There are few predecessors in the field of Chinese literature into whose labours translators of the present century can enter.

This will be received, I hope, as a sufficient apology for the minuteness and length of some of the notes.

A second object in them was to teach myself first, and then others, something of the history and doctrines of Buddhism.

I have thought that they might be learned better in connexion with a lively narrative like that of Fa-Hsien than by reading didactic descriptions and argumentative books.

Such has been my own experience.