scourge,
during many centuries, of all the surrounding countries, from the sea of
Japan to the Baltic, and from the Frozen Ocean, to the seas of China,
India, Persia, Arabia, and Roum, or the Mediterranean.

The present edition has been carefully corrected and enlarged, by collation
with the abstract which Forster published from the Dutch translation by
Witsen. This journal gives many curious remarks on the magnificence of the
Chinese court, and respecting the ceremonial observed in giving audience to
ambassadors, which still continue nearly the same. The editor of Astley
labours hard to explain away the want of notice In these travels, and in
the repeated journeys of Marco Polo, respecting the great Chinese wall. But
the only rational explanation of this omission, is the clear conclusion
that it was not then built. We learn from this narrative, that the paper
money of the former Mogul Khans of Kathay was no longer in use, and that
silver money, under the same denomination of Balishes, had been substituted
in its place.

[1] Astley IV. 621. Forst. Voy. and Disc. 158.

[2] I suspect this learned Dutchman has been sometimes quoted in Latin, by
the name of Candidius.--E.

SECTION I.

_The Journey of the Ambassadors from Herat to Khanbalek, and their
reception at the Court of the Emperor of Kathay_.

In the year of the Hejirah 822, or 1419 of the Christian era, the Sultan
Mirza Shah Rokh, king of Persia, sent ambassadors from Herat, his royal
residence, to the emperor of Kathay, or China, of whom Shadi Khoja was the
chief. At the same time, Mirza Baysangar, the son of Shah Rokh, sent Soltan
Ahmet, and a painter named Khoja Gayath Addin, to accompany his fathers
ambassadors, giving orders to his servants to keep an exact journal of
their travels, and to take notice of every thing that was remarkable in
every city and country they travelled through; carefully noting the nature
of the roads, the police, and customs of the people, and the magnificence
and government of the various sovereigns. Leaving Herat[1] on the 11th of
the month Zi'lkaa-deh[2], the ambassadors arrived at Balkh on the 8th of
Zi'lhejjeh, where they were detained by the rains till the first of
Moharram, in the year 823 of the Hejira[3], or Thursday, 16th January 1420;
on which day they departed from Balkh, and arrived in twenty-two days
journey at Samarkand. They here found Soltan Shars, and Mehemmed Bakhshi,
the ambassadors of Ulug-Beg[4], wh