—————————S—— es 
ae 
Wee 
OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN ASIA. 189 
the Golden Chersonese. This will account for the assertion, 
that the people of Taprobane were placed at a small distarice 
-from, and carried on traffic with Serica. 
‘We have thus found, that the leading astronomical and geo- 
graphical features ascribed to Serica, agree exactly with China, 
and can apply to no other country. The moral features are, if 
possible, still more decisive. These do not enter into the plan 
of Protemy, but they are noticed by P uiny, and detailed at 
some length by Ammianus. The Seres are represented as a 
people frugal, quiet, sedate, and tranquil beyond all others ; 
as, of all nations the most unwarlike, and the most averse to 
the use of arms; as shunning, with the most studious care, 
the society and intercourse of other nations, and scarcely 
ever” allowing them to enter their territory ; as carr ying on 
trade at a fixed frontier station only, and under the strict- 
est precautions 3 as selling their own commodities, without 
receiving” ves aden eabaitied of other nations in return *. 
oe PoOTH This 
ert yi | eb uae 
_ * Tt may be proper here to notice a report which militates against our view 
of the subject. Some authors describe the Seres as a people remarkable for their 
_ honesty. “Thus Meta says, ‘“‘ gens plenum justitiz, ex commercio, quod re- 
« bus in solitudine relictis absens peragit, notissimum.” I think it evident, 
that this character is solely founded upon the rumour so often repeated, 
that they and their neighbours carried on trade without meeting, but by 
merely laying down the goods in each, others absence. It. is remark- 
cable, that rumours o of a trade so conducted have been transmitted in all ages, 
from the remote extremities of the known world, without having been con- 
‘firmed in any instance by the testimony of a credible eye-witness. This in- 
clines me to believe that it is a mere poetical fable, taking refuge, like other 
fables, at the dim boundaries of knowledge. While such descriptions were 
afloat, t the quiet and. cautious - habits of the Seres would very naturally cause 
the applicati on to be made to them. If such a trade did exist, it must have 
been a | political ‘precaution ; A ‘and, ‘in that case, “public authority would Paine 
that fair-dealing, without which it could not subsist. We may finally remark, 
: that 
