1809-10: with an account of the Portuguese Settlements on the east
coast of Africa. 4to. 1814.
678. Pearce's true account of the ways and manners of the Abyssinians. (In
the Transactions of the Bombay Society, vol. 2.)
These two works have extended our knowledge of Abyssinia, especially of
the moral state of the people, much beyond what it might have been
expected we should have acquired regarding a country formerly so
inaccessible. Mr. Salt's zeal, and opportunities of information and
observation, have left little to be desired: and from Mr. Pearce, who
resided fourteen years in the country, many particulars may be gathered,
which only a long residence, and that intimacy and amalgamation with the
natives which Mr. Pearce accomplished, can furnish accurately, minutely,
and fully.
VIII. ASIA.
Several circumstances concurred to direct the travels of the dark and
middle ages to Asia. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land; - the wish to
ingratiate the Tartar chiefs, which was naturally felt by the European
powers, when the former were advancing towards the western limits of
Asia; and subsequently, and perhaps consequently, the spirit of
commercial enterprise, were amongst the most obvious and influential
circumstances which led to travels into this quarter of the world, from
the ninth to the fifteenth centuries.
