• 1745−1747 Green, John
  A new general collection of voyages and travels …
  London 1745: Thomas Astley
  → Zeitleiste Reisesammlungen

THE first Volume of our Collection being now compleated, it may be expected, that something should be said concerning the Design and Manner of executing it.

IT would be needless to expatiate on the Advantages of Works of this Kind. Every body knows that their Use is to preserve valuable Books from being loft, render scarce Books common, and to bring the best Authors relating to all Parts of the into one Body. This has produced so many large Collections of Voyages and Travels in various Languages as Grinæus and de Bry in Latin, Ramusio in Italian and Thevenot in French, not to mention several other smaller Collections in the same Languages. But no Nation hath published so many Books of this Sort as our own: For we have already no fewer than three large general Collections in English, Hakluyt in three Volumes Folio, Purchas in four (exclusive of his Pilgrimage) and Harris in two.

AS to Churchill's though consisting of six great Folios it is no more than an Assemblage of the Travels of about fifty particular Authors to a few Parts of the World and therefore we do not place it among the general Collections. Besides this essential Defect, the Authors made use of care, for the most Part, of very little Esteem. They seem to have been gathered without Judgment or Care, and chosen (if there was any Choice made at all) rather for their Imperfections than Merit. Some are swelled with scarce any Thing but the Transactions, and even the Disputes, of Missionaries: Others, though very bulky, consist of Matters foreign to the Subject, as Monson's naval Tracts, which take up the greater Part of the third Volume, and have no more Business in a Collection of Travels than any other naval History extant: So that the Substance, in effect, of the whole six Volumes might easily be comprized in two.

WHAT is still worse, the foreign Authors are very badly translated, and those employed for that Purpose have been religiously scrupulous to retain all Superstuities both in the Matter and Stile, though they have frequently made bold to mistake their Authors, Sense most egregiously and sometimes to castrate them greatly to their Disadvantage. The Part best executed in the Whole, though very dry, is the Introduction, which some People without the least Grounds, would fain persuade the Public was written by the great Mr Locke: But the manifold Imperfections of this Collection sufficiently confute that Pretence.

NOTWITHSTANDING there are so many Collections of Voyages already extant, yet as Materials for this Purpose are continually encreasing, and new Discoveries daily made, there will always be the same Necessity from Time to Time of publishing new Collections, or, at least, Additions to the old. This occasioned Hakluyt to set-forth his second Edition, with great Improvements in 1599, ten Years after his first, Purchas to exhibit a new Work in 1625, and Harris to do the like in 1705.

THE Design of these several Collectors, was to publish in one Body all the best Authors from the Revival of Commerce, and Discoveries, about the thirteenth Age, to their own Times: But to avoid swelling their Work to too great a Bulk, they were obliged to omit many of the most valuable. Hakluyt for this Reason confined himself mostly to the English Travellers: But although he wrote within fifty Years of the first Navigations of this Nation, and added two thick Volumes in his second Edition, yet he was forced to leave-out a great Number of curious Tracts, which afterwards were published by Purchas. This Collector proposed to join many foreign Authors to the English, and as he enlarged his Plan so be augmented his Volumes in Bulk and Number: Yet still be found himself greatly stinted for Room, insomuch, that to bring those he had provided within the Compass of bis four Volumes of Pilgrims, he was under a Necessity of curtailing bis Authors in such a Manner as to retrench several of their most essential Parts, and consequently to render bis Work in great Measure useless.

THE Compilers of that which goes under the Name of Dr. Harris (for he only wrote the Dedication and Introduction) undertook, at fourscore Years Distance, in which Time Books of Voyages and Travels were confiderably multiplied, to execute the same Design in much the same Compass as Purchas had done: Or rather to give us the Shadow of a general Collection and the Skeletons of Authors, instead of the Substance; which, in effect, is the Case: For they have not only omitted a great Number of the most valuable Relations to be found in Hakluyt and Purchas, which do Honour to our Nation, as well as many of those published since they wrote, but have quite spoiled the rest by bad Abridgments: Those which Purchas had published entire, are by them miserably curtailed, and the Authors, which that Collector had mangled before, (that is all be abridged) are mangled over again.

