Five more followed, and I thus had time to observe well the nature of the country and the genius of the people. I pushed the last three beyond the Ganges and to the island of Java; and during the space of forty years I traveled more than 60,000 leagues by land, returning but once from Asia to Europe by sea. Thus I saw at my ease in my six travels, and by different routes, all of Turkey, all of Persia and all of India, and above all the famous diamond mines, where no European had been before me. It is of these three great Empires that I propose to give a full and exact account, and I will begin with the different routes that can be followed to go from Paris to Paris.