— 2 — 



of the merchants and marmers of the southern provinces Pukian and Kwangtung , who 

 then, as now, had the monopoly of foreign trade, might have remained unknown to 

 those who collected materials for history in other parts of the country ; by this argument 

 the loss of much information might be accounted for , but it would remain improbable 

 that everything had disappeared , without leaving any tracé. And though the following 

 extracts , extremely scanty and defective , especially in the beginning , do not teil us 

 directly at what time- the Chinese began to navigate and to establish themselves in these 

 parts , we have a valuable indication in the travels of the Buddhist pilgrim Pahien , who 

 visited Java in 413. He had traveled overland to India and arrived from Ceylon in an 

 Indian vessel. He found no Chinese in Java and returned to China in an Indian ship 

 again. "We shall revert more amply to this traveler when treating of Java, but here 

 already we may say that the Chinese , in his time at least , had not yet penetrated to 

 that country. 



On the other hand we have numerous reasons to believe, that the Indians and 

 Persians went to China by sea at a very early date; we see it in the itinerary of 

 Pahien, mentioned just now, we see it on many other pages of the geographical liter- 

 ature of the time and, lastly, all this is fully confirmed by indications derived from 

 other sources. The knowledge of Rome and Roman products were brought to China 

 in this way, if not by Romans themselves, at least by Roman subjects. 



We may therefore feel sure not to be far from" the truth, when we say that 

 the Indians and Persians reached China a little before the commencement of our era, 

 that the Chinese began to trade towards the south about that time also, but that 

 they arrived in the Malay archipelago certainly not before the fifth century, probably 

 even later, for their first notices of these countries look as if they had been obtained 

 from hearsay, rather than from personal knowledge. 



There are still many subjects which might fmd a place amongst these prelim- 

 inary observations , but we prefer the plan of reserving them untill they naturally 

 present themselves in the course of the following pages, when they may be treated 

 in explanatory notes as the case requires. We only add two passages from the Chinese 

 Dynastie Histories, which, though not giving any details about the parts. we are con- 

 sidering, still are the first mentioning them at all. They will also be found to teil 

 something of that earliest intercourse, about which we have ventured to express an 

 opinion just now. 



History of the first Sung dynasty (420 — 478). Book 91 p. 1. 



The southern and south-Avestern barbarians live, generally speaking, 

 to the south and south-west of the land of the Giau-chi (*) and also inhabit 



(') The Giau-cld lived in nortliern Aimain or Tuugkhig; the Chinese called their country ^ 

 RjJ^ or by abreviatkm, as here, ^^ M\ ( 



