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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



made additions to the geography of the Kurile Isles, the coasts 

 of Japan, and the Sea of Okhotsk. Captain Maxwell, of the 

 suite of Lord Amherst, our ambassador to China, extended our 

 knowledge of these Asiatic regions. The squadron under 

 his command made several important discoveries in the Yellowy 

 Sea, particularly Sir James Hall's Islands. This expedition' 

 ascertained that the western coast of the peninsula of Corea 

 had been placed on our maps greatly to the westward of its true 

 position; and made known to the world a vast archipelago 

 which no European had previously visited. Captain Maxwell 

 also visited the Loo-Choo Islands, where he was only welcomed 

 by feigning shipwreck, and seeking the assistance of the in- 

 habitants. 



The northern coasts of Asia having been previously im- 

 perfectly known, M. Gedenchtrom was commissioned to explore 

 them in 1808 ; but his efforts were limited. Lieutenant (after- 

 wards Admiral) Wrangell was charged to complete the explora- 

 tion of these coasts, and to fill up the blanks which then existed 

 in the maps of Siberia, by re-visiting the most northern latitudes 

 of these dreary regions. The object of this expedition was to 

 examine the whole of the coast from Cape Chelagsk to Cape 

 North, discovered by Cook to the west of Behring Strait, and 

 to determine whether there existed in the vicinity of these 

 capes an isthmus uniting Asia and America. This dangerous 

 expedition occupied from 1820 to 1824. Beyond Cape Chelagsk, 

 he discovered Cape Baranoff, and surveyed the coast from this 

 cape to the mouth of the river Kolyma. He discovered that 

 the hypothesis of the existence of land in this vicinity was un- 

 founded ; and he rectified and completed the geography of this 

 part of the continent of Asia. In 1843, M. Middendorff suc- 

 cessfully explored, in the midst of innumerable dangers, the 

 coasts of the Frozen Ocean between Tnrukansk, the sources of 

 the Khatounga, and Cape Taimoura. Traversing Siberia from 

 north-west to south-west, he visited the coasts of the Sea of 

 Okhotsk, and part of Tartary. 



In the quarter of a century that has elapsed since this time, 

 our knowledge of Central Asia has been greatly extended, by 

 the advance of the outposts of the Russian empire towards the 

 south into the heart of Independent Tartary, and to the north 

 bank of the River Amur, or Amoor, in the east, which now 

 forms the greater part of the northern frontier of Manchooria, 

 that part of Central Asia, nominally tributary to China, which 

 lies to the east of the great sandy desert of Gobi. Commencing 

 at the Caspian Sea, on the western side of the continent, the 

 acquisition by Russia of the Kirghiz Steppes, and the great 

 plains round the Sea of Aral, that are traversed by the Syr 

 Daria or Jaxartes, and the Amoo Daria or Oxus, has led to the 

 thorough exploration of these regions, of which comparatively 

 little or nothing was previously known with any degree of cer- 

 tainty. In 1825 an expedition was sent to the Sea of Aral by 

 the Russian Government, under the command of General, now 

 Count de Berg, who was commissioned to make an accurate 

 exploration of the Russian frontier ; and in 1848 an eminent 

 Russian sailor, Admiral Alexis Boutakoff, cut out and fitted 

 together ships at Orenburg, and carried them in pieces across 

 the steppes to the shores of the Sea of Aral, where they were 

 built and launched. These ships were the pioneers of the 

 establishment of regular steam navigation on the Sea of Aral, 

 and up the great rivers Oxus and Jaxartes, which discharge 

 their waters into it on the south and west, establishing along 

 the coast of the last-named stream a line of water communica- 

 tion through the centre of Turkistan, by which an active com- 

 merce is and will be carried on between the Celestial Empire 

 and Russia. For this achievement, the Founder's Gold Medal 

 of the Royal Geographical Society was awarded to Admiral 

 Boutakoff in 1867. Our knowledge of the scenery and the 

 manners and customs of the inhabitants of Khiva, Bokhara, 

 Thibet, and other parts of West Central Asia, has been increased 

 by M. Arminius Vambery, an enterprising Hungarian, who has 

 travelled through these regions, visiting many places hitherto 

 unseen by Europeans, in the disguise of a dervish, at the risk of 

 his life and liberty. 



