2 
EARLY EUROPEAN RESEARCHES 
I.—BOTANICAL INFORMATION WITH RESPECT 
TO CHINA SUPPLIED BY THE JESUITS. 
I may premise, although these facts are generally known, that, 
after the Portuguese had made their appearance in Chinese 
waters in the beginning of the 16th century (Raphael Pestrello 
in 1516, Ferd. Andrade 1517), they subsequently established 
factories at Ningpo, carrying on trade also with Amoy. Besides 
this they settled near Canton and at Macao which latter place 
on account of its favourable situation soon became the basis 
and the starting point for the commercial enterprises of the 
Portuguese in Eastern Asia. It is also well known that 
Frcmciscus Xavier was the first Jesuit missionary, who ventured 
to visit China in 1552, but he died in the same year on an is¬ 
land called Sant^ian in sight of the Chinese coast. Nearly 30. 
years elapsed before a new attempt was made by the Jesuits to 
gain a footing in China. From 1581 to 1583 they sent suc¬ 
cessively four missionaries to Macao. One of them was 
Matlhaeus Ricci, who holds one of the most conspicuous places 
in the history of the Chinese missions. By persevering efforts 
he obtained permission to reside at Peking, where he arrived 
in A.D. 1600. At the time of Ricci’s death, in 1610, the 
number of Jesuit missionaries in China had already considerably 
increased and we find them then working in many parts of the 
Empire, (besides Pehing), namely at Canton, at Shao choufu 
(Kuang tung province), at Nanking, Shanghai, Su cJiou fu, 
Sung kiang fu (all in the province of Kiang nan [Kiang su]), 
in which they then had altogether 90 churches; at Hang chau 
fu (Che kiang prov.) ; at Nan cliang fu (Kiang si prov.). In 
the provinces of Hu kuang and Sze ch‘uan they had also built 
many churches and it appears, that at that time there were 
missionaries also in Fu choufu and in some places of the 
province of Shan si. They were not only assiduously labouring 
to learn the language and to preach the gospel, bqt they 
employed themselves also in acquiring knowledge of the customs 
of the people and their literary works and they directed their 
attention likewise to the features of the country and its natural 
productions etc. The Jesuit missionaries have always had the 
well-merited reputation of great learning and of a classical and 
scientific education; and it seems that those, who were sent to 
convert the Chinese, had been especially trained with the 
object of convincing the latter, by means of striking experiments. 
