Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/49

 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Four years ago, thanks to the suggestion of the Imperial Geographical Society, warmly seconded by the Minister of War, whose intelligent co-operation in all scientific matters is so well known, I was ap- pointed commander of an expedition to Northern China, with the view of exploring those remote regions of the Celestial Empire, about which our knowledge is of the most limited and fragmentary kind, derived for the most part from Chinese litera- ture, from the descriptions of the great thirteenth- century traveller — Marco Polo, and from the nar- ratives of the few missionaries who have from time to time gained access to these countries. But such facts as are supplied by all these sources of information are so vague and inaccurate that the whole of Eastern High Asia, from the mountains of Siberia on the north to the Himalyas on the sou h, and from the Pamir to China Proper, is as little explored as Central Africa or the interior of New Holland. Even the orography of this vast plateau is most imperfectly known, and as to its physical nature — i.e. its geology, climate, flora, and fauna — we are almost entirely ignorant.