A wrinkled old man does not look like the rosy infant he once was. Yet "the child is father of the man." In going back four thousand years, we must not expect to find anything like the Chinese Empire of to-day. In size, population, manner of life, likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, the China of youth will not resemble the mighty nation of the twentieth century. There have been changes in food, dress, style of houses, government, and in religion, philosophy, belief, and opinions. China is neither inscrutable nor in a state of arrested development.

We shall study each age during the many dynasties, so as to distinguish the features of a society based always on land and labor, but ever developing with new inventions. Its great men and women, the novelties and characteristics of the times, the amusements and tastes of each era will be noted. We shall see that those things which we have always associated in our minds with China did not come all at once. The oldest of them were at one time new. Their introduction brought delightful surprise to those who liked and disgust to those who disliked them. In China, as in Europe, new things were always opposed by those who thought them harmful, and were welcomed by those who voted them good.

Chinese civilization, which seems to-day so fixed, and which our people imagine has always been very much the same as it is now, is in reality an affair of long and slow evolution. Not more different in their appearance to-day from their humble beginnings ages ago are the luscious peach, the splendid rose, the race-horse, the latest triumphs of science—yes, even our men and women—than are the Chinese gentleman and lady from their savage originals. The world of experience and the outlook of fortieth-century China are vastly other than those of her cradle days. In the far-off beginning of things Chinese there were no rice, wheat, oats, silk, cotton, tea, paper, porcelain, pagodas, priests, temples, idols, letters, writing, books, jade, ivory, kites, falconry, cormorant fishing, fire-crackers, or coins with a square hole in the middle. Then the men did not wear queues, nor did the women bind their feet to make them small. There was then no Buddhism, and very little folklore or legend. There was even a time, farther back, when the people knew nothing of fire, woven clothing, houses, medicine, domestic animals, musical instruments, the institution of marriage, or the measurement of time. The natives were savages as wild as were our own far-off ancestors in the caves of the geological ages. Then, instead of being full of tilled fields, tea-gardens, towns, and villages, China was one vast forest, with swamps tenanted by ferocious wild beasts.

The originals of the fantastic creatures now known only in mythology or fairyland then lived on the earth with the men who were the distant fathers of the Chinese people. Making allowance for what myth-makers and artists have done to change or embellish the reality, some of the so-called "mythical monsters" were once as real as are elephants and gorillas. Chinese wonder-tales contain little more of exaggeration than do those of our own forbears. Nor are the beliefs of the common people, in Canton and Mukden, one whit more absurd than those of our own fore fathers.

Science and the sure witness of writing, art, architecture, customs, and traditions, when critically studied, show that the Chinese have followed the course of nature. The great has developed out of the little, according to the divine formula of seed, blade, and ear. Nevertheless, most Chinese writers still follow the fashions of an earlier world of thought and ways of reasoning. They tell us that the golden age was in the unmeasured aeons of the past. They place the best time of the world millions of years back, in the interval between the beginnings of heaven and earth and the coming of Fu Hi, whom they honor as their own great civilizer. To them the past is more honorable than the modern age. In it lived holy and semi-divine beings.

Entering Chinese temples, we discern both the first heavenly beings and the initial human makers of society, and are at once struck with the peculiarities of native art. Naturally these first men are Chinese, to all appearances. Their expression, style of hair and headdress, their jewels and ornaments, the fashion of their clothes and boots are not what we should give to our ancestors.

Yet we are like the Chinese. Although we do not dress our Adam and Eve in anything but fig leaves, we make them in their faces look like people we meet on Broadway. The first man and woman would be represented with different color of skin, according as an American, an Indian, or a Mongol should picture them. So in Chinese art there are "Jewel Lords," the "Three Pure Ones," and Panku, the first man, besides the "god" of tides, of war, of agriculture, etc., who have faces, dress, and posture according to Chinese taste and propriety.

In a word, the Chinese do no more than do we with our far-off ancestors, heroes, saints, and mighty folk, whom we idealize as if they lived in London, Boston, or Chicago. When we understand the artist's method of representing faces, dress, drapery, clouds, trees, mountains, water, bridges, and whatever goes into the making of a picture, whether Chinese or European, we soon learn what ideas he would convey. We make a difference between what is real, or supposed to be real, and what is imaginary. We soon note what the painter or sculptor has added for effect, or to heighten interest, to give local color, or to make what he thinks will suit the taste of his patrons and give us something pretty or popular. Myths and fairy tales usually keep in what is pleasant and leave out what is disagreeable. This is art—the praise of life.

The Chinese have, therefore, little trouble in comprehending their own pictures, nor need we have, when we know the mind and method of the artists in Nanking or Amoy. By patiently studying Oriental art we learn much and enjoy a great deal, beside getting truth and understanding history much more clearly. Such a method, with text, picture, inscription, architecture, games, plays, and customs, is more satisfactory than reading newspapers or accepting what foreigners have guessed at. Such a plan we try to follow in this little book.

In telling the story of the oldest nation, it is not at all necessary to use many Chinese names or words. These sound uncouth to us, because in our minds they have no meaning or association of ideas. Only by turning Kung Fu Tse—that is, the learned Professor Kung—and the name of his pupil Meng Tse into Latin, do "Confucius " and "Mencius" sound familiar to our ears. We can tell the story of China better in simple English than by appearing learned in the use of odd terms and many dates.

The Chinese are just as human as we are. They are moved by the same feelings and stirred by the same passions. It is not his curious dress, long queue, shaven forehead, or heelless velvet shoes that make a Chinaman. Nor do bound feet, wobbly slippers with the toes turned up, and loose clothes, that are purposely made so as to hide the marks of sex, make a Chinese woman. Neither will mills and machine-shops, telephones, railways, aeroplanes, automobiles, or steel battleships make any difference in the deviltry or sainthood of China. A native would be still Chinese even if he adopted all our customs, fashions, manners, inventions, and varieties of religion. The real man and woman in the Middle Kingdom can be fully described in English.

In the past these people taught us a great many things, some of them so long ago that we have forgotten how they came to us. The Chinese have probably invented and originated more than any other people with whose history we are acquainted. The civilization of China is her own, while ours is only a new edition, revised and corrected, of former civilizations.

The names of this long-lived empire and grand-mother of many nations, historically the oldest State in the world, are numerous and suggestive. Her own people do not know or use the term China, or Chinese, yet this name occurs in the ancient books of India. Isaiah knew of "the land of Sinim." Of native names the most common, perhaps, means the Middle Kingdom, or the Central Empire, or the Central Flowery Land—that is, the civilized country surrounded by pupil and vassal nations. All other countries lie on the edge of the map, while China fills the page. Distant nations look like microbes, or parasites. "All under Heaven " means the Chinese Empire. It is often seen on bank-notes.

This method of atlas-making is not so very different from our own. We often give a page to one State, or even a county, and then in a similar space we represent all the Chinas. The empire holding one fourth of the human race is squeezed into a space that one could cover with a teacup, while Japan looks like a caterpillar.

Among the names which the natives themselves do not use, but are known in Europe, several forms of this word being found in the Bible, is Seres, meaning silk. Sinae means "the Chinas," having the idea of plurality, or of many countries. In Russia, Khitai or Khata became "Cathay," with which we are all familiar. Tennyson has said, "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." By this he meant a long, indefinite period without change.

Another name is Heavenly Dynasty, which some foreigners have translated Celestial Empire, but the odd term "Celestials " is not a native idea. The official name, used in Japan, as in China, means the Country Ruled by a Line of Rulers of Heavenly Origin. This notion is not exclusively Chinese. Europeans long believed that czars, emperors, and other rulers enjoy the special grace of the Deity, because of their form of government, teaching this as religious truth. As the Tang Dynasty ( 618–905) was one of the most celebrated in history, and very brilliant, a common name for China is the Hills (or the country) of Tang.

No one can understand China unless he knows the variation, in features and limbs, ideas and speech, mind and body, between the northern and the southern Chinese. They are quite as different as are English and Scotch. Only the southern Chinamen have thus far gone abroad in large numbers. In the south the people call themselves the Men of Tang, while in the north their favorite title is the Men of Han, after the famous dynasty 206–220 The people also speak of themselves as the Black-haired Race, or the Sons of Han. Their beloved home, in contrast with the outlying lands, is the Central Flowery Land. For the Country of the Hundred Families they get very homesick when abroad. When in a mood like that suggested by our "Hail Columbia," or Fourth of July, the Chinaman talks of the glorious Hia, an ancient dynasty. With loyal spirit, in order to compliment the present or Tsin (Pure) dynasty in Peking, they call their country the Great Pure Kingdom.

There are pious ways of speaking of China from a religious or exalted point of view. The Buddhists, who came from India, call it by the Hindoo name the Land of Dawn. The Mahometans, who entered from the West, speak of the Land of the East. When we want a Latin adjective meaning Chinese, we call the mixed writing common in Japan, Sinico-Japanese, and the peoples which have received Chinese culture the Sinitic nations. A man who is familiar with the Lingua Sinica, or Chinese language, is a sinologne, because learned in the wonderful script that the average American sees only on tea-boxes or in "Chinatown" of New York or San Francisco.

Nevertheless, Chinese characters, which speak to the eye, can be just as well used to write or German as to express native thought. China has no alphabet based on sound, nor a syllabary like the Japanese or Ethiopic. Her writing consists of ideographs, which were once pictures of the objects represented, to which a sound was attached, so that the characters represent things or stand for words in themselves. Speaking to the eye, the Chinese written language is the richest in the world. It means even more in sight than in sound. There are no ideas in science, philosophy, or invention that cannot be expressed in Chinese script.

Let us, then, study China, allowing the Chinese as far as possible to speak for themselves.

In contrast, the younger European civilization is more like a piece of conglomerate rock, in which many diverse elements have been fused, or forced by pressure into something like unity. The Chinese have had many forms of government and vast social, industrial, religious, and political experience. China is the old man among nations, and we younger ones may well apply our own proverb concerning fools, and about what young men think and old men know.

China's longevity explains why the average Chinaman is not interested in novelties. He is not curious to know about other kinds of men and countries. He refuses to accept or be excited by what he hears. His many and long trials of things good and bad make him cautious. He does not argue concerning cause and effect in quite the way we do. He does not enjoy answering the kind of queries that we put to him. They seem to him to be jokes or conundrums. To the ordinary native, most questions are settled. What he prefers or follows to-day is according to the wisdom of ages. His etiquette represents the sum total of all past history. It does not seem wise to him to change the old methods, or to introduce new fashions.

Our Chinese friend, while right in his reasoning, is likely to lose much, if, living in the present age of the world, he does not become more social and avail himself of the resources and advantages possessed by his fellows of other nations.

In mental culture, he has heretofore thought that Confucius was the one perfect man, teaching and living flawless truth, and that therefore it was waste time, if not impiety, to look into the literature of other nations. Since also the rules for the conduct of life and the precedents followed to-day were ordained ages ago by men faultlessly wise, it seems absurd even to talk about improvement or reform. This also to him savors of impiety.

On the other hand, this excessive reverence for the past is largely the cause of so much superstition among the common people. It explains their settled belief in such absurdities as witchcraft and gods, imps and demons of all sorts, dragons, and foxes that become pretty women. There is a vast menagerie of mythical animals that have no existence out of Chinese noddles. That mass of superstitious nonsense, both silly and dangerous, called Feng Shuey, which means "wind and water," is a sort of rude popular science. For a long time it hindered the introduction of railways and telegraphs, besides being opposed to reality and pure religion.

This state of mind also accounts for the fact that the government has never really tolerated any doctrines that seem to be contrary to the ancient customs, which in themselves mean morals. Any new teaching that would change the ways of the people is branded as sacrilege. The Chinese religion is probably the only one in the world spontaneously developed on the soil of the people who now hold the land on which it originated. It is the only purely native religion among the great ones of earth.

Yet many religions have entered the Central Empire,—Shamanism or spiritism from the North; Buddhism from India; Islam from Arabia; Hebraism from Babylon, and Christianity from the West. Ancient and medieval missionaries from Palestine, Egypt, and Persia, good priests from Rome in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, earnest men and women from Protestant countries since 1800, and from Russia in recent years, have come to China. Thus the three modern forms of the teachings of Jesus—Greek, Roman, and Reformed—have begun to influence Chinese thought. The government never persecuted, however, until it seemed that the social system of China was in danger, and the morals, that is, the ritual and national habits of the people, were being altered.

So long as even the wisest of the Chinese lived within their own boundaries, dwelling in one world of fixed ideas, it was not possible for them even to conceive of another state of society as good as their own. They could not understand the merits of foreign men and things, even when these were brought to them. Such outlandish novelties were as strange to them as Chinese chopsticks and "joss" houses are to us,—even though joss is but our own misspelled Latin word Deus, or God.

To the Chinese such things as telescopes, microscopes, steam engines, and the various machines of war and peace, which require the forces of gun-powder, modern chemicals, steam, or electricity to operate them, seemed only oddities or toys for amusement. No practical good could be discerned in these importations of "the outside barbarians." The men of the West were considered good blacksmiths or cunning mechanics, but not necessarily refined persons, with politeness, culture, religion, or morals. It was necessary that Chinese gentlemen should go abroad and see humanity, in all its phases, before even the surface of thought could be ruffled or even a suggestion of change be made. It was still more important that young people, more susceptible and sensitive, should learn about the new kind of world and man outside of China. After numbers of them had absorbed culture, it was possible that an interior movement looking to reform should take place.

At last it seems that this time has come. The seed planted by American and European teachers long ago, the persistent work of missionaries on the soil, and the education of Chinese lads and girls beyond sea have borne fruit. The introduction of new ideas by means of trade and commerce and the distribution of printed matter, the wonders of science, the commercial assault, the invasion of the steam engine, the startling events of war, and the near presence of Japan, "a neighbor-disturbing nation," now the most eager pupil of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, have roused China to new life. Now the rate of movement seems almost dangerously rapid.

There is hope for the Central Empire, because it is based on the family. The unit of Chinese society is not the individual, but the household, the result of forty centuries of harmony. The civilization of the Orient is communal, that of the Occident is individual. Filial piety is the corner-stone of the nation, and the promise attached to the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother," is as valid for the Chinese people who still own their native soil as for landless Israel.

The Japanese have already reversed the general opinion of the Western world concerning the capabilities of dark-skinned peoples. The battle on the Yalu with the Russians, in 1904, sounded the note of hope to all Asia. Their victory made obsolete hundreds of books written in disparagement of Asiatics.

China seems destined to do a slower but vastly greater work even than Japan. Mother of all civilization east of the Ganges, the world's debt to her, already incalculable, is to be manifold greater. China will conquer every conqueror that attempts her conquest. The Chinese love liberty, equality, and fraternity. If treated honorably and with righteousness, they will enrich the world with their gifts, graces, and inheritances. The Middle Kingdom has for ages been the source of blessings to surrounding nations. A reformed China will be a blessing to the whole race.

There are great, deep currents of sympathy and unity between the Orient and the Occident, beneath the apparent and even sometimes stormy differences on the surface. Chinese human nature in its depths is exactly like human nature everywhere,—including our own variety. Mythology, poetry, literature, and all the old and pre-ancient products of mind show this, as well as do the responses of the Chinese mind to new visions and messages containing truth, which knows no climate, time, or space, and outgrows all names and labels. All this argues favorably for a reformed China.

Apart from the various religions which the Chinese have accepted, let us take an illustration from Popular art.

China is the Land of the Dragon and bears this symbol of power on her yellow flag. Yet all over the earth, among primitive peoples, the dragon has been the supreme symbol of living, concrete force. The Chinese dragon in all its varieties is well worthy of study. On sculpture, painting, dress, flag, it is almost omnipresent, being chief of the four supernatural animals. It is so much like the geological creatures of a world that has passed away, that we are forced to believe that it is but the development, in fancy, of an actual organism once upon the earth. There are nine or ten varieties of this imaginary creature that carries in his structure a cyclopedia of all the forces of life, with their powers of motion and of destruction. Of one, for example, it is written: "When earth is piled up in mountains, wind and rain arise, but when water comes together into streams, the Kiao dragon comes into being."

Chief of all scaly reptiles, the dragon wields the power of transformation. It can render itself visible and invisible at pleasure. It lives partly in the waters of the earth and partly in the waters above the earth, in the spring ascending to the clouds, in the autumn burying itself in the watery depths. At will it reduces itself to the size of a silkworm, or it is swollen until it fills the space of heaven and earth. It can rise into the clouds or sink into the ocean deeps. The watery principle of the atmosphere, mist, cloud, dew, rain, etc., is associated with one dragon, but another of different nature controls the earth's surface.

In art it is not usual to represent the dragon as completely visible, but to hide parts of his body or limbs in cloud or mist, to suggest rather than fully to portray.

The dragon can climb, fly, crawl, and run. It has tooth, claw, wing, tail, and every equipment belonging to beast, bird, fish, or reptile. Of the four sorts of principal dragons, the celestial variety guards the mansions of the gods and sup-ports them so that they do not fall. The spiritual dragon causes winds to blow and produces rain for the benefit of mankind. The dragon of earth marks out the courses of rivers and streams. There is a bob-tailed dragon that sports in the whirlwind and is credited with special power in destroying houses and cities.

The dragon is associated with the East, with springtime, and with the eastern quarter of the heavens. In the popular belief, there are four dragon kings, each having dominion over one of the four seas which form the border of the habitable earth. The palaces in which these kings live have striking names. There is also a dragon which does not mount up to heaven, and another without horns. The name of the Iliu Kiu (Loo Choo) Islands, Sleeping Dragon, suggests one that has not yet risen to the skies. Most honorable of all is the yellow dragon. That which has five claws can be used only by the emperor or on imperial property.

It is not wonderful that such a divinely endowed creature, which holds within himself all the powers known to life of any sort, should occupy a great place in Chinese art and story. The dragon is the symbol not only of power, but of guardianship. It is often seen in carving, sculpture, and painting, on gateways, posts, and temple ornaments. At wells, fountains, eaves, conduits, in gardens and other places where water spouts, flows, or is stored up, we may expect to meet with the stone, bronze, or iron dragon represented in various forms, while from paper, porcelain, and in pictorial art he greets us continually.

In philosophy the dragon is the emblem of power manifesting itself. In popular notion the dragon is held responsible for a great deal that we should express by other symbols or in different forms of speech. In the earlier world of thought, in the infancy of the race, before there were scales, measures, laboratories, written figures, or mathematics, all great manifestations of power and strange events, as well as human heroes, were described in fairy tales and mythology. Only in this way was explanation possible. Thus a rude sort of science, outside of the books, grows up. Little children who cannot know anything about the invisible laws of the universe, or understand machinery or its motive power, have things wonderful to them by means of things living, that is, of animals who talk, and of men and women who can change themselves, or their friends or enemies, into something else, and one thing into another. In the myths the heroes and heroines can over-come all obstacles by magic. Now to people who have never seen and cannot know anything about such wonders as locomotives, telegraphs, steam engines, photographs, and a thousand other strange inventions of an age of science, explanations must be made in the language and forms of thought with which they are acquainted.

