of the former tedious navigation clofe along the coaft, the veffels, wafted by the favourable-Monfoon, reached the Indian continent in forty days from Okelis, here mentioned as a more safe and sheltered port than Kané. The space traversed. from fhore to fhore is ftated at nineteen hundred miles, which at the rate of forty-feven miles a day, was accomplished in that period, though at prefent the run, we are informed, feldom exceeds fifteen. P. 427. A variety of interefting obfervations relative to the fluctuations of the Monfoons, the time taken to deliver the cargo, and re-lade the veffels on the Indian fhore, ftated to have been about two months, from the beginning of October to the early part of December, but never later than a little before the ides, or the 13th of January; and the return to Berenice, or Arfinoe, (Suez) in the Arabian gulf, fills up the remainder of this eleventh head; and the extent, as well as the minutenefs of thofe obfervations refpecting a voyage made two thousand years ago, muft, at once, gratify and aftonifh the Oriental mariner. At the twelfth head we approach Cape COMORIN and the COLCHI, recognized fo eafily under their very refembling Greek appellations of Kouag and Koλxo. Comar is faid to Κολχοι. derive its name from CUMARI, a virgin deity, the Diana of the Hindoos, whofe worfhip confifted in repeated ablutions and a vow of celibacy. Some remains of the convent and the fuperftition are yet to be met with near the fpot. There was formerly at this point of land an harbour, with a fortrefs and a garrifon. At Colchi are the celebrated pearl fisheries, or rather at the adjoining ifle of MANAR (the Epiodorus of the Greeks) and prefided over at different periods by natives, Portuguese, Dutch, and English. To the Portuguese and Dutch they used to produce only 20,000l. a year; in 1797, under the fuperior management of the English, their produce was 150,000l. For an account of this trade, and the manner of procuring the pearl-oyfters, the reader is referred to the fifth volume of Afiatic Researches. Under the thirteenth, and final head of this book, the celebrated island of CEYLON is moft extenfively difcuffed, a welcome present to the learned orientalift! Its various names, in number no less than 17, occurring in Hindoo, Greek, and Latin writers, are firft confidered, and of thefe Lanca, Taprobana, and Singalla-dweepa being Sanfereet, or compounded of Sanfcreet words, are in moft elteem with the learned author. Its length, according to Rennell, is 280 miles, its breadth 150, its circumference 660. As much of its civil hiftory, as can be collected from ancient writers of every country, is then given; the natural hiftory of the ifland, as far as relates to its exported . . II exported produce, and particularly its famous cinnamon, fol-' lows next; its capes, its havens, its mountains, and rivers, fucceed in order; and the author concludes the interefting narration in these words. "Such is the account that has appeared neceffary to be stated. relative to the ancient fituation of this celebrated ifland. The modern hiftory of it may be obtained from Baldeus, Valentine, Knox, Ribeyro, Harris, Hugh Boyd, Le Beck; Captains Mahoney, Colin M'Kenfie, and Percival. And I cannot conclude my commentary on the Periplûs without pleafure from the reflec. tion, that the valuable commerce of this island is now in the pof. feffion of Britain; or without expreffing a most anxious wifh, that the country deemed a terreftrial Paradife by the Oriental writersthe repofitory of cinnamon, cloves, betel, camphor, gold, filver, pearls, rubies, and the other most precious commodities of the world-may find protection, happinefs, and fecurity, under the British government. And may the expulfion of the Mahomedans, Portuguese, and Hollanders, be an admonition to us, that conqueft obtained by arms can alone be rendered permanent by equity, juf. tice, and moderation." P. 468. As in Dr. Vincent's opinion, for which he affigns fatisfactory reafons, the author of the Periplus never went perfonally farther in this voyage than Nelcunda, the emporium of the kingdom of Pandion, he referved for a separate difcuffion that portion of it which relates to places on the east of the peninfula. The reports of others, he obferves, are the fole foundation of all which follows; and after quitting Colchi, those reports grow fo vague and indeterminate, as to lofe their claim to any very circumftantial notice. In a SEQUEL, however, to this book, he has gone into confiderable detail relative to thofe parts, and we regret, from the great length of this article, that we are unable to follow him farther in his refearches, with that minutenefs which his learned labours fo well deferve. The text is given above, with occafional interlineations to render it more connected and intelligible, and the remarks are added below. They are always judicious, always to the purpose, and fhow a vaft extent of reading, happily applied to illumine a very obfcure and perplexed subject; but they admit of neither abridgment nor extract. In the * "Mahony's, Le Beck's, and M'Kenzie's Narratives, are in the Afiatic Researches, vol. vi. p. 425. vol. v. p. 393. and vol. vii. p. 32.; H. Boyd's, in the Ind. An. Regifter 1799; they are all valuable, and worth confulting." 