174 ON THE ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY 



almost every class of society. The reports of the caravan mer- 

 chants were collected and committed to writing by Marinus of 

 Tyre, whose compositions have perished ; but the corrected 

 substance of them is found in the great geographical work of 

 Ptolemy. The statements of Ptolemy, therefore, combined 

 with some supplementary information from Pliny and Ammi- 

 anus, must form the authority on which this question is to be 

 decided. 



The earliest modern opinion which I find stated upon this 

 subject, is, that Serica was Cambalu, or the kingdom of the 

 Great Khan, that is, the original dominion of Zingis. China, 

 then, was the Sin arum Begio. Before the time of D'Anville, 

 however, the prevalent sentiment came to be, that the northern 

 part of China was the seat of the Seres, the southern that of 

 the Since. Vossius goes farther, and declares that he who 

 doubts if the ancient Seres be the modern Chinese, may doubt 

 as reasonably if the sun that shone then be the sun that shines 

 now. As that learned and acute writer, however, has not ex- 

 plained the ground on which so peremptory an opinion was 

 formed, it has not met with the attention which perhaps it me- 

 rited. D'Anville was the first who applied to this question 

 that careful and systematic analysis which forms the only true 

 mode of solution. Having brought the Sinae to Cambodia, he 

 carried westward also the position of the Seres. Pie assigned 

 to them an extensive region of eastern Tartary, reaching from 

 the territory of the Eygurs, or Igours, to the north-western 

 frontier of China, of which it included only the projecting 

 corner of the province of Chensi. Mr Pinkerton goes still 

 farther, and places Serica in Little Bucharia. But M. Gosse- 

 lin, with his usual boldness, has struck out an entirely new 

 path. He finds Serica in the north of India, in the district 

 of Serinagur, including a portion of Thibet. 



The 



