P R E F A C E .
T h e Voyage which is here presented to the public has no pretensions to
new discoveries, and can boast but little of its collection of new and important
facts. It will conduct the reader precisely over the same ground
which a much abler writer has previously occupied in “ The Authentic
Account of an Embassy to C h i n a and in whose hands were placed, in
fact, a great part of the materials of which it is composed. The expectation,
therefore, of new discoveries and extraordinary occurrences, which
in books of voyages and travels is alone sufficient to keep the attention
constantly on the stretch, should only be indulged to a moderate degree in
the perusal of the present work. Yet although the ground may already have
been trodden, the range is so extensive, the prospects §o various, and the
objects so numerous, that new scenes are not difficult to) be exhibited, nor
those before observed to be sketched in different positions, as seen from
different points of view. The lapse of ten or twelve years, having materially
changed the aspect of the political horizon rn every part of the
world, has also given scope for new suggestions ‘ and reflections which
could not exist when the voyage was made, but which are particularly applicable
to the present time. Besides, every foreign country, though it
may have been visited by fifty different voyagers, will still present something
new for the observation of the fifty-first. Such a variety of objects pass before
the view of an attentive traveller, affording so wide a range for observation
and reflection, that there is little ganger of the materials being speedily