themselves no traces
of these rude memorials of earlier inhabitants have been discovered.
It is to be regretted that we have not received any more complete and
certain information respecting a monument which was sent to France to
Count Maurepas, and which, according to Kalm, had been found by M. de
Verandrier in the Prairies of Canada 900 miles west of Montreal, in the
course of an expedition intended to reach the Pacific. (Kalm’s Reise,
Th. iii. S. 416.) This traveller found in the middle of the plain
enormous masses of stone, placed in an upright position by the hand of
man, and on one of them was something which was taken to be a Tartar
inscription. (Archæologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts, published by the
Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. viii., 1787, p. 304.) How is it
that so important a monument has remained unexamined? Can it really
have contained alphabetical writing? or is it not far more probably a
pictorial history, like the supposed Phœnician inscription on the bank
of the Taunton River? I consider it, however, very probable that these
plains were once traversed by civilised nations: pyramidal sepulchral
mounds, and entrenchments of extraordinary length, found in various
places between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, and on which
Squier and Davis (in the “Ancient Monuments of the Mississipi Valley”)
are now throwing a new light, appear to confirm this supposition.
(Relation Hist., T. iii. p. 155.) Verandrier had been sent on his
expedition by the Chevalier de Beauharnois, the French Governor-general
of Canada, in 1746. Several Jesuits in the city of Quebec assured
Kalm that they had themselves had the supposed inscription in their
hands: it was engraved upon a small tablet which had been let into
a pillar of cut stone, in which position it was found. I have asked
several of my friends in France to search out this monument, in case it
should really be in existence in the collection of Count Maurepas, but
without success. I find older, but equally doubtful, statements as to
the existence of alphabetical inscriptions belonging to the primitive
nations of America, in Pedro de Cieça de Leon, Chronica del Peru, P.
i. cap. 87 (losa con letras en los edificios de Vinaque); in Garcia,
Origen de los Indios, 1607, lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 258; and in Columbus’s
Journal of his first voyage, in Navarrete, Viages de los Espanoles,
T. i. p. 67. M. de Verandrier moreover affirmed, (and earlier
travellers had also thought they had observed the same thing), that
in the prairies of Western Canada, throughout entire days’ journeys,
traces of the ploughshare were discoverable; but the total ignorance
of the primitive nations of America with regard to this agricultural
implement, the want of draft cattle, and the great extent of ground
over which the supposed furrows are found,--all lead me to conjecture
that this singular appearance of a ploughed field has been produced by
some effect of water on the surface of the earth.
[13] p. 7.--“_Like an arm of the Sea._”
The great Steppe, which extends from east to west from the mouth of
the Orinoco to the snowy mountains of Merida, turns to the south in
the 8th degree of latitude, filling the space between the eastern
declivity of the high mountains of New Granada, and the Orinoco, the
course of which is, in this part, from south to north. This latter
portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, the Vichada, the
Zama, and the Guaviare, connects the valley of the Amazons with the
valley of the Lower Orinoco. The word Paramo, which I often employ in
these pages, signifies in Spanish America all those mountainous regions
which are elevated from 1800 to 2200 toises above the level of the
sea (11500 to 14000 English feet in round numbers), and in which an
ungenial, rough, and misty climate prevails. Hail and snow fall daily
for several hours in the upper Paramos, and furnish a beneficial supply
of moisture to the alpine plants; a supply not arising from a large
absolute quantity of aqueous vapour in these high regions, but from the
frequency of showers, (hail and snow being so termed as well as rain),
produced by the rapidly changing currents of air, and the variations of
the electric tension. The arborescent vegetation of these regions is
low and spreading, consisting chiefly of large flowering laurels and
myrtle-leaved alpine shrubs, whose knotty branches are adorned with
fresh and evergreen foliage. Escallonia tubar, Escallonia myrtilloides,
Chuquiragua insignis, Aralias, Weinmannias, Frezieras, Gualtherias,
and Andromeda reticulata, may be regarded as representatives of the
physiognomy of this vegetation. To the south of the town of Santa Fé
de Bogota is the Paramo de la Suma Paz; a lonely mountain group, in
which, according to Indian tradition, vast treasures are buried. The
torrent which flows under the remarkable natural bridge of the rocky
ravine of Icononzo rises in this Paramo. In my Latin memoir entitled
“De distributione geographica Plantarum secundem cœli temperiem et
altitudinem montium, 1817,” I have sought to characterise those
mountain regions: “Altitudine 1700-1900 hexapod. Asperrimæ solitudines,
quæ a colonis hispanis uno nomine Paramos appellantur, tempestatum
vicissitudinibus mire obnoxiæ, ad quas solutæ et emollitæ defluunt
nives; ventorum flatibus ac nimborum grandinisque jactu tumultuosa
regio, quæ æque per diem et per noctes riget, solis nubila et tristi
luce fere nunquam calefacta. Habitantur in hac ipsa altitudine sat
magnæ civitates, ut Micuipampa Peruvianorum, ubi thermometrum centes.
