G A N G E T I C H I N D O O S T A N. 163 



the Indus, in about Lat. 37° 30' ; its coiirfe is north-eafternly be- 

 t^veen Long. 74° 45', and 105° ealt, bounding or dividing part 

 of HindooJIan, Thibet, weftern Tartary, Tangitt, and the Monguls, 

 and ends in Lat. 49* 20', at the lake Dalay fior, in Cbineje Tartary ; 

 the whole extent is not lefs than two thoufand three hundred 

 and ninety-feven miles. It is named the Gobi, and by the Chi- 

 vefe, Sbamo and Han Kai. It confifls of fands imftable and 

 tremendous as thofe of Arabia, which would be impaffable had 

 not nature placed acrofs them, at very remote diftances, three 

 chains of hills, or narrow tradts of folid ground, the roads 

 which travellers muft take ; and amidft this ocean were plea- 

 fant vallies, entirely infulated by the fand. Occafionally, in the 

 middle ages, thefe roads were the paffage which merchants 

 took, either from the countries bordering on the Cafpian fea, 

 or from Europe itfelf, as their bufinefs might call them through 

 Tartary and Bucbaria into India, or the diftant China. As the 

 traveller in antient times advanced as far eaftward in the great " 

 "Tartarian as the defert of Lop, the terrible fcenery laid hold of Desert 

 their fancies ; they were terrified with the delulion of daemons 

 which haunt thefe dreadful deferts : they imagined themfelves 

 to be called by their names by voices familiar to them, till they 

 were brought to the edge of fome precipice ; or at times they 

 were recreated with the found of aerial mufic. Thefe romances 

 reached Europe, when our Milton, fond of that fpecies of read- 

 ing, fell in with our authority Marco Polo *, he adopted this 

 relation, which he put into the mouth of the lady in Comas, 



* See his voyages in Bergeron's collection, p. 35. Purchas, Pilgrims, iii. p. 75. 



y 2 when, 



