Letters From The Far East PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... LETTERS FROM THE FAR EAST INTRODUCTION The letters here republished consist of contributions written for the Westminster Gazette during a brief visit to China and Japan in the summer and autumn of 1906, together with some additions. I had travelled before in Kashgaria and the frontier provinces of China, reaching them by crossing Asia, but this was my first visit to the coast and the betterknown provinces of the empire. The main object of my journey was to obtain some practical know-fi ledge of the languages and creeds of the Far East, and, in particular, to study the curious development which Buddhism has undergone in those countries; for it is difficult to form a correct and comprehensive idea of the part which this religion has played in the world by the mere study of Sanskrit and Pali literature. I trust that I may some day be able to publish the result of these and other investigations in a con- nected form. Meantime, it is with some hesitation that I reproduce these fragmentary impressions de voyage. But, slight as they are, they seem to me to bring out in relief the fact which struck me most during my travels--namely, the distinctness of China and Japan from the rest of Asia, and particularly from the Indian and Mohammedan East. This is, of course, obvious the moment it is pointed out, but by a vice of thought as well as of language such words as 'east' and 'orientals' are made to apply to all countries from Turkey to the Pacific. The enormous strides which were being made by Japan were long not appreciated at their true value, because she was thought to be an oriental country, and as such unable to overstep the limits which European ideas thought probable for oriental progress; and at the present day the gist of much criticism on...