542 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



val of 1908 in the company of the German engineers who superin- 

 tended a Chinese coal mine. 



I passed the first days of the year 1909 on the sacred mountain 

 Hengshan, then journeyed overland to Kueilinfu, the capital of 

 Kuangsi, and down the Kuei Kiver, passing over 300 rapids in 

 10 days, to the West River, by which I reached Canton, the imposing, 

 populous, and gay city. Going by sea I reached Fuchow, the capital 

 of the Province of Fukien. I celebrated Easter in Hangchow, the 

 capital of Chekiang, on the much celebrated beautiful West Lake. 

 Then I hastened back to Peking, where I arrived after an absence of 

 over one year, on May 1, at the time of the funeral of the deceased 

 Emperor. 



In all my travels, which took me through 14 of the 18 Provinces of 

 China, I followed the main highways, the ancient, much-traveled 

 roads, and was constantly in the midst of Chinese life in densely popu- 

 lated and mostly the richest regions. The sacred mountains, annually 

 visited by millions of pious pilgrims, belong to these regions, as also 

 do the imposing industrial and cultural centers and great cities where 

 an enormous commerce is carried on through the countless water- 

 ways and lakes where boats constantly follow each other in rapid 

 succession, and the seacoast with its busy traffic from harbor to 

 harbor. Industry, contentment, and order everywhere prevail among 

 this 400,000,000 people, whose joy of living and contentment is 

 apparent in their art. Nothing is more erroneous than to speak of 

 China as fossilized and ready to fall to pieces mentally, morally, 

 or even politically. The .unity of the culture of yesterday and yet 

 of to-day has welded the people and keeps the nation strong. 



This observation may account for the fact that no problems of 

 archeology, art, religion, or general history will be discussed here, 

 interesting as they may be, but the China as it is to-day will be 

 described. The means should not be given greater importance than 

 the end. 



To introduce our subject: We stand in China contemplating a 

 unity of culture which can only be dreamed of in the days of ancient 

 Greece or of some other ideal period. One imposing conception of 

 the universe is the mainspring of all Chinamen, a conception so com- 

 prehensive that it is the key defining all expressions in life — trade, 

 intercourse, customs, religion, poetry, and especially fine arts and 

 architecture. They exhibit in nearly every work of art the universe 

 and its idea. The visible forms are the reflex of the divine. They 

 behold the divine in the various forms which they fashion to express 

 it; in short, in the microcosm is recognized and revealed the ma- 

 crocosm. 



This method of thinking and acting on a grand scale gave rise, and 

 rightly so, to the favorite expression " China, the land of great 