With these illustrations we can appreciate the fact that the uneducated masses of China—not ten per cent of whom can read books—believe easily the most absurd stories circulated about foreigners. Indeed, they quite equal or excel the worst of our own people who are ignorant of the Chinese. The amazing things actually done, or alleged to be done, do not seem any more wonderful than what they have been accustomed to believe.

Let us consider a Chinese traveler in America, but not yet understanding how the forces of steam and electricity are harnessed and made to obey the will of man. On going back home and telling of the Pennsylvania Railroad, for example, with engines going at lightning speed, drawing crowds of people in long trains of cars thousands of miles a day, but also killing men by accident daily, he might describe this as a steel dragon stretching from Pittsburg to New York. The monster is able to carry on its back every day thousands of people, but it requires for its food a man or two every day, devouring human beings very much like the dragons of mythology. So also in the great disasters from storm and flood, tidal waves or volcanoes, which overwhelm human lives, and in the dangers and deaths from mining, or by fire, gas, explosion, or poisonous fumes, the uneducated Chinese sees the work of the great offended "god," dragon, or some other irritated creature, where we should look only for the phenomena of nature.

The power of the dragon is beneficent also. Its nobler side is shown especially in relation to water. Life, fertility, food, comfort, and beauty come from the cloud and rain. The sweet influences that drop from the skies and descend from the mountain are for the happiness of man. Hence there are dragons which are associated with happy omens and permanent blessing.

Critical comparison of the root ideas of East and West, whether of men or of dragons, shows differences. In European and Semitic lore, the hero overcomes and slays the dragons, man's wit and valor prevailing over brute fierceness and strength. This human phase of struggle is as nearly absent from the Oriental lore as is praise from their worship.

To the "griffin" or foreigner newly arrived on Chinese soil all Chinese look exactly alike. Even the traveler who penetrates the interior can only by keen observation and long experience distinguish a Mongol from a Manchu or a Tibetan from a Cantonese. The expert also is puzzled when many subjects of the Chinese emperor gather in one company from all parts. When they dress in foreign clothes, few Europeans can tell whether the men whom they see are Japanese, Koreans, Annamese, or Pekingese.

In a word, in China a great many different kinds of men of various origins have been so blended together by one social system and one general method of dress, manners, and life that they cannot at first be distinguished. Never elsewhere on earth did so many millions of people become so much like one another as those who dwell in the eastern half of Asia. If all the tribes and nations of humanity were to stream past a certain point, every fourth person would be a Chinese.

All this, however, is very different from the reality in early ages. So many human beings have been made like one another, first, because of a wonderful social system that, like a crucible set in white-hot anthracite, melts into uniformity whatever falls into it; and, second, because they were so long separated from the rest of the world by the great impassable things in nature. Steppes and deserts on the north, high mountains on the west, and the ocean on the east walled them in. In the days before the magnetic compass, when keeled ships did not exist, and there were no routes by water, except those within sight of the coast, the fearsome Sea of Darkness sufficed to keep strangers away. The mountains shut in and kept out, and on the deserts men could not live. China thus escaped conquest.

So, as in a walled garden, or like squirrels in a cage, having a similar environment and living on much the same food, it is no wonder that the Chinese have become as much alike as they are. The "Hundred Families," as they call themselves, formed for ages a self-centered hermit nation. Yet there are mighty differences in China, even as inside the forest there are various trees, and these we shall consider. Let us now look at their home:

The empire on the map is shaped like a rough triangle with its point toward Europe, its jagged base resting along the sea, while the irregular side lines from east to west converge in Central Asia, near Kashgar.

From west to east the land consists of height, slope, and level. Its physical geography is more interesting than any description. China owns the roof of the world, which is Tibet. There we find a region, cold, full of mountains and of the sand and gravel which have been ground from them. It is rich in ice and snow, with a few fertile plains and many valleys. On this plateau are the cradles of Asia's great rivers. Those flowing outside the mountain walls make the Ganges, Irawaddy, Sal-win, and Mekong. Those which rush eastward across China, cutting deep gorges through the in-cline before reaching level land, are the Whang Ho, Yang-tse, and Si rivers.

This long slope, or vast inclined plane, through which three great rivers have worn their way, furnishes the second division or set of altitudes in the great empire. Three immense gorges, or defiles, like mighty canals, have thus been cut out during the long ages. The billions of tons of earth which these streams have brought down from the higher land have been deposited below, forming the great fertile plains, both inland and along the sea, on which the larger part of the population of China is found to-day. A steady river of wind also, blowing from the west, after ages of activity, has deposited the vast yellow beds of loess, or loam, of various height, forming the great plain of northern China, on which many tens of millions of people live.

Thus the landscape is a triple formation, consisting of plateau, incline, and sea-level; the first averaging in altitude 12,000 feet; the second being roughly from 3000 to 6000 feet high; while the densely populated rolling land rises from 600 to 3000 feet above the sea-plain. Not a little of the fertile soil in the northeast, in the Yang-tse basin, and along the West River valley to the south, is almost on the level of the sea. The Yang-tse River is "the girdle of China," is most navigable of all China's streams, and is in the centre of its largest trade.

Large areas of the empire are uninhabited, or sparsely settled. A redistribution of population is needed in order that waste land shall be tilled and the pressure on the food-supply relieved. The replanting of the forests with greater variety of grain food, other than rice, the opening of the mines, the exploitation of the metallic and mineral wealth, and the building of railroads, making all regions accessible, will accomplish this with benefit to all. The masses are crowded in river valleys and on plains where rice is most easily cultivated.

The Chinese suffer to-day because they abused nature in early times. With the prodigality of youth, and never thinking of want, they cut down their forests without replanting. Now, over large areas the rain falls, but runs off at once as if from a roof, carrying down into the rivers and the sea billions of tons of earth that would be fertile if kept in place with its moisture retained. From the treeless hills, and from land robbed of its roots and underbrush for fuel, the soil is blown out to sea by the winds. To clothe the hills again with Nature's covering is China's duty. This lack of forests is the cause of alternate droughts and floods, which cause untold suffering and the loss of many millions of lives because of famine and drowning. China needs the engineer, the forester, the miner, and the railway builder. She may then be able to support a vastly greater population, for no land on earth of equal area exceeds China proper in fertility.

The various countries make up an empire containing one third of Asia, or about four and a half million square miles. No one knows its population, which is supposed by many to be over four hundred millions, but some think it less. The government claims a total of four hundred and twenty-six millions.

Notable differences exist, not only between the people of the North and those of the South, but also between the highlanders, the valley men, and those dwelling on the sea-plains. There is not, and never has been, a uniform speech. Writing and literature have always been the national bond. Indeed, the history of China will show us that in no country in the world have letters had a more profound influence, not only on the social, but also on the political development of a nation. Dialects arose in China very much as did French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other Romance languages of Southern Europe. The speech of the conquerors won, but the old ideas, idioms, thought-forms, and much of the vocabulary remained. Chinese dialects are as truly languages as are those in Europe derived from the Latin. The "Mandarin," created from the written forms, is the standard of the spoken language.

Nobody knows whence or how the first people, the primeval fathers of the Chinese, came into the old home, but all traditions point to their entrance from the West. The fortieth parallel of north latitude is the oldest pathway of nations. They passed from central Asia down the valley of the Tarim, where are still famous cities, through Turkestan, across the Gobi desert, and into the valleys of the Yellow River.

This great stream, called the Hoang Ho, or Whang Ho, flows southeastwardly from the high-lands of Tibet. After cutting out mighty gorges in the long slope, it makes a tremendous bend to the north. Then flowing southward, it turns from its great loop and debouches at present into the Gulf of Pechili. It has changed its course very many times, so that a map of the old channels, now dry and become fields, looks like a tangled skein of thread. Oftener, in ages past, it flowed into the sea at different points north of the promontory province of Shantung, but in many other cases it leaped southward, occasionally emptying its waters only a few miles away from its greater comrade, the Yang-tse. Its yellow color, whence its name, reveals its history. For ages past, "China's Sorrow" has wrought vast destruction of property, ruining houses and fertile fields and drowning millions of human beings, or bringing them to their death through famine. It constantly tends to raise its bed, and needs a greater engineer than China has yet produced to curb it. In history it has been what the Rhine is to Western Europe.

Into the Yellow River valley, before written history, bands of people entered with their faces to the rising sun. Industrious, peacefully inclined, ready to learn and to progress, they showed very early a capacity for self-development, and began an evolution, through ceaseless industry, toward the great triumphs of to-day. While most of what is Chinese has been evolved from within, much also has been imported from the West. We cannot say how much, though some have tried to tell us. China's astronomy and measurements of time are certainly borrowed from the same source as ours, Chaldea.

The Chinese is frugal, temperate, and laborious.

He runs to muscle rather than to nerve, and to body rather than to brain. Whereas the Hindoo is small of limb and frame, and large in head development, the Chinese tends to stockiness. The typical man of India enjoys intellectual discipline, but while the normal Chinese cultivates his mind, he does not give himself to abstractions. He lives on the earth. The mind of Confucius rose no higher.

Besides its fertility and variety of soil and scenery, China proper, where most of the people live, contains eighteen provinces and one third of the empire. It is well watered, and has many lake regions, which are yet to become playgrounds for the world's tourists. China proper is shaped, very appropriately, like a great round-bodied teapot, with one foot resting upon Hai-nan Island and another upon Burma. Shantung is its spout, while the eyes for the loops of the handle are the provinces of Chili on the east and Kangsi on the northwest.

Tibet, the cold highland of Asia and the cradle of its rivers, long the dwelling-place of the Grand Lana, and mysterious because unknown, the Pure Wrest, or Paradise of the Buddhists, the land of sheep and the yak, has only in late years been penetrated by daring explorers. It 812,000 square miles, and about 2,300,000 people.

In the extreme northwest, and north of Tibet, are East Turkestan and Ili, or Sungaria. Here, as in Mongolia, are great desert plateaus of dry sand. Of their early history we know but little, yet they were once populous. Beneath their drifting sands and dust are many buried cities. The name Gobi means "dried-up sea." Here water is worth more than gold, and the guide-marks for the routes of caravans are the bones of camels and horses. Yet large armies have crossed this desert waste, aided by the oases which dot the plain. In the Russian expeditions of Generals Skobeleff and Kaufmann to Mery and Khiva, in the last century, about twenty thousand camels died. In reality this is debatable land between the Russians and Chinese. The population in both provinces does not exceed two millions.

Mongolia, high, cool, and grassy, has much desert land, but is rich in camels, herds, and flocks. Out of these highlands, as from a geyser, in recurrent overflows, have gone forth both to the East and to the West many streams of humanity to influence history and civilization. To this source we can trace the Huns, Vandals, and other destructive hordes which assisted in breaking up the Roman Empire, and the Turks of later days. Going southward and eastward, as they scattered, they took on different names.

The Mongols overwhelmed China. In India they were called Moguls. Moving westward in a cloud of devastation they camped on Russian soil for over two centuries. To-day the Mongol coming to Peking, as camel driver, with long trains of camels, is the object of chaffing by his more civilized neighbor, the Chinese. The term "Mongolian," absurdly applied in late times to the Chinese, is a relic of the days when the science of ethnology was in its infancy.

Manchuria, with its area of 363,610 square miles, much of it fertile, includes the three eastern, or imperial, provinces. These in recent years have become famous as the seat of Japan's two wars, with China and with Russia. It is the bean-garden of the world. Its silkworms, that feed on oak-leaves instead of the mulberry, produce vast quantities of pongee, which means either "home-made " or "wild" silk. One third of its area is nearly as low as the sea-level. Since about 1860 there has been an active immigration thither, so that the population, greatly increased in recent years, numbers now probably 25,000,000.

Out of this region came the Manchus, who, since 1644, have given to China her ruling dynasty and most of her soldiers. They introduced the current style of dressing the hair, compelling the shaving of the forehead and the wearing of the queue in token of loyalty. Until very recently, Manchus never traveled abroad. Indeed, very few Chinese have ever been in America except those coming from the southern region around Canton. There has never been any sign of a large immigration from China to the United States from northern, central, western, or eastern China; but only from the South, where for centuries the emigrants, have gone out into peninsular and island Asia.

In Europe the Alps made the mountain line dividing the Romans from the vassal and pupil nations under their control. There were as yet no French, Germans, Dutch, English, Scotch, Irish, or Scandinavian populations and languages, but only wandering savages and rude barbarians, of whose language and general life, though they were our ancestors, we know but little. In time the northern barbarians, moving southward over the Alps, broke up the Roman Empire, mingled their blood with that of the southern people, and adopted more or less of Roman civilization. Through Christianity and mutual struggle, they passed by evolution into higher forms of life, in which the different nations, languages, and governments grew into their present form. To-day there are in Europe, Spaniards, French, Germans, Dutch, English, Russians, etc. Two thousand years ago, as there were north of the Roman Empire only "barbarians," so also there were only "Tartars" outside and north of China.

In eastern Asia, China was the civilized centre, with aborigines or uncivilized peoples to the east, south, and west, while in the north was the long frontier, beyond which were the savages called collectively Tatars. Their countries were later named Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, etc. This term, Tatar, is suggestive of horses or cattle and "horsy" men, whose business is with herds and droves, and who live, not on rice and grain, but on the milk of mares, sheep, and goats. One of their commandments was—"Never strike a horse."

When the Mongols broke into Europe, the similarity of the name Tatar to Tartarus, or Hell, prompted the monks to write the word Tatar as if it were spelled Tartar. The French king, St. Louis, in speaking of these rough riders from the Far East and their horrible deeds, said, "Well may they be called Tartars, for their deeds are those of fiends from Tartarus." They were certainly kinder to their animals than to men not of their own race.

As was the case with the various tribes called collectively Germans, so these many kinds of men in northern Asia bore different tribal names in various eras. Some scholars have divided Chinese history into two periods: first, development and evolution, until 206; while all the rest, until 1644, is comprised in the "struggles with the Tartars." The first great clash lasted from 206 to 589, when the empire was divided between the Tartars in the north and the Chinese in the south.

The second great struggle lasted from 589 to 1644, during which, after divisions between the Chinese and the Kin and Mongol Tartars, there was only one pure Chinese dynasty, called the Ming, or Bright, which lasted from 1388 to 1644. Then followed the Manchu Tartars, who assumed the rule over the empire with the capital at Peking. For the most part the conquerors kept themselves separated from the Chinese, not intermarrying with them. While they held the governmental rule and military power, the purse and the sword, they let the Chinese have their own way, so that the conquered won, as they perhaps always will, in the long run, by passive resistance. The Manchus lost their own language and changed most of their habits. Thus, through luxury and conformity to native ways, they became to all intents and purposes Chinese, and are now largely blended with the nation which they rule.

Nevertheless, there are still great differences in the physical appearance of the Manchus and the genuine natives, while many institutions, such as slavery, peculiar to the Tartars, were never adopted by the Chinese. In the wearing of the queue, the people were forced to be like their conquerors; for a "pigtail" is a sign of loyalty.

In the ancient world, before Confucius (551–479 ), when China meant only a little kingdom, not much larger than France or Texas, the various kinds of men, aborigines, savage and half-civilized, at the four points of the compass and on the islands, were vastly more different from one another than they are to-day. Manners, customs, food, religions, forms of social order, and government differed widely, and before becoming what they are, have passed through a long evolution. To-day they show the results of human beings under the play both of natural forces and of human influences, such as religion, literature, art, the pressure of invading and conquering nations, and the events of war and peace. Education and the social system have made one solvent that dissolves everything which it touches or which is dropped into it.

Perhaps no writer has made a better map showing the limits of old China and the gradual extension of the empire than has Professor E. H. Parker, though Klaproth's Atlas of twenty-six epochs is very suggestive. We see old China lying between parallels thirty-five and forty of north latitude, and between the Yellow River and the Gulf of Pechili. By a glance at Professor Parker's map, one may learn more about the other annexations, incorporations, and assimilations of territory, the areas conquered from and re-taken by the Tartars or nomads, the portions inhabited by mixed races, or only partially or very lately brought under Chinese influence, than from reading pages of description. To this day, in the very heart of the empire, there are tribes, like the Lolos, only half absorbed. An area as large as France is still occupied by several millions of people belonging to aboriginal tribes, nearly two hundred in number, called Chinese, but reckoned as "tame" savages, in contrast to the "wild" or the wholly unsubdued.

The general relations between the Chinese and their northern frontagers is best shown in the legends and anecdotes, just as the stories of our frontiersmen and captives among the Indians illustrate American colonial life. Many a Tartar lad, taken prisoner and employed at the Chinese court as a stable boy, waiter, or slave, rose to favor and fame. In one case, in 86 , an imperial general marched into Turkestan and captured the golden image worshiped by the tribe,—possibly a statue of Buddha,—and brought it home as spoil, along with the chieftain's son Jih Ti. The tall and fine-looking boy, so faithful to his duties, attracted the attention of the emperor, who raised him to the post of Master of the Horse, with the surname of Kin, or golden, and later made him regent of the empire. Jih Ti was famous for the magnificence of his clothes and houses, and in history his name enjoys posthumous honors.

This idea of gold as the measure of things super-fine, and with a sentimental as well as money value, is as common with the Chinese as with us. The small feet of the women are "golden lilies." The lights in the imperial palace are called "The Golden Lily Candelabra," and one of the highest honors conferred by the emperor upon a minister was to order him to be escorted home by light-bearers. The Gate of the Golden Horses, belonging to the imperial palace, took its name from a group of statuary, and to this day "to wait at the Gate of the Golden Horses" means to hold one's self in readiness for the imperial commands. It is this constant allusion to good stories, happy omens, or things that suggest pleasure, that makes a literary composition or the conversation of Chinese gentlemen with one another so sparkling. One of the most famous authors of dramatic literature of the seventeenth century had Kin in his name. In a thousand ways the Chinese show their love of gold, both sentimentally and in rhetoric, in art and in business, the Buddhists especially making their images, altars, and temple furnishings a blaze of golden glory.

It is from the Chinese, also, that the idea of the transmutation of metals, and especially of the baser into the nobler, comes. Since the discovery of radium in our time, scientific men do not sneer at this notion quite in the same way as they formerly did. The Chinese mystics taught that gold grows by natural evolution, beginning with the original substance of all things. It was argued that gold is the perfected essence of mountain rock, which, after the lapse of a thousand years, is changed into quicksilver. But this moon-metal, mercury, is called into existence by the female or lunar principle of nature, and remains liquid until acted upon by the solar or masculine elemental force, when it is converted into gold. This belief in the transmutation of metals was especially in vogue during the Tang and Sung dynasties, when the Arabs were bringing Chinese ideas, discoveries, and inventions to Europe. During the Middle Ages the Tartars called their dynasty Kin, or Golden. The great Mongol host that invaded Russia was called the Golden Horde.

