CHINESE COMMERCE. 201 



from the sea, out of reach of existing means of transportation, and 

 practically buried in the interior. If they cannot be got at, or if, when 

 reached, they cannot and will not trade, then it is not worth while to 

 consider any general forward movement. 



In the course of my journey in the interior of China, I went through 

 the province of Hu-peh, which the Yang-tze Kiang traverses; the 

 province of Kwang-tung, lying along the China Sea, and, between 

 these two, the province of Hu-nan, which practically had not been tra- 

 versed before by white men. Here evidently was virgin soil, and its 

 condition can, therefore, be taken as a criterion of what the Chinaman 

 is when unaffected by foreign influences. Even here I found that, 

 although the foreigner's foot might never before have trodden the 

 streets of the cities, his goods were already exposed for sale in the shop- 

 windows. 



In thinking of the Chinese, especially those in the interior, we are 

 wont to consider them as uncivilized; and so they are, if measured 

 scrupulously by our peculiar standards. But, on the other hand, they 

 might say with some justice that we are not civilized according to the 

 standards that they have set for themselves, founded on an experience 

 of four thousand years. "With all its differences from ourselves, a nation 

 that has had an organization for five thousand years; that has used 

 printing for over eight centuries; that has produced the works of art 

 that China has produced; that possesses a literature antedating that of 

 Eome or Athens; whose people maintain shrines along the highways 

 in which, following the precepts of the classics to respect the written 

 page, they are wont to pick up and burn printed papers rather than 

 have them trampled under foot; and which, to indicate a modern in- 

 stance, was able to furnish me with a native letter of credit on local 

 banks in unexplored Hu-nan, can hardly be denied the right to call 

 itself civilized. In the interior — in those parts where no outside in- 

 fluence has ever reached — we found cities whose walls, by their size, 

 their crenelated parapets, and their keeps and watch-towers, suggested 

 mediaeval Germany rather than Cathay. Many of the houses are of 

 masonry, with decorated tile roofs, and elaborately carved details. The 

 streets are paved with stone. The shops display in their windows arti- 

 cles of every form, of every make. The streams are crossed by arched 

 bridges unsurpassed in their graceful outline and good proportions. 

 The farmer lives in a group of farm buildings enclosed by a compound 

 wall — the whole exceeding in picturesqueness any bit in Normandy or 

 Derbyshire. The rich mandarin dresses himself in summer in brocaded 

 silk, and in winter in sable furs. He is waited on by a retinue of well- 

 trained servants, and will invite the stranger to a dinner at night com- 

 posed of ten or fifteen courses, entertaining him with a courtesy and 

 intricacy of etiquette that Mayfair itself cannot excel. Such are actual 



