481 L 



ASIA. 



and had mot with more success than in any other country of Asia. 

 Bat a persecution breaking oat againit them and their proselytes 

 from political reasons, the father*, who were now compelled to leave 

 the country . directed their labours to China, Father Mattoo Ricoi, 

 an Italian, a man of considerable attainment! in astronomy and 

 mathematics, toon acquired a great authority at the court of Peking, 

 in 1000. One of his successors in the minion, Father Schall, was 

 appointed chief of the bureau of ' Heavenly Affair*, 1 and maintained 

 himself in thin place even after a revolution had taken place (1644) 

 and the dynasty of the Mautshu emperors had ascended the throne. 

 The Jesuits continued in favour to the middle of the last century 

 (1759). During this time some of them had an opportunity of 

 traversing various parts of the Chinese empire, and the countries of 

 Central Asia. Thus Father Goes travelled (1607) from India through 

 Kaahghar, Tarkand, and the desert of Gobi, to the Great Wall of 

 China, and ascertained that 'Katai' was northern China, and 

 ' Khambulu' the town of Peking, which till then had been considered 

 as different countries and towns. Other Jesuits succeeded in insinu- 

 ating themselves so far into the favour of the great emperor Kanghi 

 that some of them always accompanied him in his expeditions and 

 travels, or were sent on certain missions. By these means they 

 acquired a considerable knowledge of China and the countries 

 dependent on it, as Mautahuria, Corea, and even of the great desert 

 of Gobi, as well as of the manners, character, and institutions of the 

 inhabitants of those countries. The observations of the Jesuits were 

 published. But the greatest service which they rendered to geography 

 was their Hap of China, which was made under the authority and 

 at the expense of the Chinese government by the fathers Bouvet, 

 Regis, and Jartoux, between 1708 and 1718; and after having been 

 corrected by the fathers Felix d'Arocha, Espinha, Hallerstein, and 

 Gaubil, was published at Peking, by the authority of the emperor 

 Kienlong in 1760, in 104 sheets. The great imperial geography, 

 entitled ' Tay-thsing-y-thoung-ahi,' written by the order of the 

 emperor Kienlong, may be considered as a commentary on this map. 

 The second edition (1790) of this extensive work has been enlarged 

 to 480 books, and we are indebted for our knowledge of it to the 

 industry of some Chinese scholars, especially Sir George Staunton, 

 Davis, Morrison, Abel Remusat, the Archimandrite Hyacinth, and 

 Klaproth. Modern travellers, especially the Dutch (J. Neuhof, 1755, 

 and Van Braam, 1794), and the English (Lord Macartney, with Sir 

 George Staunton and J. C. Huttner, 1792, and Lord Amherst, with 

 Ellis, AbeL Maxwell, Basil Hall, 1816) have added something to the 

 before-existing stock; but the information which they have commu- 

 nicated extends only over a comparatively small extent of country. 

 The voyage of Captain Maxwell however materially improved our 

 knowledge of the coast of the bay of Petcheli, and the [>eninaula of 

 Corea, a coast which previously had not been examined with any 

 degree of accuracy. 



Whilst the conquests of the Russians in Siberia, and the operations 

 of the Chinese government opened to us the northern and eastern 

 countries of Asia, our progress in the geographical knowledge of the 

 southern and western countries was comparatively slow. The 

 fanatical policy of the Turks, who at the end of the 15th and the 

 beginning of the 16th century had got possession of them, shut up 

 the roads through Asia Minor and the adjacent countries, which 

 consequently were not visited, except by a few pilgrims. The policy 

 of Persia however under the dynasty of the Sofides (from 1501 to 

 1722) was much more favourable to European travellers, many of 

 whom got access to every part of the country, and even to the court, 

 and collected very valuable information concerning the geography of 

 Persia, the institutions, and the character and manners of it* inhabi- 

 tant* Such information is contained in the travels of Pietro della 

 Valle (1614-1626), Adam Olearius and Albrecht von Mandelsloh 

 (1633-1639), John Thevenot (1652), John Baptist Tavernier (1665), 

 and especially in those of John Chardin, the court jeweller of the 

 king of Persia and of Charles II. of England, who discovered the 

 ruins of Persepolis ; and of Francis Bernier, the physician of the 

 emperor Aurungxobe, who first gave some information on the valley 

 of Cashmere. Gasparo Balbi, a Venetian jeweller, made a journey to 

 India (1579-1588) by the route of Aleppo, Bir, the Euphrates as 

 far a* Felugia, and Baghdad. Rauwolf in 1574 also descended the 

 Euphrates from Bir. 



Towards the end of the 17th century the suspicious policy of the 

 Turks began gradually to relax ; and the first fruits of the zeal to 

 explore the countries subject to their sway was the discovery of the 

 ruins of Palmyra by Halifax in 1691, and the travels of another 

 Englishman, Henry Maundrell, to Jerusalem in 1697. They were 

 soon followed by the naturalist De Tournefort, who explored Asia 

 Minor, Armenia, and Persia (1701), Lucas the antiquarian, an.l the 

 Dutch painter D Brayn, who visited Syria and Palestine ; and 

 omewhat Uter by the antiquarian Richard Pococke (1727), and C. 

 il.uhr (1760). These countries were subsequently visited by 



oln7 (1796), Seetien {1802-1817), Clarke, Turner, Buckingham, 

 and other*. Arabia, which formerly had not attracted the attention 

 iropwns, and was only known from the description of Abulfeda, 

 pretty w.-ll explored in part of iU extent by C. Niebuhr (1761- 



1707), and iU geogr.pl, 

 farther d-cribed bv SeUi 



: - 



and natural history were 



It 



The geography of India was longer involved in otw. 