meridie inter 5° et 8°, noctu--0°.4 consistere vidi; Huancavelica,
propter cinnabaris venas celebrata, ubi altitudine 1835 hexap. fere
totum per annum temperies mensis Martii Parisiis.” (Humboldt de
distrib. geogr. Plant, p. 104.)
[14] p. 8.--“_The Andes and the eastern mountains send forth detached
spurs which advance towards each other._”
The vast region situated between the eastern coast of South America and
the eastern declivity of the Andes is narrowed by two mountain masses,
which partially divide from each other the three valleys or plains of
the Lower Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the River Plate. The most
northern mountains, called the group of the Parime, are opposite to
the Andes of Cundinamarca which project far to the east, and assume
in the 66th and 68th degrees of longitude the form of high mountains,
connected by the narrow ridge of Pacaraima with the granite hills of
French Guiana. On the map of Columbia constructed by me from my own
astronomical observations, this connection is clearly marked. The
Caribs, who penetrated from the missions of the Caroni to the plains of
the Rio Branco, and as far as the Brazilian boundary, crossed in the
journey the ridges of Pacaraima and Quimiropaca. The second mountain
mass, which divides the valley of the Amazons from the River Plate,
is the Brazilian group. In the province of Chiquitos (west of the
Parecis range of hills), it approaches the promontory of Santa Cruz de
la Sierra. As neither the group of the Parime which causes the great
cataracts of the Orinoco, nor the Brazilian group of mountains, are
absolutely connected with the Andes, the plains of Venezuela have a
direct connection with those of Patagonia. (See my geognostical view of
South America, in Relat. Hist. T. iii. p. 188-244.)
[15] p. 8.--“_Troops of dogs._”
European dogs have become wild in the grassy plains or Pampas of
Buenos Ayres. They live in society, and in hollows in which they hide
their young. If the society becomes too numerous, some families detach
themselves and form new colonies. The European dog, which has become
wild, barks as loud as the original American hairy race. Garcilaso
relates, that before the arrival of the Spaniards the Peruvians had
dogs, “perros gozques.” He calls the native dog, Allco: it is called
at present in the Quichua language, to distinguish him from the
European dog, “Runa-allco,” “Indian dog” (dog of the inhabitants of
the country). The hairy Runa-allco seems to be a mere variety of the
shepherd’s dog. He is small, with long hair, (usually of an ochry
yellow, with white and brown spots,) and with upright sharp-pointed
ears. He barks a great deal, but seldom bites the natives, however
disposed to be mischievous to the whites. When the Inca Pachacutec, in
his religious wars with the Indians of Xauxa and Huanca (the present
valley of Huancaya and Jauja), conquered them, and converted them
forcibly to the worship of the sun, he found them paying divine honours
to dogs. Priests blew on the skulls of dogs, and the worshippers ate
their flesh. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Commentarios Reales, P. i. p.
184.) This veneration of dogs in the valley of Huancaya is probably
the reason why skulls and even entire mummies of dogs have been found
in the Huacas, or Peruvian graves belonging to the earliest epoch. Von
Tschudi, the author of an excellent Fauna Peruviana, has examined these
skulls, and believes them to belong to a peculiar species of dog which
he calls Canis ingæ, and which is different from the European dog.
