EARLIEST NOTICES OF THE CHINESE.

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name in the peninsula of Malacca, which is probably another place. There was a long and dangerous land route leading to this emporium by way of Scythia, which, according to Ptolemy, passed through Persia to Bactria, and over mountain defiles, and rugged paths beset with perils and difficulties, the whole journey occupying the best part of a year. "The character of the Seres, too, as concisely drawn by Ammianus Marcellinus, corresponds with that of the Chinese. They are represented as studiously shunning intercourse with other nations, allowing traffic only at a frontier station, and under very strict precautions; and while they sell their own commodities, they accept nothing but money in return. They are described also as singularly frugal, quiet, and tranquil; finally, as unwarlike and averse to the use of arms. These are the characteristics of the Chinese, and directly opposite to those which distinguish the other nations in the east of Asia. The journey of seven months from the mountain girdle of India was amply sufficient to enable the caravans to reach the borders and even the interior of China, while, for any nearer point, the time consumed would be most unaccountable. The extent of Serica, also, as given by Ptolemy, and the two great rivers flowing through it from west to east, agree with the modern delineations of the empire." Arguments like these in favor of the identity of the Seres and the Chinese, drawn from their character and natural productions, are much stronger than those which go to prove them to have inhabited the valley of the Yarkand in Ílí, inasmuch as the geography of those regions was described so erroneously as to defy explanation.

The works quoted above contain further extracts and summaries from the writings of Ptolemy respecting the voyage by sea, which show that he had a tolerably correct knowledge of the great features of the coast, from the mouth of the Ganges to the longitude of Canton. It is a difficult and almost profitless endeavor, however, to attempt to identify the names of the places mentioned in these early records. The emporium called Cattagara may have been Canton; it may also have been Fuhchau or Amoy, for these three places are all natural entrepôts, and Chinese historians of that age regarded the regions south of the Yangtsz' kiang as wholly unsubdued, and knew and said little about * Heeren's Asiatic Researches, Vol. II., pp. 285-295. Murray's China, Vol. I., p. 141.

them. Whether the Seres or Sinæ were distinct people will depend somewhat upon the position assigned to Cattigara, and the length of time required to reach it, for if it is placed no further east than Malacca or Cambodia, as Vincent and d'Anville suppose, the Sina who lived there could hardly have been the same people as the Seres, who were only to be reached through Central Asia. Even if Cattigara could be proved to be Canton, or a place in that vicinity, there is still reason for supposing the Sinæ to be a distinct race, for it is highly probable that this region was not subject to the Han dynasty then in power. It is stated, moreover, by native writers, that in the second century before Christ, the Chinese had intercourse with persons from Cantoo, Loo-hwangchí, and other southern nations and places; Cantoo was then ten days' journey from China.*

It was under this dynasty, in A.D. 61 or 65, that an envoy was sent to the west, and returned with Budhist books and priests; and not long after, during the reign of Trajan, a Chinese general, Changkiang, is said to have penetrated with an army to the Caspian, and brought back the vine with him to China, A.D. 126. The emperor Marcus Antoninus sent a mission by sea to the country producing the rich silks so much prized in Rome; and this ambassy is noticed in the History Made Easy, where it is stated, that "in the reign of Hwan tí, people came from India and other western nations, with tribute; and from that time foreign trade was carried on with Canton." De Guignes shows, from Chinese authors, that it took place in A.D. 166, and was sent by An-tun. On the other hand, the historian Flores states, as evidence of the universal awe and veneration in which the power of Rome was held under Augustus, that ambassadors from the remotest nations, the Seres and the Indians, came with presents of elephants, gems and pearls a rhetorical exaggeration quite on a par with the Chinese account of the tribute sent from An-tun, and not so well authenticated. Whether, indeed, the Ta-tsin kwoh mentioned by Chinese writers, meant Judea, Rome, or Persia, cannot now be ascertained. The envoys sent to that country reported, "that beyond the territory of the Tau-shí (perhaps the Persians), there was a great sea, by which, sailing due west, one might arrive at the country where the sun sets." Like most attempts of the kind

* Chinese Repository, Vol. I., page 365.

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in subsequent days, the mission of Antoninus appears to have been an entire failure, and to have returned without accomplishing any practical benefit to intercourse or trade, between the two greatest empires in the world; it was received, no doubt, at Lohyang, then the capital, with ostentatious show and patronizing kindness, and its occurrence inscribed in the national records, as another evidence of the glory and fame of the son of heaven.

It is worthy of observation how, even from the earliest times, the traffic in the rich natural and artificial productions of India and China, has been the great stimulus to urge adventurers to come from Europe, who on their part offered little in exchange beside precious metals. The Serica vestis, whether it was a silken or cotton fabric, and other rarities found in those regions, bore such a high price at Rome as to tempt the merchants to undertake the longest journeys and undergo the greatest hardships to procure them; and such was the case likewise during the long period before the discovery of the cape of Good Hope. The existence of this trade early enabled the Nestorian missionaries to penetrate into those remote regions, and keep up a communication with their patrons at home; the more extended voyages of modern commerce, likewise assist benevolent persons in reaching the remotest tribes, and carrying on their labors, through their patrons on the other side of the world, probably with less danger and delay, than a mission at Cadiz could have been directed from Jerusalem in the days of the apostles.