Many are the novels and poems which picture the Chinese frontier settlements and garrisons, the troops and officers pining for home and tired of their monotonous life, the sudden raids and cunning stratagems of the enemy, and the experiences of border fighting. In many civil wars the Tartars were employed as auxiliaries, just as the British used the Indians during our Revolutionary War, and as both sides enrolled them in the War of 1812. Banishment beyond the Great Wall was frequent, and many are the laments of the exiles, in poetry. In some cases the long-banished one went out as a youth and came back as a white-haired man. Su Wu, who lived 100, was one of these, who is now extolled in the popular stories as the pattern of unchanging fidelity to his imperial lord. Forgotten at court, he sent a message to the emperor by means of "wireless telegraphy" on the wings of a bird. How he did it is thus told:—

After many years' absence, having meanwhile clung to his staff of office as a precious wand, he married a wife and reared a son. Catching a wild goose, he wrote a message of loyalty and attached it to the creature's leg just as it was about to fly southward in the autumn. The emperor, hunting in his pleasure grounds, shot the bird, and observing the missive, opened and read it. He at once took measures to have Su Wu recalled, and the venerable man, now husband and father, returned to receive honors.

Other instances are known in which fugitives from crime or debt, and Chinese renegades, got among the Tartars, teaching them many new things or helping them to profit by treachery in raids against the Chinese. Many also are the stories of the lovely wives of these exiles, left at home, but ever faithful to their lords. In the fourth century a lady, the wife of a banished governor, thus bereaved, embroidered her poetical laments in an intricate circular scrollwork, in 840 characters, on satin, and sent it as a souvenir to her absent lord. This dainty piece of needlework is as celebrated as is the Bayeux tapestry on which the Norman invasion of England is depicted. In China it is the original of many such works in the same style.

Chinese art, thought, and literature reflect this long struggle with the Tartars. There are two reasons why the South is always associated with what is sunny and pleasant, and is looked upon as the source of all that is good and desirable,—peace, calm, abundance, fruit, spice, treasure, commerce, and civilization; while the North is the quarter whence come cold, storm, death, disease, evil influences, war, and the Tartars. Of the two reasons, one arises from nature and the weather, the other is the lengthened shadow of history lying athwart the national memory.

Yet in the age-long clash between Chinese civilization and Tartar barbarism there were many mutual gains. The southerners learned many a lesson, and adopted from their neighbors not a few articles of food and other material advantages, while the northerners absorbed Chinese culture for their own good. The contact of the two peoples for their mutual benefit has been much like that of our American people with the Indians, who gave us tobacco, maple sugar, maize, the snow-shoe, the bark canoe, and many articles of food. Almost all distinctive American dishes, besides our best native fruits, grains, and berries, have been developed from Indian or native originals. So also the debt of the Chinese to the Tartars is very great. It is true that the very learned Terrien de la Couperie tried to trace at least one hundred and sixty items of civilization in China to Western sources; but the great body of critical scholars believe that in the Chinese Empire itself arose most of what is now part and parcel of the civilization of China.

In a word, as some writers contend, the real history of the Chinese Empire is as much that of the Tartars as of the Chinese. In the slow evolution of the ages, and especially during the reign of the dynasty ruling from 1644 into the twentieth century, itself Tartar, the two peoples have virtually blended together. Through alien pressure, and in presence of foreign aggressions, they have become one.

In each nation the hero must be the kind of man admired of the people, and very much like popular living men, but greater in every way. He must represent the nation's ideal of a great and good man. He must be crafty, strong, or brave, like Jacob, Samson, or David; powerful like Charlemagne, full of energy like Napoleon, or noble like Lincoln. If the real man did not actually have these traits, the romancers clothe him with them in fiction. Most of the ancient demigods, saints, and heroes would never know themselves if they could look into the mirror of modern fancy. The value of these oft-told stories about great men is to reflect opinion and show what ought to be, as well as what is. Story-tellers usually drop what is displeasing, and keep only what is lovely or exciting to tell. Mythology is rich in literary candy and sweets. Children like these best, and in the childhood of the race the taste of hearers requires what is suited to the palate.

Chinese fathers want their sons to be like the men who lived in the morning of creation. Every mother in the eighteen provinces hopes that her daughters will imitate the women of antiquity. All over the Chinese world, on the 7th of August, is the feast of the Starry Weaver Maiden, whose graces and accomplishments every Chinese girl hopes to have. Their early heroes are wonderfully like the popular men of modern China. If, therefore, the Chinese ideal is linked with toil, then their first man, or Adam, must be a tremendous worker with his hands. Incessant labor is the lot of China's millions. In Chinese fairy tales, the naughty boy or girl is lazy, the good one is always notably industrious.

This is so true that in China when any one wants to show that he is rich and does not have to toil with his hands, he lets his finger-nails grow long, sometimes even until they become like Nebuchadnezzar's talons. They look first like birds' claws, and then like switches. Little bamboo splints, or ivory supports, are used to keep them straight and prevent breakage, so that these signs of luxury may be trained as upon a trellis. Manicuring is an old art with the Chinese, but it is more like vine-dressing than with us. Portraits of persons of leisure show this. Empresses, who wear a sort of long, golden thimble on their finger tips, are thus represented.

When the Chinese think of creation, they tell us about the first being, who was named Pau Ku. He was placed on the earth, when sky and ground were all one, to reduce chaos to order and to pound, chisel, and carve the earth until it got into proper shape. The mighty giant had a chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other. For eighteen thousand years he began work every morning early and kept up his task until dark. As he toiled, he increased in stature, so that gradually he was able to push up the heavens and expand the earth, making it more solid and shapely. He held the sun and moon in his hands. At last, in a rough way indeed, the world was fit for human beings to live upon.

Then Pan Ku died, but in his death he did almost as much to make the world habitable as during his life, for the products of the decay of his body gave the earth its furniture. His head became mountains; his breath, winds and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye the sun, and his right eye the moon. His limbs were changed into the four quarters of the globe, and his five extremities into the five great mountains famous in Chinese history. His sinews became the undulations of the earth's surface, his blood the rivers, his muscles and veins the strata of the earth, his flesh the soil, his hair and beard the stars and constellations, his skin and the hairs on it plants and trees, his teeth and bones metals, and his marrow pearls and precious stones. The sweat of his body turned into rain, and then, as the last particles of his mortal frame were blown upon by the wind, the parasites, or, as we should call them, microbes, turned into human beings.

The Chinese and the Scandinavian theories of creation are much alike.

There were many giants on the earth in those days, There always are in ancient stories. Some of the big fellows, being unruly, had to be kept in older. So three rulers in succession, called the heavenly, the earthly, and the human sovereigns, each of them living eighteen thousand years, ruled the world. Gradually the inhabitants learned to do many things, becoming thus less brutish and more human. They had homes and families. Children knew their fathers. As yet, however, they lived in caves, in holes in the ground, or among the branches of the trees, and ate their food raw. The earth was full of horrible beasts and reptiles, and the trees and vegetation were rougher than at present and furnished little food for man. Gradually better breeds of animals came into being, and some of these were tamed for human service. Certainly no race has excelled the Chinese in taming animals, beasts, birds, reptiles, and fish for the service of man.

After Pan Ku and the three early sovereigns, there followed a ruler who instructed men in the building of "wooden nests" or houses. Then the Fire Maker showed men how to rub one stick against another until smoke and flame came forth. He also taught them to count and record days, months, and years by tying knots with strings. From this time on, men cooked their food, softened many hard things by fire, hot water, and steam, and kept warm in cold weather.

One must not ask, nor try to answer, too many questions about these old stories. Myths are mirrors of belief. They are very useful in showing what the Chinese believed about their ancestors. These, they thought, rose from very humble beginnings and passed through periods of lowest savagery, which is a kind of life not very far lifted up, either in habits or in states of mind, from that of the brutes. Then they merged into a condition one stage higher, barbarism, in which there were arts and crafts, by which men avail themselves of the forces and resources of nature and gain health, comforts, and time for thought. The first is an age of long processes, the other of distinct events.

This unknown period of early beginnings men fill up with mythology and fairy tales, because they cannot now tell exactly what took place, any more than a child can remember what happened in its infancy. There are no records, for there was then no writing, but only rude picture signs, such as Indians and Esquimaux use. In the next age certain great happenings stand out by them-selves, such as a flood, a famine, an earthquake or pestilence which destroys many lives. The happy events, such as the introduction of a new article of food or drink, the discovery of metals, a sure remedy for diseases, or an invention that saves toil or gives beauty, are long remembered.

In this period also there are great civilizers, who teach marriage and politeness, medicine and agriculture, the catching of fish, and the rearing of domestic animals. They show how hemp may be woven into cloths, or how silkworms may be made to yield shining fibres for beautiful dresses. Some make musical instruments and draw sweet sounds therefrom, or they invent writing, and thus store up and hand down, even after death, ideas, information, and records of events. With what the steel point scratches on bamboo, or the brush pen puts with ink on paper, men may be moved by history, eloquence, or poetry. Then the drama and the theatre come into existence.

In time, these great men who were inventors are supposed to have been "gods." Gratitude turns to adoration, prayer, and honors paid to their memory. Craftsmen, guilds and companies, cities and provinces, adopt them as their patron gods or saints. The painters attempt to represent their faces. Legend, poetry, the drama, proverbs, and art make their names and their sup-posed features, as shown in their portraits, so that they become very real to the people. Where we foreigners, visiting a temple in Canton, or seeing a collection of dolls, images, idols, or pictures in Ningpo, behold only strangeness and oddity, the natives of China recognize benefactors and familiar friends, whose names are to them as household words. As the thirteen stripes and cluster of stars suggest the independent thirteen colonies which became the United States, or as an axe and rails recall Abraham Lincoln, so to the Chinese mind the cock standing on the drum means peace, the sacred unicorn prosperity, and a score of other symbols bring to memory famous events in the long and glorious history of China,—the oldest of states.

The legendary age extends from 2852 to the historical period, which begins about 800 , after which we have clearly written accounts of men who did things at a fixed date, and who lived very much nearer in time to the men who wrote about them. The Chinese have no history before 800 , and the Japanese none before 400 Yet, like Europeans of all sorts, they claim vast age, which has only lately manufactured tradition to support it.

All the languages of mankind may be divided into a few families. The Aryan has inflections, gender, number, person, and case, and the root is changeable in form. The Semitic has tri-literal roots. The Turanian is agglutinative, extra pieces or parts of speech being glued on to the unchangeable root. Now, Chinese is perhaps the oldest written, living language in the world, but the very fact that it began to be written so early prevented its growth. Infants learn to talk in single syllables. Chinese is the baby talk of the ancient world, too early fixed in form by written characters, and has little or no grammar. It is monosyllabic. The poverty of sounds is made into richness by a system of tones, so that one syllable may have many meanings, according as it is intoned.

That is the main reason why it is so hard for us to hold Chinese names in our mind. There are no long words, and even proper names are made of monosyllables. If we do not know the language by eye or ear, it is only by making Chinese words and names look and sound like our own that we can easily remember them, as we see in the case of names of places and Latin forms like Confucius, Mongolia, Manchuria, etc.

Hence, also, the very short names of the early founders of Chinese order. To read of them and what they did is like perusing the early chapters of Genesis. Thus Tsi, now worshiped as the god of agriculture, was Director of Husbandry. Shen Nung, the Divine Husbandman, first fashioned timber into ploughs and taught men farming. He discovered the curative virtues of plants and began the practice of bolding markets. He developed the scheme of the eight diagrams, on which philosophy is based, into sixty-four. Hi Chung, director of chariots under Yu the Great, taught men to apply horses in draught, and ploughs and wheeled vehicles in place of human labor. Another introduced the grapevine and showed men how to make wine. Ling Lun began the art of music. In medical science, one physician dissected the human body, learned about its internal parts and the blood channels, and set forth a theory of the pulses. One of his successors, long afterward, was very skilful in acupuncture, or needle surgery, and by this means relieved an emperor of cerebral disease. Li Show was the inventor of the art of notation, and drew up the nine sections of mathematics. In order to measure the earth, that is, the known dominions, Tai Chang paced the earth from its eastern to its western border, while Shu Hai performed the same task from north to south, by which means its length and breadth were ascertained. To these early people "the earth" meant China.

Indeed, most Chinese precedents are drawn from this age, which we may call that of the Yellow Emperor, Whang Ti ( 2697), who was surrounded by eminent men of light and leading, whose names are famous. Of course, the Chinese, though now a very peaceful people, must have a god of war. All old nations did. Yeo was a great rebel, who was beaten by the Yellow Emperor. He headed a confederacy of eighty-one brothers who talked like men, but who had the bodies of beasts and fed on dust. They made war weapons and oppressed the people until Whang Ti marched to chastise them. On the day of battle, Yeo called on the wind god and rain lord to aid him, but when a mighty tempest rose, the Yellow Emperor sent his ally, the Daughter of Heaven, to quell the storm. Then he slew the rebel, whose spirit went up and occupied the planet Mars, which still influences the issues of battle. Verily this was a war of Titans. Yeo was the first to produce disorder, but is reputed to be the inventor of weapons and of astrology.

Two great men, Yao and Shun, are to the Chinese very much what Abraham and Moses are to the Semitic peoples. Chinese gentlemen will say, and believe what they are telling you, that there is hardly anything in the China of to-day that was not in the minds or plans of Yao and Shun. The reign of one began 2356, and of the other, his associate, 2285. As with most national worthies, we have wonderful stories as to what their fond mothers thought of them, even before they were born. The mother of Yu the Great gave him birth after seeing a falling star and swallowing a divine pearl. The three, considered as peerless in wisdom and virtue, have been immortalized by Confucius and Mencius, and glorified beyond measure by later writers.

Theirs was the golden age which it is the object of the good men of to-day to bring back to the earth. Yao began great works, but selected Shun, because of his filial piety, to complete them. In Yao's time a great flood covered the country, the water rising even to the tops of the mountains. This overflow, which destroyed fields and houses, was probably a change in the channel of the Yellow River. After nine years of incredible toil, during which he took heed neither to food nor clothing, and thrice passed by the door of his home without stopping, even when he heard the wailing of his infant son within, Yu brought the waters under control. Then he divided the empire into nine provinces. Agriculture was taught and a calendar was begun, by having men watch the notions of the stars and planets. To accept the Chinese calendar has ever been a mark of loyal vassalage to the Chinese emperor. Shun also improved the ritual of religion and ordained a code of punishments.

It is the peculiarity of nearly all ancient writing and religion, and the mark usually of age, both in individuals and in nations, to assert vehemently that the past was better than the present, and things are not as they used to be, either in ancient times or when "we were children." With every succeeding age glorifying the former one, and the story-teller always embellishing what went before, there is piled up a vast mass of unconscious exaggeration. The past "wins a glory by its being far." In those distant days in China, nobody stole anything, or locked his doors at night, and things dropped on the road were never picked up by any but the owner. In a word, as among savages, private ownership, or property, was unknown. Everything was held in common. Morals were of the community, not of the individual.

The virtues and prosperous government of the two celebrated sovereigns, Yao and Shun, are commemorated in a phrase of four characters, the synonym for prosperity, and reading literally "Yao Heaven, Shun sun"; or, in full, "Heaven favoring, as in the days of Yao; and the sun resplendent, or the day prosperous, as in the time of Shun." Another phrase is "Pearls strung together and the tally of gems united," meaning brilliancy and concord. When Yao had completed the seventieth year of his reign at the winter solstice, the five planets were in conjunction and the sun and moon stood opposite to each other.

Learned men's essays and Chinese literature in general, but especially of the elegant sort, are full of such terse phrases, which make sentences sparkle and delight cultured readers. No language is as luxurious as the Chinese in allusions to ancient stories, anecdotes of famous people, or places and things delightful. It is no wonder the Chinese love their favorite authors, whose texts are a mosaic rich in pleasing images.

Chinese notions of eclipses were those of man everywhere. It was especially charged upon the two earliest astronomers that they should give warning of a solar eclipse. According to the tradition, these men neglected their duty and became riotous and drunken. An eclipse having come on without notice, the pair were put to death.

The great mass of ignorant people in China are still terrified when they see during the daytime untimely darkness, and the birds going to roost in the premature twilight. Believing that a great dragon in the sky is swallowing the luminary, they beat gongs, drums, and tom-toms, blow horns and whistles, and by every kind of hideous noise try to frighten the monster away or make him disgorge his prey. When full light comes again, they imagine they have succeeded. Similar ideas prevailed in ancient Europe.

The dragon is also the symbol of what is most precious. It is believed that pearls endowed with peculiar virtues of magic and blessing are carried by dragons upon their foreheads. We see them playing with one another and the jewels, or, supremely strenuous, they contend in dire conflict for the possession of the prizes. One of the most common representations on works of art is that of two dragons, that are struggling for, or, it may be, guarding a precious gem. This is a picture, in symbol, of the terrific struggle of the forces of the universe, as manifested in storm, cyclone, typhoon, earthquake, tidal wave, volcanic eruption, or the phenomena of the skies, ocean, and land. On the Chinese national flag the dragon is the emblem of authority. Although the Chinese did not know the theory of the tides, and the effect which the moon has upon the sea and its waters, yet they associated the moon, or the precious pearl among the moving clouds in the sky, with the pulses of the ocean. A common representation in bronze and crystal is that of dragons seizing, contending for, or controlling the crystal ball or pearl, which represents the moon. Hence the dragon is used as a symbol of commerce and fortunate voyages, or the hope of such, and on paper money.

We meet the dragon very often in fairyland. The shrine of the king of the world beneath the sea is under his guardianship. He guides the daring voyager into strange seas and to the treasure castle on far-off islands. He loves music, and can be diverted by the sound of the lute. He delivers the hero out of his dangers, and brings the princess safely to joy and peace. In their dreams, Chinese children, and especially ambitious students, ride on the backs of dragons and go soaring through the air and over mountains and sea, or they travel on these coursers into strange lands, or go down beneath the ocean's bed. In serious thought the dragon is the symbol of that with which the impious may not fool or trifle, and whose powers none may mock or defy.

One would need a library to tell of all the stories of dragons in the lore and art of Japan, Korea, and other nations under Chinese culture. In geography an amazing number of features of the landscape take their name from some part of the dragon's body, head, tail, eye, or mouth. The successful students at examinations are called dragons. The emblem of their success is either the dragon or the tiger. The Son of Heaven, the emperor, and his high ministers, and all the imperial attributes are associated with this divinely constituted creature, and the seat of power is called the Dragon's Seat. Hence, around the imperial throne of China the dragon is carved in the richest wood and rarest stones. The emperor's face is the Dragon Countenance, and his carriage the Dragon's Chariot.

In Chinese literature there are twenty-four stories of twenty-three sons and one daughter who illustrated filial piety in their unswerving obedience, and in the unselfish sacrifices they made for their parents. It rather amuses the Occidental to find so many boys and only one girl thus canonized. We recognize these characters in the storybooks, in pictures on plates, cups, and vases, and in many forms of art in China and Japan. Putnam and the wolf, George Washington and his cherry tree, Betsy Ross and her flag, are not better known to us than are these paragons to the Chinese.