2 SEQUEL SEQUEL are alfo given three Differtations; the first of a nature that must inftantly arreft the attention of every eastern scholar and politician; ON THE SINE, OR SERES, that is, the Chinefe, their filk manufactures, and the immenfe traffic which they anciently carried on, in that article, with the remoteft countries; the fecond, ON THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER OF EZEKIEL, difplaying the astonishing commerce of Tyre in Indian and Arabian merchandize, and, particularly, in thofe articles which are the fubject of the various differtations in this volume, Cinnamon, Kafia, Gums, Aloes, Myrrh, and Frankincenfe; the third, and not the leaft important, ON THE NAVIGATION AND COMPASS OF THE CHINESE, BY LORD MACARTNEY. The APPENDIX contains a catalogue of the ARTICLES OF COMMERCE, mentioned in the DIGEST OF THE ROMAN LAW, and in THE PERIPLUS, alphabetically arranged, and confequently referred to with the greater eafe. From the first of thefe Differtations we present the reader with the fixth and seventh heads, containing an account of the ancient and modern intercourfe between China, India, and Europe. "But if filk was brought from the Sêres to India, there were but two means of conveyance-by land, or by fea. Both are fpe. cified in the Periplûs; for the author informs us, first, that the raw material and the fabric itfelf were conveyed by land, through Bactria, to Barugáza or Guzerat, and by the Ganges to Limúrikè. -But, omitting this for the prefent, let us examine what is in tended by the route that is described through Bactria to Guzerat. A reference to the map will immediately fhew us, that Balk, or Bactria, lies almoft directly north of the western fources of the Indus; and as we know that the caravans at this day pass out of India into Tartary at Cabul, fo is it plain that this was the ufual courfe of communication, from the earliest times; and that the filks of China then came the whole length of Tartary, from the Great Wall into Bactria; that from Bactria they paffed the mountains to the fources of the Indus, and then came down that river to Patala or Barbárikè, and from hence to Guzerat. "Ptolemy has given us the detail of this immenfe inland communication; for, beginning from the Bay of Iffus in Cilicia, he informs us, from the account of Marinus, that the route croffed Mefopotamia, from the Euphrates to the Tigris, at the height of Hierapolis; then through the Garamæi of Allyria, and Media, to Ecbatana and the Cafpian Pass; after this, through Parthia to Hecatompylos; from Hecatompylos to Hyrcania; then to Antioch in Margiana; and hence, through Aria, into Bactria. In this province, the line of Marínus falls in with that of Periplûs; and from this it paffes through the mountainous country of the Kô X BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXVII. MARCH, 1806. mêdi; mêdi; then through the territory of the Saca to the Stone Tower, and to the station of those merchants who trade with the Sêres: from this ftation the route proceeds to the Cafii or Cashgar, and through the country of the Itagûri, or Eyghurs of d'Anville, till it reaches Sêra Metropolis, the capital of China itself. The extent of this communication, which is in a right line upwards of four thousand miles, would have been protracted by the estimate of Marinus to double the space to which it is reduced by Prolemy, and yet Ptolemy makes it ninety degrees, or upwards of fix thou fand miles. But contracted as it is by modern geography, it is aftonishing that any commodity, however precious, could bear the expence of fuch a land-carriage; or that there should have been found merchants in the Roman empire, who engaged in this com merce throughout its whole extent-who actually conveyed the produce of China by land to the Mediterranean, without the intervening agency of the nations which poffeffed the countries through which it paffed. But this is a fact actually preferved by Ptolemy; for he informs us from Marínus, that Maes, a Macedo nian, whofe Roman name was Titianus, did not indeed perform the journey himself, but that he sent his agents through the whole extent of this extraordinary peregrination. "In what ftate the