This Also, But On A Larger
Scale And In A More Comprehensive Manner, Is An Honest Endeavour To
Represent The Known World On The Basis Of Collected Facts, Casting Aside
All Theories Pseudo-Scientific Or Pseudo-Theological; And A Very
Remarkable Work It Is.
In this map it seems to me Marco Polo's influence,
I will not say on geography, but on map-making, is seen to the greatest
advantage.
His Book is the basis of the Map as regards Central and Further
Asia, and partially as regards India. His names are often sadly perverted,
and it is not always easy to understand the view that the compiler took of
his itineraries. Still we have Cathay admirably placed in the true
position of China, as a great Empire filling the south-east of Asia. The
Eastern Peninsula of India is indeed absent altogether, but the Peninsula
of Hither India is for the first time in the History of Geography
represented with a fair approximation to its correct form and
position,[11] and Sumatra also (Java) is not badly placed. Carajan,
Vocian, Mien, and Bangala, are located with a happy conception of their
relation to Cathay and to India. Many details in India foreign to Polo's
book,[12] and some in Cathay (as well as in Turkestan and Siberia, which
have been entirely derived from other sources) have been embodied in the
Map. But the study of his Book has, I conceive, been essentially the basis
of those great portions which I have specified, and the additional matter
has not been in mass sufficient to perplex the compiler.
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