We must not forget that classic China, where these worthies lived, with fewer than a million people in it, comprised only parts of three northern provinces. The neighboring aborigines had not been wholly subdued, though peaceful measures were gradually winning them over. So long as they remained quiet, they were allowed to live on the soil, gradually becoming Chinese.

All land in theory belonged to the ruler, who gave certificates of ownership, part of the produce being paid to him for the support of order. Where the ruler lived was the capital. This was in the centre of five squares, of different sizes, inclosed one within another. The central one was called the Royal Domain. The Noble's Tenure, or next square, consisted of lands allotted to the great officers. The Region of Tranquil Tenure, the Territory of Aliens, and the Wild Domain followed in their order. In these five squares lived the nine different grades of people, from the ruler and his household to the savages in the distant regions where civilization was unknown. Those living in the square nearest the capital paid the highest taxes, and those at the greatest distance the lightest.

Gradually government changed from the simple patriarchal form, in which the head of a tribe ruled his people, as if all were in one family, into a monarchy, where there was a king, with grades of society,—the nobles, the higher order of citizens, the lower orders, the half subdued, and the utterly wild,—each class paying taxes according to ability. Thus by slow evolution the form of government approached that of to-day. In reality China has passed through many varieties of government, but the nation is one family and the emperor is the father of his people.

All religions are less complicated and more simple as we ascend the stream of time. There were no idols or temples, or any caste of priests, in early China. Worship was offered to the Supreme Ruler, to the Six Objects of Honor, to hills and rivers, and to the hosts of spirits. Many scholars translate the term Shang-ti by our word God. A sentence from Confucius, in ten characters, in his Doctrine of the Mean, or Middle Way, is thus put into English: "In the ceremonies at the altars of Heaven and Earth they served God." In spirit and form, ancient Chinese religion was but slightly different from that of the ancient Semites. The Temple of Heaven in Peking, mostly of white marble, in three stories, is roofed with blue tiles, as if to represent the azure of the sky. Dr. Legge put off his shoes in visiting this sacred place. In 1900, the British cavalry made a stable of it!

Ancient worship was graded. When we first know anything of Chinese ancestral worship, we find this to be the form of their religion. Only the emperor offered sacrifice to the spirits of his imperial progenitors, the province governors to the spirits of Earth and Heaven, and the common people to their ancestors.

In all ancient cults, however, what a man neglected to do was even more significant than what he performed. It was believed that the spirits of the forefathers had great powers of evil, as well as of good. Therefore to neglect honoring the ancestors might mean frightful disasters from water, fire, or pestilence.

When scholars tell us about the ancient religion of China, as described in or learned from the books, we must remember that this lofty faith was practiced in its purity only by the most intelligent and devout. The great mass, the ignorant, the vulgar, the stupid, the brutal and wicked held to debasing habits and notions. Beast-worship, belief in fox and wolf possession, witchcraft and resort to magic, and a degrading fear of evil spirits, were and are general. In China, as in other countries, there is a great gulf between the theory and the practice of religion.

In China, whether pre-ancient or of to-day, the unit of society is not the individual, but the family. The happiness or unhappiness of the individual is nothing in itself, that of the family is everything. Equality and fraternity are written on the Chinese heart, and the idea of education is to inspire family affection. There is no other country in the world where the family idea is so prominent or its unity so safeguarded.

Oriental civilization is communal, not individual. Even the language mirrors the state of society. There are no true personal pronouns, few ways or none of expressing individuality, no personification in poetry, while the whole speech is impersonal to the last degree. Many words common to us cannot be translated directly into these languages, nor theirs into ours, for there are no exact equivalents. It is like making change as between American quarters and English shillings, or American dollars and French five-franc pieces. One can come only near to a fair exchange.

With us the husband and wife begin the home, living, as a rule, apart from their parents. In China the married children occupy the same house with the son's parents. If a man is adopted into another family, with no father or son in it, he must, in order to become its head, take his wife's family name. Of old the members of the same family lived in one hamlet, and when the families increased they became a clan, which was supposed to have had but one ancestor. Even to-day in remote villages, all the people form one household. One great house, built in the form of a circle, or hollow ring, with the garden in the centre and cultivated fields outside, may hold three or four generations in many families who make up one clan, living under one round roof for better protection against robbers.

This prehistoric division of the people into clans is reflected in the very small number of Chinese family names. Ours, like Smith, Jones, etc., are large in number, compared to the Li, Sun, Fan, etc., of the "Hundred Families" of China. In all matters that are purely local, the head of the family or clan has control. There is no country in the world more famous for its local freedom, and no larger democracy than China. Yet there seems lacking a powerful middle class between the throne and the people. This is China's great need. Local customs are so tenacious as to have the force of law, and with these customs or binding traditions of a place, very few magistrates, whether emperors, province rulers, mayors, or village elders, dare interfere.

In very, very early days, human sacrifices were as common in eastern Asia as in Europe. When the master died, some, often many, of his faithful servants, yes, even his wives, died with him. Traces of this custom are found within quite modern times. Among the beneficent reforms was the substitution of clay figures, and, in process of time, of paper effigies. Memorial tablets are said to have originated 350 in honor of a courtier who had given his own flesh to save the life of an emperor. Ancestor-worship involved the propitiation of the evil as well as the good spirits. This is the immediate purpose in mind when fire-crackers are set off by the Chinese in their burying-grounds and at funerals; that is, to scare off the spirits that would work harm. In constant fear of the over-populated world of the unseen, the Chinaman, like the Japanese, is apt to laugh or appear gay, when announcing bad news or telling of trouble, especially of the death of near friends. It is a relic of the old dread of evil spirits and the desire of not letting them know, lest they might seize upon the departed. A large part of the ritual of burial is intended to fool or drive away the goblins, and at the grave these are kept off by fireworks. This is the real and the unconsciously inherited philosophy of "the Japanese smile." The Chinese grin while bearing pain, or announce sad news with apparent merriment.

One of several stories illustrating the ancient custom of men "dying with the master," or of virgins being offered to appease gods and monsters, is that of "giving a wife in marriage to the river-god." It also shows how a brave man abolished a bad custom. A reforming governor, 424, found that the ruling elders of a certain city, in league with the sorcerers and a chief priestess, levied money on the people and then selected a pretty maiden, who was richly dressed and thrown into the Yellow River to meet the embraces of the god. The next year the governor seized the chief sorceress and some of her associates and tumbled them into the water in place of the customary virgin. After that the river lord, or god of the Yellow River, had to do without his regular allowance.

In a pack of fire-crackers, one can see reflected the order of ancient society. There is, first of all, the one yellow, or imperial cracker. That stands for the emperor. Various green-tinted crackers represent the nobles and magistrates of various ranks, whom we call "mandarins." The great number alike and of the same color, red, tell of the populace or common people, who are "made of the red earth and to the red earth return." What we long employed to celebrate the birth of a new nation, July 4, 1776, the Chinese used ages ago in connection with funerals. The one way is about as civilized as the other.

When Yu succeeded to power, 2205, there began the Hia or first regular Chinese dynasty, which lasted to 1818. It was so named after the territory now in the province of Honan, which was given to Yu the Great, for his services in controlling the Yellow River. After this herculean task, he gave the country a good government. In order to be close to the people, he had a drum, a gong, a sounding-stone, a wooden bell, and a rattle hung outside the palace walls. These, in their order, were to be sounded according as one came to instruct the king, had a suggestion to offer, came to tell of famine or rebellion, appealed from an unjust decision, or asked for justice. During Yu's reign, more aboriginal tribes were conquered and the realm was extended. As gold and silver were now mined, stamped money took the place of the old-fashioned barter.

The legends of the era show the influence of both good and wicked women as well as men. They make it plain, also, that as wealth increased, luxury and cruelty became more general. The state of affairs became so bad that one Prince Tang, a very virtuous man, was, in 1766, provoked into rebellion,—the first of the many successful "rebels" known in Chinese history.

On the occasion of a great drought, it was supposed that the wrath of Heaven required a human victim. In this crisis, the emperor, Tang, after fastening and cutting off his hair, put on white robes, and in a chariot drawn by white horses came to the mulberry grove where sacrifices were offered. Confessing his sins, Tang prayed to Heaven to take his life for the sins of the people. Happily at this moment clouds gathered, rain fell, and his life was spared. The Shang or Yin dynasty, which he founded, endured for over six hundred years, from 1766 to 1122. Most of the twenty-six rulers were of little personal importance.

During this period, in addition to the wild tribes on the borders, we note the beginning of the long struggle between the Chinese and the northern Tartars, which at last, after thirty centuries, ended by the Manchus subduing the Chinese in war, and ruling in Peking. On the other hand, the Chinese overcame their conquerors in time of peace, civilization winning greater victories than those of bloodshed.

Most interesting during this epoch is the division of the arable land into units of nine equal squares. Each family cultivated its own block, while the ninth, or central square, was worked in common by all and its produce paid to the government as a tax. Gradually it came to pass that the emperor, who ruled by divine right as the father of his people, was looked upon as the favorite of the Supreme Ruler and was called the Son of Heaven, as we have seen.

Probably the most famous man of this period was the scholar Ki Tsze, an ancestor of Confucius, whom the Koreans call the founder of their civilization. He was the author of part of the classics. Vainly protesting against the wickedness of his sovereign, he was thrown into prison, but, released in 1122, he went to Liao Tung, or the Far East. His alleged tomb at Ping Yang was greatly injured during the war of 1894, but was soon re-paired. Around a sacrificial stone table and drum are the effigies of horses and sheep, as at the tombs of great men in China. Because Ki Tsze lived before Confucius, the Koreans boast an antiquity greater than China's and a "civilization four thousand years old." Yet they have no real history covering half this period.

With the defeat of Chou Hsin, in 1122, the Divine Prince, Wu Wang, founded the famous Chow dynasty, lasting from 1122 to 255, ushering in also the feudal system, so brilliantly described in the poetry gathered by Confucius, at which we shall now glance.

The feudalism of Japan, under which I had the rare experience of living, in 1871, during the last year of its career, was seven centuries old, and was very much like that of other countries and ages. Indeed one reason, and the chief one, for the difference in the reputations of Chinese and Japanese merchants lies in the fact that in China, since feudalism passed away, trade has been honorable for more than two thousand years. In Japan feudalism was not abolished until 1872, and until that time the merchant had no social standing.

In feudalism there is no place of honor for the trader, but only for the landowner and the soldier. There may be many definitions of feudalism, but practically in this state of society there are only two classes of people,—those who own land and are "somebody," and those who are landless and are "nobody." The whole basis of feudalism is ownership of land. All the territory, instead of being owned by those who have bought or who till it, belongs to men of varying rank, to whom it has been given as a reward for personal service.

In such a state of society there are lords and nobles, and in some countries the clergy also, as privileged classes. Yet instead of many classes of the people, or hundreds of ways of earning a living, making many social distinctions, as in mod-ern life, there are but two divisions of society,—taxpayers and non-taxpayers. The peasantry may consist of the free and the unfree, that is, of serfs and farmers who have certain privileges on the soil. "The people" do not exist politically. They have few or no rights, for the lord of the land owns everything,—the fish in the water, the birds in the air, the beasts in the forest, and the treasures in the ground. All privileges come from the land-lord, who permits or forbids, exercising authority in even the smallest affairs. Yet there are many picturesque phases of human life and generally a great diversity of color, costume, and customs. In the feudal system, almost all relations and usages being based on ownership of land, the chief characteristics of social and political life are the relationships of lords and vassals. In such a state of society, public law becomes merged into private law, so that office, jurisdiction, and even kingship are forms of property. The tenures of land are in the form of feuds, that is, fees, or fiefs. The retainer is bound to serve his lord at court or as a soldier. The personal note of the system is loyalty. For the sake of his lord, the knight or soldier must count his life, his parents, wife, children, or property as naught, in comparison to the claims of his master upon him. Thus the great laws of con-tract and of mutual dependence and service are taught, and probably as these can be taught in no other system of society. In China, filial piety is the basis of civilization and the note of ethics and history. In Japan it is loyalty.

When Wu Wang, who founded the Chow dynasty (1122–255 ), became emperor, he parceled out his domain, rewarding those who had helped him during his campaigns. Besides giving them grants of land he added titles of honor, such as duke, marquis, earl, count, etc. These high officers were the emperor's vassals and were bound to serve him as courtiers or soldiers. In this way China was divided up like a chessboard, though the areas were of various shapes and sizes, for the real value of territory is not in its measurement, but in its fertility, and is reckoned according to the average results of the harvest.

Now there are two ways of picturing to the mind this remarkable era and the people who lived under it. One is to write the outward story of events, give a catalogue of the petty states,—scores in number, each with a monosyllabic name, which few of us can remember,—and then mention the rulers in succession, or tell of the feudal wars; in other words, to show the bones of history.

As to war, one might almost say that campaigns seemed continuous and interminable. Many rulers, ambitious of power and coveting more land, extended their boundaries unjustly. Armies went out regularly when the millet flowers bloomed in the spring, and returned when the snow lay on the mire. As each state was governed by its own ruler, there was constant rivalry between these vassal kingdoms. In time, some of them became so powerful that their rulers took the title of kings. One of them, the state of Tsin, or Chin, became paramount, 255, overthrew the imperial dynasty, and usurped the throne. It is believed that from this state the name China became known throughout Asia. Dr. Legge declares that "the state of Tsin fought its way to empire through seas of blood. Probably there is no country in the world which has drunk in so much blood from its battles, sieges, and massacres as this."

There is another way of picturing China's feudal age. It is to tell how people felt, played, hunted, met together socially, and enjoyed themselves; or, how the nobles and their men of war with their splendid chariots, caparisoned horses, silken banners, shining armor, fine clothes, jewels, and equipment made grand display at the durbars, or state levees, when the prince gave audience to his vassals. It is pleasant, also, to learn how the women and young folks lived, dressed, and amused them-selves, how children were reared and educated, what was the round of daily life, what grew in the fields, and what kind of food was eaten. We would know something about agriculture and industry, what flowers were cultivated, and what animals were hunted or reared for protection and defense, or employed for burdens or draught. One would like to be told of the ornaments and jewels worn, of the perfumes that were considered pleasant, of the musical instruments played, and, in general, about what human beings cared most to do. Has any one reported these things? In the days before newspapers, who wrote on such subjects?

Happily for us we have true pictures made by men and women who lived during the feudal era. These word-paintings are found in the form of poetry, written from 1765 to 585, in the She King, or Book of Odes, which Confucius edited, and Dr. James B. Legge has translated. According to the tradition, "the old poems amounted to more than three thousand. Confucius removed those which were only repetitions of others, and selected those which would be service-able for the inculcation of propriety and Confucius published in all three hundred and five pieces, which he sung over to his lute to bring them into accordance with the musical style then prevalent.

Many of these verse-pictures are of lovers and weddings, and of the joyous festivals celebrated when the maid became bride and wife. Lovers seem to have been like those of to-day,—as much in a hurry as now,—eager to get their wives, then, after marriage, taking things as a matter of course. See the swift-driving lover in this poem:—

The poem in five stanzas then describes the birds and living creatures met by the rider on his way to his "virtuous bride of noble mind and personality," and how he ascended the hills and ridges. Whether on level roads or slopes, he drew from the things seen, were they oak trees or trailing-tailed pheasants, images of the beauty and grace of the maid who was to make his home.

In another case, when, "like the dove in the magpie's nest," the bride goes to her future home, a hundred chariots are ready to meet her and take her there. Again a wife, with industry and reverence, assists her husband in sacrificing at the temple. In other verses, the wife of a great officer bewails his absence on duty and longs for the joy of his return. Many are the picture-songs celebrating the diligence and virtue of good wives, or the charms of royal princesses. One poem shows the anxiety of a young lady to get married. She notices that the plums when ripe fall from the bough,—at first only seven tenths, then three tenths are left, and finally she gives notice that they who would "wish her love to gain" will not now apply in vain. When no more plums are on the bough, and all are in the basket, any ardent seeker "need only speak the word."

The position of woman was not very high in these early ages. It never has been in China, where subordination is the great principle. The introduction of Confucianism into Korea and Japan resulted in a distinct lowering of the status of women. Even the loved bride might be called a dove, but it would be with the idea of her stupidity, not loveliness. A score of odes celebrate the lack of jealousy in the true wife toward the other women in the harem, one of them being devoted to the cure of jealousy and "the restoration of good feeling in the harem." The Chinese can never be proud of their treatment of one half of the race, despite all their boasted ethics. Nevertheless, China has had many great women who are justly famous.

One of the difficult tasks in translating poetry or prose from one language into another is that of retaining the pleasing associations of the original. "One man's meat is another man's poison," and "concerning tastes there should be no dispute." Different peoples have very varying ideas as to a goose, a dove, or the tree from which jujube paste is made. Not only plants, but animals, have a different language to various nations. The same flower in one country suggests a funeral and in another a wedding. To one mind there rises at a certain word the idea of grace and beauty, to another that of stupidity and folly. In one country the cherry blossom is the queen of flowers, in another the rose. In our land the rose-bud is the emblem of blooming young womanhood, but in Japan the Valerian blossom. Many common flowers in the gardens of China, as familiar as are golden-rod or pond-lilies to us, are known in America only by their long and uncouth Latin names. It is very evident that we cannot do justice to these ancient poems of China by mere translation. The task awaits some poet who is also a scholar in Chinese.

Very remarkable is the fact that many of these odes, written thousands of years ago, contain the same ideas expressed in almost the same metre with which our poets have made us familiar. For example, there is one nearly identical with our "Woodman, Spare that Tree":—

And the reason is that the people love the tree because their good ruler, the duke, rested under it.

All know Poe's wonderful rhymes on the raven. About 200, an exiled Chinese poet pictures himself in grief and loneliness amid his volumes of lore, in a poem half as long as Poe's, which Dr. W. A. P. Martin has translated thus:—

Then follow seven other stanzas, which contain much the same idea as that over which Poe brooded:—

Confucius may, or may not, be held responsible for admitting into his collection, without a word of explanation, an ode which has done much to perpetuate among his people a barbarous contempt for women. However we translate it, the idea is there. It occurs in a poem on the completion of a royal palace with good wishes for the builder and his posterity. Dr. Martin thus gives a rhyming translation:—

Wonderfully vivid, in the poems, are the pictures of the costumes, the handsome figures, and the easy dignity of popular officers at the court. Fulsome praises of certain dukes, for their culture and accomplishments, are set in tuneful lines. The weaknesses of conceited young men of rank are held up to ridicule. There are sentimental travelers who give themselves up to melancholy on contemplating the desolation of former capitals. Famous buildings, once filled with gay lords and ladies, now lying as ruins among the millet fields or forgotten among men, compel reflection. The moon inspired to much verse-making then as now. We hear also the murmurs of the soldiers who have been long absent on service, and are home-sick. In many a case, an officer of character is weary of life and complains that men of principle suffer while worthless men escape punishment.

