1865.] Notes on Central Asia. 117 
not embrace even Djungaria. Their extreme limit was the Chinese 
picket of Baty, on the Irtysh, in 49° N. Latitude, and Humboldt’s 
greatest service in connexion with the geography of the interior of 
Asia consists in the critical elaboration of the materials relating to this 
subject in his classical “ Asie Centrale.”’ 
Some of these materials, namely the itineraries of Asiatic traders, 
who had visited different parts of Asia with caravans, were diligently 
collected at Semipalatinsk by Humboldt, and another portion of his 
materials was derived from Chinese sources that had been elaborated by 
the European Sinologists, Abel Remusat, Klaproth, Schott, Neuemann, 
St. Julien, Father Hyacinth, and others. 
Among the few unscientific eye-witnesses who,in the pursuit of 
trade, penetrated into Inner Asia, were some Russians, and among 
these in point of lucidity, and accuracy of information, the first place 
is undoubtedly occupied by the interpreter Putinsef, who, in 1811, 
visited Kuldja and Chuguchak, the most flourishing towns of Djun- 
garia. The narrative of this journey was published in the “ Siberski 
Vestnik” translated by Klaproth, and served Ritter as one of the 
most valuable sources in elucidating the geography of this region. In 
addition to Putinsef, we may mention the miner Snegiref, who, towards 
the end of the last century, proceeded from the Altai to the neighbour- 
hood of Chuguchak, in search of gold; also the noble Madatof, who, 
in the early part of the present century, successfully reached India, 
starting from Semipalatinsk, and traversing lake Issyk-Kul, the Celestial 
mountains and Little Bokhara. A short account of Snegiref’s journey 
was printed in the ‘‘Siberski Vestnik,”’ but with Madatof’s expedition 
I am acquainted only through official documents preserved in the 
archives at Omsk, and as no original narrative was discovered by me, 
it must be presumed that none ever existed. I also found a short 
marche-route at Semipalatinsk, drawn up by the merchant Bubeninof, 
who, in 1821, proceeded from Semipalatinsk to Kashgar. This 
itinerary will be printed in due season, but from its brevity and 
scantiness of information, it isin no respect more valuable than the 
itineraries already printed and digested by Humboldt and Ritter. 
Such was the unsatisfactory condition of our knowledge of the 
geography of Central Asia in 1831, at the time of the appearance 
of that part of Ritter’s work which relates to it. It was only in 
