A S I 



It appears that not above one quarter of Afiawas known 

 to the aueicnts ; and this knowledge was little increafcd till 

 Marco Polo, whofe travels became well known in Europe 

 in the fourteenth century, eilabliOicd a memorable epoch 

 ill geography, by pailiiig to Ciiina, and difcloling the ex- 

 tent of that country, the iflands of Japan, and a faint 

 intelligence of other regions, illuftratcd and conlirmed by re- 

 cent accounts. The wide conquells of the famous Tlliingliis- 

 khan, commonly called Zingis.in the beginningof the thirteenth 

 century, tirtl opened the difcovery of the diilant parts of 

 Afia; tile Mongoles, whofe fovereign he was, being fituat- 

 ed to the call of the Huns, who had before diffuftd tenor 

 over Europe. The primitive feat of the Mongoles was in 

 the mountains wliich give fourcc to the river Onon ; and at a 

 ftiort dillance to the fouth-weft was Kara-kum, the firft 

 capital of the Mongole empire. The victories of Zingis 

 extended from Cathay, or the nortliern part of China, to 

 the river Indus ; and his fucccfi'ors profecutcd them over 

 Ruffia, while they made incurfions as far as Hungai-y and 

 Germany. Tiie power of the Mongoles, thus widely 

 diffufcd, naturally excited an attention, never llimulated by 

 a number of petty barbaric tribes; and at the fame time 

 facilitated the piogrefs of the traveller, who, as in Africa 

 at prcient, had been fonmrly impeded by the enmities of 

 diminutive potentates. By force of arms the Mongoles 

 alfo firll opened the .obfeure rcceifes of .Siberia. Sheibani 

 khan, in the year 1242, led a horde of fifteen tlioufand 

 families into thole northern regions ; and his defcendants 

 reigned in the Tobollkoy above three centuries, till the 

 Ruffian conqucll. (Gibbon, xi. 424.) Two European 

 travellers, Carpini and Rubruquis, being commilTioned 

 to infpcCt the power and refourccs of the new empire of 

 the Mongoles, the latter found at Kara-kum a Parilian 

 goldfmith employed in the fervice of the khan : and by 

 Carpini's relation it appears, that from their brethren in 

 Siberia, the Mongoles liad received fome intelligence con- 

 cerning the Samoyedcs. 



Thus the difcovery of Afia, which had Iain nearlydorinant 

 Cnce the time of Ptolemy, began to revive in the thirteenth 

 century. Yet after the publication of Marco Polo's travels, 

 little was done for two centuiHcs; and the authenticity of 

 his accounts even began to be queftioned. From the map 

 of the world by Andrea Bianco, the Venetian, 1440, it 

 fufficicntly appears that the difeoveries of Polo had, even 

 in his native country, been rather diminifhed than increafcd. 

 (See Formalconi, laggia fulla nautica antica de Veneziani, 

 Ven. 1783, 8vo.) See alfo the defcription of Afia by pope 

 Pius II. who appears not even to have feen the travels of 

 Polo. One man indeed of great mental powers, was im- 

 preffed with their veracity, and in confequence accomplifiied 

 a memorable enterprile. This was Chriftoval Colon, or 

 as we call him, Chrillopher Columbus ; who, led by the 

 relation of Polo, conceived, that as Afia extended fo far 

 to the eaft, its fhores might be reached by a (hort naviga- 

 tion from the wellern extremity of Europe. In this crro- 

 neojs idea, when that great man difcovered the idands now 

 called tlie Well Indies, he thought that he had arrived at 

 the Zipango of Polo, or J ipan ; and thus the name of 

 Jndia was al furdly bellowed on thofc new regions. 



After the difeoveiy of America and the cape of Good 

 Hope, the maritime parts and illands of Afia were fi:c- 

 ccffively difclofed. Ytt the recent voyages of the Ruffian 

 navigators, of our immortal Cook, and oi the unfortunate 

 L.a Peyroufe, evince that much remamed to be done. Con- 

 cerning the interior of Siberia, fcarccly any folid informa- 

 tion was had till Prter the Great, after the battle of Pul- 

 tava, lent many Swedtfh priioners into that region ; and 



A S 1 



Strahlcmberg, one of the officers, publidied an account of 

 Siberia ; which though extremely inaccurate and defedive, 

 opened the way to farther intelligence. The knowledge 

 thus obtamed was greatly improved and augmented by the 

 well-known journies of Pallas and the other academicians. 

