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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[Dec. 6, 1872.
kind must make way to correct geographical notions, added, that it is built of Qaqah stone, and that and must very soon disappear altogether; the only everyone who looks at it dies laughing, laughing. way of rescuing them from total oblivion is to This addition induces me to conclude that the insert them in some journal. The owner of it was spelling Qaqah is a blunder, and that the projector a Muhammadan from Junner in the Bombay pre- of the map wrote Qahqahah which, though occursidency, but could give no clue as to who drew the map ring in dictionaries, must be considered to be only and when. Maps of this kind remind us of our own an onomatopoeia or imitation of a natural sound, ancient European geographical delineations which like cachinnation : hence the tower was built of the were as crude as the present one, and contained | Ha-ha-ha stone. analogous superstitious descriptions of unknown and The word Qalmuq does not occur in dictionaries, remote countries.
its sound is like that of Kalmuck, but it is not possiIt may be presumed that the draftsman was an ble to translate it otherwise than by "stove" or some Indian Musalman, because he has inserted in no analogous word according to the context. other country so many names of towns and rivers as Gog and Magog are two savage nations pot defined in India, but he has strangely enough omitted by traditions except in vague terms, they are said Calcutta and Madras; neither is any European to be descendants of Japhet, the son of Noah ; also country mentioned by name except Portugal. that the Gog are a Turkish and the Magog a Gilâny Farang and Rus are only general denominations ; tribe; some say they were anthropophagi, and this the former designating all European, and the latter appears also from the statement on the map. They all the Slavonic nations, and it is only within the are twice mentioned in the Qoran, i.e. Surah xviii last few decades since the Russian conquests in and xxi. It may also be observed that the draftsAsia that the name has been applied to them man has omitted to insert the region of the Duvalspecially. Rùm formerly designated the Byzan- payi, the timber-legged men, and of the Kelym-posh tines who are called by this name in all the Arabic the carpet-eared tribes, and other monstrous beings books treating on the conquest of Syria, A. H. 12: which occur in old Arabic and Persian books, and now however it means Turkey.
may easily be recognized as having been taken frora In this map the climates were intended to be equal Ktesias, or his imitators and embellished. according to Qazviny's scheme, but the execution is In the Qoran, Surah xviii., v. 91-96, the follownot very accurate; especially in the 4th climate, ing words occur about Dhulqarnyo: "And he prowhich is so convergent and narrowing towards secuted his journey [from south to north) until he the West as to catch the eye. Qazviny takes came between the two mountains, beneath which he 25 Farsakhs to a degree and makes each climate found a certain people, who could scarce understand 235 Farsakhs, i.e., 9-4 degrees broad, or according to what was said. And they said, O Dhulqarnyn, verily another reading 285, i.e., 11 4o. The climates of this Gog and Magog waste the land ; shall we therefore map begin at the equator, in which case according pay thee tribute on condition that thou build a ramto the first reading it would extend to 65.8° N. Lat. part between us and then? He answered. The and according to the 2d to 79-89.
(power) wherewith iny Lord has strengthened me The representation of Africa-for that is evidently is better [than your tribute] : but assist me strenuousmeant by Habsh or Abyssiniais rather small, and ly and I will set a strong wall between you and them. its termination does not fall even as far south as the Bring me iron in large pieces, until I fill up the equator; it is in the first climate, like the southern [space) between the two sides of these mountains). extremities of Arabia and of India. All the other He said (to the workmen) blow (with your bellows] countries are just as much out of proportion as until it make [the iron red hot as) fire. He said these.
[further) bring me molten brass that I may pour The inountains are coloured brown, and a belt of upon it. Wherefore (when this wall was finished, them equal in breadth to one climate, runs acr088 Gog and Magog] could not scale it, neither could they the whole earth occuping & portion of the 4th and dig through it. (Sale, p. 247). the 5th climate, due East and West." And He This Dhulqarnyn, i.e., two-horned is by the corahath thrown on the earth mountains firmly rooted, mentators said to be Alexander the Great; but at lest it should move with you." (Quran xvi, 15.) present scarcely any doubt can remain that the
The traditions about Alexander and his doings ramparto placed here and called the rampart of are endless and contradictory, but all agree with Gog and. Magog is the great wall of China, it was the historical fact of his having founded Alexandria. built about the end of the first century of the In this map also the tower of Alexander, which may Christian era, and is still called wan-le-chang-ching, have been a lighthouse, and is in other documents ten-thousand-li-long-wall. stated to have reflected in mirrors, events which The state of ignition in which the rampart aptook place at distant places, such as Constantinople) pears on the map is in conformity with the verses of is laid down, but the extraordinary circumstance is the Qorån just quoted.
• Caussin de Perceval (vol. I, p. 66) tries to indentity it Reinege (Beschreib. des Caucasus, IL 79) makes Gog the with fortiti stions which extended from the west shore of same as the mountain Gher or Ghogh, and the syllable ma the Caspian Sea to the Pontus Euxinus, built, it is said, by in Magog, the Sanskrit Mahá, great. Conf. Rodwell's Alexunder the Great, and repaired by Yezdegird II. Koran, pp. 181, 2
