348 EEPOET— 1882. 



the bulk of its detail this papei- has little pretension to originality. I 

 have mj'self at various times given attention to the subject, and have 

 elaborated parts of it ; but I shall make use of any books or papers which 

 appear to me to contribute sound views, as well as of my own. I do not 

 know of any work that treats the whole subject precisely as I propose 

 to do. 



The chief original sources of informa.tion are the following : — 



1. The anonymous Periplas of the Erythraean Sea, the date of which 

 we shall assume, after Dr. Carl MilUer, to be about a.d. 80-90. 



2. Ptolemy's Geographical Tablei5, dating about A.D. 150, and his 

 extracts from Marinus of Tyre. The latter derived, apparently, a main 

 part of his information regarding the sea-voyage from a navigator or 

 trader of the name of Alexander, whose date may be put conjecturally 

 about A.D. 100. 



3. The ' Topographia Christiana ' of Cosmas, c. a.d. 545. 



4. The Arab Geography of Ibn Khordadbah, in the first half of 

 the 9th century; the fii'st part of the Arabic Notices of India and China, 

 last translated by M. Reinaud, dating from A.D. 851 ; and supplemented 

 to some extent by the work of Mas'iidi (c. 930-940). 



The earliest of these writers, the author of the Periplus, knows 

 Thin, of which Tliinai was the chief city, lying inland and far towards 

 the north. The country lay behind Chryse (i.e. Indo-China), and where 

 the sea comes to an end, i.e. where navigation then terminated. This 

 country of Thin is difficult of access ; it stretches from this eastern 

 extremity of the earth far towards the north and west, so as to approach 

 the Caspian. It sends silk and silk-stuSs to the ports of Western India, 

 through Bactria, as well as by another route debouching on the Ganges.' 

 The country thus defined is evidently, as its names would lead us to 

 expect, China. 



Ptolemy's statements (including those of Marinus) represent the 

 great nation of the East, occupj'ing the extremity of the known and in- 

 habited earth, under a double aspect and title, viz., as Serct^, when 

 reached by the long land-route through Central Asia, and as tSinae, when 

 reached by the sea-voyages, of whicli we shall speak more particularly. 



In the notices of Cosmas we find the conception of China in a more 

 distinct and modern shape, and the name now quite indisputable ; but 

 still there has been no break in the tradition. He has a correct idea of 

 the position of Tzinista (or GJiiiiistdn), the remotest of all the ladies, and 

 the country of silk, as lying on the extreme eastern coast of Asia, ' com- 

 passed by the ocean running round it to the left (i.e. the north), just as 

 the same ocean compasses Barbaiy (i.e. the Somal Country in Eastern 

 Africa) round to the right' (or south). Beyond it was neither habita- 

 tion nor navigation. To reach it the navigator passed the Pepper 

 Country (i.e. Malabar), Sielediha or Taprobanc (i.e. Ceylon), the coast of 

 the Conch or 5(t«A;A-shells (Tinnevelly) and Kaber (probably the Cauvery 

 Delta). Further off was the Clove Country (i.e. the Islands of the Indian 

 Archipelago), and then Tzinista. 



' It would be beside the present purpose to discuss this curious notice of such a 

 trade route. See the present writer's Introductory Essay to Captain Gill's River of 

 Golden Sand, and the other testimonies to such a traffic cited there. I will quote these 

 words : ' . . The trade that brought these stuffs must have been of that obscure hand- 

 to-hand kind, probablj'' through Tibet, analogous in character to the trade which in 

 prehistoric Europe brought amber, tin, or jade from vast distances.' (juj). cit. p. [32].) 



