Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 1. / The Exploration of the World

by Jules Verne

Jean Chardin. From an old print.

Another merchant, Jean Chardin, the son of a rich Parisian jeweller, jealous of the successes of Tavernier, desired, like him, to make his fortune by trading in diamonds. The countries which attract these merchants are those of which the fame for wealth and prosperity is become proverbial; these are Persia and India, where rich costumes sparkle with jewels and gold, and where there are mines of diamonds of a fabulous size. The moment is well chosen for visiting these countries. Thanks to the Mogul Emperors, civilization and art have been developed; mosques, palaces, temples have been built, and towns have risen suddenly. Their taste—that curious taste, so distinctly characterized, so different from our own,—is displayed in the construction of gigantic edifices, quite as much as in jewellery and goldsmith's work, and in the manufacture of those costly trifles of which the east was beginning to be passionately fond. Like a wise man, Chardin takes a partner, as good a connoisseur as himself. At first Chardin only traversed Persia in order to reach Ormuz and to embark for the Indies. The following year he returns to Ispahan, and applies himself to learn the language of the country, in order to be able to transact business directly and without any intermediary agent. He has the good fortune to please the Shah, Abbas II. From that time his fortune is made, for it is at once genteel and also the part of a prudent courtier to employ the same purveyor as his sovereign. But Chardin had another merit besides that of making a fortune. He was able to collect so considerable a mass of information concerning the government, manners, creeds, customs, towns, and populations of Persia, that his narrative has remained to our own days the vade-mecum of the traveller. This guide is so much the more precious because Chardin took care to engage at Constantinople a clever draughtsman named Grelot, by whom were reproduced the monuments, cities, scenes, costumes, and ceremonies which so well portray what Chardin called, "the every day of a people."

When Chardin returned to France in 1670, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, with the barbarous persecutions which resulted from it, had chased from their country great numbers of artisans, who, taking refuge in foreign countries enriched them with our arts and manufactures. Chardin, being a protestant, clearly perceived that his religion would hinder him from attaining "to what are termed honours and advancement." As, to use his own words, "one is not free to believe what one will," he resolved to return to the Indies "where, without being urged to a change of religion," he could not fail of attaining an honourable position. Thus liberty of conscience was at that period greater in Persia than in France. Such an assertion on the part of a man who had made the comparison, is but little flattering to the grandson of Henry IV.

This time, however, Chardin did not follow the same route as before. He passed by Smyrna and Constantinople, and from thence, crossing the Black Sea, he landed in the Crimea, in the garb of a religious. Whilst passing through the region of the Caucasus he had the opportunity of studying the Abkasians and Circassians. He afterwards penetrated into Mingrelia, where he was robbed of his goods and papers, and of a portion of the jewels which he was taking back to Europe. He could not have escaped himself had it not been for the devotion to him of the theatines, from whom he had received hospitality, but he escaped only to fall into the hands of the Turks, who, in their turn, accepted a ransom for him. After further misadventures he arrived at Tiflis on the 17th of December, 1672, and as Georgia was then governed by a prince who was a tributary of the Shah of Persia, it was easy for Chardin to reach Erivan, Tauriz, and finally Ispahan.

After a stay of four years in Persia, and a concluding journey to India, during which he realized a considerable fortune, Chardin returned to Europe and settled in England, his own country on account of his religion, being forbidden ground to him.

The journal of his travels forms a large work, in which everything that concerns Persia is especially developed. The long stay he made in the country and his intimate acquaintance with the highest personages of the state enabled him to collect numerous and authentic documents. It may fairly be said that in this way Persia was better known in the seventeenth century than it was 100 years later.

The countries which Chardin had just explored were visited again some years later by a Dutch painter, Cornelius de Bruyn, or Le Brun. The great value of his work consists in the beauty and accuracy of the drawings which illustrate it, for as far as the text is concerned, it contains nothing which was not known before, except in what relates to the Samoyedes, whom he was the first to visit.

Japanese Warrior. From an old print.

We must now speak of the Westphalian, Kæmpfer, almost a naturalized Swede in consequence of his long sojourn in Scandinavian countries. He refused the brilliant position which was there offered him in order to accompany as secretary, an ambassador who was going to Moscow. He was thus enabled to see the principal cities of Russia, a country which at that period had scarcely entered upon the path of western civilization; afterwards he went to Persia, where he quitted the Ambassador Fabricius, in order to enter the service of the Dutch Company of the Indies, and to continue his travels. He thus visited in the first place Persepolis, Shiraz, Ormuz upon the Persian Gulf, where he was extremely ill, and whence he embarked in 1688 for the East Indies. Arabia Felix, India, the Malabar Coast, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, and Japan were afterwards all visited by him. The object of these journeys was exclusively scientific. Kæmpfer was a physician, but was more especially devoted to the various branches of Natural History, and collected, described, drew, or dried, a considerable number of plants then unknown in Europe, gave new information upon their use in medicine or manufactures, and collected an immense herbarium, which is now preserved with the greater part of his manuscripts in the British Museum in London. But the most interesting portion of his narrative, now-a-days indeed quite obsolete and very incomplete since the country has been opened up to our scientific men,—was for a long time that relating to Japan. He had contrived to procure books treating of the history, literature, and learning of the country, when he had failed in obtaining from certain personages to whom he had rendered himself very acceptable, information which was not usually imparted to foreigners.