But there are other advantages enjoyed by modern travellers besides those derived from superior science:  foreign languages are at present better and more generally understood; and it is unnecessary to point out how important such an acquisition is, or rather how indispensible it is to accurate information.  The knowledge of the languages of the East which many of the gentlemen in the service of the East India Company, and the missionaries, possess, has been of infinite service in making us much better acquainted with the antiquities, history, and present state of those countries, than we could possibly have otherwise been.  There is at present greater intercourse among even remote nations; and prejudices, which formerly operated as an almost insurmountable barrier, are now either entirely destroyed, or greatly weakened:  in proof of this, we need only refer to the numerous travellers who have lately visited Egypt,—­a country which it would have been extremely dangerous to visit half a century ago.  At the same distance of time, natives of Asia or Africa, especially in their appropriate costume, were seldom or never seen in the streets of London, or, if seen, would have been insulted, or greatly incommoded by the troublesome curiosity of its inhabitants; now there are many such, who walk the streets unmolested, and scarcely noticed.

Commerce, which has derived such advantages from the progress of geographical knowledge, has in some measure repaid the obligation, by creating a much greater, more intimate, and more frequent mutual intercourse among nations; and by doing away with those prejudices and antipathies which formerly closed many countries effectually against Christian and European travellers:  and to the zeal and perseverance of modern travellers, assisted as they are by commercial intercourse, we may reasonably hope that we shall, before long, be indebted for a knowledge of the interior of Africa.  Those countries still imperfectly known in the south-east of Asia will, probably, from their vicinity to our possessions in Hindostan, be explored from that quarter.  The encreasing population of the United States, and the independence of South America, will necessarily bring us acquainted with such parts of the new world as are still unknown.  But it is difficult to conjecture from what sources, and under what circumstances, the empires of China and Japan will be rendered more accessible to European travellers:  these countries, and some parts of the interior of Asia, are cut off from our communication by causes which probably will not speedily cease to operate.  The barriers which still enclose all other countries are gradually yielding to the causes we have mentioned; and as, along with greater facilities for penetrating into and travelling within such countries, travellers now possess greater capabilities of making use of the opportunities thus enjoyed, we may hope that nearly the whole world will soon be visited and known, and known, too, in every thing that relates to inanimate and animate nature.