 almost any part of Asia. Up to the middle of the 18th century, iU 

 coasts were very imperfectly determined, and very little indeed was 

 known of the interior of the country itself. A few travellers, as 

 Thevenot, Tavernier, and Beruier, had given some information about 

 a few districts and routes, but it was extremely scanty. The truo 

 geographical knowledge of these countries began in the Deocan with 

 the wars of the East India Company and the French (about 174"), 

 ami in Hindustan with the conquest of Bengal (1757). Fr*in this 

 time its progress was extremely rapid. A great part of the valley 

 of the Ganges was soon explored and surveyed, and an account of the 

 remainder and of other districts of Hindustan was obtained by the 

 translation of the Ayin-i-Akbari, an historical and statistical account 

 of the Mogul empire, composed by Abul Fazl, under the orders of the 

 emperor Akbar. The military expeditions against Hyder Ali and his 

 sou Tippoo Saib. rajas of Mysore, gave that exact information of the 

 southern parts of Deccan which is always the effect of such oper.r 

 In the wars with the Pindarries and with the Mahrattas (1801-1818), 

 the northern districts of Deccan and the central region of Hindustan 

 were explored in a similar manner ; and as in the wars with the then 

 French government, the colonies of the French and Dutch (1'oinli- 

 cherry, 1793, Ceylon, 1796, Java, 1811) fell into the hands of the 

 English, a full account of them, especially of the island of Java, then 

 almost unknown, was published by Sir Stamford Raffles. The novelty 

 of the scenes opened by these successive conquests induced many 

 scientific men and exact observers of nature to explore these countries--, 

 and to them we ore indebted for a number of valuable works. The 

 most important are Forbes's 'Memoirs on Malabar;' Sir Francis 

 Hamilton's (Buchanan's) ' Travels through Mysore ; ' B. Heyne's and 

 M. Wilkes's 'Researches on Deccan;' Lechenault' s 'Botanical Excur- 

 sions through Deccan' (1816); Lord Valentia's 'Travels' (1802- 

 1806) ; Bishop Heber's 'Travels' (1824-1826); Malcolm's ' Researches 

 on Molwa' (1820); Tod's 'Rajasthan;' A. Barnes's 'Topographical 

 Researches on Cutch'; and his 'Examination of the Indus and the 

 Penj-ab.' An account of the island of Ceylon is found in the works 

 of Perceval (1796), and of J. Davy (1816-1820) ; and Sumatra was 

 described by Marsden. 



The extensive conquests of the English on the banks of the Ganges 

 and its tributaries involved them at last in political relations, and in 

 a war with the tribes of mountaineers inhabiting the Himalaya range, 

 especially with the Ghorkas in Nepaul ; and this led to the conquest 

 in 1816 of some of the elevated valleys of these gigantic mountains, 

 which hitherto had remained entirely concealed from the tulmirers of 

 nature. Their exploration soon followed. The great height of their 

 pinnacles was determined and their character explored by Rapcr, 

 Webb, Hodgson, Crawford, &c. Penetrating through these \ 

 Moorcroft (1812) succeeded in entering the high table-lain! ..r 

 where his progress was impeded by the jealous policy of the Chinese ; 

 he afterwards reached Leh in Ladakh (1820-1825), and then passed 

 through the valley of Cashmere, which since the time of Bernier 

 had only been visited by G. Forster (1783). Before his time Tibet 

 hod already been visited by Turner, who was sent to the Teshoo Lama, 

 the high priest of the Buddhist*, as ambassador, and on his way 

 traversed the valleys at Bhutan. 



The political relations which the East India Company were obliged 

 to enter into with the countries lying on both banks of the Indus, 

 gave rise to the embassy of Mountatuart Elphinstone to the court of 

 i'alml (1809), by whom the whole region known by the name of 

 Afghanistan, which till then had remained almost entirely unexplored, 

 was at once made known. A similar effect was produced by C. Grant's 

 embassy to the court of Sinde (1809). After that time, Cliri.-t 

 Pottinger traversed Beloochistan, and those regions which anciently 

 were known by the name of Gedrosia and Ariana, and had probably 

 not been visited by a European since the expedition of Alex 

 the Great The journeys of Burnes and Wood from the Indus into 

 the countries on the Oxus River made important additions to our 

 knowledge of these regions. 



Our knowledge of Persia has likewise received very important 

 additions in modern times, especially fnmi the industry of the English. 

 This also has arisen from political relations ; Sir .Inlm Malcolm and 

 Sir Iliirford Jones were sent to the court of Teheran, which they soon 

 prevailed upon to place the organisation of the Persian army in thi-ir 

 hands, and to permit them to examine the Persian provinces with 

 reference' to their capabilitir-i f.,r M. -fence. The result of these 

 geographical researches was an improved map of Persia, and a list of 

 routes through its provinces, published by Macdonald Kinneir (1813). 

 This information was greatly increased by J. Morier's travels, the 

 labours of Ouseley in oriental geography and literature, by Ker 

 Porter's and Rich s researches on Persian antiquities and archi- 

 tecture, and B. Fraser's travel*, who in 1821 advanced to Musi 

 Khorassan. Still more recently we have acquired valuable informa- 

 tiim from Colonel Chesney's 'Expedition to the Euphrates and 

 Tigris' ; and more especially from the notes of journeys through part 

 ..f I'.-rsia, by Major Kawlinson, Major Todd, and Colonel Hheil, 

 published in the eighth and tenth volumes of the Royal Geographical 

 Society of London. 



i if India beyond the Ganges nothing was known at the close of the 

 last century except the coasts and a few. ports ; but the increasing 