The intercourse between China and the Greek empire constantly increased until the rise of the Mohammedan power, the products chiefly sought being silken and cotton cloths, gems, pearls, and other articles. The culture of silk was introduced into Europe in the reign of Justinian. The fragrant leaf called malabathrum is another article of traffic mentioned by the author of the Periplus: "But there used to come yearly to the frontier of the Sinæ, a certain people called Sesatæ, with a short body, broad forehead, flat noses, and of a wild aspect. They come with their wives and children, and carry great burdens in mats, which look like vine branches. They stop short at a certain place between their own territory and that of Thina, and spend a few days in festivity, using the mats for lying upon; they then return to the abode of their countrymen in the interior. The Sinæ next repair to the place and take up the articles which they left,

and having drawn out the stalks and fibres, they nicely double the leaves, roll them into a circular shape, and thrust into them the fibres of the reeds. Thus three kinds of malabathrum are formed; that from the larger leaf is called hadrosphærum, that from the middling one mesosphærum, that from the smaller microsphærum."*

The malabathrum has been supposed to be the betel leaf, which can hardly be the case, as that is always chewed fresh ; others with more probability suppose it to have been tea, though Chinese accounts place its introduction as late as A.D. 315, and add that it did not come into general use until the Tang dynasty, when it is also mentioned by two Arab travellers. The description favors the idea that malabathrum was tea, and if so, it shows that the native country of the tea-plant is the mountainous region of Assam and Yunnan, where it has even recently been found wild, and that the Chinese traded with the wild Sesatæ for it before they began to cultivate it. Although the notices of the intercourse between the nations of European Asia and Chin-India, which have been preserved to modern times are few and dubious, it may be safely deduced that some traffic was constantly kept up; and that thousands of traders resorted to the country of the Seres and the valley of the Ganges, and returned to tell what they had seen, and sell what they had brought. The account given by the prophet Ezekiel, of the trade and commercial relations of Tyre, shows how a great emporium brought traders from distant nations together; and if the writer of the book of Esther had given a list of the provinces under the sway of Ahasuerus, it is not unlikely that some of them would have extended to the Imaus, if not into the valley of the Tarim, on the great highway to China. Pride and luxury were not less desirous of costly and splendid materials to gratify their desires in the days of the Persians and Jews than they are now, and enterprising traders were also willing to gratify the luxurious, and enrich themselves by bringing them from the ends of the earth. The probability of a trade both around cape Comorin and across the deserts of Tartary at that early period, is not lessened by knowing that Solomon's ships were gone three years to Ophir: wherever that may have been, it shows that long voyages were not dreaded, and if * Murray's China, Vol. I., p. 153. Heeren's Asiastic Researches, Vol. II., p. 294.

NARRATIVES OF TWO ARAB TRAVELLERS.

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ivory, apes, peacocks, and algum trees were worth bringing from a long distance, much more were silks, medicines, and gems. All these facts make it more likely that by the land of Sinim, Isaiah and his countrymen referred to the little known and distant, but the rich and populous countries beyond the Himalaya, and prophesied the future introduction of their inhabitants into the church.

The best intimation of a continuance of the intercourse with China from the time of Justinian to that of the Arab travellers, Wahab and Abuzaid, is the inscription found at Sí-ngan fu (page 291). The narratives of the Arabs are dated A. D. 850 and 877, and are everyway trustworthy in their general statements as to the course pursued in the voyage, the port to which they sailed in China, the customs of the people there, and the nature and mode of conducting the trade; they form, in fact, the first authentic accounts we have of the Chinese. The second traveller speaks of the sack of the city of Canfu, which was then the port of all the Arabian merchants, in which 120,000 Mohammedans, Jews, Christians, and Parsees, engaged in traffic there, were destroyed. This shows the extent and value of the trade, and yet not a single journal or book of travels beside these, during a period of more than a thousand years, from the time of Ptolemy to Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta, has been preserved to modern times. Canfu was probably Kanpu, near Chapu in Chehkiang, and the Gates of China, the Chusan archipelago and its numerous channels. Much of the statement made by Abuzaid, respecting the wealth, extent, and splendor of Canfu, is to be referred to the city of Hangchau fu, then and since, one of the greatest cities in Asia, and of which Canfu was the port. The destruction of the city in 877, during the decline of the Tang dynasty, no doubt contributed to direct part of the trade to Canton, which even then and long after, was comparatively a small place, and the people of that part of the country but little removed from gross barbarism; it is stated that a market was opened at Canton in 750, and an officer appointed to receive the imperial duties. In Marco Polo's time, Canfu or Ganpu was an extremely fine port, and frequented by all the ships that bring merchandise from India.*

Prior to the time when the Venetians reached the confines of

* Chinese Repository, Vol. I., pp. 6, 42, 252; Vol. III., p. 115.