10 lAfe of Sir Stamford l^si^e^-^ Introduction, 



dissimilar in all respects to those of the " Old World ;'' whilst 

 the expeditions to the East only brought under actual observation 

 what had from time immemorial been known, in some degree, 

 from the relations of the ancients, and the occasional gleams of 

 information received from other sources. The investigations re- 

 lating to America formed themselves a further cause, why the 

 subjects of inquiry arising from the newly-established connexions 

 with Asia, were so much neglected, by occupying the minds of 

 those writers, who were probably the best qualified for such 

 researches. 



Accordingly, until the termination of the sixteenth century 

 approached, very little was done towards exploring the East; and 

 the principal information respecting its history and productions, 

 published in Europe, was collected from the voyagers and com- 

 mercial adventurers; a class of people at the era to which we 

 allude of much inferior qualifications for any kind of scientific re- 

 search, or even the correct description of what they had witnessed, 

 than the most deficient of their present representatives. 



The zeal and perseverance of the Jesuits, commenced, in China, 

 the first direct researches into the history and resources of any 

 Eastern nation, and the materials w hich were thus collected by its 

 members, continued, until a late period, to be the only sources of 

 information respecting that interesting country. But it is to the 

 more enlightened agents of the Dutch, to their physicians and 

 clergy, that we owe the commencement of those investigations, 

 which, guided from the beginning by a philosophic spirit, and con- 

 tinued, chiefly, by our own countrymen, have at length penetrated 

 into the deepest recesses of the mythology and history of Eastern 

 Asia; and have also been extended to every object of scientific 

 inquiry afforded by its various climes, from the snow-clad peaks 

 of the Himalaya, " whence, bursting from its icy bed, the mighty 

 Ganges flows," to the sultry and pestilential marshes of Batavia. 

 The most distinguished of these enterprising founders of oriental 

 science and literature in Europe, was the celebrated Kasmpfer, a 

 German physician, who, possessed of a genius for research adequate 

 to the most difiicult subjects, and an acuteness of perception 

 which no disguise of circumstances could elude, extended his 



