ASIA. 



297 



spaded to a slave of man. The prevailing govern- 

 ment is despotism, the offspring of Asia. Hence 

 those artificial forms of a rigid etiquette, which are 

 kept up in all the public relations, and that apathy 

 of the people, in regard to fate, connected with 

 cruelty, and produced partly by opium, partly by su- 

 perstition, which is almost a universal characteristic 

 of the Asiatics, notwithstanding the violence of their 

 passions. There are, however, some tribes with a 

 republican form of government ; and relics of the 

 patriarchal authority of the heads of families still are 

 found. Near the colonies of the Europeans in South- 

 ern and Northern Asia, tlie civilization of the Chris- 

 tian world has been introduced. Christianity, though 

 ^degenerated in many of the more ancient sects (see 

 Mar&nites, Monophysites, and Sects), has gained many 

 adherents, throughout all Asia, by means of transla- 

 tions of the Bible, distributed by Britain and Russia. 

 In Bengal and St Petersburg, the translation of the 

 Bible into the languages of Southern Asia has been 

 prosecuted with a benevolent zeal. In Petersburg, 

 similar efforts have been made for the benefit of the 

 Mongolian Tartars. Even in China, Christians are 

 found again, but none in Japan since 1637. The 

 astronomy and astrology, poetry, morals, theology, 

 laws, and the rude empirical medicine of the Asiatics, 

 are mostly confined to the priests, and united with 

 deeply rooted superstition, which leads even to child 

 murder and self- sacrifice in the flames. The Moham- 

 medan religion, the central point for instruction in 

 which is at Samarcand, prevails in Western Asia. 

 (See JVahaby.) Over all Central and the eastern 

 part of Northern Asia, prevails the religion of the 

 Lama. The religion of Brama, the head quarters of 

 which is Benares, is confined chiefly to Hindostan, 

 and Shamanism to the tribes in Northern Asia and to 

 the Russian archipelago. The ancient doctrine of 

 Zoroaster is confined to single families in India and 

 Persia ; whilst the Mosaic has numerous adherents 

 through all Asia, except the Russian part. Physical 

 and mechanical cultivation is carried to a higher de- 

 gree of perfection than intellectual and moral ; e. g., 

 by the Indian jugglers and Chinese mechanics. Re- 

 markable skill has been acquired by certain classes 

 of Hindoos in the weaving of silk and cotton. The 

 shawls of Cashmere, the leather of Persia and 

 Syria (morocco, cordovan, shagreen), the porcelain ol 

 China and Japan, the steel of Turkish Asia, the 

 lackered wares of China and Japan, &c. are well 

 known. The internal commerce is still carried on by 

 caravans, as in the most ancient times, before Abra- 

 ham and Moses, when merchandise was transported 

 from India, through Bactria, to Colchis, as at present 

 to Makarieu, Moscow, and Constantinople. The 

 foreign commerce of China and the East Indies is 

 wholly in the hands of the Europeans, British 

 Dutch, and Russians and of the North Americans 

 The religious, civil, and social condition of the Asia- 

 tics proves, that, where the free developement of the 

 higher powers of man is subject to the restraints o 

 castes, and to the tyranny of priests and despots, an< 

 where the adherents to established forms has becom 

 a matter of faith, law, and habit, the character o 

 society must degenerate, and the energies of man be 

 come palsied. Hence the Asiatic, notwithstanding 

 the richness of his imagination, never attained th 

 conception of ideal beauty, Hke the free Greek ; and 

 for the same reason, the European, whose menta 

 improvement and social activity have been unimpeded 

 has shaken off the control which the East former! 

