Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century. Verne Jules
past the valley of Dhoun, to Cadjani, near Reital. Leaving this spot upon the 28th of May, 1817, Captain Hodgson reached the source of the Ganges in three days, and proceeded to Gangautri. He found that the river issues from a low arch in the midst of an enormous mass of frozen snow, more than 300 feet high. The stream was already of considerable size, being no less than twenty-seven feet wide and eighteen inches deep. In all probability the Ganges first emerged into the light at this spot.
Captain Hodgson wished to solve various questions; for example: – What was the length of the river under the frozen snow? Is it the product of the melting of these snows? or did it spring from the ground? But, wishing to explore further upwards than his guides advised, the traveller sank into the snow up to his neck, and had to retrace his steps with great difficulty. The spot from which the Ganges issues is situated 12,914 feet above the level of the sea, in the Himalayas.
Hodgson also explored the source of the Jumna. At Djemautri the mass of snow from which the river makes its escape is no less than 180 feet wide and more than forty feet deep, between two perpendicular walls of granite. This source is situated on the south-east slope of the Himalayas.
The extension of the British power in India was necessarily attended by considerable danger. The various native States, many of which could boast of a glorious past, had only yielded in obedience to the well-known political principle "divide and govern," ascribed to Machiavelli. But the day might come when they would merge their rivalries and enmities, to make common cause against the invader.
This was anything but a cheering prospect for the Company, whose policy it was to maintain the system that had hitherto worked so well. Certain neighbouring States, still powerful enough to regard the growth of the British power with jealousy, might serve as harbours of refuge to the discontented, and become the centres of dangerous intrigues. Of all these neighbouring States that which demanded the strictest surveillance was Persia, not only on account of its contiguity to Russia, but because Napoleon was known to have designs in connexion with it which nothing but his European wars prevented him from putting into execution.
In February, 1807, General Gardane, who had gained his promotion in the wars of the Republic, and had distinguished himself at Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau, was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Persia, with instructions to ally himself with Shah Feth-Ali against England and Russia. The selection was fortunate, for the grandfather of General Gardane had held a similar post at the court of the shah. Gardane crossed Hungary, and reached Constantinople and Asia Minor; but when he entered Persia, Abbas Mirza had succeeded his father Feth-Ali.
The new shah received the French ambassador with respect, loaded him with presents, and granted certain privileges to Catholics and French merchants. These were, however, the only results of the mission, which was thwarted by the English General Malcolm, whose influence was then paramount; and Gardane, disheartened by finding all his efforts frustrated, and recognizing that success was hopeless, returned to France the following year.
His brother Ange de Gardane, who had acted as his secretary, published a brief narrative of the journey, containing several curious details respecting the antiquities of Persia, which have been, however, largely supplemented by works brought out by Englishmen.
The French Consul, Adrien Dupré, attached to Gardane's mission, also published a work, under the title of "Voyage en Perse, fait dans les années 1807 à 1809, en traversant l'Anatolie, la Mésopotamie, depuis Constantinople jusqu'à l'extremité du golfe Persique et de là à Irwan, suivi de détails sur les moeurs, les usages et le commerce des Persans, sur la cour de Téhéran et d'une notice des tribus de la Perse." The book bears out the assertions of its title, and is a valuable contribution to the geography and ethnography of Persia.
The English, who made a much longer stay in the country than the French, were better able to collect the abundant materials at hand, and to make a judicious selection from them.
Two works were long held to be the chief authorities on the subject. One of these was by James Morier, who availed himself of the leisure he enjoyed as secretary to the embassy to acquaint himself with every detail of Persian manners, and on his return to England published several Oriental romances, which obtained a signal success, owing to the variety and novelty of the scenes described, and the fidelity to nature of every feature, however minute.
The second of the two volumes alluded to above was the large quarto work by John Macdonald Kinneir, on the geography of Persia. This book, which made its mark, and left far behind it everything previously published on the subject, not only gives, as its title implies, very valuable information on the boundaries of the country, its mountains, rivers, and climate, but also contains interesting and trustworthy details respecting its government, constitution, army, commerce, animal, vegetable, and mineral productions, population, and revenue.
After giving an exhaustive and brilliant picture of the material and moral resources of the Persian Empire, Kinneir goes on to describe its different provinces, quoting from the mass of valuable documents accumulated by himself, thus making his work the most complete and impartial yet issued.
Kinneir passed the years 1808 to 1814 in travelling about Asia Minor, Armenia, and Kurdistan; and the different posts held by him during that period were such as to give him exceptional opportunities for making observations and comparing their results. In his several capacities as captain in the service of the Company, political agent to the Nawab of the Carnatic, or private traveller, his critical acumen was never at fault; and his wide knowledge of Oriental character and Oriental manners, enabled him to recognize the true significance of many an event and many a revolution which would have escaped the notice of less experienced observers.
At the same time, William Price, also a captain in the East India Company's service, who had been attached as interpreter and secretary to Sir William Gore Ouseley's embassy to Persia in 1810, devoted himself to the study of the cuneiform character. Many had previously attempted to decipher it, with results as various as they were ridiculous; and, like those of his predecessors and contemporaries, Price's opinions were mere guess-work; but he succeeded in interesting a certain class of students in this obscure branch of research, and may be said to have perpetuated the theories of Niebuhr and other Orientalists.
To Price we owe an account of the journey of the English embassy to the Persian court, after which he published two essays on the antiquities of Persepolis and Babylon.
Mr. Ouseley, who had accompanied his brother Sir William as secretary, availed himself of his sojourn at the Court of Teheran to study Persian. His works do not, however, bear upon geography or political economy, but treat only of inscriptions, coins, manuscripts, and literature – in a word, of everything connected with the intellectual and material history of the country. To him we owe an edition of Firdusi, and many other volumes, which came out at just the right time to supplement the knowledge already acquired of the country of the Shah.
Another semi-Asiatic semi-European country was also now becoming known. This was the mountainous district of the Caucasus. As early as the second half of the eighteenth century, John Anthony Guldenstædt, a Russian doctor, had visited Astrakhan, and Kisliar on the Terek, at the most remote boundary of the Russian possessions, entered Georgia, where the Czar Heraclius received him with great respect, and penetrated to Tiflis and the country of the Truchmenes, finally arriving at Imeritia. The next year, 1773, he visited the great Kabardia, the Oriental Kumania, examined the ruins of Madjary, visited Tscherkask and Asov, discovered the mouth of the Don, and was about to extend his researches to the Crimea when he was recalled to St. Petersburg.
Guldenstædt's travels have not been translated into French. Their author's career was cut short by death before he had completed their revision for the press, and they were edited at St. Petersburg by Henry Julius von Klaproth, a young Prussian, who afterwards explored the same countries.
Klaproth, who was born at Berlin on the 11th October, 1783, gave proof at a very early age of a special aptitude for the study of Oriental languages. At fifteen years old he taught himself Chinese; and he had scarcely finished his studies at the Universities of Halle and Dresden, when he began the publication of his "Asiatic Magazine." Invited to Russia by Count Potoki, he was at once named Professor of Oriental Languages at the Academy of St. Petersburg.
Klaproth did not belong to the worthy race of book-worms who shut themselves