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You may recollect I pointed out to you, Gentlemen, in the opening of these lectures, the course which the pastoral tribes, or nomads as they are often called, must necessarily take in their emigrations. They were forced along in one direction till they emerged from their mountain valleys, and descended their high plateau at the end of Tartary, and then they had the opportunity of turning south.
This kingdom was bounded on the east by a country named Lusitania, that lies northerly towards the coast of Iceland, so called from the excessive heat of the winter. On the south it was bounded by a slip of land, the name of which has slipped my memory; but it runs into the seas under the dominion of the great chain of Tartary.
The writer was the first to describe China, or Cathay, in its vastness of territory, its wonderfully rich and populous cities, and the first to tell of Tartary, Thibet, Burmah, Siam, Cochin-China, the Indian Archipelago, the Andaman Islands, of Java and Sumatra, of the fabled island of Cipangu, or Japan, of Hindustan, and that marvellous region which the world learned to know as Farther India.
And your Majesty may not thinke that these are like the woods of Hercynia or the wilde deserts of Tartary, and the Northerne coasts full of fruitlesse trees: But they are full of Palme trees, Bay trees, and high Cypresse trees, and many other sorts of trees unknowen in Europe, which yeeld most sweet savours farre from the shoare, the propertie whereof we could not learne for the cause aforesayd, and not for any difficulty to passe through the woods, seeing they are not so thicke but that a man may passe through them.
The Superintendent showed some of his old tendencies, as he went round with us. "Do you know" he broke out all at once "why they don't take steppes in Tartary for establishing Insane Hospitals?" We both confessed ignorance. "Because there are nomad people to be found there," he said, with a dignified smile. He proceeded to introduce us to different Inmates.
They had for many years enjoyed the blessings of profound peace under the government of their king Herman'ric, when they were suddenly alarmed by the appearance of vast hordes of unknown enemies on their northern and eastern frontiers. These were the Huns, a branch of the great Mongolian race, which, from the earliest time, had possessed the vast and wild plains of Tartary.
On seeing this, the dear old woodman fell down on his knee, saying, "O my Princess, O my gracious royal lady, O my rightful Queen of Crim Tartary, I hail thee I acknowledge thee I do thee homage!" And in token of his fealty, he rubbed his venerable nose three times on the ground, and put the Princess's foot on his head.
There is the wonderful Great Wall of China; here is a Chinese lady with a foot littler than mine. There is a wild horse of Tartary; and here most strange of all is a land of ice and snow without green fields, woods, or gardens. In this land they found some mammoth bones; there are no mammoths now. You don't know what it was; but I can tell you, because Graham told me.
Contemporaneous with Dante, one of the most distinguished citizens of this mercantile mart, Marco Polo, impelled by the curiosity which reviving commerce excited and the restless adventure of a crusading age, visited the court of the Great Khan of Tartary, whose empire was the largest in the world.
"I cannot marry him, but I shall love him always," says she to Blackstick; "I will go and be present at his marriage with the Countess, and sign the book, and wish them happy with all my heart. I will see, when I get home, whether I cannot make the new Queen some handsome presents. The Crim Tartary crown diamonds are uncommonly fine, and I shall never have any use for them.
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