 exercised over the West, and has obtained dominio 

 over the coasts and territories of his old lord am 

 master. Greece led the way, and, after havifig trans 

 formed the obscure symbols of the East to shapes o 

 ideal beauty, shook off the spiritual fetters of priests 



nd oracles, and, at the same time, the temporal yoke 

 which the Persian Darius had prepared for Athens 

 nd Sparta. After a struggle of fifty years, the 

 rinmphs of Cimon (in 449 B. C:) first enabled Europe 

 o prescribe laws to the East. Grecian civilization 

 icn spread over the whole of Western Asia, to India, 

 nd even the military despotism which succeeded has 

 ot been able to extinguish the light entirely. In 

 ater times, the Romans and Parthians fought for the 

 ossession of the Euphrates, and the Persians, under 

 le Sassanides, attempted to tear the dominion of the 

 r orld from the hands of Rome. Since that period, 

 isia has four times taken up arms against Europe, 

 "he nations of Upper Asia, driven from the frontiers 

 f China to the Irtish, crowded upon the West. Huns, 

 Avari, Bulgarians, and Magyars, successively issued 

 rom the Caucasian gates, and from the wildernesses 

 f Ural, to subdue Europe ; besides those later hordes, 

 ?hch were mingled and confounded with each other 

 n Sodthern Russia and on the Danube. But the 

 ude power of Attila and of the grandsons of Arpat 

 was broken in conflict with the Germans. Next, the 

 Arabians attacked Constantinople, Italy, and France, 

 >ut their fanatical impetuosity was checked by Charles 

 Martel, in 732, and the chivalrous valour of the 

 Gothic Christians rescued the peninsula within the 

 _ yrenees. The West then armed itself against the 

 5ast, to recover the holy sepulchre from the sultan 

 of the Seljooks, and Christian Europe became better 

 acquainted with Asia ; but the sword alone cannot 

 conquer a continent. (See Crusades.) Upper Asia 

 sent again, under the Mongol Temudschin (see Gen- 

 jhis-Khan), her mounted hordes over the world. 

 Again the Germans stayed the destroying flood near 

 Liegnitz. (See IVahlstadt.) Finally, the Tartars 

 and Ottoman Turks invaded Europe. In 1453, they 

 ,ook the Bosphorus and Greece from the feeble hands 

 of the Eastern Romans. In succeeding times, Europe 

 las been defended against Asia, on this side, by Ger- 

 many. The intellectual progress of the European, 

 since that period, has raised him above the most an- 

 cient nations of the East Persians, Arabians, Indian, 

 and Chinese. Gunpowder, the mariner's compass, 

 and the art of printing (which the last-mentioned 

 nation possessed, but could not apply to much 

 use),. have become powerful in his hands. Hence 

 Russia has gained the Wolga, explored Siberia, kept 

 watch over the seat of the ancient and modern 

 Scythians, the mountains of the Altai, and finally 

 conquered the tribes of the Caucasus ; whilst [since 

 Vasco da Gama (q. v.) discovered the way by sea to 

 the East Indies, in 1498] the Portuguese, Dutch, and 

 French, and particularly the British, by their univer- 

 sal commerce, have m'de the rich countries of 

 Southern Asia acquainted with European laws, and 

 Europe with the condition and luxury of those coun- 

 tries. Persia is already entangled in the European 

 international policy, which is principally owing to 

 the efforts of Sir Harford Jones, Sir Gore Ousely, Mr 

 James Morier, and the Russian general Yermatoff. 

 The diplomacy of the court of China, now more than 

 ten centuries old, still resists European encroach- 

 ments. Japan, alone, yet denies all approach to 

 Europeans ; and her jealousy is as effective as the 

 polar ice, which blocks up the passages of the 

 Frozen seas. But the inquisitive spirit of European 

 navigators has gradually penetrated the most secluded 

 regions, from the time of Marco Polo, the Venetian 

 (1272), to that of the present British and Russians, 

 who will soon join hands, or perhaps swords, in the 

 heart of Asia. (For further information, see Malte- 

 Brun's Geography; Bell's Geography; Murray's 

 work On the Progress of Discovery in Asia ; Ritter's 

 Geography, published in 1824, at Berlin ; also, 

 Leake's Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor ; also, the 



