24 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
authority over the feudal states of China. He subjected the whole 
Empire to one sole sovereign, and then conquered the regions 
which are now comprised in the provinces of Fu kien, Kuang tung 
and Kuang si, known in ancient times by the general name of 
Ys we Van Vie. But in B. C. 206 Nan Yiie revolted and 
became again independent. 
The Emperor Wu Ti, B. C. 140—86, of the Han dynasty, wae 
himself master of the south-western portion of present China and 
reconquered Nan Yiie,** subjecting also a part of Annam. ‘Then 
the Chinese Empire had nearly the same limits as the Chinese 
assign to China proper now-a-days. It was under the glorious 
reign of this Emperor that China, after centuries of isolation, 
became first acquainted with Japan and the countries of Central 
and Western Asia. I am aware that a French orientalist has 
endeavoured to prove that an embassy from Egypt was sent to 
China as early as B.C. 1118, and that 130 years later the Chinese 
Emperor Mu wang visited Western Asia. But such assertions 
are nothing but fantastic dreams. We can safely assume that, 
before the second half of the second century B. C., the Chinese 
had no intercourse with the distant countries of Western and 
Southern Asia, and were even ignorant regarding the tribes 
dwelling in Central Asia. 
In about 139 B.C. Emperor Wu ti despatched one of his officers 
named if 25 Chang Kien on a diplomatic mission to the Jf JG 
Yue chi (or Yue ti), a people who first dwelt near the north-. 
western frontier of China, but had been driven away by the 
Hiung nu and had then settled near the river Oxus. The fa] 4 
Hiiung nu at that time occupied the steppes of Mongolia and were 
constantly at war with China. Chang K‘ien, who had necessarily 
to pass through their dominions, was made prisoner and retained 
3a We read in the San fu huang t's, an ancient description of the public seclidioon 
in Ch‘ang an, the ancient metropolis during the Han, near the present Si an fu in Shensi 
(see alph. list of works 647), as follows : 
After the Han Emperor Wu Ti, in B. C. 111, had saline Nan Yiie, he built the 
palace Fu & (in Ch‘ang an), and in the garden appertaining to it a number of rare 
herbaceons plants and trees brought from those southern regions were planted. Among 
_ the plants enumerated there I have been able to identify the following : 
_ Nephelium Litchi, N. Longan, Canarium album, €. Pimela, Areca Catechu, Cinna- 
ee ee eo sweet Oranges, 
