OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN ASIA. 199 



as Indians. In order to estimate these authorities, however, 

 we must consider their dates. It is not till two or three cen- 

 turies after Pliny and Ptolemy, that the name of Serindi oc- 

 curs ; nor is it till the sixth and eighth centuries, that these 

 come to be confounded with the Seres. The decline of the 

 Roman empire, and the irruption of the Turcoman hordes, 

 broke off this grand line of commerce across Asia; silk, then, 

 which had become the luxury of all ranks, was again sold for 

 its weight in gold. The consequence was, that the geography 

 of this part of the world, more than shared the general eclipse 

 in which all branches of science were involved. Of this, the 

 statements of the Ravenna geographer afford the clearest evi- 

 dence. He evidently knew nothing of the coast of India be- 

 yond the Ganges ; and the appellation of India Serica compre- 

 hends, with him, not only the whole interior of Indostan, but 

 the whole of Central and Eastern Asia, to Ractriana inclusive. 

 It is clear, therefore, that he viewed those regions in the man- 

 ner natural to ignorance, as a dim and indistinct mass, the fea- 

 tures of which were all blended together. In regard to other 

 parts of the world, that were at all remote, he displays errors 

 that belong only to the infancy of science. He makes the Cas- 

 pian a gulf of the Northern Ocean ; he extends Britain entire- 

 ly from east to west, making one extremity border on Norway, 

 and the other on Spain. His age seems therefore to be cha- 

 racterised by the almost total extinction, as to all remote re- 

 gions, of those geographical lights which had shone upon the 

 age of Pliny and Ptolemy ; and in preferring his authority to 

 theirs, M. Gosselin prefers, if not darkness, at least deep twi- 

 light, to the light of day. 



With regard to the origin of the name Serinda, it does not 

 appear very difficult to trace. Serica was known to the an- 

 cients as the country of silk ; that substance itself was called 



sericum. 