Tartar nations then were, which could admit of fuch a traffic through all thefe different regions, it is now extremely difficult to determine; for though caravans have paffed within these few years between China and Ruffia, and though there was a communication, and perhaps ftill is, between that empire and Samarkand, as alfo with the Ufbecks, this was carried on by the natives of the refpective countries, and afforded no paffage for merchants to pass throughout, from one extremity of Afia to the other. VII. MODERN ROUTE-MARCO POLO, RUBRUquis, There was a period indeed, during the time of Zingis and his immediate fucceffors, when the power of the Mongoux extended from the Sea of Amour to Poland and the Euxine; and when there was a regular intercourse, by established pofts, throughout this vaft extent; by means of this, Marco Polo, his uncle, and his father, Rubruquis, Carpin, and others, actually reached the court of Cambalu, and returned again by paffports from the emperor. It was Marco Polo, the firft of modern travellers who brought to Europe any confiftent account of this vaft empire-who entered China by the north, and returned by fea to Bengal. His route outwards is not eafy to trace, because his defcriptions diverge both to the right and to the left; but it is highly probable that he entered China nearly by the fame route as Goez did, from Kashgar: this would have brought him to Sochieu, or fome other town in the neighbourhood, to reach which he might not have paffed the Great Wall. But if this would account for his not mentioning it in the first inftance, it does not folve the difficulty; for the court of Coblai, like that of Kien-long the late emperor, was a Tartar court, frequently kept in Tartary as well as China; and during the many years which he attended Coblai, he must have been in both. He did not bring the name of China to Europe, but Cathai and Mangi only, because he obtained those appellations alone which were in ufe among the Tartars; and it was feveral centuries later, before it was known that Cathai and China were the fame. We are contending here only for the existence of the communication, and endeavouring to fhew, that in the middle ages it was the fame, or fimilar to that of the ancients. But from the time when the Empire of the Tartars broke into feparate governments, no travellers or merchants from Europe dared to attempt the dangers and exactions which muft have attended them at every step, and when the progrefs of Mahomedifm, in these northern courts, brought on an additional fufpicion and hoftility againft every Christian who should have entered their country. "The only attempt in later times, that I am acquainted with, is that of Benedict Goez, a Portugueze Jefuit, who left Agra in the beginning of 1603, and proceeded by Lahore to Cabul; and from Cabul, by way of Balk and Badakshan, to Cashgar. At Cafhgar, the caravans from India met those which came from China; but fo difficult was it to proceed, that though Goez obtained the protection of the king of Cafhgar, he did not reach So chieu, the first city within the wall of China, till the end of the year 1605; and at Sochieu he closed his life and his travels, in March 1607, without having obtained permiffion to go up to Pe kin, or join his brethren who were established in that capital. "The undertaking of Goez is one of the moft meritorious, and his account one of the most interefting, that is extant; for it is a regular journal kept of his progrefs, fpecifying every country, and every place, through which he paffed. The enumeration of the days he travelled is three hundred and ninety, befide some that we cannot ascertain, and exclufive of the delays he met with at various ftations. But from him we learn, that Sochieu was the fame fort of mart for the caravans of Cashgar, as Kiachta is for the Ruffians; that it was inhabited half by Chinese and half by Mahomedans; that the merchants of Cafhgar were admitted into China, and fuffered to go up to Pekin only under the colour of an embaffy; that they brought prefents, which the Chinese called Tribute, every fixth year; that from the time they paft the frontier, the empe ror bore the charge of the embaffy; and that the articles of com. merce brought from Cafhgar, were beautiful flabs of jafper, or variegated marble, and fomething that appears to be the agate, which we know, from Lord Macartney's account, the Chinese value fo highly at the prefent day. Throughout the whole, the courage, perfeverance, addrefs, and patience of Goez, place him in the higheft rank of travellers: he was deferted by all his companions but an Armenian boy, of the name of Ifaac; and Ifaac was fo fortunate as to reach Pekin, from whence he was fent to Maçao, where X 2 - he |