‘The strategic importance of the Euphrates valley railway’ [‎29] (110/204)

( 29 )
at once from the ninth to the thirteenth century,
taking the latter period as a starting point for the
maintenance of " frequent intercourse between
Europe and the Western portion of Central Asia for
political and commercial objects." He reviews the
movements of the Crusaders, the Greeks, A enetians,
and Genoese in Eastern Europe, and the invasion ol
Jenghiz Khan from the east westwards; showing the
result of such simultaneous action to be a necessary
rapprochement of Europe to Asia, and vice versa.
This was the especial feature of the thirteenth century,
when the Polo family were foremost in the rank of
distinguished travellers. 1 have seen a list of no
less than thirty-five names, including those of the
brothers Nicholas and Matthew, and the younger
Marco, Polo, whose travels in Central Asia are said
to have been recorded within a period of 265 years,
or from 1243 to 1508. Some of them may be mere
compilers, but I do not so understand the matter.
A second list, comprising the names of thirty-three
more travellers visiting Central Asia between 1558
and 1684, shows nearly half the number to have
been Englishmen *
At the close of the seventeenth and commence
ment of the eighteenth century, Russia, under Peter
the Great, sent out her explorers to penetrate
into the same regions from the north and west.
Peter wished to establish commercial intercourse
with India; but the independent Khanates beyond
* See ante, p. 15.