India In The Fifteenth Century: Being A Collection Of Narratives Of Voyages To India

Before the days when Alexander of Macedon sought to add to his triumphs the conquest of the eastern world, India had been pronounced by Herodotus to be the wealthiest and most populous country on the face of the earth. The subsequent history of commerce has proved the correctness of his assertion. This 1857 book is a compilation, edited by the author of the British Museum, of narratives of journeys to India ‘in the century preceding the Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; from Latin, Persian, Russian, and Italian sources’. India was regarded as a fabled source of riches even before the time of Alexander the Great, and Major’s introduction surveys the surviving accounts of overland journeys there before the fifteenth century, assessing their validity and where possible matching ancient to modern place names. It is a very interesting book that is about four travellers who visited India prior to the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco Da Gama. The book has a lengthy introduction that discusses the various travellers who have visited India down the ages from the time of Alexander to the date of this book and even mentions the tales of Sindabad in it. In this regard the book is informative and good for common readers.