A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF ASIA, WITH 

 SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CHINA AND THE FAR EAST 



BY HENRI CORDIER 



[Henri Cordier, Professor of 1'Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes, 1881, 

 Paris, b. August 8, 1849, New Orleans, Louisiana. A.B. University of 

 Paris; Litt.D. University of Cape of Good Hope: Chinese Mandarin of the 

 third class, with decoration of " Precious Star," third degree; Professor at Ecole 

 Libre des Sciences Politiques, 1886-95; Secretary of the Chinese Educational 

 Mission, 1877-81; President of the Council Socie'te' de Geographic, 1904; 

 Member of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Public Instruction; 

 Honorary Member Royal Asiatic Society; Hon. Corresponding Member of the 

 Royal Geographical Society; Vice-President of the Socie'te' des Traditions Popu- 

 laires; Socio della R. Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria, etc. Author of 

 Histoire des Relations de la Chine avec les Puissances Occidentales; Atlas Sino 

 Coreen ; Bibliotheca Sinica ; Marco Polo. Editor and founder of the Revue de 

 I' Extreme Orient and of the T'oung-pas.] 



IN attempting to draw in less than an hour a sketch of the history 

 of Asia, I am fully aware of the difficulty as well as of the grandeur of 

 the task which has been intrusted to me. It cannot be expected that 

 in the short space of time allotted to the lecturer, a complete idea 

 of this vast subject can be given. I can only sum up the main points 

 and designate the landmarks of the unbroken chain of facts which 

 from our days goes back to the most ancient period of the history 

 of mankind. When we search into the remotest past of Asia, the 

 geologist, not the historian, presents a very surprising spectacle to our 

 view: two lands stand opposite; one, to the north, shaping a long 

 arch round what is to-day Irkutsk; the other, to the south, consti- 

 tutes a portion of the future peninsula of Hindustan; a large mediter- 

 ranean sea, to which M. Suess has given the name of Tethys, separates 

 the two continents; this ocean, in gradually drying up, has by its folds 

 given rise to the Pamirs, the Himalayas, the high Tibetan Table- 

 land, and its total disappearance and the union of the two, 

 northern and southern, lands gave birth to Asia. 



If we seek into this vast continent for the territory having an 

 authentic record of the oldest times, we find it in the lands of biblical 

 tradition, Chaldea and Elam, where Asia tells again the story of its 

 past with the most irrefragable evidence in the inscriptions registered 

 on stones which, lying buried for centuries, have withstood the wear 

 and tear of ages; thus has been revealed to us the oldest code of the 

 world, the Law of Hammurabi, discovered at Susa by M. J. de 

 Morgan, and described by the Dominican Father v. Scheil, both 

 Frenchmen. However, if Elam carries us back to a period further than 

 four thousand years before Christ, other countries of Asia, including 

 those which are supposed to possess the most ancient civilization, 

 are far from giving the material proof of the high antiquity to 

 which their books and their legends lay an unfounded claim. 



