174 ON THE ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY 
almost every class of socicty. The reports of the caravan mer- 
chants were collected and committed to writing by Marinus of 
Tyre, whose compositions have perished; but the corrected 
substance of them is found in the great geographical work of 
Protemy. The statements of Protemy, therefore, combined 
with some supplementary information from Pry and Ami-, 
ANus, must form the authority on which this question is to be 
decided. 
The earliest modern opinion which I find stated upon this 
subject, is, that Serica was Cambalu, or the kingdom of the 
Great Khan, that is, the original dominion of Zingis. China, 
then, was the Sinarum Regio. Before the time of D’AnviLxe, 
however, the prevalent sentiment came to be, that the northern 
part of China was the seat of the Seres, the southern that of 
the Sinz. Vossivs goes farther, and declares that he who 
doubts if the ancient Seres be the modern Chinese, may doubt 
as reasonably if the sun that shone then be the sun that shines 
now. As that learned and acute writer, however, has not ex- 
plained the ground on which so peremptory an opinion was 
formed, it has not met with the attention which perhaps it me- 
rited. D’Anvinie was the first who applied to this question 
that careful and systematic analysis which forms the only true 
mode of solution... Having brought the Sina to Cambodia, he 
carried westward also the position of the Seres. He assigned 
to them an extensive region of eastern Tartary, reaching from 
the territory of the Kygurs, or Igours, to the north-western 
frontier of China, of which it included only the projecting 
corner of the province of Chensi. Mr Prxxerron goes still 
farther, and places Serica in Little Bucharia. But M. Gossz- 
tin, with his usual boldness, has struck out an entirely new 
path. He finds Serica in the north of India, in the district 
of Serinagur, including a portion of Thibet. 
The 
