Page:To the Court of the Emperor of China - vol I.djvu/7



HE more distant the Regions which the Traveller describes, the more they differ in their moral and physical nature from the nations for whose instruction and gratification he destines his observations, the more important is it to the reader to know in what degree his confidence is due to the man who speaks to him of what is passing in remote countries, and almost at the other end of the world.

It is particularly in respect to China that the Fear of receiving the productions of an imagination more or less fertile for a true recital is easily awakened. That immense Empire is so little known; the prejudices of its inhabitants, or rather the wisdom of its government, has thrown so many obstacles in the way of those Europeans who might feel a desire to penetrate into the country in order to satisfy their curiosity and to examine what imperfect and hasty sketches have given them a faint idea of, that if it is easy to give imaginary