By the conquest of Mexico and Peru, the Spaniards became masters of extensive territories, in which there already existed some degree of social organisation, and in which an intercourse between the several provinces was more or less intimately maintained. The acquisition of dominions enjoying such advantages of internal communication increased the activity of the conquerors as much as their power. As distance from control, no less than the excitement that accompanies romantic enterprise, is apt to loosen the bonds of authority, the first adventurers in America, thinly scattered over immense regions, where the stupendous magnificence of nature works so powerfully on the imagination, frequently threw off all obedience to government, and sallied forth on the wildest and most daring schemes of independent discovery. Nor was it merely in Peru and Mexico that this active spirit displayed itself: in every part of the New World it expanded with equal force; and had other empires of equal wealth and population been met with, there would not have been wanting heroes to subdue them. The energy with which a few thousand Europeans spread themselves as conquerors over the American continent within a few years after its discovery, is among the most extraordinary phenomena in the history of mankind. But to what purpose would it be to relate all the details of the various expeditions fitted out to colonise and survey that fertile quarter of the globe?

Marco Polo was the first European who visited China; and certainly none of those who have succeeded him ever enjoyed equal opportunities of acquiring a perfect knowledge of that country. The account, however, which he published of his travels was adapted to the taste and sentiments of the age in which he lived; and much of his valuable information was probably withheld, from a fear that it might not prove generally interesting. The splendour and state of the imperial court, the manners and military organisation of the Tatars, occupy a comparatively larger portion of his volume than the character, commerce, and industry of the Chinese; and yet it is quite evident that these had sufficiently engaged his attention; and in proportion as he advances in the course of his description from the frontiers of Tatary towards the south of China, he speaks in terms of continually increasing admiration of the arts, wealth, and population of the country.

To the northern part of China, or all that lay to the north of the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, he gives the name of Khatai or Cathay; the country south of that river he calls the province of Manji. This province, he says, is the most magnificent and richest that is known in the Eastern world. About the year 1269 it was subject to a prince styled Fanfur, who surpassed in wealth and power all who had reigned in that country for a century before him.

Though the Hindoos possess some treatises on geography, yet their language, it is said, does not possess a term to express that useful branch of knowledge. The temper of the Brahminical religion is opposed to every kind of mental acquirement of too practical a characteir to be wholly appropriated by the religious caste. In the Puránáas, or Hindoo sacred poems, there occur many wild systems of cosmology mingled with partial notices of neighbouring nations, alike intrinsically worthless: for what instruction can be derived, in the history of geography, from systems which represent the earth as a lotus flower floating on the surface of the ocean, with Mount Meru rising from the centre as an umbel; or from those which describe it as composed of seven, eight, or nine concentric circles (for these differ in number in the doctrines of different sects) placed round that holy mountain, while the sea between them, mysteriously connected, flows in a spiral line, like the Styx of Grecian mythology?

But among those extravagancies of superstitious fancy, some occasional gleams of an acquaintance with Europe, and still further, numerous allusions to an abode of bliss or imaginary land of peace and happiness, deserve a moment's attention. That myths of this kind should be common to India with Greece and other western nations will not surprise those who reflect on the affinity existing between the languages of India and those of Europe.