Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet/Volume 2/Siling and Tonkir
SILING AND TONKIR.
Pp. 107 and 119.
What the footnote at p. 107 refers to is this:—
Certain textures of shawl-wool, or resembling it, are imported from the eastward into Kashmír and Ladak under the name of S'ling. And certain other manufactures were found by Mr. R. B. Shaw in the markets of Kashgar, which were stated to come from a region called Zilm. Knowing from P. della Penna, and other sources, that Sining-fu was called by the Tibetans Ziling or Jiling, and by the Mongols Seling Khoto, it seemed to me almost certain that both the S'ling of Ladák and the Zilm of Kashgar, referred to the same place. Mr. Shaw doubted, from the particulars given him, if Zilm could be so far east; but I see by a recent letter that he now accepts the identity.[1]
In the footnote at p. 119, it is indicated that the Tonkir of the Russian traveller is Huc's Tang-keu-eul. The latter calls it 'a small city, but very populous, and with very great trade. It is a regular Babel' (ii. 54). The place is mentioned in P. Orazio della Penna's account of Tibet as Tongor {J. Asiat. 2nd S. xiv. 195). And in the Chinese 'Itinerary' already quoted, we find under the first march out of Sining-fu: 'Between this and Sining there is a large lamasery, Denger. In (1727) this became a trade-centre for all the Mongols west of the Hoang-ho.'—[Y.]
- ↑ In the Philos. Transactions, vol. lxvii. pt. ii. p. 482, in a letter from Mr. Stewart to Sir John Pringle, regarding Bogle's mission, dated March 20, 1777, mention is made of Seling, as a place to which the caravans traded. It is also probably the place 'on the river Sullum,' mentioned by Turner (see Embassy, p. 274).