Many narratives show how virtuous magistrates repress crime and licentiousness. The daring charioteer is praised for his skill and speed in the races, while the archers are honored in verse for their rapidity, skill, and ability to hit the target.

The praises of many birds, insects, and animals, that furnish human beings with good examples, are sung by these men of the lute. The noxious vermin and rodents are awful examples to the lazy and vicious. One man is likened to a rat, because he is uncultured and rude, or in Chinese phrase "lacks propriety." In another case, a rabbit catcher is praised as fit to be a prince's mate. The country boy diligent in his business stands before kings.

A very large number of the poems are about, or by, or dedicated to women, but many more are by, about, or in praise of or sympathy with soldiers, so that one would think the feudal age was given up wholly to love and war. The peasantry are praised and misgovernment is condemned, in some cases even when the people, while complaining of their harsh treatment, profess still more strongly their loyalty. Evidently there was plenty of gossip and slander, for these furnish the theme of many of the odes.

Step by step we can trace the rise of some of the feudal lords, and their growing opulence and pride, which led to luxury in the castle, but which meant more oppression and heavier taxes for the people. Many of the poets lament over the frivolous character of their princes, who are more fond of displaying their robes than of attending to the duties of government. Certain lines also read as if the fashion reporter of a modern society journal had been present, for the description of dresses is quite detailed. There is no lack of sarcasm, irony, jibe, and pun. One poet lampoons the gate wardens, who shine so grandly in their red knee covers, but who really disgrace the court, looking rather like pelicans that stand on the dam:—

An accurate picture of lazy office-holders, who feed at the public expense!

Thus in the early morning of Chinese history, we find numerous poets and plenty of poetry. Through all the centuries and to this day the Chinese gentleman pens verses. The national store-house of poetry is very rich. Verse-writing literary parties and contests are very common. The Worthies of the Bamboo Grove, a club of seven convivial men of letters, about 275, are among those most renowned. Many improvised poems are popularly known and quoted, the following stanza being among the most famous. A tyrant and usurper, jealous of his brother, who had talents as a poet, hoping to bring him to confusion, commanded hint publicly to compose an ode while taking seven paces. Equal to the occasion, the poet took seven steps while reciting these satiric lines:—

For twenty centuries, the phrase Whang-ti, which stands for the Universal Sovereignty claimed by China, has represented the political theory underlying the Chinese world of ideas in all eastern Asia. It is the foundation principle of action by the emperor and government. The doctrine is that China, as the most highly civilized nation on earth, and at the centre of the world, is supreme. All other nations and rulers must accept the calendar and etiquette of the Central Empire and be obedient vassals, or else be considered as "outside barbarians."

Millions of men in China still hold this notion, which lay at the root of the Chino-Japanese War of 1894. Throughout the Middle Ages Tibet, Annam, Korea, Japan, and the whole fringe of nations surrounding China were considered as more or less dependent. When European rulers sent their envoys and brought presents, it was given out publicly, and often flauntingly advertised, that these men coming from distant nations were tribute-bearers to the great Chinese emperor, and the people supposed that they were. It is true that the pupil nations often reduced this idea of "tribute" to mere trade, and profited by it. The Koreans, for example, made more money out of it than did the Chinese.

Japan's hostile encounter with this dogma in 1894 was over the question of Korea. She had either to destroy it or be destroyed. Just as the American republic came into collision with the relies of European feudalism, the divine right of kings, the pretensions of the Holy Roman Empire, and other worn-out political dogmas, so foreign diplomatists have frequently encountered notions of sovereignty in China which have long been discarded elsewhere.

Our American ministers in Peking have always refused to make the kow-tow, or nine prostrations, before the Chinese throne. Japan led the nations of Asia in obtaining audience of the Son of Heaven in Peking with dignity and in refusing to treat on any principles but those of international law. In fact, the Japanese claimed to have a Son of Heaven of their own. Hence the difficulty of mutual agreement between the two nations. It was a dogmatic collision, in which one party suffered severely.

The emperor who unified China was only thirteen years old when he ascended the throne, 246. He showed unexpected ability. He built a new capital and then gave his life's energies to reconstructing the empire. He divided the country into thirty-six provinces, putting over each one three great officers who were directly responsible to him.

The first founders of imperialism, of the Chin dynasty, did not perhaps mean to abolish the feudal states. Yet in order to secure national unity it was necessary to do away with feudalism, which was a perpetual source of weakness, besides being a men-ace to imperial power. Since the northern Tartars were ever pressing upon civilized China, national strength was of the first importance.

In carrying out the policy of uniting all China, the emperor was opposed on every hand by the literary men, who lauded the traditions of the past, and were hostile to the new plans of progress. Under feudalism, the local and personal idea of loyalty had been so cultivated that few men cared for anything outside of their neighborhood. There was no community of ideas, or feeling for larger than one's petty state. No such thing as patriotism in a broad sense existed. The unifier of China therefore resolved to break with the past and to fuse many local loyalties into one that was national. He would help the people to see and appreciate larger ideas, and teach them to live for the commonwealth and not for a section. So he swept away feudalism. He also burned the classics and put to death many of the literati. For this he has been held up to scorn by native historians.

In order to rear a monument of united China and at the same time a defense against the Tartars, he began the building of the Great Wall, which still stands, after many enlargements and frequent rebuildings. This massive line of brick and masonry, over eighteen hundred miles long, is the most stupendous work of human industry in the history of the race. Its top, wide enough for six horsemen to ride abreast, is strengthened with parapets, turrets, and towers. It strikes wonder into the beholder, and appeals to the imagination as it disappears from view in the distance. Surmounting hills, valleys, rivers, and plains, it stretches over a line which if drawn in America would reach from Philadelphia to Kansas City.

The emperor's life was spent in restless activity. He entered upon vaster enterprises as he grew older. He opened new roads through the forest, protected the frontiers with fortifications, diked the rivers, built bridges, and in various ways made life more comfortable and pleasant to the people. Yet notwithstanding all his energies, he was the slave of superstition. Always in dread of death, he tried to secure from his magicians an elixir that would secure for him a long life.

In later times, other emperors, imitating his example, made the same search for some liquid to lengthen life. A famous Japanese novel is based upon the idea that from southern China a colony sailed away to the Isles of the Rising Sun to obtain what Ponce de Leon sought in Florida. Instead of coming back, the colonists remained in the country. Then, the young men and maidens marrying, began the peopling of Japan.

From earliest ages, the curse of China has been the fear of evil spirits. To this day millions of dollars are spent annually in paying sorcerers and buying charms and inventions of various kinds to drive away the malevolent beings that overpopulate the sky, air, and earth. Many crafty people make a living by preying on these fears. As of old, witchcraft is the enemy of science and religion.

The great emperor was told that he was pursued by evil spirits and must sleep in a different room of his palace every night, so as to puzzle them. A like idea accounts for the crookedness, irregular widths, and oddities of Chinese streets, locations of gateways and houses, and many strange customs concerning infants, weddings, and He employed seven hundred thousand men, mostly criminals, or prisoners of war, wasting millions of the people's money, to build a palace as full of rooms as a honeycomb is of cells, in order to mystify the demons. At the western end was the Loadstone Gateway, or Barbarian-Repelling Gate. Through it, the people outside, that is, the barbarians, entered from the west. Every one was expected to disarm, but if any carried concealed weapons they were drawn by force of attraction to the side of the gate and held there! Near by was the colossal palace built within the imperial park or hunting-grounds. The central hall was of such dimensions that ten thousand persons could be assembled within it, and banners sixty feet high could be unfurled. In spite, however, of this prolonged game of hide-and-seek, death came to the emperor at last.

Not long after this his newly founded dynasty (Yin) went to ruin. The empire had been greatly extended and many of the northern tribes had been brought under control, but so much conquered territory made the new China like a farm that was too large to be tilled properly. The elements within were too discordant, and the result was not a good illustration of e pluribus unum. After a few years, the house of Yin fell to pieces.

China's feudal age had been so rich in dramatic and spectacular elements that the imagination of later ages loved to play upon it, and thus to and embellish its pictures of life, as left by the poets. Some could not easily adapt themselves to a change in the order of things. The men who remembered the old, picturesque life were opposed to reform, and especially to the abolition of the feudal privileges. This is the real reason why they were handled so roughly, oppressed, persecuted, and even put to death, and their books burnt. This explains also why the man who unified the empire is said to have been "an enemy to literature,"—a heinous crime in the eyes of the Chinese,—even wantonly destroying the old texts and writings. But as in European history, we must be careful not to believe too much of what the monkish scribes wrote about the so-called enemies of religion. We need not take at their full value all the stories which the ancient writers have told concerning the past. To this day the literati are ultra-conservatives who, as a rule, hate and oppose all changes, even when improvements.

Before we pass from feudalism to centralized government, we must note again, that if history concerned itself only with wars and battles, we should know little of the greater things which make up human life and secure the prosperity of the race. The wars of this epoch are hardly more than shadows in the memory even of scholars, while the words of Confucius still breathe and his thoughts burn. Written history begins with Confucius, who, in 481, wrote the only original work ascribed to his pen. This is a chronicle of his native state, from 722, entitled "Spring and Autumn."

It was during the feudal era that the three greatest intellectual men of China lived. They were philosophers, whose writings have influenced seventy generations of China and the nations around her. One of them has been the teacher of the largest number of men and for the longest time of any known in the history of the race. These three men we call Lao-tse, or Laotius, Confucius, and Mencius. Confucius was an active man of affairs, a true teacher, and not at all the prig that late ages have represented him to be.

The ideas of these great men concerning religion, law, morals, and philosophy, we can learn easily, if we will, for many scholars have translated their texts and made commentaries; but if we wish to know what notions, fancies, and superstitions they held, we must question Chinese art and literature, which give us copious answers. We find that besides the living creatures that roam the earth, fly in the air, or swim in the waters, most Chinese believe in some that never were on sea or land or in the atmosphere. They see them in dreams, paint them in pictures, or tell about them in stories.

Some of these, described by the ancient writers before Confucius, have been so long in the literature that the common people take it for granted that they exist as real beings. Other animals are associated with what is patriotic, or sacred, like the creatures found in European heraldry, or copied from actual life, on the national banners. The British lion and unicorn, the French cock, the American eagle, the double-headed birds of prey of Russia and Germany are in the same patriotic menagerie.

The four chief supernatural creatures are the unicorn, phoenix, tortoise, and dragon. The first is believed to be the noblest form of the animal creation and is the emblem of perfect good, be-cause it is the incarnation of the five elements out of which all things are made: that is, water, fire, wood, metal, and earth. With the body of a deer and the tail of an ox, it lives to be a thousand years old. The male is called ki and the female lin, so the word kilin is generally used for the species. The appearance of one of these beasts upon the earth is an omen of good fortune and prosperity. We find this soft-horned creature often pictured on porcelain plates and dishes.

The phoenix being an omen of good government, virtuous rulers use it as an emblem of their office. With the bead of a pheasant, the beak of a swallow, and the neck of a tortoise, it has much of the look of majesty which is associated with a dragon. Usually pictured as having the colors and features of both the peacock and the it occupies a large place in Chinese art, on coins, tablets, decorated faience, etc. In the classic books we are told that it sat in the court of the traditional "universal sovereign," Whang Ti, who ruled 2697 , whose wife taught the people the art of rearing silkworms. Also when the great Shun presided at the musical ceremonies, the pheonix came with stately steppings to add splendor to the occasion. Each of the five colors which embellished the plumage of the phoenix is typical of one of the virtues,—benevolence, uprightness, propriety, knowledge, and good faith. A name is given to each of the many intonations ascribed to its voice.

The Kwei or tortoise is also a supernatural creature. By stitching together a few scraps of reference from the ancient books, the story has been made that when Yu was draining off the flood, a divine tortoise rose out of the river, presenting to his gaze a scroll of writing upon his back, composed of the numbers from one to nine. The sage interpreted this, and made it the base of his nine-fold exposition of philosophy. Thus the first "dragon-horse" carried upon his back the elements of the future literature of the Chinese. It is remarkable also that in the Japanese story of creation, when Uzumé danced before the cave to entice out the sun goddess, she sang a song which some interpret as the numerals, one, two, three, up to myriads.

There are whole books of marvelous tales about the tortoise, which is supposed to exercise a happy influence on the region in which it lives. Its shell has always been the chief element in divination. Another creature, which partakes of the form and qualities of both the tortoise and the dragon, has the power of transforming itself and taking many shapes. Another tortoise-shaped "god of the rivers" has enormous strength. For that reason it is often sculptured in stone as the support of huge monumental tablets planted immovable upon its steadfast back. In Korea and Japan also, as in China, one sees this burden-bearer carrying tons of marble or granite upon its shell.

These classic legends are told, and their pictorial, representations are common, in all the countries influenced by Chinese civilization, just as nearly all our fairy tales and imaginary beings, such as the chimera, griffin, sea-serpent, Santa Claus, Rip Van Winkle, the Golden Goose, and other old friends of the nursery, have come to us from the ancient nations from which we have derived our culture.

The philosophy of fortune-telling is based on the diagrams or symbols supposed to have been found on the back of the dragon-horse, or tortoise, and whole libraries of occult lore have been developed from it. The eight trigrams, or sets of whole and broken lines, remind one of the Morse telegraph alphabet of dashes and dots. They represent the first developments from unity, or the primal substance of the Yin and Yang, or the positive and negative elements. These eight figures are capable of sixty-four combinations. When handled by the philosophers and diviners, they are supposed to give a clue to the secrets of nature and existence. The whole lines correspond to Heaven, the celestial expanse, or the perfect male principle; while the broken lines correspond to the earth, terrestrial matter, or the pure feminine principle. Others represent the forms of water, mist, fog, cloud, etc., of heat and light, of thunder and wind, simple water, mountains, etc. These all interwork in ceaseless activity, and their evolution is indicated by combinations of the diagrams. In the course of their movement, they mutually extinguish and give birth to one another, thus producing the phenomena of existence. Some Chinese books are filled with these diagrams in various arrangements. Before the fortune-tellers' shops or booths in the cities one sees them, as indicative of the money-earner's occupation. Most of the oddities seen on Chinese streets, in popular art, in the toy shops, etc., are as directly connected with Chinese philosophy as are ours with the traditions and notions of our ancestors.

In the case of all these mythical animals, the general idea is to combine both strength and beauty, or to embody in one creature the power, charms, and graces of the many different animals inhabiting earth, air, and water. In mythical zoology, whether in Europe or in China, the human mind is not content with plain reality, but desires gorgeous and astonishing combinations. The Chinese imaginary animals are hardly more monstrous or amusing than those in the heraldry of Europe. This beast-worship underlies all the religions of Asia.

The idea of the five colors—black, red, azure, white, and yellow—runs all through Chinese thoughts about dress, furniture, heraldry, and symbolism. Each of the five metals, five planets, and five kinds of clouds has its particular color. In the skies each color has an omen or meaning, betokening a plague of creeping things, mourning, war, destruction, floods, prosperity, abundance, etc. Each of these sets of things, or influences, grouped in fives, affects every other. Since they have to do with pleasure or pain, disgust or delight in the every-day life of the Chinese, one can easily see how many mistakes foreigners are apt to make in the eyes of the natives.

The Chinese take this method of arranging their ideas according to number, so as to keep their thoughts in order. They talk also about the five blessings, which are long life, riches, peace, love of virtue, and a noble end crowning life. There are five grades of mourning, for parents, grandparents and ancestors, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and distant relatives in the line of descent or ascent. The five punishments, each with from two to five degrees of severity or duration, are beating with the bamboo; bastinado, or whipping on the soles of the feet; banishment; transportation; and death, either by strangling or by decapitation. There are five atmospheric influences,—rain, fine weather, heat, cold, and wind; each of which is dominated by one of the five elements,—wood, metal, fire, water, and earth. These invisible influences in the air are classified as pertaining to heaven, while the five tastes or flavors, salt, bitter, sour, acrid, and sweet, appertain to the earth. So also there are five constituents of the human frame, the muscles, flesh, bones, skin, and hair, while the five inward parts of the body are the heart, liver, stomach, lungs, and kidneys.

In Chinese cemeteries we see that many tombs are made of five stones, set one upon the other in the form of a base (earth), a cube (air), a sphere (water), a saucer (fire), and flame-shape (ether), representing the five elements of the human soul.

When people get married, they must be careful to see that the proper elements in them are harmonized. For example, the five elements are wood, metal, fire, water, and earth. Every one born under the signs of the respective elements has a disposition or character corresponding to the element under which he is born, and of which he partakes, or by which he is influenced. Thus, it would never do for a woman of fire disposition to marry a man born under the wood element, because then there would be continual bickering or hot water, and marital happiness would be entirely burned up or would go off in steam. It is perfectly proper for a man of wood to marry a woman of water temperament, because wood floats on water, and it is expected that a husband must rule his wife. It would not do for a man of earth disposition to marry a woman of water temperament, lest he should be ultimately washed away, or lost in her superior power. Even the dynasty is supposed to be under the direct potency of one of the five elements, which is believed to overcome the element prevailing in the previous line of rulers.

Now when it is remembered that there are also five planets and five points of space, and the five arrangements of time,—the year, the month, the day, the signs of the stars and zodiac, and the great calculations of the calendar, which the astronomers make,—one can see what terrors there are in store for those ignorant of Chinese etiquette. The fortune-tellers, star-gazers, geomancers, and tricksters of every sort, including the whole faculty of professors of tomfoolery and the sorcerers, have a rich field. Millions of dollars are annually extracted from the pockets of the poor people who believe in the guesses of palm-readers, shufflers of the bamboo sticks, or readers of the eight diagrams. These crafty folk, who get the people's money, pretend that what they tell their dupes is based upon profound calculations and observation of things unseen by the average mortal eye. Fortune-tellers abound on the streets of the large cities, and are found all over the empire. Heavy is the burden which poor China, from the imperial palace to the beggar's mat, groans under and has to pay for. No people will be more benefited by science, or be given greater deliverance and clearer vision through pure religion, than the Chinese.

The Han line of emperors is divided by historians into two branches and epochs, the Former or Western Han, 206 to 25, and the Later or Eastern Han dynasty, 25 to 214. It is not necessary, in this little book, to name the emperors, some thirty in number, or to say much about them, but only to speak of the characteristics of the line and the age in which they lived.

Some of the traditions of the early ages, as in the following example, explain the situation better than descriptions could do. Han Sin, a grandson of the prince of the Han domain, whose territory was seized by the first Tsin ruler, was left so poor that he had to get his breakfast out of the water which flowed around the castle of his ancestors. While the hungry boy sat in front of the moat, waiting for a bite, a poor woman, who was steeping flax near by, took pity on him and gave him food. Becoming a soldier when grown, he rose rapidly as a hero and served under the founder of the Western Han dynasty, and winning many battles was made prince of the domain in which lay his ancestral castle. At once he sought out the old woman who had helped him, and made her a present of one thousand gold pieces. He also hunted up and gave a position of trust to a man who had once dared him when a boy to show his grit.

