Survey of China. Missions to Tibet. Van de Putte. Persia. Iiidia. 188 rough route surveys began to be checked and verified by astronomical observations. The most remarkable ex-aniple of the early application of I these improvements is to be found in the survey of China by the Jesuit missionaries. They first prepared a map of the country round Peking, which was submitted to the emperor Kang-hi, and, being satisfied with the accuracy of the European method of surveying, he resolved to have a survey made of the whole empire on the same principles. This great work was commenced in July 1708, and the coni- pleted inaps were presented to the emperor in 1718. The records preserved in each city were examined, topographical information was diligently collected, and the Jesuit fathers checked their triangulation by meridian altitudes of the sun and pole star, and by a system of reineasuremeiits. The result was a more accurate map of China than existed, at that time, of any country in Europe. Kang—hi next ordered a similar map to be made of Tibet, the survey being exe- cuted by two lamas who were carefully trained as surveyors by the Jesuits at Peking. From these surveys were con- structed the well-knowu maps which were forwarded to Du- halde, and from which D'Anville constructed his atlas. Several European missionaries had previously found their way from India to Tibet. Antonio Andrada, in 1624, was the first European to enter Tibet since the visit of Friar Odoric in 1325. The next journey was that of Fathers Grueber and Dorville about 1660, who succeeded in pass- ing from China, through Tibet, into India. In 1715 Fathers Desideri and Freyre made their way from Agra, across the Himalayas, to Lassa, the capital of Tibet; and the Capuchin Friar Orazio (Iellit Penna resided at Lassa from 1735 until 1747. But the most remarkable journey in this direction was performed by a Dutch traveller named Samuel Van de Putte. He is the only European who has ever completed the journey from India, through Lassa, to China, and returned to India by the same route. He left Holland in 1718, went by l;inil through Persia to India, and eventually made his way to Lassa, where he resided for a long time. He went thence to China, returned to Lassa, and was in India in time to be an eye—witness of the sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah in 1737. In 1743 he left India, and died at Batavia on the 27th of September 1745. The pre- mature death of this illustrious traveller is the more to be lamented because his vast knowledge died with him. Two English missions sent by Warren Hastings to Tibet, one led by Mr George Bogle in 1774, and the other by Captain Turner in 1783, completes the list of Tibetan explorers in the 18th century. From Persia much new information was supplied by Chardin, Taveriiier, Hamilton, Thevenot, and Krusinski, and by English traders on the Caspian. In 1738 John Elton traded between Astrakhan and the Persian port of Enzeli on the Caspian, and undertook to build a fleet for Nadir Shah. Another English merchant, named Jonas Hanway, arrived at Astrabad from Russia, and travelled to the camp of Nadir at Kazvin. One lasting and valuable result of Hanway’s wanderings was a most charming book of travels. The extension of the doiiiinions of the Company largely increased the knowledge of India. In 1700 Guillaume Delisle, the principal creator of the modern system of geography, published his map of the con- tinents of the Old World ; and his successor D’Anville pro- duced his map of India in 1752. D’Anville’s map contained all that was then known, but ten years afterwards Major Rennell commenced his surveying labours, which extended over a period from 1763 to 1782. Ilis survey covered an area 900 miles long by 300 wide, from the eastern confines of Bengal to Agra, and from the Himalayas to Calpi. Rennell was indefatigable in collecting geographical infor- imtioii; his Bengal atlas appeared in 1781, his famous GEOGRAPHY ment ; and after the invention of Hadley's quadrant, these ‘ [PROGRESS OF DI.‘C0']-IRY. map of India in 1783, and the memoir in 1792. Surveys were also made along the Indian coasts, and the charts of lluddcrt, Ritchie, and .I‘Cluer were the forerunners of the more accurate and elaborate productions of the succeeding century. Arabia received very careful attention, in the ISlllAl'(1l;l century, from the Danish scientific mission, which included Carsten Niebuhr among its members. N iebuhr landed at Lolieia, on the coast of Yemen, in December 1762, and went by land to Sana. All the other members of the mission died, and he proceeded from Mocha to Bombay. He then made a journey through Persia and Syria to Constantinople, returning to Copenhagen in 1767. His invaluable work, the 1)esc-ription of Arabia, was published in 1772, and was followed in 1774-78 by two volumes of travels in Asia. The great traveller survived until 1815, when he died at the age of eighty-two. Kinnaird,the contemporary of N iebuhr, was equally devoted to Eastern travel. After studying Arabic and Geez for some years, he went out as consul to Algiers, and resided there from 1762 to 1765, exploring and sketching the Roman ruins in Algiers and Tunis. In 1765 he travelled by Iaiid from Tunis to Tripoli, and then took a passage for Candia, but was shipwrecked near Bengazi, and had to swim on shore. He eventually reached Candia, and, sailing thence to Sidon, travelled through Syria. In June 1768 he landed at Alexandria in the dress of an Arab, and soon afterwards we hear of him at J iddah, the port of Mecca, in the dress of a Turkish sailor. He had resolved to attempt the dis- covery of the source of the Nile; and in 1769 he landed at Massowah, on the Abyssinian coast. He then penetrated to Axum and Gondar, and in November 1770 he reached the source of the Abai, then supposed to be the main stream of the Nile. He thus attained the great object of his ambition. Returning by the desert into Egypt, Bruce reached Eiiglaud in 1774, and settled once more at his old home at Kinnaird after an absence of ten years. Urged by his old friend, Mr Dairies Barrington, the great traveller at length published his frcwcls to Discover the i'>'om'ce oft/ze Nile in the Years 17G8~73 (5 vols. site) in 1790. Bruce, like many other conscientious and deserving explorers, was assailed by caluniiiy and detraction. But every succeeding year has added to the high estimation in which his labours are held, and to the reverence with which his memory is cherished. He died at Kinnziird House, Stii-liiigsliire, in 1794. Before the death of Bruce an African Association was formezl, in 1783, for collecting information respecting the interior of that coiitineiit, with Major Reiinell and Sir Joseph Banks as leading inenibcrs, and Bryan Edwards as secretary. The association first employed a .Ir Ledyard to cross Africa from east to west on the parallel of the Niger, and .Ir Lucas to cross the Sahara to Fezzan. Ledyard, who had previously made a most extraordinary journey into Siberia, died at Cairo in 1788. Lucas went from Tripoli to Mesurata, obtained some information respecting Fezzan, and returned in 1789. One of the chief problems the Association wished to solve was that of the existence and course of the river Niger, which llaxwell believed to be identical with the Congo. James Bruce of Bruce A fl‘iC A $501 tion. iIungo Park, then an assistant Mung surgeon of an Indianian, volunteered his services, which were Pm‘- accepted by the Association, and in 1795 he arrived at the English factory of Pisania, 200 miles up the Gambia. Leaving this station in December he reached Ludamar, where a Moorish chief imprisoned him until the following July. He then crossed a mountainous tract to a Mandingo town called Kanialia. Quite destitute, and suffering from fever, he remained there for several months, but finally found his way back to Pisania, and returned to England.
The interesting narrative of his adventures, with a geo-