BESIDES the above-mentioned Imperfections under which this last Collection labours, it being near forty Years since it was published, a great Number of curious Voyages and Travels have appeared, which want to be collected.

FOR these Reasons the Author of the present Undertaking judged a new general Collection to be necessary, which he proposed to execute according to the following Plan.

FIRST, To insert the Relations from Hakluyt and Purchas omitted in Harris's Collection, as well as those taken from them. Secondly, To restore all the Authors castrated in Harris as well as those maimed by Purchas, so far as he hath been able to come at the Originals. Thirdly To take-in not only some English Travellers omitted by Purchas, but also several others published since Purchas, and omitted in Harris. Fourthly, To add the Travellers of any Note, which have appeared in our Language since 1705 when Dr Harris's Collection was published. Fifthly, To enrich this Collection with a considerable Number of foreign Itineraries, which were never made English before.

IT would be Time enough perhaps, when the whole Work was finished, to shew that be bad performed his Engagements, and yet the Collector is of Opinion, that this Volume affords abundant Proof, that he has fulfilled his Proposal.

WITH respect to the first Article, he refers to the Voyages of Stephens and Raymond to East India, Windham, Lok, &c to Guinea. He conceives, that the second is already made good by every Author inserted from Hakluyt and Purchas, for they are all carefully abridged without omitting any material Circumstance, or adding Fancies of his own, which alter the Sense as has been done by the Compilers of Harris's Collection: That the third Condition is executed in Part by the Voyages of Captain Covert to the East Indies, those of Windham, Vennor &c to Guinea, omitted by Purchas: That the Journies up the Pike of Teneriffe, and the Voyages of Captain Roberts to the Cape de Verde Islands, make-good the fourth Condition, and that the fifth is performed by the Voyages of Soleyman Basha, Cada Mosto, Pedro de Sintra, and several other Translations.

THE better to succeed in this last Article, we have been careful to procure the best Authors to be met with, and to search not only the great foreign Collections already mentioned for curious Tracts as have not yet been translated from them, but also the smaller: Such as those …

… of the Dutch to the North and the East Indies the Lettres Edifiantes Memoires des Missions and several other foreign literary Journals. Not forgetting the Memoirs of the Academy of Paris and our own Philosophical Transactions which afford several curious Relations. Farther to improve our Design we have as Occasion required, thrown in certain short Pieces or Extracts relating to the History Government or Religions of foreign Nations especially the Oriental taken chiefly from their own Authors in order to supply the Travellers who bave not always had an Opportunity of obtaining an exact Knowledge of those Matters. Of this the Description of the Red Sea from Abu'lfeda the Discovery of Madera by Alcaforado and more particularly the History of the Portugueze Conquests in India with which the Volume begins, are Instances.

ALTHOUGH our Design is much more extensive than that of any Collection hitherto published yet we propose to execute it in less Room than any of the former. To effect this we have deviated from the common Method of collecting and instead of giving each Author entire in the Order he was published we separate his Journal and Adventures from his Remarks on Countries. The first we give by itself, the latter we incorporate with the Remarks of other Travellers to the same Parts. THE Adventures of Travellers are generally very tedious often trifling, and therefore admit of large Retrenchments and as several Travellers visiting the same Parts must necessarily repeat the same Things, it is certain, that by this Way of collecting them a vast deal of superfluous Matter will be expunged and consequently Room made for introducing many more than could possibly be brought into the same Compass, according to the common Method. It is true, Purchas and Harris, with a View to obtain the same End, have not only abridged their Travellers, but endeavoured to avoid Repetition. To effect this, their Course was, after giving one Author intire to strike out of the rest all such Remarks as seemed to be of the same Nature with those made by the first. But it is obvious, that this Method will make strange Havock with the Books as it must render most of them so curtailed and imperfect that the Reader will have only Parts or Pieces of an Author instead of the Whole and this in such an abrupt and unconnected Manner that the Completeness of the few will in no Sort supply or compensate for the Deficiences of the many. The Injury will extend even to the uncastrated Relations: For if some Remarks be struck-out of four Travellers for Instance in five the four will not only be deprived of the Right and Property which they had in them equal to the fifth, but the fifth will be left destitute of the Vouchers requisite to support what he relates. These ill Consequences are the necessary Effect of this Way of managing Authors whereas they are intirely avoided by the Method made use of in this Collection. For by incorporating the Remarks of several Travellers together with proper References the Whole will be preserved as well as every particular Author's Property therein ascertained and distinguished at the Same Time that Repetition and Redundancy will be prevented.

