Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/434

422 were for a long time interrupted. Languor and apathy seemed to succeed the strange activity that had drawn together and mingled so many nations, and when the taste for travelling revived, it assumed an entirely dif- ferent character.

Navigation had made great progress ; men ventured boldly out over the surface of great oceans, instead of visiting their coasts or the interior of continents, as in the preceding ages ; but neither religion nor politics en- tered into the views of these new explorers of unknown lands, and commercial interests alone gave the impulse to their long and perilous voyages.

Their narratives, therefore, treat of little else than the tariff of their merchandise, their imports and ex- ports, matters which, though doubtless interesting to commercial readers, are foreign to the purpose of the present history, and would not add to it any special charm.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

London:

Printed by Spottiswoode & Co.

New-street Square.