In later life, slandered by enemies to the emperor who was founder of the Han dynasty, Han Sin expected to be put to death, for he knew how often jealous men who reach power handle cruelly their helpers, when the benefit of their service has been exhausted. So Han Sin said, "When the cunning hare is caught, the fleet bound goes into the cooking pot; when the soaring bird is shot, the trusty bow is laid aside; when the foe is vanquished, the wise counselor is forgotten. The empire is now established,—it is right that I should go into the cooking pot." He lived, however, some years after this episode. Han Sin was one of the "Three Heroes" most famous in Chinese history.

This being the first really national dynasty, the Chinese, especially the northerners, still speak proudly of themselves as the Sons of Han. The good opinions of the scholars were won by repealing the decree against them, by collecting the books which were hidden or had survived, and by paying honor to literature and offering sacrifices at the tomb of Confucius. The capital was located in Shen Si, so as to be near the threatening danger, the barbarians of the north, with which the Chinese had to grapple. The Tartars had by this time spread over the northern part of what is now China proper.

These Mongolians, of the same stock as the Huns and Turks, had no cities and never dwelt in towns. Their homes were on their horses. Even the children were taught, when very young, to ride on the sheep's backs. Having no fields or gardens, their animals furnished them occupation, food, drink, clothing, means of travel, and power in war. Tartar food was mainly meat and milk. With their camels, asses, mules, horses, and sheep as their daily care, they moved from place to place in search of pasture. They fought on horseback, charging with wild shouts against their enemies.

The eastern Tartars became the Manchus and Koreans, and also made part of the composite people of Japan. The western Tartars at various times overran western Asia, the Roman Empire, and medieval Europe.

So began and continued for centuries the struggle of the Chinese with the fierce shepherds and wandering horsemen of the north. In its nature, this strife was much the same as that rivalry between Abel and Cain, which we behold in the forefront of human history. One is a farmer. He settles down to regular life, tills the soil, and begins the civilization which means progress. The other is a hunter, or a shepherd, who will not plough the ground or live under a roof. If a hunter, he finds his food in the forest. If a nomad, he moves over the earth, never abiding in any one place. In either case he despises, or even hates, the man of regular life. He is apt to consider the property of the farmer or townsman as fair game, and the tempting spoils of war. We see the same picture of life in ancient Israel, where the wandering Bedawin in the desert and the settled Hebrews in the walled cities were ever at war; in early Japan between the Yamato men and the Ainu; in Europe between the Romans and the Teutonic barbarians, our ancestors, between the lowlanders and the highlanders of Scotland, between our colonial fathers and the Indians; and, indeed, in all human history.

War in China had occasionally its comic side, and many things occurred to make one laugh as well as to mourn. In one case these northern mauraders, after making a raid, started back to carry off their spoil. The Chinese emperor pursued them, but "caught a Tartar," and was obliged himself to get into a walled city. There he might have been captured, except for a smart trick played upon his enemy. In the Tartar camp, the barbarous chieftain's wife had no fear that her husband would not conquer the Chinese men, but she dreaded the Chinese women, lest with their beauty they should steal away her husband's affections. So the emperor stuck up on the city walls puppets or lay figures, dressed and painted to represent pretty Chinese girls. He then craftily sent a letter to the Tartar chieftain's wife, saying that he proposed to present these lovely maidens to her husband. Instead of being glad to hear this, the lady developed a fit of fiery jealousy, and was not happy until she had persuaded her husband to raise the siege and retreat. This incident made a great impression on the northerners, who were so feared yet despised by the Chinese. When a few years afterwards they made another irruption, the emperor bought them off by giving his own daughter to their leader and promising an annual tribute of silk, wine, and grain. For centuries, Tartar chiefs made invasions southward, lured by the beauty of the Chinese women. Soon we shall find these Tartar chiefs with Chinese wives claiming the throne through their heirs.

During this era, the barbarians fought among themselves. One tribe withdrew from Mongolia and moved westward, beginning that great march which continued for centuries. They settled in Bokhara, and were part of the great movement of the Huns that struck the Roman Empire so disastrously in the era of its weakness.

One can see easily how much alike, and at very much the same time, was the work of both the Roman and the Chinese Empire in keeping back the northern barbarians, who in Europe were the Teutons, our ancestors, and in Asia were Tartars. Yet on both continents and in both empires there were victories in peace as well as in war.

One emperor, Wen-ti, was renowned for his filial devotion. During his mother's last illness, which lasted three years, it is said he never left her apartments. He was a very humane ruler. He reformed the code of barbarous punishment, which hitherto had included branding on the face, cutting off the nose, chopping off the feet, etc. He also revived the study of literature and collected manuscripts. His star, in the constellation named after him, is the abode of the god of literature.

Many stories are told of battle, ambuscade, advance, and retreat in these wars on the northern frontier. To develop grand strategy and to make a flank movement, one emperor invaded and annexed the northern part of Korea, then much larger than now, and including Liao Tung. Wu-ti, who reigned fifty-four years, also extended the confines of the empire westward and southward. Although so active in war and letters, he was very superstitious. He patronized magicians and sorcerers and indulged his sensual passions. One of these necromancers professed to be able to bridle and mount dragons and bestride the hoary crane, and on these coursers of the air to visit the whole universe; to make snow out of silver and cinnabar into gold. Centuries after Wu-ti's time, these Chinese theories, brought into Europe by the Arabs, greatly influenced our ancestors' notions of alchemy and chemistry.

In popular tradition this emperor Wu-ti bears two different characters. In the later wonder tales, he is represented as being wooed by his fairy visitor, whose title is the Western Royal Mother. She dwelt on a famous high mountain, at the head of her troops of genii and fairies, and from time to time she had friendly interviews with favored emperors. The magnificence of the mountain pal-ace of this Empress of the West is glowingly described in the romances, and on many a Chinese dish, vase, or plate we recognize her and her train and the story wrought in splendid colors. Here, by the Lake of Gems, grows the peach tree, whose fruit confers the gift of immortality, which the queen bestows upon her favorites, and from her mountain home she sends out the azure-winged birds, who serve as her attendants and messengers.

A staff of generals, brave and daring, carried the arms of Wu-ti into the heart of central Asia. By 130 the tribes of Yunnan were brought under imperial rule, and the boundaries of China proper became very much as they are found to-day. Through these conquests the Chinese became acquainted with the countries of the West, and the aborigines and barbarians received much Chinese culture. Travel was then by land, for ships able to cross the ocean were not yet known. Embassies and caravans came from Parthia, Mesopotamia, Bactria, and Afghanistan, by which many Greek, Persian, and Hindoo ideas and inventions were brought to the Middle Kingdom. Traffic opened with the Roman Empire. Many things made in China and inscribed with ancient Chinese letters have been found in Egypt and various parts of Africa and Europe. The magnetic needle was used to guide travelers on land at night and in cloudy and stormy weather. It was called the South Pointing Chariot, because to the Chinese mind the needle trembled in that direction. Forcing their way over the mountains, Chinese pilgrims reached India to bring back news of great treasure lands scarcely known before. Buddhist missionaries, for the first time, found their way into China. The first two are said to have come riding eastward on white horses, and about the same time that St. Paul was moving westward into Europe.

Thus began the long and glorious reign of the Indian and Aryan religion in China, blending Mongol and Hindoo ideals of life. Buddhism has done much to uplift the Chinese people, cheer them in affliction, and minister to their spiritual wants as Confucianism could not, besides offering the greatest of all hopes,—life hereafter.

Under Buddhism, the Chinese landscape was greatly changed. The country was covered with shrines and sculpture, pagodas, monasteries, and temples. The Hindoo and the Chinese were brought together as brothers in the same household of faith. Asia became like a garden. Gradually the ideals of the two races and civilizations commingled. The philosophy of India penetrated that of China. Of the permanent and far-reaching influence of this religion we may have more to say. From this time the intellect of the Chinese is touched with a new fertility, and their imagination stimulated. China becomes the land of the pagoda. The law of tenderness and mercy sways life as never before.

One of the ministers of Wu-ti was a great explorer. He "pierced the void," that is, penetrated into the extreme regions of the hitherto unknown Far West, and discovered the sources of the Yellow River. Before his time this stream was believed to flow from the verge of Heaven, as a continuation of the Milky Way. Taken prisoner by the wild tribes, he lived among them for many years, brought back the grapevine, and re-taught his countrymen the art of wine-making.

Around this River of Heaven many pretty stories cluster, one of the most famous being that of the Ox-boy and the Weaver-girl. These lovers meet on the night of August 7, every year, over a bridge of magpies' wings. Many are the poems recited, the songs sung, and the charming customs based on this legend, both in China and in Japan. In the long course of centuries most of the famous personal adventures, exploits of travel, voyages, martial deeds, and visits to wonderful caves, mountains, or forests by the various Chinese heroes became nursery legends or themes for artists,—a veritable Milky Way, full of light, glory, and mystery. As with most other histories, beside that of China, the people do not, cannot, retain in memory the dates, statistics, or exact details. They hold the substance of these chiefly in poetry, art, and pleasing story, retaining what is richest in human interest.

Most of these movements, including battles, sieges, rebellions, and the rise and fall of dynasties, have very little meaning to us. Indeed, it is almost impossible to get or hold clear ideas of the personality of the leaders, whether generals or statesmen. The length of China's history and the great number of names and persons forbid any attempt on the part of the average reader to keep a clear picture of the details, though the general course is clear. The subject, however, is divisible into two parts: first, the struggle with the Tartars, until the nineteenth century; second, the clash with the Western world of ideas.

As elsewhere, success or failure decides what name shall be given in history to the insurgents against throne or government. If their plan fails, it is rebellion; if it succeeds, it is revolution. The Chinese, like other people, adjust their philosophy to the facts. Rebellion is the greatest of crimes, but if successful, Heaven has willed it so. In the human method of reasoning, success is the manifest will of God. The Chinaman always acknowledges a fact. "Whatever is, is right."

No one can understand their government and its policy until he realizes that the Chinese are a church-nation, with a doctrine that is orthodoxy never to be swerved from, while from time to time men who have done great things for China are canonized as saints. The emperor is the father and high priest of the whole nation. The government is the embodiment of China's ethical system. Confucius was the incarnate conscience of the nation. He taught that the emperor was the vice-gerent and the Son of Heaven. The emperor is therefore the Father of his People. He alone mediates between his subjects or children and Heaven. The supreme duty of each subject is obedience to the emperor. If the emperor is not him-self what he ought to be, if the public works are neglected and the government does not do what it ought, then the subject takes no concern, since his own duty is fulfilled in obedience to the emperor, who is the representative of Heaven and destiny.

The duties of the emperor and his subjects are reciprocal. If there be peace and prosperity in the empire, these are the results of his fatherly rule. But if his subjects rebel, or things go wrong, then the reason of it is, as the emperor usually acknowledges, his own lack of ability or wisdom.

One curious feature is common to the state papers of the rulers of the Middle Kingdom and the countries which follow Chinese customs: namely, their frequent and public confession of sin. Emperor, mikado, king, and kinglet acknowledge that in them lies the fault of misrule, calamities, or rebellion. If a rebellion succeeds, the argument is that Heaven has punished the sovereign for his want of virtue.

The rebellion during the first Han dynasty, in 9, in which a band of marauders known as the Red Eyebrows figured prominently, is famous. They were so named because they dyed their eye-brows red. After a great battle, the Han dynasty was restored, and is known as the Later or Eastern Han dynasty, which lasted from 25 to 214. The chief events were the introduction of Buddhist priests and books from India; the building of a dike, thirty miles long, to prevent the overflow of the Yellow River; the marching of an army to the Caspian Sea, that is, as far as the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire; the engraving of the Five Classics on stone tablets; and the establishment, in 175, of public contests for literary degrees. These became the basis of the civil service examinations, which have lasted to our day.

Henceforward employment in official life was possible only to those who could pass an examination in the classics, the writing of verses, and the composition of essays. This system came to be very widely organized. Halls were built in the district, province, and national capitals, and to these came the young men from all quarters. Setting out from their native villages, the candidates would gather together and journey over the same road, often carrying banners duly inscribed with mottoes or the names of their homes. In thousands of cells, with pen, ink, and paper, and their food, also, they were shut up and carefully guarded, to secure fair play for all. Here they remained many hours and sometimes days. It frequently happened that the ambition of some was too great for their nerves or strength, and they were found dead at their desks. The examiners and judges assigned the questions and looked over the papers, making the awards at an appointed time. The successful candidate, on reaching home, was received in his native village and ancestral temple with banners, songs, speeches of welcome, and other evidences of local joy. In time, many foolish and amusing customs grew up. What we call hazing, or ragging, was often boisterous and rough.

Those who attended were not always young. Some beginning early in life might try again year after year. The sight of gray-haired students was very common. The life of many a literary man was spent in examinations. It was not rare to find a grandfather, father, and son at the same examination. Only a small percentage of applicants were able to meet the test, but most of these received office. In time, passing successfully through other examinations, these became mayors of cities, governors of provinces, or high officers of the empire.

The large majority of those who failed would go back home to become teachers, clerks, or literary men. Educated men were thus found all over China, and village schoolmasters were numerous. As a class they were very conservative in their notions, being opposed to changes in customs or religion; but otherwise they were centres of culture for the uplift of the masses.

Following the Han dynasty came the period of the Three Kingdoms of Wei in the North, Wu in the South, and Shu in the West, reminding one of the division at Verdun of Charlemagne's empire among his grandsons, whence began the evolution of the French, Germans, and Italians; or of the three countries of Great Britain,—Scotland, England, and Wales.

While probably not so important in history, this period 221–277 kindles the Chinese imagination, because the novelists, romancers, and artists have made it appear the most romantic in all Chinese history. Outwardly it resembled the age of chivalry in Europe. To this day street and actors on the stage never tire of picturing in word, act, or costume the events of this era. According to fiction and drama, there were a great many heroes and heroines who had amazing adventures, exciting escapes, and joyful triumphs, quite equal to any to be found in our dime novels. In China, Korea, and Japan, one of the most popular books is a long romance, entitled "The Three Kingdoms," so full of incident as to remind one of a moving picture show. To a Chinese boy, this era is as wonderful as is that of Bruce and Wallace to a Scottish lad.

Among the instances narrated as historical was that of three generals who took the "Peach Garden Oath" by drawing blood from one another's arms, mingling it, and drinking it,—a custom which has since become common to men engaged in desperate enterprises. So terrible a fighter was one of these generals that after death he was deified as the god of war, and is now worshiped all over China. As with other gods of pagan people, those of the Middle Kingdom were once men. Indeed, the history of China and Japan and other Asiatic nations is largely taken up with the manufacture of gods, that are nothing more nor less than common men, whose ghosts the ignorant and vulgar fear and worship. When Islam came to China with its message, "There is no God but God," it brought a truth to help and uplift.

It being difficult for the average man, who lives and dies near the spot on which he was born, to hold clearly the idea of one God, it is necessary for him, he thinks, to believe in scores, hundreds, thousands, and even millions of petty deities. Every village, locality, mountain, and valley has its gods. They swarm on the roof, cellar, well, garden, swamp, wood, hills, and rivers. Temples are crowded with their images. In a festival, or pageant, the scholar can recognize their effigies in threefold character: as men who once lived on the earth, as deities with names and titles, and as fanciful creatures that cause terror, delight, or merriment. Superstition keeps the people poor. Armies of priests, diviners, and sorcerers fatten and get rich by playing on popular hopes and fears.

The achievements and actions of these men-gods have given rise to many proverbs or popular sayings. Nearly every trade or craft has its patron god. For example, Pan, an ingenious mechanic, to avenge his father's death, carved an effigy in wood, whose hand pointed toward the kingdom of Wu. In consequence, a drought prevailed for the space of three years. The men of Wu paid Pan a large sum of money to have him cut off the hand of the figure, which he did, and at once rain fell. Hence the masons and carpenters of China worship him, and the proverb "skillful in the house of Pan" means much the same as "Preaching to Buddha," or "carrying coals to Newcastle."

Another military craftsman in Han days moved his army so fast that he was said to have employed "wooden oxen and machine-made horses," by which some think are meant wheel-barrows, which in China are used as land boats with sails and as passenger cars, as well as to carry pigs, vegetables, and freight. He also invented a bow that would shoot many arrows at one time, and his system of tactics in eight lines of battle has been much discussed.

In another case a defeated general, with only a handful of men, beat his enemies "by means of broomsticks." While in retreat, he occupied a walled town that had been deserted, and ordered his men to throw open the gates and stand with brooms in their hands, while he climbed up into a tower over the city wall and began to play upon the lute. The enemy, suspecting an ambuscade, retreated.

Incessant border wars followed the era of the Three Kingdoms. The northern Tartars seemed to make constant progress southward. They coveted the high-bred women of the south for wives. When victorious, their leaders demanded Chinese princesses who married their conquerors, so that in time these northern chieftains, through their children, could claim to be heirs to the imperial throne. Through these women, Chinese writing, etiquette, learning, medicine, and general culture were spread through the northern regions.

It became the custom also in this ancestor-worshiping country that whenever the claimant of the throne was successful, he would seize the old capital or establish a new one.

Casting out the ancestral tablets of those whom he had overcome, he set up in their place those of his own ancestors. Giving his dynasty an auspicious name, he and his descendants would hold the power as long as possible. Yet it became the law of history that dynasties should rise and fall, while the people, ever steadily gaining, remained. Imperial families perished, but the nation lived, becoming ever greater.

Yet while the Tartars and Chinese, like Greek and barbarian, Roman and Teuton, mingled together, there were also many disintegrating forces. In the north, as in a similar case and time in Europe, there sprang up a great many small kingdoms, so that there were constant hostilities between the cultured in the south and the rude peoples in the north. The process resembled very much that of the struggle of the Roman Empire with the Teutonic barbarians and later of Christianity with northern paganism. On both continents there was first the successful invasion, the destruction of the old power, and then the formation of new nations, governments, and types of man. When the barbarians accepted and assimilated the civilization of the conquered, they yielded themselves to them and became like them. by force is always temporary. The victories of peace are permanent.

This first great struggle with the Tartars ended when the Sui dynasty, which held power from 599 to 618, was established. The whole empire was one household again, and those once foreigners within the empire had yielded themselves not only to the superior civilization of the conquered, but to their religion, so that to all intents and purposes they were Chinese.

It was during this period of changing dynasties that many stories were told in which sentimental ideas about the moon and the jade stone, with other notions in the world which is outside of science, grew up, and these have been developed by writers of fiction and poetry. As these still influence powerfully the Chinese in their art and everyday life, it is well to glance at them.

The moon is the favorite home of the fairies, and one wonders what the story-tellers would do without this ornament of the night sky. The moon is the refuge of lovely women when persecuted, and at this terminal the famous characters in the fairy world arrive sooner or later. Chinese children, according as they are taught the fairy, the Buddhist, or the Taoist legends, or all of them, see three different figures on the moon's face.

