have recently begun to cross to the New World, and already number in the United States one-third as many as the total remains of the aboriginal tribes. The knowledge of modern ages in the West, and the introduction of labor-saving machines, will expel myriads from China, as the bees swarm and hive in the spring; and any reasonable man who will consider no more than the statements of this paragraph must conclude that attempts to prevent their coming to the New World are as ridiculous and futile as it would be to endeavor to change the laws of Nature, which cause the soil of the mountains to descend into the valleys, or the floods of the rain to force a channel to the sea. The day is coming when many millions of Chinese will be dispersed over the Pacific coast, the Mississippi Valley, the wastes in the northern portion of the continent, the provinces of Mexico and Central America, the whole continent of South America, where already there are several thousands of them, and over all the island groups or island continents of the Pacific ocean, whose indolent races are departing, having accomplished their mission, to make room for them. To find a place and use for a handful of poor African slaves who were brought here in a condition little above the brutes, in the plan of the great temple of civil and religious freedom which the Supreme Governor of the world is rearing upon this continent to be a blessing to all its nations, has cost us an indescribable amount of discussion and trouble, ending in a stupendous and calamitous civil war. An hundred-fold more important is it to understand fully, and to treat with wisdom and justice from the beginning, the race whom He is now bringing to our shores-one so incom

parably greater than the negro in numbers, in civilization, in capacity to bestow immense benefits on our land or to inflict upon it evils which may end in its ruin. Our faith in that God and in his word leads us to hope that their coming shall be for good to us and to them.

To present with satisfaction to the reader the new world of interests opened up around the Pacific ocean, it will be also necessary to look beyond the two nations represented in our title, "The Oldest and the Newest Empire," and to take some notice of the changes taking place also in Asiatic Russia, in the countries bordering upon China on the west and south, in other countries besides our own in the New World, and in the numerous fertile islands of the Pacific ocean, both in the smaller central groups and in those which separate it from the Indian ocean, and which approach continents in magnitude, and in the variety and extent of the products of their soil and mines. The destiny of these parts of the world, and of the races which inhabit them, is to be decided by the influences that shall proceed from the United States and China.

CHAPTER II.

THE CHINESE PEOPLE: THEIR ORIGIN-RACES IN THE EMPIRE.

WHE

HEN the valiant knight of St. Albans, Sir John Maundeville-who informs us that he passed the sea on St. Michael's Day of the year 1322, and has written down his narrative in English, that "other noble and worthy men, if he err from defect of memory, may redress it and amend it"-traveled through many parts of Europe and Asia, he saw or learned of "many divers folks, and of many divers manners and laws, and of divers shapes of men." In the far East he learned of men and women that "have dogs' heads; and they are reasonable and of good understanding, except that they worship an ox for their god." There was a country where there is "a kind of snails so great that many persons lodge in their shells, as men would do in a little house;" another, where "are white hens without feathers, but they bear white wool, as sheep do here." "In one of these isles are people of great stature, like giants, hideous to look upon: and they have but one eye, which is in the middle of the forehead, and they eat nothing but raw flesh and fish. And in another isle toward the south dwell people of foul stature and cursed nature, who have no heads, but their eyes are in their shoulders. In another isle are people who have the face all flat,

without nose and without mouth. In another isle are people that have the lip above the mouth so great that when they sleep in the sun they cover all the face with that lip. And in another isle there are dwarfs which have no mouth, but instead of a mouth they have a little round hole; and when they eat or drink they take it through a pipe, or pen, or such thing, and suck it in. And in another isle are people that have ears so long that they hang down to their knees. And in another isle are people that have horses' feet. And many other divers people of divers natures there are in other isles about, of which it were too long to tell." The account of the empire of China by this writer is equally veracious and entertaining. "The greatest river of fresh water in the world," he says, is there, which, "where it is narrowest, is more than four miles broad." "That river goes through the land of pigmies, where the people are small, but three spans long. These men are the best workers of gold, silver, cotton and silk, and of all such things that are in the world. And they have oftentimes war with the birds of the country, which they kill and eat. And of the men of our stature they have as great scorn and wonder as we should have among us of giants." "Cathay is a great country, fair, noble, rich and full of merchants.", "They are the most skillful men in the world in sciences and all crafts; for in subtlety, malice and forethought they surpass all men under heaven; and therefore they say themselves that they see with two eyes, and the Christians see with but one, because they are more subtle than they." Of the grandeur of the emperor and his many thousands of great lords and nobles he relates wonderful things. In the

palace "all the vessels that men are served with, in the hall or in chambers, are of precious stones; and especially at great tables, either of jasper, or of crystal, or of amethyst, or of fine gold. And the cups are of emeralds, and sapphires or topazes, of perydox, and of many other precious stones. Vessels of silver there is none, for they set no value on it to make vessels of; but they make therewith steps, and pillars and pavements to halls and chambers." In order to impress the people of Western lands more sensibly with the amazing wealth of the East, the worthy knight says that in India diamonds grow upon the rocks in the sea or in the mines of gold. "They grow many together, male and female, and are nourished by the dew of heaven; and they engender commonly, and bring forth small children [of their own kind], that multiply and grow all the year. I have oftentimes tried the experiment, that if a man keep them with a little of the rock, and wet them with Maydew often, they shall grow every year, and the small will grow great. He who carries the diamond upon him, it gives him hardiness and manhood, and it keeps the limbs of his body whole. It heals him that is lunatic, and those whom the fiend pursues or torments. And if venom or poison be brought in presence of the diamond, anon it begins to grow moist and sweat." 1

Now these stories of good Sir John seem, no doubt, to the reader grotesque and absurd enough. But they may be made the ground of two remarks. The first is, that our pictures of Eastern races in the books of the West are not a whit more monstrous than the pictures which they draw of ourselves. Their writers, in turn,

1 The Book of Sir John Maundeville, chaps. xiv.-xx.