________________
234
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1874.
the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Peters- with the Foreign Office Report, to which access burg, by one of its most distinguished members, was kindly given by Lord Stanley, and finding the the late Mons. Veniukoff, that a manuscript had spurious geographical descriptions and nomenbeen discovered in the archives of the Etat clature of the two documents to be almost identical, Major' which professed to give a minute account came to the conclusion that the three manuscripts of all the country intervening between Kashmir under consideration, with their accompanying il. and the Kirghiz Steppes. The author was saidlustrations, had been all severally forged by to be a German (George Ludwig von ), an Klaproth-possibly from a mere love of mystificaagent of the East India Company, who was tion, but more probably from mercenary motivee, despatched at the beginning of this or the end since it could hardly have been by accident that of the last century to purchase horses in Central the English report found its way to St. PetersAsia, and who, having on his return from his burg, while the Russian report was transferred to mission quarrelled with the Calcutta Government London, where they would each respectively comon the subject of his accounts, transferred his mand the highest money value. On one point MSS. to St. Petersburg, where they had remained only could there be any doubt. There was no. for over fifty years unnoticed in deposit. The thing, as far as the texts were concerned, immedichapters which Mons. Veniukoff published from ately to connect the German and the Russian this work, and which were certainly very curious, Reports; but indirectly, nevertheless, the two were received at St. Petersburg with the most documents were found to be very closely linked : absolute confidence, as extracts from official for upon a map in Klaproth's own handwriting, documents, and were cerdially welcomed even in which was bound up with the Russian report in our Paris; but in England they were viewed with Foreign Office, and which was intended partly to suspicion from the commencement; and no sooner illustrate it, a fictitious route was observed to be were the details brought forward than they were laid down from Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, pronounced impossible, and the whole story of to the Indus, which was also given in detail in the horse-agent and his journal were accordingly the George Ludwig Journal, positive proof being declared to be an impudent fiction. Thereupon thereby afforded that the compiler of the one arose a controversy of some warmth, in which the document must have had access to the other. It late Lord Strangford and Sir H. Rawlinson may be well understood that these forgeries, as attacked, and Messrs. Khanikoff and Veniukoff far as regards local descriptions, etymology of defended, the genuineness of the German Ms. names, and historical synchronisms, are executed In the course of this controversy allusion was with considerable skill; for otherwise they would made to two other kindred works: one being hardly have imposed on such experienced critics a so-called Chinese Itinerary, translated by as the Geographical Societies of Paris and St. Klaproth in 1824, and a copy of which was also
Petersburg. In reference to one particular point, deposite in the archives of the Russian Etat indeed, the English investigators were for a time Major; and the other being the confidential report fairly bewildered. Ten years ago, it must be reof Russian agent, who was said to have been membered, we had little positive information resent by the Emperor Paul, at the beginning of the garding the Oxus and its affluents, beyond the century, to survey Central Asia up to the Indian immediate range of Lieut. Wood's journey to the frontier, and whose manuscript notes, having been sources of the river; and when it was found, thereplaced in Klaproth's hands for official purposes, fore, that a certain Colonel Gardner, who was were asserted to have been copied by him and sold known to have personally visited and surveyed to the British Foreign Office for 1,000 guineas. the country between the Indus and th Pamir The Russians, on the one hand, vindicated the plateau, some forty years ago, coincided in his genuineness of the George Ludwig MS., by refer. delineation of the Badakhsh£n and Eolor rivers ring to the corroborative and independent author. with the Klaproth geographies, which he could ity of certain portions of the Chinese Itinerary. never possibly have seen, rather than with Lieut. The English, on the other hand, comparing the Wood's map, which was our standard authority, Chinese Itinerary, as summarized by Veniukoff, there did seem some ground for hesitation. On
• They were asserted to have been deposited in the which Colonel Yule not inaptly compares to the "memo. archives of the Russian War Office on the 14th Aug. 1806, randa of s dyspeptic dream," by no means do hrim justice.
really the date of the letter of the pretended traveller According to the sketch of his career which was published attached to the series.
in the Friend of India for September 1870, he must be The travels and adventures of Colonel Gardner are of one of the most remarkable "soldiers of fortune of the such an extraordinary character that, had they ever been present century. For seven years (1830-1837) he continued placed in a readable form before the public, he would to perambulate every district of Central Asia between the long ago have enjoyed a world-wide reputation. The gar. Caspian and Kaimír. Kafferistan and Badakhshan som bled and slovenly extracts from his journals which were to have been his favourite haunts, and he is certainly the published in the Bengal Asiatic Journal for 1853, and only Englishman who has ever traversed the famons Dereh