Passing eastward along the line of the Jaxartes, through the 

 sandy wastes of the desert of Gobi, down the wooded slopes of 

 the mountains that divide Manchooria from Mongolia, and over 

 the rich plains that are watered by the Songari and its tribu- 

 taries, we stand at last on the shores of the Japan Sea, and 

 make our way across its waters to the crescent-formed chain of 



islands, stretching from the island of Saghalien on the north to 

 the south-eastern extremity of the peninsula of Corea, that 

 form the Empire of Japan. Of this island empire, the most 

 reliable account that we possessed, until Lieutenant Silver's 

 recently published work, was one written by Engelbert Kaempf er, 

 in 1 690. Several attempts have been made by the Portuguese 

 and Dutch, since the commencement of the sixteenth century, 

 to establish commercial relations with Japan; but trade with 

 this country has always been attended with great difficulty and 

 danger, owing to the repugnance of the inhabitants to hold 

 intercourse with foreigners. In 1853, however, the Japanese 

 government entered into a commercial treaty with the United 

 States, and in the following year another was concluded with 

 Great Britain. Since that time several ports have been opened 

 to British commerce, while embassies have been sent from Japan 

 to visit Europe and America, the Japanese showing a disposition 

 to abandon many of the customs, and even the costume to which 

 they have adhered without change for many hundreds of years, 

 according to their own account, and to adopt in a great measure 

 the usages of the most civilised portions of the world. Much of 

 an efficient and thorough survey of the Japanese waters has 

 recently (1865-8) been carried out by Commander Bullock, of 

 the Royal navy. 



Expeditions into the interior of Asia have, from time to time, 

 thrown great light on the geography of this part of the Old 

 World. We owe much of our knowledge of China to the Jesuit 

 missionaries who laboured in that country; of the northern 

 frontiers of this empire, to Klaproth, Timkowsky, De Humboldt, 

 and Pierre de Tohihatcheff; of Thibet, to Turner; of the 

 Himalaya chain of mountains and the adjacent countries, to 

 Lieutenant Webb, Captain Raper, Moorcraft, Colonel Crawford, 

 M. Frazer, Victor Jacquemont, and Major Rennell. Sir H. 

 Pottinger made us acquainted with Beloochistan and Scinde ; 

 Elphinstone and Burnes with Afghanistan ; Burnes with Bok- 

 hara ; and Mouravief with Turcomania and Khiva. Persia has, 

 at different periods, been visited by a number of able travellers, 

 to whom we owe a knowledge of this country ; as, Tavernier, 

 Chardin, A. Jubert, Moorcraft, Morier, Frazer, Kerr Porter, 

 Alexander, and Messrs. Coste and Flaudin. Of Arabia, we 

 have gained information from Niebuhr, Burckhardt, and Riippel; 

 but of late years a great deal of additional light has been 

 thrown on the western districts of this enormous peninsula, 

 and the condition of its inhabitants, by Captain Richard F. 

 Burton, who visited Mecca and Medina in 1853, and travelled 

 through that part of the country which borders on the Red Sea, 

 by a route hitherto untrodden by Europeans. A considerable 

 part of Captain Burton's adventurous journey was performed in 

 the disguise of a pilgrim to the cities sacred to Mahometans as 

 the birth-place and burial-place of Mahomet, the founder of 

 their religion, as it would be impossible for a European to pass 

 through that country in quest of information, otherwise than 

 in the garb of the inhabitants of some Mahometan country. 

 Captain Burton's researches were further supplemented and 

 augmented by Mr. William Gifford Palgrave, who travelled from 

 the Dead Sea to the Persian Gulf, through Central and Eastern 

 Arabia, in 1862-3. This gentleman also made his way through 

 the country in disguise, and found, contrary to his own expecta- 

 tion and the general belief, that the interior of Arabia, instead 

 of being a trackless waste, resembling the Sahara in its cha- 

 racter, and peopled only by a few wandering Bedouin Arabs, is 

 inhabited by tribes who live in towns and villages, under sheikhs 

 and native princes, actively engaged in trading with each other 

 and the countries bordering on the coast. Mr. Palgrave' s dis- 

 coveries, indeed, were of so important a nature, as to give quite 

 a new character to the map of Arabia, the interior of which, 

 previous to his visit, has been represented as being little better 

 than a sterile uninhabited desert. 



Of recent discoveries in Asia little remains to be said, but 

 that the acquisition of territory recently made by the French 

 in the south of Cambodia and Cochin China, has led to an 

 extended knowledge of this part of India beyond the Ganges, or 

 the Indo-Chinese Peninsula; while our wars with China, and 

 the spirit of enterprise shown by such men as the " English 

 Tai-ping," and other adventurers in the service of the Impe- 

 rialists, and the so-called Tai-pings who are seeking to overthrow 

 the present dynasty in that country, have secured a more 

 elaborate survey of the Chinese coast, and much information 

 respecting the interior of that wonderful country. 



