[124]
AN
INQUIRY
Into the Time when the Mohammedans
first entered into
CHINA.
OF the many curious Particulars to be found in the Two Accounts we have presented to the Public, the Entrance of the Mohammedans into China, before the third Century of the Hejra, is not the least considerable. All their Historians are very obscure upon their Travels or Voyages to this part of the Upper Asia; and their most famous Geographers differ so widely from each other, that we may believe they were as ignorant of those Parts, as we were in Europe before the Nautical Attempts of the two last Ages. Abulfeda the most accurate of their Geographers, speaks of China merely by what he heard from some Merchants. The rest are full of Fables, such as Alexander's Travels to China, his Conference with the Emperor there, and the like: Their Copists have but added to the useless Lumber by
