INTRODUCTION. 



The history of Eastern Asia , its geography and its people , before the time of 

 European intercourse , are subjects on which so little is known , that the very defective 

 narratives of the Arabian travelers of the 9th century , of Marco Polo and lbn Batuta, 

 must be considered as works of the first importance. 



In the midst of this unknown world , we fiud the Chinese empire with its an- 

 cient civilisation , which has never been violently interrupted, and with a literature 

 on various subjects , nearly equally old, and handed down to our days in an unbroken 

 series. It is evident that this is a source where further kuowledge on the subject 

 may be sought. 



We do not claim to be the first who have seen this; on the contrary, it is a 

 fact already proved by many others. Rémusat and Julien for instance, translating 

 from Chinese sources , have supplied us with an amount of information about the 

 ancient geography of Hindustaii , for which it would be vain to look in all the books 

 of that country itself. 



Neither has the Malay archipelago been forgotten : in Vol. XIV of the Mé- 

 moires concernant les Chinois we fmd an article on Java from the hand of father Amiot ; 

 from Dr. G. Schlegel we have Iets omtrent de betrekkingen der Chinezen met Java voor 

 de komst der Europeanen aldaar. Batavia, 1870 , and Léon de Eosny gave us Les 

 peuples de V archipel indien , connus des anciens ge'ographes Chinois et Japonais; fragments 

 orientaux traduits en francais. Paris, 1872. 



After our compilation was finished , we have seen the articles of Mr. W. E. 

 Mayers on the Chinese Explorations of the Indian Ocean during the 15th Century , in 

 last year's China Be view. Mr. Mayers in these also touches on the subject before us , 

 and it will be seen that in a few cases liis identification of localities differs from 

 ours. As we probably had more resources for the purpose than were at the disposal 

 of Mr. Mayers , we think it no presumption to expect that he will be himself the first 

 to share our views. 



Our task however has not become superrluous by these previous attempts. The 

 texts translated by Amiot and Schlegel were both compositions of a Chinese official 

 and seem to have been copied from some Chinese cyclopedia, with such abbreviations 

 an embellishmeuts of style , as were thought desirable by a man who knew very 

 little or nothing about the subject. 