The Huancas are still called derisively by the inhabitants of other
provinces, “dog-eaters.” Among the natives of the Rocky Mountains,
cooked dog’s flesh is set before strangers as a feast of honour. Near
Fort Laramie, (one of the stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company for the
fur trade with the Sioux Indians), Captain Frémont attended a feast of
this description. (Frémont’s Exploring Expedition, 1845, p. 42.)
The Peruvian dogs had a singular part to play in eclipses of the moon:
they were beaten until the eclipse was over. The Mexican Techichi, a
variety of the common dog, which latter was called in Anahuac Chichi,
was completely dumb. Techichi signifies literally stone-dog, from the
Aztec, Tetl, a stone. The Techichi was eaten according to the old
Chinese fashion. The Spaniards found this food, before the introduction
of European cattle, so indispensable, that almost the whole race
was gradually extirpated. (Clavigero, Storia antica del Messico,
1780, T. i. p. 73.) Buffon confounds the Techichi with the Koupara
of Guiana. (T. xv. p. 155.) The latter is identical with the Procyon
or Ursus cancrivorus, the Raton crabier, or crab-eating Aquaraguaza
of the Patagonian coast. (Azara sur les quadrupèdes du Paraguay, T.
i. p. 315.) Linnæus, on the other hand, confounds the dumb variety
of dogs with the Mexican Itzcuintepotzotli, a kind of dog still only
imperfectly described, said to be distinguished by a short tail, a
very small head, and a large hump on the back. The name signifies
humped-dog, and is formed from the Aztec, itzcuintli (another word for
dog), and tepotzotli, humped, a humpback. I was particularly struck in
America, and especially in Quito and generally in Peru, with the great
number of black dogs without hair, called by Buffon “chiens turcs”
(Canis ægyptius, Linn.) Even among the Indians this variety is common,
but it is generally despised and ill-treated. All European breeds of
dogs perpetuate themselves very well in South America, and if the dogs
there are not so handsome as those in Europe, the reason is partly
want of care, and partly that the handsomest varieties (such as fine
greyhounds and the Danish spotted breed) have never been introduced
there.
Herr von Tschudi makes the singular remark, that in the Cordilleras,
at elevations of 13000 feet, tender races of dogs and the European
domestic cat are exposed to a particular kind of mortal disease.
“Innumerable attempts have been made to keep cats as domestic animals
in the town of the Cerro de Pasco, 13228 French (or 14100 English) feet
above the level of the sea, but such attempts have failed, both cats
and dogs dying at the end of a few days in fits, in which the cats
were taken at first with convulsive movements, then tried to climb the
walls, fell back exhausted and motionless, and died. In Yauli I had
several opportunities of observing this chorea-like disease; it seems
to be a consequence of the absence of sufficient atmospheric pressure.”
In the Spanish colonies, the hairless dog was looked upon as of Chinese
origin, and called Perro Chinesco, or Chino. The race was supposed
to have come from Canton or from Manila: according to Klaproth, it
has certainly been extremely common in China since very early times.
Among the animals indigenous to Mexico there was an entirely hairless,
dog-like, but very large wolf, called Xoloitzcuintli (from the Mexican
xolo or xolotl, servant or slave). On American dogs, see Smith Barton’s
Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania, P. i. p. 34.
The result of Tschudi’s researches on the American indigenous races
of dogs is the following. There are two kinds almost specifically
different: 1. The Canis caraibicus of Lesson, quite without hair,
except a small bunch of white hair on the forehead and at the point of
the tail, of a slate grey colour, and silent; it was found by Columbus
in the Antilles, by Cortes in Mexico, and by Pizarro in Peru, where
it suffers from the cold of the Cordilleras, but is still abundant in
the warmer parts of the country, under the name of perros chinos. 2.
