Of the Mongols, who conquered China under Kublai Khan in the thirteenth century and reigned over it ninety years, of the Manchus, who for more than two centuries have been its rulers, and of the Jews who have been found upon the Hwang-ho river, mention will be made in future chapters of this volume. From what has been said of the two primeval races in China, and the intimation of the presence of others, the inference is easily drawn that the population of the present empire of China is far from being the dull, uniform, stagnant mass which some inconsiderate or uninformed writers represent. The truth is, that while there is a dominant style of civilization, of religious sentiment and of national character, yet the people of the north, of the west, of the central provinces, and of the southern sea-coast differ very much in stature, in customs, in energy; their spoken languages are as unlike as the German to the English, and their leading employments are very dissimilar. This variety amidst general unity will prove favorable to future improvement and to the development of the vast national resources, through the infusion of Western ideas, inventions and merchandise. An account of the races which inhabit the empire of China may be suitably followed by a statement of the regions whence they ventured forth in their compact ships. This has been shown by the investigations of the Royal Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen. (Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord; section Asiatique, 1840-3.) From the North-west there descended, probably from a period many centuries before the Christian era, the Turanian tribes, of which we have spoken, who crossed at Behring's Straits, and formed the bulk of those which dispersed themselves in time over North and South America. And another distinct element is to be recognized in the cultivated Toltecs, Otomis and Aztecs of Mexico, who were certainly Buddhists, and came, at least in part, from Chinese and Japanese stock. On this subject some interesting light will be thrown in a future chapter. probable number of the present entire population. The Marquis de Moges states, in his narrative of the French embassy to China in 1857-8 (according to statements made in the Foreign Missionary, Jan., 1869), that the last census of the empire makes its present population to be nearly 415,000,000.1 The mind staggers beneath the conception of so vast a mass of human beings being collected under one government, speaking one kindred family of languages, writing identically the same character, and entertaining so largely the same general social and religious ideas. Can this estimate of their number, it is asked, be correct? It is the opinion of those best acquainted with the empire, who have most extensively visited its accessible portions, and who have examined the statistics obtained from its own officers, that it is not far wrong. In a work of M. de Guignes, published in 1808,2 he This population is distributed as follows: NORTHERN PROVINCES. 1. Chihli (Petscheli, Pes cheli,) ............. 36,879,838 2. Shantung.... 3. Shansi........... 4. Honan 29,529,877 SOUTHERN PROVINCES. 12. Kwangtung (Canton). 21,152,603 17,056,925 15. Kweichau... 8,121,327 5,823,670 5,679,128 40,776,728 10,309,769 8. Chikiang 26,513,889 9. Fukien (Fokien)....... 25,799,556 To which is added the 51,079,440 413,021,452 48,633,533 Total.................. 414,686,994 Voyages à Peking, Manille et l'Ile de France, etc., tom. iii., pp. 55–80. compiles in a table the information collected from Amiot and other Roman Catholic missionaries as to the population of the empire between the years 1736 and 1761. He shows that in the former year it was 125,046,245; in the latter, about 205,293,053. He explains from his own observations how this was within the truth. Dr. S. W. Williams, the most thorough and reliable Chinese scholar living, in his "Middle Kingdom"1 presents the whole subject in a clear and satisfactory light, aiming to show that the census taken by the emperor Kia-king in 1812, which made the sum to be 362,447,183, was probably nearly correct.2 If these enumerations be not far wrong, the increase in the first twenty-five years was three and one-fifth millions a year; for the seventy-six years previous to 1812, three and one-eighth millions a year. This certainly does not seem extravagant, and amounts to but two and a half per cent. yearly. From 1812 to 1858 the increase is one million and one-fourteenth per annum. That the rate would diminish is probable, since in that time the Tai-ping rebellion, wars in the west and with foreigners, and consequent famines and diseases, have swept off many millions of people. The general opinion of the foreign missionaries, mer 1 Vol. i. pp. 206-234. This census is contained in the last collection of statutes put forth by the emperor. J. R. Morrison (son of the missionary) says: "It will probably serve to set at rest the numerous speculations concerning the real amount of population. We know, from several authorities, that in China the people are in the habit of diminishing, rather than increasing, their numbers in their reports to government. And it is unreasonable to suppose that in a work published by the gov ernment, not for the information of curious inquirers, but for the use of its own officers, the numbers so reported by the people should be more than doubled, as the statements of some European speculators would require us to believe." chants and official persons who have visited extensively the provinces fronting upon the eastern and southern seas, and lying along the great rivers, is, that the population is as great within them as the statements of the censuses require. The multitude of cities and towns, the swarming throngs of people in the streets of the cities, the narrowness of the streets, the small number of animals used for beasts of burden and the performance of their tasks by men, the garden-like cultivation of the soil, the hills with their irrigated terraces, the countless boats and vessels of all sizes and kinds on the rivers, lakes and seas, the streets of them anchored in rows for tenements, the variety of employments and the diligence of the people in them, even the women laboring at the oar upon the water-indeed, whatever could be supposed to characterize a most crowded country-press upon one the conviction that China is thus populous. Of the number of the tribes occupying the vast colonial and tributary regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, Kokonor, Ili and Tibet, it is almost in vain to attempt an estimate. Portions of them are occupied by settled communities; still larger parts by nomadic and predatory tribes, and great deserts on the west and barren. plains on the north are silent and untenanted. Gutzlaff, half a generation ago, estimated these entire regions to contain thirty-three millions of human beings. But this is probably too large a number. There is reason to think that the empire of China contains, within its immense area, which equals the onetenth of the dry land of the globe, one-fourth of the race of man. The practical bearings of this question of population are of an importance which cannot now be |