Page:Ancient Accounts of India and China.djvu/9

 [v] - . -: THE PREFACE. IT feemed to me that the Accounts of &h* Anti- India and China I here prefent to the ffl °f ihe Public, deferved to be retrieved from the r c ?&~ Obfcurity they have hitherto been in ; not which con- only becaufe they are written in a very fo- tain the/e reign Tongue, but alfo becaufe the Origi- two Ac ~ nal Manufcript, which is in the Comte dz comt ^ Seignelay's Library, feenis to be the only one of its kind. Its Age may be fuffici- ently afcertained by the Character it is in* but we have a plain Proof that it was writ- ten in the Year of the Hejra DLXIX, or the Year of Chrifi MCLXXIII : For at the End there are fome Obfervations, of the fame Hand, upon the Extent and Cir- cumference of the Walls and Towers of DamafciiS) and other Cities in fubje&ion to Soltan Nurodditiy fo famous in the Wars Beyond-fea ; and the Writer fpeaks of him as if then living. Now this Prince dyed in the Year above, and fo the Ma- nufcript muft be about 550 Years old. But we may be fatisfied that our two 4? *^' Authors are more ancient, and that the ^tlmL
 * A 3 tWO ten. V