V 



Ketuming to the results before us , we must say that they are extreinely 

 scanty. Some new light is thrown on the ancient internal and international life of 

 the inhabitants of these parts , a mite is added to the little we know of them before 

 the time of European intercourse , and some questionable points of history and geo- 

 graphy are settled ; but this is done in a most defective manner ; at every step we 

 have to regret that particulars of the fust importance have been omitted, and even 

 to arrive at these poor results the reader must go through a great deal of matter , 

 which may seem unimportant or perfectly superfluous to him. This last defect however 

 could not possibly be avoided ; we had no right to curtail our materials , but have 

 tried to lay them before the reader in a faithful translation , in order that he may 

 judge himself what they are worth. 



We may venture to say that the materials at our disposal have been exhaustively 

 treated , but there may be much on this subject in Chinese literature, which we have 

 failed to discover , and we hope that others will eventually assist us in supplying these 

 lacunae. This is the principal reason which made us write in English , therely put- 

 ting ourselves at a disadvantage , Avhich often made itself painfulty feit. Those of 

 our own countrymen , who are engaged in studying Chinese , do not reside in China, 

 and therefore are not in a way to discover new sources , for which we have to look 

 to the numerous foreign sinologues living in China. If written in Dutch, this com- 

 pilation would have remahied uuknowii to them , as has been shown before by a very 

 striking example. Some years ago my colleague Mr. de Grys made a translation of 

 the Hsi Yuan Int , the official handbook on medical jurisprudence ; he was well qual- 

 ihed for his task by his knowledge of Chinese , as well as by his previous medical studies, 

 and so he not only gave a good translation , but also supplied us with a valuable 

 source for medical terms in Chinese. His work however is hardly known to the 

 foreign students in China, and some time ago an attempt at a new translation was 

 made there. 



lt may be that our system of transcribing Chinese souuds seems fanciful at 

 first , but a closer inspection will show that we have foliowed a regular and natural 

 method. The sound of Chinese characters has considerably changed in the course of 

 time , and again there is much difl'ereuce between the various dialects ; it would there- 

 fore have been evidently wrong to take the pronunciation of one period or one dialect. 

 We have rendered the older names , say those previous to the T'ang dynasty , accord- 

 ing to the value we find for Chinese characters of that time in the transcription of 

 Buddhist words ; for names of later time , when transmitted by officials , we have 

 taken the old form of Mandarin ; whilst those which became known by mercantile 

 intercourse, have been read according to the Amoy-dialect , because most Chinese 

 traders hailed from that place or its neighbourhood. 



Eor the convenieuce of those who do not understand Chinese , we have omit- 

 ted all Chinese characters from the body of these pages and only given them in the. 

 notes at the foot. It is for the same class of readers that we have introduced mauy 