BESIDES these considerable Advantages other great Benefits flow from this Way of Collecting. In the first Place, the Reader, by finding all that relates to the same Things in several Authors brought together, will be saved the Trouble of turning from one to the other, in order to collect their scattered Remarks on every Subject, as well as avoid being tired with reading, or charged with paying for the same Things several Times over in different Authors. At the same Time instead of a great many imperfect Accounts which the Authors separately afford be will be furnished with one complete Description compiled from them all And thus our Collection becomes a System of Modern Geography and History as well as a Body Voyages and Travels exhibiting the Present State of all Nations in the most concise yet comprehensive Manner.

THIS Method has likewise contributed not a little to render the Work more perfect and accurate: For by having the Remarks of several Authors before him in one View, a Collector is best able to see their Errors and Defects, an,d consequently to adjust correct and supply them.

BY this Means likewise be can best discover the fictitious Relations from the genuine, the Copy from the Original, and trace the Theft through a Series of Authors to the Fountain-Head: For Instance by comparing the several Voyages and Accounts of Guinea together it appears that almost all their Authors have copied, or rather stolen, from Artus in de Bry's Collection (for they do not quote him) not excepting Bosman himself who hitherto has passed unsuspected of Plagiarism. Upon a Discovery of this Nature we generally take Care to point out the Freebooter and restore the Goods to their right Owners. We always pay a great Deference to the first Discoverers or earliest Writers whose Remarks we generally insert first in the Description or making them the Foundation throw those of later Authors, into the Notes in order to illustrate or confirm them.

OUR View, however comprehensive ,is not to insert every Relation that comes to band, the good and bad without Distinction. On the contrary we have been careful to make Choice of the best in all Languages and not to give Place to any which was not likely to contribute to the Improvement or Entertainment of the Reader. However we do not always exclude an Author who is not wholly worthless: Because, though in the common Way of collecting be would prove a great Incumbrance yet in ours he might be dispatched by Help of a short Abstract and a few References under the Description of Places or Things whereby all the Remarks that may be of any Use in such Books will be preserved without clogging our Work with the Heaps of trifling Matters that accompany them in the Originals.

HAVING given this general Account of our Scheme and its Advantages in a Work of this Nature we come next to a more particular Detail of the Manner in which it has been executed. As to the Matter it consists of two Sorts, Abstracts and Digests. The Abstracts contain the Journals of the Travels or Voyages including the Adventures of the Authors and other Occurrences with the Descriptions of Places especially when there are not Remarks of other Travellers to mix with them Each. Abstract is commonly preceded by an Introduction or literary Article wherein an Account is given of the Author ( So far as can be come at) and his Work as to its Editions, Size, and Number of Pages, the Subject or Contents. There is commonly added likewise a short Critic or Judgment thereon as to its Excellencies or Defects with respect to Geography History, Cuts and Maps.

