Description
Our information concerning the past history of the different peoples of Asia becomes more extensive in proportion as the researches of science into the geography, ethnography, and philology of the countries in question are pushed farther and farther. The Ottoman Empire, though long since in constant communication with all parts of Europe,, only occupied the attention of historians for the first time in the last century, and even then their information was so superficial that the writings of Petis de la Croix and Cantemir only became really trustworthy when confirmed by the later investigations of Hammer and Zinkeisen. The enormous industry of G. Weil sufficed to do ample justice to the annals of Arabia and Egypt, where he had the past alone to deal with ; but the muse of Persian history found no adequate representative until the accomplished General Malcolm, following up the subjects first broached by Thevenot, Chardin, and Niebuhr, came forward to interpret her, after having himself several times traversed the whole of Persia, studied and learnt to know it thoroughly. The country beyond the Oxus still re mains a soil comparatively unknown to history. In the be ginning of this century, a few streaks of light first penetrated to us through the darkness enveloping the whole region; but since then the sword of conquest has lifted the veil considerably, and although our knowledge both of the country & its inhabitants is still very imperfect, it is easy to imagine that great eagerness exists amongst cultivated Europeans for a better acquaintance with the present conditions of existence, and, if possible, for some insight into the early history of that nation of Central Asia which, though geographically so far removed from us, has been brought into close relations with us by recent political events.