The Canis ingæ, with pointed nose and pointed ears; this kind barks:
it is now employed in the care of cattle, and shews many varieties
of colours, from being crossed with European breeds. The Canis ingæ
follows man to the high regions of the Cordilleras. In ancient Peruvian
graves his skeleton is sometimes found resting at the feet of the human
mummy. We know how often the carvers of monuments in our own middle
ages employed the figure of a dog in this position, as an emblem of
fidelity. (J. J. v. Tschudi, Untersuchungen über die Fauna Peruana,
S. 247-251.) At the very beginning of the Spanish conquests European
dogs became wild in the islands of San Domingo and Cuba. (Garcilaso,
P. i. 1723, p. 326.) In the prairies between the Meta, the Arauca,
and the Apure, voiceless dogs, (perros mudos,) were eaten in the 16th
century. Alonso de Herrara, who, in 1535, undertook an expedition
to the Orinoco, says the natives called them “Majos” or “Auries.” A
well-informed traveller, Giesecke, found the same non-barking variety
of dog in Greenland. The Esquimaux dogs pass their lives entirely
in the open air; at night they scrape holes for themselves in the
snow; they howl like wolves, in accompaniment with a dog that sits in
the middle of the circle and sets them off. In Mexico the dogs were
subjected to an operation to make them fatter and better eating. On
the borders of the province of Durango, and farther to the north on
the slave lake, the natives, formerly at least, conveyed their tents
of buffalo skins on the backs of large dogs when changing their place
of residence with the change of season. All these traits resemble the
customs of the inhabitants of eastern Asia. (Humboldt, Essai polit. T.
ii. p. 448; Relation hist. T. ii. p. 625.)
[16] p. 8.--“_Like the greater part of the Desert of Sahara, the Llanos
are in the torrid zone._”
Significant denominations,--particularly such as refer to the form in
relief of the earth’s surface, and which have arisen at a period when
there was only very uncertain information respecting the countries
in question and their hypsometric relations,--have led to various
and long-continued geographical errors. The ancient denomination
of the “Greater and Lesser Atlas” (Ptol. Geogr. lib. iii. cap. 1)
has exercised the prejudicial influence here alluded to. No doubt
the snow-covered western summits of the Atlas in the territory of
Morocco may be regarded as the Great Atlas of Ptolemy; but where is
the limit of the Little Atlas? Is the division into two Atlas chains,
which the conservative tendencies of geographers have preserved for
1700 years, to be still maintained in the territory of Algiers, and
even between Tunis and Tlemse? Are we to seek between the coast and
the interior for parallel chains constituting a greater and a lesser
Atlas? All travellers familiar with geognostical views, who have
visited Algeria since it has been taken possession of by the French,
contest the meaning conveyed by the generally received nomenclature.
Among the parallel chains, that of Jurjura is generally supposed to be
the highest of those which have been measured; but the well-informed
Fournel, (long Ingenieur en chef des Mines de l’Algérie), affirms
that the mountains of Aurès, near Batnah, which were still found
covered with snow at the end of March, are higher. Fournel denies the
existence of a Little and a Great Atlas, as I do that of a Little and
a Great Altai (Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 247-252). There is only one
Atlas, formerly called Dyris by the Mauritanians, and this name is to
be applied to the “foldings,” (“rides”) or succession of crests which
form the division between the waters flowing to the Mediterranean, and
those which flow towards the Sahara lowland. The strike or direction
of the Eastern Mauritanian portion of the Atlas is from east to west;
that of the elevated Atlas of Morocco from north-east to south-west.
The latter rises into summits which, according to Renou, (Exploration
Scientifique de l’Algérie de 1840 à 1842, publiée par ordre du
Gouvernement, Sciences Hist. et Geogr. T. viii. 1846, p. 364 and
373), attain an elevation of 10,700 Fr. (11400 Eng.) feet; exceeding,
therefore, the height of Etna. A singularly formed highland of an
almost square shape, (Sahab el Marga), bounded on the south by higher
elevations, is situated in 33° lat. From thence towards the sea to the
west, about a degree south of Mogador, the Atlas declines in height:
this south-westernmost part bears the name of Idrar-N-Deren.