From Occident To Orient And Around The World Or From Grandeurs Of The West To Mysteries Of The East PDF Download

Excerpt from From Occident to Orient and Around the World "The man who gleans his all from books May gain a knowledge great; But the man who learns by travel, Is the one who is up-to-date." Travel is the key that unlocks Nature's heart and reveals her secrets; and, when accompanied by a keen and close observation, becomes one of man's highest accomplishments. It is a commendable and peculiar characteristic of human nature, as betrayed in the Western mind: the desire to gain all possible knowledge of the present-day civilization of the world, as well as of the past of the people - their vices, their virtues, their customs and their religions, their victories and their defeats. Though millions have crossed the Atlantic to visit the scenes of the Old World, to the average traveler (except in very recent years) the mysteries of Asia have remained untraversed and are practically unknown. This lurid Orient, with its mystic lands, has stood sponsor, during centuries of slow advancement, for the most remarkable epochs in the annals of the world's history; it has been the mother of invention, of highly accomplished arts, education, and the cradle of the great religions of Mohammed and Buddha. Every object your eyes rest upon within the confines of this vast continent is shrouded in mystery and associated with events of the most profound interest. Not all the interesting sights are to be found in the land of our nativity. Each country and each race has its own peculiar and dominant characteristics. The histories, i. e., the lives of nations, are very similar to those of men, except in point of duration.Nations rise,generally, by some social upheaval,live their allotted time,and are no more,save as in resurrection by the pen of the historian. The exact facts concerning ancient Syria are practically myths to-day. Egypt has for centuries remained an unopened and unexplored secret. Greece and Rome have yielded to modern research a little knowledge of past glories, but not to the extent the student might desire. Our knowledge of the ancient history of the Western Hemisphere is deplorably incomplete, and a few centuries carry us back to the legendary myths of Europe concerning it. The conditions existing in the New World prior to its discovery in 1492 are, in a large measure, matters of conjecture. If this applies to the Western World, what a vista for thought and speculation does the Eastern Hemisphere present- shrouded deep in the mysteries of untold centuries of profound isolation. And of China this is particularly true: it is without doubt the most absorbingly interesting country in the world to-day, holding in the hollow of its hand undreamed-of possibilities of greatness to come. This book claims no literary merit; it is placed before the prospective traveler to the Orient and around the world, intended to supply him all the accurate information necessary for a thorough visit to the various places of note; special mention being made of the interesting features of Asia, and how best to see it traveling by way of any of the several steamship lines maintaining a regular service to that part of the world, both from the Pacific and Atlantic seaboards. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.