183S0 



Memoir on tits Indian Surveys. 



427 



same period, in connexion with the religious persuasions of the 

 Christians, the Mohrimmedans, and the Booddhi^ts. The peculiar en- 

 couragement thus held out to the cultivation of the L& tm hy Char- 

 lemagne and his immediate successors in France and Geimany; of 

 the Arahic hy the Khalifs Almunsoor, Haroun Alraschid, and Mamoon ; 

 and hy the respective sovereigns of India, Thibet, aiad China, of the 

 Sanskrit, Pali, and Thibetian languages ;—ihese were eminent 

 though unconscious precursors of those subsequent discoveries, to 

 which we now recur with especial admiration. 



Geographical science furnishes also another and appropriate illustra- 

 tion of this fact. The simultaneous exertions of many individuals 

 W'holly unknown to each other, to institute inquiries preparatory to that 

 enlarged and more exact acquaintance with the relative situation 

 of countries and objects on the surface of the globe, ils precise form, 

 dimensions, distribution, and local peculiarities ; these all have fol- 

 lowed successively at intervals, as investigations supposed to have 

 originated in fortuitous circumstances which some one or other of the 

 foregoing causes had contributed to elicit or suppress. This view of 

 the matter, however discursive it may be thought by such as are indis- 

 posed to general reflections, is of consideration chiefly, and indeed 

 solely, as it shows us the position we actually occupy, while it presents 

 us with a cheering and magnificent prospect of w hat is yet to be 

 eflfected and anticipated in this most essential article of information. 



The most striking feature of these investigations is suflficiently ex- 

 emplified in the progress of geographical discovery from the fifteenth 

 century, when the long dormant energies of the descendants of the 

 PhoRnicians, or the jealousy and rivalry of other nations prevailed with 

 the Spaniards and the Portuguese to wrest the commerce of the East 

 from the hands of the Venetians, or to strike out new and unex- 

 plored paths for industry, enterprise, and social intercourse, in sub- 

 servience to the spread of what was usually held out to be the para- 

 mount design, the communication of religious truth. The great object 

 of the Portuguese, in point of fact, may probably be referred to their 

 anxiety to dispossess the Venetians of their important commercial ad- 

 vantages in Egypt. The memorable treaty of that people with the 

 Mamelukes, and their arrangements to defend the desert against the 

 Portuguese, sutficiently demonstrate the real spirit of the restrictions 

 to the first navigation to India. The severe system of taxation impos- 

 ed by Sultan Selim, who conquered Egypt in 1512, and the avarice of 

 his successors, contributed also to engage the Portuguese to follow up 

 the> discovery of India by that of still more remote lands— for then 



