of H.M.'s Consular Service in China (1877). To these I have to add a
series of articles on "Fa-hsien and his English Translators," by Mr.
T. Watters, British Consul at I-Chang (China Review, 1879, 1880).
Those articles are of the highest value, displaying accuracy of
Chinese scholarship and an extensive knowledge of Buddhism. I have
regretted that Mr. Watters, while reviewing others, did not himself
write out and publish a version of the whole of Fa-hien's narrative.
If he had done so, I should probably have thought that, on the whole,
nothing more remained to be done for the distinguished Chinese pilgrim
in the way of translation. Mr. Watters had to judge of the comparative
merits of the versions of Beal and Giles, and pronounce on the many
points of contention between them. I have endeavoured to eschew those
matters, and have seldom made remarks of a critical nature in defence
of renderings of my own.

The Chinese narrative runs on without any break. It was Klaproth who
divided Remusat's translation into forty chapters. The division is
helpful to the reader, and I have followed it excepting in three
or four instances. In the reprinted Chinese text the chapters are
separated by a circle in the column.

In transliterating the names of Chinese characters I have generally
followed the spelling of Morrison rather than the Pekinese, which is
now in vogue. We cannot tell exactly what the pronunciation of them
was, about fifteen hundred years ago, in the time of Fa-hien; but the
southern mandarin must be a shade nearer to it than that of Peking at
the present day. In transliterating the Indian names I have for the
most part followed Dr. Eitel, with such modification as seemed good
and in harmony with growing usage.