THE ARABS. ^ 213 



formation, surpassing in these respects the travels of the Bud^ 

 dhist priests of Thibet and China, Marco Polo, "and the Chris- 

 tian missionaries, who were sent on an embassy to the Mon- 

 golian princes. Important elements of Asiatic knowledge 

 reached Europe through the intimate relations existing be- 

 tween the Arabs and the natives of India and China (for at 

 the close of the seventh century, under the califate of the 

 Ommajades, the Arabs had already extended their conquests 

 to Kaschgar, Kabul, and the Punjaub).* The acute investi- 

 gations of Reinaud have taught us the amount of knowledge 

 regarding India that may be derived from Arabian sources. 

 The incursion of the Moguls into China certainly disturbed 

 the intercourse with the nations beyond the Oxus, but the 

 Moguls soon served to extend the international relations of the 

 Arabs, from the light thrown on geography by their observa- 

 tions and careful investigations, from the coasts of the Dead 

 Sea to those of Western Africa, and from the Pyrenees to 

 Scherif Edrisi's marsh lands of Wangarah, in the interior of 

 Africa.t According to the testimony of Frahn, Ptolemy's ge- 

 ography was translated into Arabic by order of the Calif Ma- 

 mun, between the years 813 and 833 ; and it is not improba- 

 ble that several fragments of Marinus Tyrius, which have not 

 come down to us, were employed in this translation. $ 



Of the long series of remarkable geographers presented to 

 us in the literature of the Arabs, it will be sufficient to name 

 the first and last, El-Istachri and Alhassan (Johannes Leo 

 Africanus).^ Geography never acquired a greater acquisition 



* Reinaud, in three late writings, which show how much may still 

 be derived from Arabic and Persian, as well as Chinese sources ; Frag- 

 ments Arabes et Persans in6dits relatifs a V Inde anUrieurement au Xle 

 Siecle de Vere Chritienne, 1845, p. xx.-xxxiii. ; Relation des Voyages 

 faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans f Inde et a la Chine dans le IXe 

 Siecle de notre ere, 1845, t. i., p. xlvi. ; M6moire G6og. et Hist, sur VInde 

 d^apris les icrivains Arabes. Persans, et Chinois, anterieurement an milieu, 

 du onzieme Siecle de Vere Chretienjie, 1846, p. 6. The second of these 

 memoirs of the learned Oriental scholar is based on the incomplete 

 treatise of the Abbe Renaudot, Anciennes Relations des Indes, et de la 

 Chine, de deux Voyageurs Mahometans, 1718. The Arabic manuscript 

 contains only one notice of a voyage, that of the merchant Soleiman, 

 who embarked on the Persian Gulf in the year 851. To this notice is 

 added what Abu-Zeyd-Hassan, of Syraf, in Farsistan, who had never 

 traveled to India or China, had learned from other well-informed mer- 

 chants, t Reinaud et Fave, Du Feu Gr^geois, 1845, p. 200. 



X Ukert, Ueber Marinus Tyrius tind Ptolemans die Geographen, in the 

 Rheinische Museum far Philologie, 1839, s. 329-332 ; Gildemeister, De 

 Rebus Indicts, pars 1, 1838, p. 120 ; Asu Centrale, t. ii., p. 191. 



$ The " Oriental Geography of Ebn-Haukal," which Sir Williaro 



