ABSTRACT
The data brought together by Davis in 1838 on this subject has since been enlarged and illustrated by 001. Yule in his admirable" Preliminary Essay" of 1866, prefixed to Cathay and the Way Thithel', and by Richthofen, the latter half of whose first volume on Ohina is devoted to an exhaustive treatise upon the "Development of the Knowledge of Ohina." I A digest of these elaborate works would be too long for our purpose here,
where only the most interesting points can be noticed. The first recorded knowledge of China among the nations of the West does not date further back than the geographer Ptolemy, A.D. 150, who seems himself to have been indebted to the Tyri~n author Marinus. The Peri plus of the Erythrrean Sea, however, refers to the same land under the name 8LV, or Thin, at perhaps an earlier date. Previous to this time, moreover, accounts of the existence of the land of Confucius, and an appreciation and demand for the splendid silks made there, had reached Per8ia, judging from the legends found in its writers alluding to ancient wars and embassies with China, in which the country, the government, people, and fabrics are invested with a halo of power and wealth which has not yet entirely vanished. These legends strengthen the conclusion that the Prophet Isaiah has the first mention now extant of the Flowery Land under the name Sinirn. The interchange of the initial in Ohina, Thina or Tina, and Sina ought to give no trouble in identifying the land, for such changes in pronunciation are still common in it ; e.g., Ohau-chau fu into Tu-chiu au.