THE Digest contains the Remarks of several Voyagers or Travellers relating to any Country, the Inhabitants or its natural Productions incorporated together so as to form a regular Description such as that of the Canary or of the Cape de Verde Islands in this Volume already mentioned. But although in this Part the Observations of different Persons are mixed together yet they are particularly distinguished by References to the Books from whence they were extracted. Care likewise is taken in the Abstracts to cite the Page from Time to Time for the Satisfaction of such as may have a Mind to consult the Originals.

WHERE Authors agree in their Remarks on any particular Place or Thing we make one Account serve for all. And where they disagree we either give the different Accounts in the Text or inserting only that which we judge most exact throw the rest into the Notes.

IN these Notes which are geographical historical and critical we have done our best to correct the Errors determine or reconcile the Differences, clear-up Obscurities and supply Small Deficiencies which frequently occur in the Travellers from various auxiliary Writers. But this we sometimes do in the Text as our Method of incorporating the Remarks of different Authors will admit of it and when the Point to be examined is of more than ordinary Importance to Geography or History we introduce a particular Dissertation on the Оссаsion.

HOWEVER, after all our earnest Endeavours to correct Errors and determine Differences it is not to be presumed that we have always succeeded to the Reader's Satisfaction. For when the Difference is between only two Authors, or there are as many Vouchers on one Side of the Question as the other it is often very difficult to determine where the Truth lies unless we …

we have some unexceptionable Authority to guide us such as the Writers of the Country, which the Fact relates

BUT of all Matters in which the Travellers differ from each other there are none more difficult to settle than those which concern the Names used in distant Countries. It was a principal View in this Design to reduce all such Names of Places, Things and Persons found in Authors of different Nations to the English Orthography and to introduce such an Uniformity through the Work that the same Place should always be found under the same Name in the Text.

TO oblain the first of these Ends, it is sufficient to be acquainted with the Alphabets or Letters in use with those Nations to whom such Authors belong or in whose Language they have written their Voyages. But it proves exceeding difficult and often impracticable to procure the second End because Travellers of the same Nation frequently write foreign Names different Ways. Whether this happens through Neglect in learning the Names, or else because being forced to invent Characters for want of Letters in their own Language to express Sounds in others they make various Choices or thirdly which is frequently the Case because they copy from Authors of other Nations : Whichever is the Case it follows that if such Names be reduced to the English Idiom there will be just the same Disagreement amongst them as if they had been transcribed without any Alteration. Nor is it possible to bring them to an Uniformity but by knowing how such Names are written or pronounced by the Natives who use them.

BUT although this Knowledge may be in a good Measure, obtained so far as relates to the Languages of Europe and those of Asia, commonly called the Oriental, and perhaps a few others, yet with respect to those Nation who have no Books nor Characters such as the Inhabitants of Guinea, and most Parts of Africa, as well as all America or whose Books and Characters if they have any are little known to us such as those on the Coast of Malabar, Kormandel, and other Parts of the Indies, it is very difficult to come at the Orthography or true Pronuntiation of their proper or local Names. For these Reasons having been often at a Loss in this Particular, we thought ourselves obliged to retain such uncertain Names in the Text only reducing them to the Propriety of the English Letters rather than make use constantly of one which we were not sure was the genuine Name.

ON the other Hand when once we have or think we have found out the true Name take Care to use no other in the Text the rest we consign to the Notes. By this Means not only Mistakes if any be committed by us may be rectified and Justice done the respective Authors but the several various Readings of the same Name will be retained which are very necessary to be known by all Geographers and Historians in order to discover the Identity of Places. They likewise furnish very proper Materials for geographical Dictionaries: For unless the various Names under which the same Place occurs in different Authors are to be met with in such Books one cannot always be sure of finding the Place he wants.

ENOUGH has been said we presume to apologize for the same Name being sometimes Spelt differently in our Abstracts from different Authors. But to remedy this Defect as far as may be we usually insert in the Margin what we conceive to be the true Name at least that which is most commonly in Use and this may account for the Difference which often appears between the Names in the Margin which are generally uniform and those retained in the Text.

