The searcher after literary information will find in the account of the literary institutions of China much interesting and useful matter for observation and reflection. In relation to the strictness of her collegiate examinations, and the high grade of learning necessary to secure their honours, some useful hints may be derived to our own collegiate institutions.
In the appendix will be found a curious literary document in relation to the aborigines of the Malay peninsula, particularly of the negroes called Semang, accompanied by specimens of the Semang language in two dialects, for which due credit has been given in the Embassy.
The philologist will doubtless receive this accession to the common stock of inquiries into the origin of language, with considerable gratification. A philosophical investigation of the relationship existing between the varied families of the earth, and their common origin, may perhaps yet be based on the analogy existing between their language and dialects.
The phraseology of the epistolary document from the Sultan of Muscat to the President of the United States, with that contained in the letter from Tumbah Tuah to Captain Geisinger, at Bencoolen, furnishes specimens of that figurative and high-wrought diction, for which the Oriental nations are distinguished.
As I am about to undertake another voyage to exchange the ratifications of the treaties alluded to in the Embassy, to form others in places not yet visited, and to extend, if possible, our commerce on advantageous terms, still farther east than India or Cochin-China, I beg my readers will consider the present volume as a prelude to much further and varied information to be derived under more favourable auspices—more intimate knowledge of eastern forms—and that caution which should ever be the child of experience.
In concluding my introductory remarks, I would freely acknowledge my obligation to the works of those authors who have preceded me in visiting the nations to which the Embassy was directed. I deemed it important that no useful information, from whatever source derived, should be withheld from my countrymen. Wherever ocular or audible demonstration could be had, I have recorded the facts as they were presented, in the most simple and unadorned manner; I had not in view the flights of rhetorical composition, but the detail of useful intelligence.
My country claimed at my hands, the faithful fulfilment of arduous and responsible duties. If, in the information furnished in the Embassy, her requirements have been accomplished, my ambition is satisfied.
E. R.