Historical Account of Discoveries and Travels in Asia: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (Set of 3 Volumes)

All the forms, both of nature and society, are presented there on a grander scale than in other regions. Its empires are more vast, its capitals more splendid, its population greater perhaps than that of all the rest of the world united. Its palaces, blazing with gold and gems, seem to eclipse all the splendour that shines in the courts of Europe Asia is traversed by mountains which equal, and probably surpass the loftiest chains of other continents, and which look down from their eternal snows on plains covered with magnificent cities, and all the pomp of cultivation. In Asia, all has continued fixed as by enchantment. We see empires, whose origin is lost in the unknown beginnings of time: a system of laws, institutions, and ideas, which has remained unaltered during thousands of years; a picture of the domestic life of man, as it existed in the earliest ages. In regard to arrangement, the following, after some consideration, appeared the most advantageous. The First Book contains "General Travels through Asia," including the narratives of those travellers who went over the larger part of it, or passed from one to another of its great divisions. In the succeeding Books the leading natural divisions of Asia, with travels performed through each, are successively treated of.

Hugh Murray FRSE FRGS (1779-1846) was a Scottish geographer and author. He is often referred to as Hew Murray. He was the younger son of Rev Matthew Murray FRSE (1735-1791), minister of North Berwick Murray entered the Edinburgh excise office as a clerk. On 22 January 1816 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Rev Thomas Brown, John Leslie and John Playfair At this time he was living at 24 Stockbridge, Edinburgh. He was for a time editor of the Scots Magazine, and was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London. His connection with Archibald Constable's Edinburgh Gazetteer caused him to figure in the Tory squib, written by James Hogg and others, called Translation from an Ancient Chaldee MS., which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine for October 1817 Murray died after a short illness.

AMONG the different regions of the globe which have been the object of European re- search, some indeed have excited more of temporary curiosity, but none have been the object of so deep and permanent an interest as the continent of Asia. All the forms, both of nature and society, are presented there on a grander scale than in other regions. Its empires are more vast, its capitals more splendid, its population greater per- haps than that of all the rest of the world united. Its palaces, blazing with gold and gems, seem to eclipse all the splendour that shines in the courts of Europe. Yet this wealth of its plains, and pomp of its kingdoms, leave still room for nature to display her grandeur, her terrors, and her waste. Asia is traversed by mountains which equal, and probably surpass the loftiest chains of other continents, and which look down from their eternal shows on plains covered with magnificent cities, and all the pomp of cultivation. The recesses of these mountains, and the boundless wastes stretching behind them, are occupied by fierce, rude, and daring tribes, widely differing from those by whom its fairer regions are peopled. This continent thus presents throughout the boldest and most striking contrasts; and the path of the traveller is through a never-varying scene, teeming with wild and wonderful adventure. A deep interest must also be excited by that character of antiquity which is so awfully stamped upon it. In Europe all things have changed, and are changing continually; and only a few fading memorials represent to us the world in which our ancestors lived. In Asia, all has continued fixed as by enchantment. We see empires, whose origin is lost in the unknown beginnings of time; a system of laws, institutions, and ideas, which has remained unaltered during thousands of years; a picture of the do- mestic life of man, as it existed in the earliest ages. All the features of form and mind which characterized the citizen of Greece and Rome are for ever obliterated: But the Arabian and the Indian remain the same, outwardly and inwardly, as under Darius and Alexander. Asia, therefore, presents to us, man, not only as he now exists, but as he has been in inany former ages.

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