ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to the zeal with which Buddhist monks wandered for centuries forth from China, through regions so remote, and among perils of so trying a nature, that the journey of Hoei-shin and of his predecessors seems, comparatively a pleasure-trip. It proposes to make some slight mention, supposing that a little account of such writings would be acceptable, as bearing on the character of the first discoverers of America. Chief in the work of translation from these journals is the celebrated Chinese scholar Stanislas Julien, whose versions of Buddhist travels into French fill over 1500 octavo pages. Buddhistic work was entitled, in the original Chinese, Si-yu-tchi-lou-chi-kouen, Hoa-thou-sse-chi-kiouen. This work has been called a description of the Chinese Empire, but from the exact account of it which has been published, it was evidently the one spoken of by Julien.