The Archer Lord who, in 2435, served the emperor, is famous as the moon's deliverer. When the precious pearl of heaven was being swallowed by a dragon, this worthy shot arrows into the sky and gave deliverance from the monster. His wife stole from him the drug of immortality which grows in the moon-world and had been given him by the Western Royal Mother, who dwells on the sacred mountain-top, amid troops of genii and the azure-winged birds, and in whose gardens the precious cassia tree flourishes. With the coveted booty the jealous wife fled to the moon, but was changed into a frog, and there she is yet, and Chinese children will trace the outline on the full moon's surface on a bright night.

Other young folks, who have read the story of the Man in the Moon, see Mr. Kang, who, for some offense against the supernal powers, was banished to the white planet and condemned to labor without ceasing in trying to hew down the cassia, or cinnamon tree, which grows there. As fast as his axe falls, the wood closes again. So his labors are endless and all for naught. This is at root and in idea the same man in the moon, and it is the same story told in Europe a thousand years ago, of the sinner who broke the Sabbath by gathering fagots of wood and is still carrying them.

In the moon grows the cassia tree, at the foot of which crouches the hare that pounds drugs for the genii. As this noble tree is especially brilliant at mid-autumn, those who take a degree at the literary examinations "pluck a leaf from the cassia tree." At this time the moon is worshiped and the children enjoy immensely the moon cakes which are made in honor of the season.

The Japanese, who borrowed so many of their ideas and legends from China, as we did most of ours from the nations in Asia, tell us that it is the reddening leaves of the cassia, or katsura tree, that causes the effulgence of the autumn moon. The islanders have stories also of moon-maidens visiting the earth and returning to their silvery palace in the sky. Chinese who admire a very beautiful woman may call her The Lady of the Moon, in reference to the one who fled with the immortal drug.

Jade, or nephrite, is a real mineral, which, apart from its beauty or comparative rarity, has a thousand sentimental values. The word jade is one of a hundred or more, like joss, junk, mandarin, cat-sup (or ketchup), etc., which foreigners think is Chinese, and Chinese think is foreign. It is of Spanish origin, meaning colic (stone). Nephrite is Greek, meaning kidney (stone). The mineral was so named by our ancestors, who were often as superstitious as the Chinese, because they imagined it would cure the stomachache or kidney disease. The hard stone, worked into tools and used as axes, knives, etc., is found all over the world, but is believed to have come in every case from China, where it is called yu. Being so costly, the Chinese from ancient times, as the poems edited by Confucius show, considered it their chief gem, and made sceptres, bracelets, vases, and ornaments of it. To them it was the symbol of all that is most excellent in human life and virtue. Like heaven, of which it is an emblem, it combines the highest strength with the purest effulgence. As the most perfect expression of the positive masculine principle in nature, various magical virtues have been attributed to it. The mystical treaties of the immortals are inscribed on tablets of jade. These tell us that the liquid flowing from the jade mountains, after a thousand years, becomes clear as crystal. If to this liquid a certain herb be added, the drinker of the draught attains millennial life. By virtue of this "jade spirit beverage," he becomes incorporeal and is able to soar through the air without wings, balloon, or aeroplane. It is curious to read that this rock of jade stone, where the genii live and whence flows the liquor of immortality, is placed by ancient writers seventy thousand li to the west. Of the jade tree blossoming in the moon, we have already heard.

When Korea refused to forward the usual tribute, the emperor sent an army of three hundred thousand men into Liao Tung province, then part of "the little outpost state on the eastern frontier," and besieged the capital. The military operations, in 610, took place about where the great campaign between the Russians and Japanese was fought in 1904, another conflict being waged near the Yalu River. The Chinese were defeated, but the emperor insisted upon raising another army and again attacking the Koreans, whose splendid courage had been so manifested in their fortresses. When in 615 this mighty expedition moved eastward again, the Korean king yielded and promised submission. Embassies from Japan also visited the imperial court. After campaigns with the Turkomans on the west, the latter joined, as allies, with the imperial general Li Yuan, who in 618 became master of the empire and established the great Tang line of rulers, one of the longest of China's dynasties.

In China the rulers change often, but the people remain one. Her social system seems unchangeable. Japan, on the contrary, that appears so elastic and ready to change, has had but one imperial dynasty. Over thirty acknowledged families of rulers have occupied the Chinese throne. The contrasted situations in Japan and China are the results of different political theories. In China government rests on the idea of virtue in the emperor, the Son of Heaven, who alone has the right to worship Heaven, bearing their sins and asking blessings for his people. In Japan government rests on the idea of the divine right of hereditary succession to the throne, as one may read in the first clause of the Constitution of 1889. In China no historic dynasty has ever continued during three hundred years. In Japan there has been one ruling house since the written history of the sixth century, or in legend from 660. When China shall have adopted representative government, the responsibility will be, as it has not been, shared by the people.

The arts both of war and of peace were highly cultivated during the Tang period, from 618 to 905. The foot soldiers were equipped with longer pikes and stronger bows. The cavalry, in which the Tartars had hitherto excelled, was now better organized and cultivated by the Chinese. Most of the tactics and ideas of strategy which were adopted in this age remained in fashion in China down to the Russo-Japanese War.

Still older is the Book of War, the military classic of Chin, which was written in the fourth century , and which has been read and studied in the whole Chinese world of culture. Even after the Japanese, rejecting chariots, umbrellas, and fans, conchs and kettle-drums, had adopted artillery and rifles, the sayings of the two authors, Sun and Wu, wrought into proverbs and maxims, fired their resolution and carried them through the Russian war. The reason is that this classic, over two thousand years old, deals less with strategy and tactics than with the morale, or spirit, of commanders and their troops, regarding the state of mind as of even more importance than missiles and supplies. Uniforms and weapons change, but not the mind of the soldier. Human nature remains ever the same. The spirit of the true warrior, the coward, the brave man, the deserter, the homesick follower, and the general traits of the commander and the commanded have altered little, if at all, in two thousand years. The Chinese are governed less by sentiment than by reason.

Most famous of all in the Tang dynasty was the emperor Tai-Tsung, who reigned from 627 to 650. He built a library in which two hundred thousand volumes were stored and used. He held discussions on morals and the best methods of government. There is a vivid picture of his court, in the year 630, when embassies from many vassal states and kingdoms, and even from the island empire of Japan, were present. The variety of languages and diversity and brilliancy of the costumes of the envoys excited much interest and caused some merriment in the capital.

Tai-Tsung's generals overcame the Turkomans, and he himself led an army into Korea, but here again the notable valor of the Koreans, when besieged, brought disaster and demoralization to the Chinese, who had to retreat. But the Chinese persevered, and in 667 sent another expedition to Korea. The city of Ping Yang—the same before which the great battles of 1593 and 1904 were fought—was besieged and surrendered. Korea again became vassal, and was divided into five colonies with Chinese overseers.

A fresh enemy appeared on the west when the Tibetans, then called Turfans, became hostile. Kokonor, or the Azure Lake, was the scene of a battle in which the Tibetans were beaten. A new Tartar tribe invaded from the north, ravaging and plundering. From its name, Khitai, comes the familiar word "Cathay."

One of the longest reigns in Chinese history was that of a woman, the empress Wu-Hu, who ruled from 684 to 705. After her time, the story of the Tang dynasty is that of decay, there being many insurrections. Yet this epoch is brilliant in history, because in the year 785 the Han-lin or Imperial Academy was founded. The words mean Forest of Pencils. The hall in which the scholars met was called later the Jeweled Dome. In front of the gateway of the college grew magnolia trees, so that it was also known as the Jeweled Magnolias. At the examination, held once in three years, only six candidates were chosen. In Peking, in 1900, during the Boxer troubles, the vast library of the Han-lin, with its precious treasures, was destroyed by fire.

In this Tang epoch, also, the oldest newspaper in the world, the official Gazette of the Court, was founded, to publish the edicts of the emperor. This era is well called the Augustan age of Chinese literature, and its famous poets and philosophers are regarded as models and their language as the standard.

Nestorian missionaries had entered China as early as 506, but in the eighth century they increased in number and met with great success. Christian ideas greatly influenced Buddhist philosophy in China, but even more in Japan. There still stands a tablet, upon which is recorded in outline a summary of the Nestorian form of Christianity, in Chinese characters.

The population of China proper was reduced some millions by the wars, civil and foreign, which marked the later days of the Tang dynasty. From 907 to 960 is the epoch of the five dynasties whose beads were Tartar chieftains or of Turkoman origin. Here again the conditions in Europe and Asia were much alike. This may be called also the period of military despotism, and yet one invention made at this time was destined to have a large influence upon mankind. In 932 the art of printing with wooden blocks was invented, and the Five Classics of Confucius and the Four Books were printed. Later on, "living types," or, as we call them, "movable" types, were invented and much used in Korea and China. There is no convincing evidence that printing was invented in Europe. It was probably brought there out of China, where it had been used for centuries, during the Mongol invasions. Once in Germany and the Netherlands, this Chinese art came rapidly into general use.

During the Tang era, the teachers and missionaries of both Taoism and Buddhism were very active. It was an age of toleration and brotherhood. A constant stream of learned Hindoo priests came into China, bringing books, writing, new ideas in ethics, art, literature, and architecture. At one time there were three thousand priests from India and ten thousand Hindoo families in China. Gradually Aryan thought penetrated the minds of scholars. Sanskrit script gave the Chinese the idea of an alphabet, spelling by syllables, and an easier system of writing for the common people, thus helping greatly the spread of general education. New popular festivals were instituted. Temples, pagodas, extensive rock carvings, monasteries, and nunneries began to be very numerous. Not a few shrines became renowned for the holy relics of the saints, and gained gradually a reputation for miracle-working which drew myriads of visitors thither, thus stimulating habits of travel and pilgrimages. In spite of all opposition from the literati and even from the nation's great high priest, the emperor, Buddhism flourished until it reached its culmination of popularity in the twelfth century, when it began to decline.

It was not the ethics of Buddhism, but its doctrines of hope, consolation, retribution, and of the boundless compassion of the Buddha, in new incarnations of mercy, that made it acceptable to the masses. Confucianism attracts intellectual men and works for order and government, but it means also the subjugation of women. It has little inspiration or aspiration. Its head and front is Heaven, or impersonal Law. The high church" Buddhists reckon a regular succession of patriarchs from the Buddha, or Shakyamuni of India, who lived in the sixth century before Christ. Taoism, taking more and more the form of magic, alchemy, the attempted mastery of matter, ran off into mystical speculation upon corporeal immortality, the elixir of life, alchemy, transmutation of metals, aviation on dragons, cranes, etc. One of the Eight Immortals of the Taoists is often met with and easily recognized in the art of the Chinese world, being an especial favorite with Japanese artists also. This eighth-century man rode on a white mule, which carried him thousands of miles a day. When he halted he condensed the beast into small compass, folding it up and hiding the skin in his wallet. When he would travel again, he spurted water from his mouth, when presto! the mule resumed his proper shape. Preferring the life of a tramp, he declined even the invitation of the emperor to be a priest at court. He "became a guest in heaven," that is, entered upon immortality without suffering bodily dissolution, and in his honor one of the million or more shrines in the empire was erected. Another famous immortal who practiced reflection and self-examination, when not in a mood for thought, could put his supernal self into a gourd. Then at will he would uncork the vessel and let his visible soul be projected upon the clouds or air, and thus study his own personality. We meet with him often in the art of Japan and China on porcelain, vase, or sword-guards, at his favorite occupation of enjoying his dual personality.

Progress in art was also notable during the Tang era, the impulses of which were felt in Korea and Japan, notably stimulating and developing the schools of artists at the capitals, Sunto and Nara, and hastening the erection of the colossal images of Buddha in both pupil countries. Especially is this true of the paintings of the dragons as symbols of power. Buddhism enriched the folklore, in which the dragon holds so prominent a place that we must here glance at this creature, the cyclopedia of all the vital forces in nature.

There is a famous story about the Dragon Mother, who is a deified being, worshiped at a celebrated temple. There was once an old woman who gained her living by catching fish. One day she found an enormous egg, which she carried home. Out of it came forth a creature which aided her in fishing. By accident the old woman cut off a part of the creature's tail, whereupon it left her and she thought no more of it, except to mourn her loss, for she could not catch as many fish as before. Some years afterwards, this same creature returned in such splendor that the old woman at once recognized it as a dragon. The emperor summoned her to give an account of her wonderful adventures. She started to go, but when halfway to the Court she was overcome with a longing for home. Thereupon a dragon at once appeared and transported her in an instant to the banks of the stream where she lived. As the story went down the ages and others hoped to receive similar summons to the Court and ride on the dragon's back, this fish woman came to be revered as a divinity and the patroness of navigators on the West River, where the sailors still worship her.

The Chinese do not seem to have used balloons or to have had recourse to aeroplanes, but there are a great many stories of aerial coursers, who on the backs of dragons or storks traverse swiftly the atmosphere on their important errands.

is about the way some romances begin. There are also hundreds of stories of Taoists and wise men of the mountain, or sennin, taking these voyages in the air with dirigible creatures. On the backs of whales or great fishes, also, they bring art, letters, and material blessings across the sea.

More important, even, than the rise and fall of a dynasty was the discovery in southern China of a plant from whose leaf a delicious, perfumed, mildly stimulating drink could be brewed. As a rival of the grape, and filling "the cups that cheer but not inebriate," tea has been a blessing to China and the race. The use of tea helped mightily, thus early in their history, to make and keep the Chinese a temperate people.

The tea-plant is the queen of the camellia family. It was not always used as it is now. The method of serving it has passed through several stages of evolution in social use. Originating in southern China, probably during the Han era, it was known first in botany as a medicine, and its leaves were made into plasters for rheumatism. As a drink, the Taoists first made it known, for with them it was an ingredient in the elixir of immortality. It is alluded to in the classics as Tou, from which the modern character tcha, cha, tea, or te, is derived. The Buddhist monks, on coming from India into China, were delighted to discover its exhilarating qualities, and they brewed it during their night vigils to prevent sleep. Indeed the legend of its origin is associated with religion.

Dharma, the holy saint from south India, was accustomed to give himself to midnight devotions. One night nature revolted, and he fell asleep until morning. Waking up in horror at his lapse from holiness, he pulled out a sharp knife, cut off his eyelids and threw them on the ground. Presto! there sprang up twin plants, each with pearly white flowers. Steeping the leaves in hot water, he bade good-by to fear. He told his brethren the secret, and henceforth holy men were kept from nodding by the cheering brew.

In Japan, this saint, who first saw the tea-rose and leaf, is called Daruma, and is represented as legless. He is honored as the founder of the Zen sect of contemplation. In red-painted wood, squat, and round as a pumpkin, with terrible, lidless eyes, his effigy serves as the tobacco shopman's sign of trade, though he deserves a better fame. His lower limbs dropped off after he had sat in meditation during nine years.

Chinese poets called their new drink "froth of the liquid jade," and emperors proffered cups of it as a reward of honor for eminent service. Out from the Yang-tse valley, the use of tea spread abroad, not reaching Japan, however, until 805, nor becoming a common drink in the islands until the twelfth century. By slow evolution, its use blossomed into an aesthetic cult called cha-yo-yu, or tea-decoction. Why, we shall see.

In the beginning no one thought of steeping tea. Between its early application as a cold plaster for rheumatism and its modern use in ice-cream (in Japan), the art of making tea had to pass through three stages requiring heat, or fire.

In the beginning the leaves were steamed, crushed in a mortar, and made into a cake. Then with rice, ginger, salt, orange-peel, spices, milk, onions, or what not, men boiled the tea, even as the Mongolians and Tibetans do to-day, and as was often done at first in Europe. Indeed the Russians, and we after them, still use a slice of lemon in the infusion. This is a survival of the old custom. To this day "brick tea" is the kind most imported into the land of the Czar and the samovar.

We should all read Mr. Okakura's delightful work, "The Book of Tea," in which we are told that the poet Luwuh of the Tang dynasty, who is the tutelary god of the tea-merchants in China, wrote a book in three volumes, entitled the Tea Classic, treating of the history, nature, and preparation of the herb and describing "the twenty-four members of the tea equipage." Tea drinking powerfully influenced the development of the ceramic art in China. Luwuh considered blue as the ideal color of the teacup. He used cake tea. In the time of the Mings, when the steeped leaves were used, white porcelain was preferred.

During the Sung dynasty, whipped tea, or a frothing liquid made by pouring boiling water on powdered tea and churning it round with a whisk of split bamboo, came into fashion. Thus the second school of tea was formed.

After the Mongol invasion, tea was steeped and drunk in modern fashion. Not till late in the Ming dynasty did Europe become acquainted with tea, and then only according to the one fashion of infusion, steeping, and decoction. The introduction of hot drinks had a tremendous and influence on social life in China, but probably even more upon table customs and the ceramic art in Europe, where it gave woman her proper place at the head of the table. Among the poorer Chinese, who could not afford rich wine in the nuptial cup, tea became the recognized drink, and oftentimes to this day, among them, the only marriage ceremony consists in the woman's making tea for the man and proffering him the cup.

In the Far East, tea is associated with philosophy. As with some other things borrowed from the Orient, we took the ceramic part of the gift, the cup's cover, upside down, turning the lid into a saucer.

The emperor, Tai Tsu, made it the aim of his life to consolidate the empire. He took away from the provincial officers the power of life and death and centred them in a board of punishments at the capital. He made expeditions against the Khitans into Liao Tung, but without success. He bestowed posthumous honors on those descendants of Confucius who had lived during the previous forty-four generations, and exempted from taxation all the future descendants of the sage,—a privilege which these gentlemen, still among the ablest men in the empire, yet enjoy. Beside other reforms, literature was encouraged, so that this era is remembered as one of the most brilliant for its schools and education and the number of great writers, one of them being the standard historian, Sze Ma Kwang, whose history of China fills three hundred and fifty-four volumes.

A Chinese library differs greatly in appearance from one of ours. We must not think of heavy octavo books, with stiff bindings of boards, leather, or cloth. A volume in Chinese is made of thinner and tougher bamboo paper, and is much smaller and lighter in weight than the average one in the West. The books lie flat, one upon another, piled upright, in boxes, and do not stand on their edges, as with us. The binding being of paper, or thin pasteboard, the leaves are stitched at the sides with silk and the title is marked in ink on what with us would be the lower edge. Where we end they begin, and the reading is in columns from top to bottom and from right to left. The Chinese call us "the crab-writing barbarians."

As most of the interesting events of history, or the situations in Chinese social life, are painted on porcelain, one can easily recognize a scene in the life of a child who was destined to grow up and become the famed historian, Sze Ma Kwang. When several children were playing together, Kwang, with his playmates, leaned on the rim of a large porcelain vessel in which tame gold-fish were kept. One boy lost his balance and fell into the water among the fishes. The child would have been drowned, except for the presence of mind of Kwang. The other boys, screaming with terror, ran away, but Kwang took up a large stone and smashed the vessel with it. Fish, boy, and water all rushed out. The jar was spoiled, but the boy was saved.