IN reducing the foreign Names (by which we understand those used by Nations who do not use the Roman Character) to the English Idiom we have generally observed the following Rules: First We never employ different Letters to express the same Sound: For this Reason we always use k in Place of c and J Consonant before e and i Vowel instead of G: Except when it is used hard* before those Letters as in gild or we are in Doubt which Way the …

* It is always hard in the Dutch, German and other Northern Languages, and soft in the French, Italian and Spanish before e and i.

Author used it, in which Case we join the Aspirate, writing gh. We do the same to express gue of the French which we write ghe except in some Names which by other Authors we find to terminate in go as Camalingue we write Kamalingo not Kamalinghe. Secondly, The broad and long a of the French and other Nations like our a in all we express by an a circumflected. When the e is to be founded at the End of Words we mark it with an Accute or Grave: The î stands for double ee, the ô shews that this Letter is to have its natural Sound as in bore: û is equivalent to oo in English and ou in French unless where this last Diphthong stands for w, as it frequently does, the French not having that Letter in their Language.

WE imploy sh for the French ch and Portugueze x, ch for the French tch, the High Dutch tsch or the Italian c before e or i. The French and German J Consonant we com monly turn into Y and never use this last Letter as a Vowel or at the End of English foreign Names immediately after a Consonant, thus, for Barfally, we write Barfalli. Kh is to be founded gutturally: Dh soft or lisping, like th in the or thou.

ALTHOUGH we do not pretend, by these Rules in Writing, to reduce foreign Names to their true Sounds, as written or pronounced by the Nations who use them, yet we propose thereby to convey to an English Reader the true Sound, according to the Language of the Author from whence they are taken and to introduce such an Uniformity in the Orthography that there may be no Danger of finding the same Name in different Places written according to the Idiom of several different Nations as is the Case in all other Collections hitherto published, so that the Generality of Readers must take them for so many different Names, it being impossible to know them to be the same, under so great a Change, as the various Ways of writing them occasions* And this Advantage, which our Collection claims above all others, will, we hope, atone for the other orthographical Differences, which, for the Reasons already mentioned, it was not in our Power to remedy

WITH regard to Cuts and Maps, which in sorting will accompany the Remarks, we shall throw-out all Duplicates and only insert the best of a Kind to be found in the Travellers: For Instance, Herbert, Struys, Gemelli, Chardin, Kæmpfer, and le Bruyn have given Draughts of Persepolis. But to admit those of the first three, would be doing an Injury to the Work, as being either spurious or trifling and to insert those of the last three would be superfluous, since one of them for Instance, le Bruyn's might serve. For the same Reason we reject most of those Cuts representing Prospects, Battles, Sieges, and the like, which generally are the Product of the Painter's Fancy and of Use only to swell the Bulk and Price of Books. In the Place of these we insert the Animals and Vegetables with the Habits of the several Nations, where wanting in the Travellers taken from the best Draughts hitherto published.

IN like Manner, though we shall omit Herbert's Map of the Caspian Sea however inserted in Harris's Collection as well as those of Sandys Tournefort and le Bruyn's Voyages, with the like copied from other faulty Maps, or drawn without any Skill, we shall carefully preserve all Maps and Charts taken by the Travellers on the Spot or copied from those of the Natives: Such as Olearius's Map of the Wolga the Russian Chart of the Caspian Sea and Map of Siberia the Map of Colchis and the Country about Bafrah published in Thevenot's Collection and that of Attica made by Wheeler The like we shall do by the Draughts and Plans of Coasts Harbours and Cities found in Cook, Rogers, Frazier, Isbrand Ides and other Authors.

WHERE several have given Maps of the same Country as those of Egypt, the Delta, or the Nile, published by Lucas, Sicard, and Doctor Pocock, we shall either insert one of them improved from the rest, or else a new Draught made from them all. On the other Hand …

*This for Instance may appear from the Word Shin which a French Author writes Chin a German Schin a Polish Szin an Italian Scin and a Portugueze Xin where

…

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