 Our acquaintance with Afia is Hill liowever far from being 

 perfeiSt, efpecially in regard to Daouria and other regions 

 near the confines of the Rufiian and Chinefe empires ; not 

 to mention central Afia in general, Thibet and lome more 

 fouthern tracts ; nor had even the geography of plindollau 

 been treated with tolerable accuracy, till major Renncll 

 publiilied his excellent map and memoir. 



The religions of Afia are various ; and the climate admits 

 of eveiy variety, from the equator to the Arftic lea. 



Though Afia cannot vie with Europe in the advantages 

 of inland feas, yet, in addition to a fliare of the Mediten-a- 

 nean, it pofiefies the Red fta (the Arabian fea), and the 

 gulf of Ptrfia, the bays of Bengal and Nankin, with other 

 gulfs, whicli diverfify the coalls much more than thofe of 

 Africa or America, and have doubtlefs contributed greatly 

 to the civilization of this celebrated quarter of the globe. 



The Red fea, or die Arabian gulf of antiquity, conlli- 

 tutes the grand natural divifion between Atia and Africa ; 

 but its advantages have been chiefly felt by the latter, which 

 is entirely dellitute of other inland feas ; JlLgypt and 

 Abyflinia, two of the mod civilized countries in that divi- 

 fion, having derived great benefits from that famous gulf, 

 which, from the ftraits of Babelmandel to Suez, extends 

 about 21° or 1470 Britifh miles; terminating, not in two 

 equal branches, as delineated in old maps, but in an cxten- 

 five wellern branch, while the eallern afcends little beyond 

 the parallel of mount Sinai. 



The Perfian gulf is another noted inland fea, about half 

 the length of the former, being the grand receptacle of 

 thofe celebrated rivers the Euphrates and the Tigris. 



The other gulfs do not afford fuch ftrong features of what 

 are properly termed inland feas. But the vail extent of 

 Afia contains feas totally detached, and of a different de- 

 fcription from any that occur in Europe or other quarters 

 of the world. Such is the Euxine, and likewife the 

 Cafpian, which extends about ten degrees, or 700 miles in 

 length, and from 100 to 200 in brcadtli. Strabo and Pliny 

 idly fuppofed this fea to be a gulf, extending from the 

 northern ocean : though Herodotus, many centuries before, 

 had delivered jufler notions of it. The Cafpian, however, 

 feems, at fome remote period, to have fpread farther to the 

 north, where the deferts are ftill fandy and falme, and pre- 

 fcnt the fame fiiells that are found in the Cafpian ; yet that 

 chain of mountains which branches from the weft of the 

 Urals to tlie north of Orenburg, and reaches to the Volga, 

 mull in all ages have reftrlcled the northern bounds of the 

 Cafpian. To the eaft, this remarkable fea, in the opinion 

 of moft geographers, extended, in times not very diftant, 

 to the Aral. This fea, or lake Aral, a hundred mile» 

 eallv/ard of the Cafpian, is about 200 miles in length, and 

 about 70 miles in breadth ; receiving the river anciently 

 called laxartcs, more recently the Sirr or Sihon, and the 

 river Gihon, the Oxus of antiquity; both ftreams of con- 

 fiderab'c courle, flowing from the mountains Belur Tag 

 or Imaus. The Aral iea being furrounded with fandy 

 deferts, has been little explored ; but it is fait like the 

 Cafpian, having many fmall faline lakes in its vicinity. 



Another remarkable detached lea is the Baikal in Siberia, 

 or Afiatic Ruflia, extending from about the fifty-firft to the 

 fifty-fit'th degree of north latitude, being about 350 Britifli 

 miles in length, though its greateft breadth is not above 35. 

 The water is frcfh and pellucid, yet of a green or fea tinge, 



commonly 