Proverbs and bright-colored pictures, on many a cup, plate, saucer, and vase, keep alive the memory of the boy Kwang. As a man he became a great statesman. He opposed strenuously the doctrines of a famous populist, or socialistic agitator, Wang (1021–1086 ), whose schemes of reform included new methods of taxation and tenure of land, besides radical notions as to economics and philosophy which would make paternalism the form of government. The changes proposed were so far-reaching that wise men called them revolutionary. Yet the populace, for a while, hailed Wang as the savior of society.

Even in this era, 1068, rich men controlled the market, bought from the poor their crops, and sold at the highest rate possible, which was often exorbitant. The emperor backed the agitator when he put into practice his new ideas. Wang proposed that the taxes should be paid in produce and that the government should purchase the surplus, to be distributed according to the demand and sold at a reasonable rate in different parts of the empire. In a word, the commerce of the country was to be wholly a state affair. That the state should advance money to the farmers, at a very low rate of interest and to be repaid after the harvest, was another part of the scheme.

In the enrollment of the militia, it was proposed to divide the whole empire into groups of ten, fifty, and five hundred families under the control of graded officers. Every family with more than one son was to furnish a soldier. In time of peace, they were to follow their ordinary business, but when danger threatened they were to assemble on call.

Incomes were to be taxed to build public works. Instead of compulsory labor, each family was to be assessed according to its income. The same difficulty was experienced then as at the present time in finding out just what the income was. Another enterprise was to publish the classics at public expense, with Wang's peculiar ideas as commentary.

This great experiment in socialism, despite violent opposition, was tried; but the result was total failure. Customs could be changed, but not human nature. Dishonest and rapacious men took advantage of their position and robbed the people, so that, instead of the expected benefits, the general poverty and distress were increased.

This attempt at populism led the wisest men, especially the two brothers Cheng (1032–1111 ), to re-read the classics and to think long and deeply, not only on the nature of man and Heaven (or God), but also on the subjects of and taxes, rights and duties, and on government and social organizations generally. The result, after a hundred years of thought and discussion, was the complete restatement of the Confucian system, by Chu Hi, of whom we shall tell.

By this time also, when Normans and Saxons in England were blending to form the English people, Taoism and especially Buddhism in China had greatly influenced the minds of men, so that scholars, who began the long and hard thinking necessary for clearness and re-statement, had abundant material upon which to work. The most eminent of all the philosophers was Chu Hi (1130–1200). He took his second degree at the literary examination before reaching his twentieth year. Being appointed a mandarin, he first studied for some years the systems of Buddha and Lao Tsze, and then mastered the writings, not only of Confucius and Mencius, but also of the famous scholars, critics, and commentators who for a century had been reexamining the doctrines of Confucius in the light of socialistic and other theories of the times.

Chu Hi's renown was so great that the emperor appointed him adviser at the court, and then governor of Nanking. Continuing his studies, he vindicated and restated the orthodox doctrine handed down from the past, but with additions ranging out into all departments of human thought. Until the twentieth century Chu Hi's commentaries on the classical writings formed the aids to reflection, the strategic points of metaphysical discussion, and the recognized standard of what gentlemen in eastern Asia ought to believe. Chu Hi's teachings so developed Confucianism, that from being merely a system of rules and observances it became both a philosophy and a creed for centuries.

We foreigners think of the three old religions of China as separate in idea and history. To the average Chinese, in everyday life, they are one. The ancestral cult teaches manners and morals. Buddhism, the Aryan faith from India, gives hope of the hereafter. Taoism is a system of philosophy for the thinkers and of superstition to the populace. In reality, though there are three religions there is no God. In the age of Sung ( 960–1333) religion, literature, industry, and commerce were greatly developed under the intellectual stimulus and blending of ideas so notable in this tolerant era. Buddhism henceforth was less the faith of the educated than of the learned, while Confucianism, greatly affected by the thought of India, took on the form of a creed as well as a ritual of worship and rule of conduct. In Taoism the development was in the line of outward organization.

Taoists, as we have seen, are very "high church" in their notions, and their doctrine of succession is held to almost as rigidly as in Buddhist, Mahometan, or Christian countries. Chang Tao-ling, born 34, turned aside from royalty's favors and lived in the high mountains, cultivating alchemy, purity, and mental abstraction. Receiving instruction from a book supernaturally received from Lao Tsze himself, he found the elixir of life and confided the secret to his son. Then, at the age of one hundred and twenty-three, he compounded and swallowed a draught of it, and ascended to the heavens to enjoy the bliss of immortality. At this point legend turns into history. His descendants were in 1016 endowed with land and later honored by the Mongol emperors. To this day the family claim the headship of the Taoist sect. Like the Lamas of Tibet, the succession is perpetuated by the transmigration of the soul of each successor of Chang Tao-ling into the body of some infant or child of the family, whose heirship is supernaturally revealed as soon as the miracle is effected.

Besides being the era when printed books were put into the hands of school children for their use in the study of the classics, the Sung period was famous for its poetry and imaginative literature. In the beginning, the far-off ancestors, the pre-historic people of China, were little better than simple savages, but when they came to consciousness of themselves, and were filled with the wonder of life, they began to think of their past. Reasoning upon this, they inquired as to their origins. Then men with active imagination took to the making of mythology and the formulating of traditions. Skillful penmen set down the manufactured myths in attractive literary form, while with songs and dances, art and commemorative customs, these traditions became articles of the national faith. On the basis of these primitive ideas, symbols, animals, signs, and numerical groups have developed during forty centuries the poetry, philosophy, literature, romance, drama, sculpture, and pictured representations that make the Chinese seem so peculiar to us. In a word, there was during the Sung period such an outburst of literary splendor that this is often called the Augustan age, or the Elizabethan era of Chinese literature. The larger part of the mythology, poetry, and standard literature, apart from the ancient classics, dates from this time.

Of one of the most famous poets, Su Tang Po, it was written that "under his hands, the language of which China is so proud may be said to have reached perfection of finish, of art concealed." One of his poems, called "The Song of the Cranes," has been thus rendered into English, though "translation is treachery."

Progress was not confined to the domain of the intellect. Industry, enterprise, trade, and commerce expanded. There were now four well-known and well-traveled routes westward to India and the Mahometan countries of Asia, while by sea, Hindoo, Javanese, and Arab fleets of trading-ships made the ocean less lonely. The ship's compass came into general use. Banks and cash-shops were numerous at the seaports. China has always had a currency of perforated copper, brass, and iron "cash" strung on strings, and paper money, but no silver or gold coinage. The Arabs probably taught the idea of using silver by weight, and Sycee or "shoe" silver, looking like little white trays or boats, passes as money. In keeping accounts, the terms taels, mace, candarin, and li, according to the decimal system, are used, but there are no coins corresponding to these names, which are theoretical, like the English "guinea."

The size of the bank notes is peculiar, 12x8 inches, and the reading matter is very interesting. On one of these under the Ming dynasty and of the date 1399, it is stated that this note is current as money everywhere in China (all under Heaven), and that counterfeiters will be beheaded.

With the progress of civilization, the lot of the average woman became less one of outdoor toil and more of indoor work and accomplishments. In mythology, in fairy lore, and in actual history, woman is ever the weaver and spinster. The star maiden in the Milky Way, or River of Heaven, works at her loom. On earth it is the wife of the Heavenly Emperor who rears silkworms and teaches the wearing of silk. In the feudal age, we read of flax and hemp and see the women steeping the stalks in the castle moats. Not, however, until the Sung era do we hear of Chinese women weaving into cloth the white blossom of the cotton plant, which is probably the gift of the Semitic world.

It was a great day for China when cotton was brought from the West. It was not cultivated in China until the time of the Sung dynasty. Even then the Chinese hemp and silk growers (just like the linen weavers of England in 1721, when people were fined for wearing muslin) were so opposed to it that it was not until Mongol times that the plant was common throughout the empire. It is sown in June and gathered in October. After Sung times, instead of grass and hemp cloth for the poor and silk for the rich, the common people could have clothes of muslin, made thin for summer and by padding rendered suitable for winter. The spinning-wheel and loom now took their places in the houses of the peasantry, and most garments were home-made.

In a country where forestry was unknown and fuel dear, so that most people had to do without fire in their houses during the time of snow and ice, the Chinese kept warm by putting on more clothes. Thus they would describe the temperature by saying it was "two coats cold," "three coats cold," etc. The day on which they "took off cotton," that is, removed their padded or thickly lined garments for lighter wear, formed a point in the calendar. Out of cotton the Chinese weave many fabrics, such as nankeen, which was formerly exported. Now it is all used at home, and the Chinese import both raw cotton and cotton cloth to the value of millions. Most of their native textiles are dyed with indigo, so that China has been called the Land of the Blue Gown. With steam mills equipped with the latest and best machinery, cotton cloth is woven for the clothing of millions.

Looking from the point of view of 1000, one could hardly believe that, out of this mysterious north, despite the many and long struggles of the Chinese with Tartar tribes, there would emerge another body of men that should completely subdue not only China, but nearly all Asia and a large part of Europe.

We have heard of the Kin tribe of Tartars before. In 1125, after overcoming their former rulers, they made themselves independent. Their chief took the title of Grand Khan and founded a dynasty named the Kin, or Golden. In battle they put in the forefront their heaviest men and horses, clad in the stoutest armor, the warriors being armed with pikes for charging and short swords for close combat. In each company of fifty, twenty soldiers were at the front, while thirty more lightly armed men were kept in the rear, until the heavily equipped warriors had made their attack. Then the light cavalry rushed forward, shot their arrows, threw their javelins, and rode away swiftly, making way for fresh reinforcements. This method, repeated several times, completely broke up the ranks of the opponents by throwing their soldiers into confusion. Then the whole body of Tartars charged, plying pike and sword. They usually won by the rout and massacre of their enemies.

Tempted south by the love of conquest and the riches of the empire, they captured in 1125 the capital Kai Feng. They forced the Chinese to promise an indemnity of five million ounces of gold, fifty million ounces of silver, ten thousand oxen, ten thousand horses, and one million pieces of silk, to recognize the victor's title of Khan, or emperor, to cede a large part of northern China, and to give up the emperor's brother as a hostage.

No sooner had these northern horsemen turned their backs than the Chinese, repenting of their promise, began to raise an army to resist the Kins. When they heard of this, the northern hordes quickly reappeared and increased the punishment of the Chinese. They demanded more land and provinces, carried the imperial family away into captivity, compelled the promise of one hundred thousand ounces of gold, two hundred thousand ounces of silver, and ten million pieces of silk. We do not know that the promise of such an enormous indemnity was fulfilled. Worse than all, they appointed one of their own nominees to rule over the Chinese Empire, but as their own vassal.

All the northern provinces were now under the control of the Kin Tartars, who, however, were unable to complete their conquest of that part of China south of the Yellow River, for the Chinese fought with the energy of despair. The Southern Sung (1127-1333), as their dynasty was called, made a new seat of government at Nanking.

The word for capital is "king," or first city; Nan-king means southern capital and Peking northern capital. This king, pronounced kio in Japanese, is the kio in Tokio and Kioto. The word nankeen, or Chinese cloth, for summer wear, is only another form of Nanking, where much of it was formerly made.

Brave and skillful generals led the southerners in the struggle, which was now for the rich province of Honan, whose northern boundary is the great, wide Yellow River. This, like the Rhine in Roman days, was the dividing line between civilization and northern barbarism. The Tartars, being from the desert and unaccustomed to navigate or to fight on water, were unable to cross this river, while many of the Chinese were adroit boat-men and could fight on deck. Hence the river remained a barrier against further invasion. Had the emperor possessed more courage, he might have driven the Tartars out of China. The last words of one of his generals were, "Cross the river," meaning that the emperor should abandon Nanking and advance northward.

The Tartars were able to make even more progress on their right wing. They passed into Shantung, which means "the mountains east," and devastated the rich country. On land these warriors in the saddle usually beat the Chinese, but on water they were themselves badly handled. Now these Kin Tartars were to find an enemy in their rear also, that was to conquer them and then advance to the conquest of the whole empire. At these we shall glance.

Near the head waters of the Amoor River, south-east of Lake Baikal, lived a tribe of horsemen whose ensign was an ox-tail. They called themselves Brave Men, or Mongols. Other tribes joined their confederacy until, in 1135, filled with the lust of conquest, they began fighting with the Kin Tartars. Their chief, Kabul, assumed the title Grand Khan. His banner was a cluster of ox-tails.

About 1162 there was born the great hero known in history as Genghis Khan. It is said that when thirteen years old, at his mother's prompting, this son of Kabul became head of the Mongols. Genghis means the Greatest of the Great. He moved with a mighty host southward and the Great Wall, occupying several of the northern provinces. In 1213 he despatched three great expeditions eastward, all of which were successful. The ox-tail banner was carried to the sea near the modern Wei Hai Wei.

Some Japanese scholars claim that Yezukai, or Genghis Khan, was no other than the Japanese field-marshal and hero, Yoshitsuné, whose name in Chinese is Gengi Ké, and who fled across the Yezo Kai, or northern sea of Tartary. Some Chinese authors also accept this plausible theory. In 1905 a Japanese officer found at Mukden the reputed tomb of Yoshitsuné.

When this great wave of humanity on horseback moved toward the setting sun and over the Himalaya Mountains, it struck Russia during the time of her feudal system. There was then no national unity, but many semi-independent states existed, nominally under a Czar, but almost always at war with one another. At this time they were much weakened in resources. When the Muscovites set their hastily collected forces in battle against the Mongols, their rout was rapid and complete, and the Czar's empire was put under tribute.

A Mongol, who lived in the saddle, horse and man seeming like one animal, hated cities and would have nothing to do with roofs or walls. Coming out of the broad steppes and living continually in the open air, the horsemen felt as if they would be stifled within doors, and they feared any and every high structure. So they leveled to the ground the Russian towns and villages, churches and farmhouses, making large areas of the country a waste.

The son of Genghis Khan, named Ogotai, continued the work begun by his father. He completely subdued the Kin Tartars and ended their dynasty of nine emperors, which had ruled half of the Chinese Empire one hundred and eighteen years. Then moving with a still larger army into Europe, he penetrated to the very heart of the continent, destroying Moscow, Kief, and other Russian cities, committing terrible atrocities and slaughtering the inhabitants almost as numerously as the Romans did our ancestors in Gaul and Germany. The Mongols invaded Hungary and Poland, razing Pesth, Cracow, and other cities to the ground, but when in Silesia, bearing, in 1241, that Ogotai was dead, the Mongol generals returned with their hordes to the capital at Karakorum.

At the same time the Pope of Rome sent two envoys, Carpini and Benedict, with a letter urging upon Ogotai's successor more humanity in war, to which the Mongol ruler civilly replied. Returning, these two scholars brought to medieval Europe the first knowledge of the Chinese as being a nation more highly civilized than any at that time existing in Europe. The ruins of the Mongol capital still litter the ground near the Orkhan River.

Meanwhile, in southern China, the Sung Emperor, in order to drive out the Kin Tartars, made alliance with the Mongols. The allies succeeded, but the old story of the badger inviting the porcupine into his hole was retold. After quarreling over the spoils, the Chinese attempted again to occupy the province of Honan, but the Mongols ordered them out. The latter soon found what kind of allies they had invited to aid them. When Mangu became Khan in 1253, he and his brother Kublai planned the complete conquest of China. Kublai, who was elected Grand Khan on the death of his brother, fixed his capital at or near the modern Peking. About Cambulac, on the city of the Khan, some of us have heard through the poetry of Coleridge.

The Chinese were still defiant, but the Mongols, being as ready to adopt modern improvements as are the Japanese, employed foreign experts, teachers, and advisers with new machinery and methods. To the siege of cities they brought engines of war made in Persia, which could throw stones and logs of wood weighing over a hundred pounds. Using these catapults, the General Bayan captured city after city, until finally the ox-tail banners were planted on the seashore below Canton. After fifty years of battle and warfare, in which both the courage and the tenacity of the Chinese were conspicuous, the Mongol conquest of China was completed and the Yuan, or Original, dynasty was founded. Like our barbarian ancestors, who destroyed the Roman Empire and occupied its area, the Mongol Tartars were now about to be powerfully influenced by the civilization they had apparently destroyed. Though Kublai was not actually seated on the throne of China until 1260, the Yuan dynasty is reckoned as lasting from 1206 to 1333.

There was yet much land to be occupied to the east and south, so Kublai looked across the sea to Japan. The Japanese sent back the envoys from Kublai Khan with an answer of defiance. When others came later, their heads were cut off. The Koreans were quickly won over. Then, with a combined fleet made up from the three peoples, Mongols, Chinese, and Koreans, an attempt was made to invade Japan.

When the Mongol armada, equipped with war-machines and even cannon which the Italian Polos had taught the Mongols to make, arrived off Kiushiu, it was scattered by tempests. The Mongol cavalry was repulsed on land by archery of the Japanese. Then the latter, venturing out in their little boats with swords and grappling-irons, leaped on the big ships and fought the Mongols hand to hand. As usual, the Tartars failed in battles on the water. The lives of the Koreans and Chinese who surrendered were spared.

To this day in Japan the civil ruler and the captains who defeated the Mongols enjoy posthumous honors. After the destruction of the Russian armada, or Baltic fleet, by Admiral Togo in 1905, very near the place where the Mongol armada came to its end, the victors on land and sea, headed by the Mikado, were present at a great celebration in honor of Hojo, the governor who roused the nation to resist the invaders of 1281.

Something like the same lack of success befell the Mongols when they invaded Annam and attempted Cambodia. They found that the work of war in steaming bamboo jungles and teak forests, or on the plains under the almost vertical rays of the sun, was not so easy as fighting on the northern plains and frozen rivers. They were so greatly weakened by heat and sickness that they retired from Cambodia and left Annam a semi-independent state. All this region of peninsular Asia is popularly known as Cochin China. It is interesting as the original home of our barnyard fowls, the cock and hen.

It was not necessarily the plan of the Mongol Emperor to make war upon all nations, but those near the frontiers, or even within reach, were expected to pay tribute and acknowledge themselves vassals of the great Khan. If they did not, they were invaded and subjugated. In the case of Burma, after the first refusal, the usual invasion was made. This time the Mongol veterans found a new war animal. Elephants charged on them, overwhelming both men and horses, while the Burmans discharged their darts and arrows with skill and effect. The Mongols were driven back and their tactics made worthless. So they tried a new plan by bringing forward their most skilled archers, who aimed at the eyes, trunks, and other tender parts of the big brutes. These, maddened and unmanageable, carried confusion into the ranks of the Burmans. Then charging with their horsemen, the Mongols won victory and Burma became a vassal state.

Meanwhile the great empire kept expanding until it was the largest in area and population known in history, stretching as it did from the Black to the Yellow Sea and from the steppes of Mongolia to the Indian Ocean, within which space was a vast variety of nations, tribes, and peoples.