Something of the same kind has place with regard to taste. A man of delicate taste feels refined enjoyment from the contemplation of a beautiful landscape or a fine picture, or the perusal of an elegant poem; and is equally disgusted at the sight of any thing deformed, disproportioned, or unnatural in either. But, it may be said, he has the option of contemplating a disagreeable object, but not of feeling an unpleasing sensation. And is it indeed so easy, in being perpetually conversant among mankind, to avoid observing their works? or does not the man who reads unavoidably fall on absurdities which disgust him? Social man has been too long employed in counteracting nature, not to have moulded all to his dwarfish intellect; and the abortive efforts of imagination are numberless both in the arts and in letters.
Then it will be said, human happiness is reduced to apathy; and the lively taste and ardent passions, which have established the superiority of Europeans, only serve to diminish their sum of felicity! This would be pushing the argument too far; but each will draw his own conclusions.
The chief points of contrast between the Europeans and Orientals being thus marked, it will be seen how far it may be doubted on which side lies the greater degree of happiness.
APPENDIX.
No. I.
Illustrations of the Maps.
In compiling the two maps which accompany this work, the writer has made use of his own observations in that part of it to which those observations had extended. For the remainder of the information exhibited in each, he has trusted to the report of the more intelligent natives, who having frequently traversed the neighbouring countries, might be supposed in some measure qualified to describe what they had seen. Yet he has not ventured to lay down a single position which had not previously been confirmed by the distinct and concordant testimony of at least three or four individuals. Even with this castigation, it is unnecessary to remark how impracticable is the task of approximating the bearings, from the oral testimony of those who have no clear idea of bearings, and scarcely know how to distinguish the eight principal points. Almost equally difficult is it to give the face of a country, or an account of its productions, which the informant perhaps traversed between sleep and waking, or when too much occupied with the sufferings of the road, or the end he had in view, to be at leisure to attend to its detail.
The names of places so obtained and positions so adjusted, it has been thought proper to distinguish by dotted letters, with a view to denote hesitation and uncertainty. The part with which he was himself more particularly acquainted, or which was sufficiently supported by the authority of former maps, is marked with ordinary letters. The writer’s own route is pointed out by a green line, the reported routes by a single engraved line, without colour.