FACE TO SECOND EDITION.

The unexpected amount of favour bestowed on the former edition of this
Work has been a great encouragement to the Editor in preparing this second
one.

Not a few of the kind friends and correspondents who lent their aid before
have continued it to the present revision. The contributions of Mr. A.
WYLIE of Shang-hai, whether as regards the amount of labour which they
must have cost him, or the value of the result, demand above all others a
grateful record here. Nor can I omit to name again with hearty
acknowledgment Signor Comm. G. BERCHET of Venice, the Rev. Dr. CALDWELL,
Colonel (now Major-General) R. MACLAGAN, R.E., Mr. D. HANBURY, F.R.S., Mr.
EDWARD THOMAS, F.R.S. (Corresponding Member of the Institute), and Mr. R.
H. MAJOR.

But besides these old names, not a few new ones claim my thanks.

The Baron F. VON RICHTHOFEN, now President of the Geographical Society of
Berlin, a traveller who not only has trodden many hundreds of miles in the
footsteps of our Marco, but has perhaps travelled over more of the
Interior of China than Marco ever did, and who carried to that survey high
scientific accomplishments of which the Venetian had not even a
rudimentary conception, has spontaneously opened his bountiful stores of
new knowledge in my behalf. Mr. NEY ELIAS, who in 1872 traversed and
mapped a line of upwards of 2000 miles through the almost unknown tracts
of Western Mongolia, from the Gate in the Great Wall at Kalghan to the
Russian frontier in the Altai, has done likewise.[1] To the Rev. G. MOULE,
of the Church Mission at Hang-chau, I owe a mass of interesting matter
regarding that once great and splendid city, the KINSAY of our Traveller,
which has enabled me, I trust, to effect great improvement both in the
Notes and in the Map, which illustrate that subject. And to the Rev.
CARSTAIRS DOUGLAS, LL.D., of the English Presbyterian Mission at Amoy, I
am scarcely less indebted. The learned Professor BRUUN, of Odessa, whom I
never have seen, and have little likelihood of ever seeing in this world,
has aided me with zeal and cordiality like that of old friendship. To Mr.
ARTHUR BURNELL, Ph.D., of the Madras Civil Service, I am grateful for many
valuable notes bearing on these and other geographical studies, and
particularly for his generous communication of the drawing and photograph
of the ancient Cross at St. Thomas's Mount, long before any publication of
that subject was made on his own account