ANCIENT CHINESE NAVIGATION. 77 



cords have yielded. Let us now turn to the characteristics 

 and achievements of the people themselves, and endeavor 

 to ascertain therefrom the probabilities of the existence of 

 their claimed early knowledge of the magnet, and whether 

 circumstances favored their invention of the compass or 

 discovery of electrical effects. 



The Phoenician traders and other navigators of the 

 Indian Ocean reached the Shantung peninsula in the 7th 

 century B. C. and monopolized the sea traffic of the coast. 

 This maritime intercourse appears to have terminated be- 

 fore the end of the 4th century, the more convenient route 

 through Indo-China having diverted the trade. From 

 these hardy seafarers the Chinese seem to have learned 

 little or nothing. 1 Agriculture, as I have already noted, 

 was the chief pursuit of the Chinese in the beginning of 

 their history, and has so remained. In nautical belief, the 

 farmer is always the opposite of the sailor; or, in other 

 words, his is the calling which the seaman regards as 

 furthest removed from his own. The maritime powers of 

 a nation are always the last in reaching maturity; and 

 those of one which is pre-eminently agricultural in its 

 pursuits either never attain that point, or else, if the 

 Chinese be taken as typical, require a greater time for de- 

 velopment than is included at present within historical 

 limits. The Chinese, moreover, have been united for ages 

 in one inflexible system of manners, letters and polity, and 

 have dwelt upon land capable of supporting them; so that 

 there has been little natural inducement to them to enter 

 into communication with the rest of the world. The bor- 

 dering nations were, for centuries, far lower in the scale 

 of civilization, and could offer nothing to barter but 

 raw materials, of which China had either an abundant 

 natural supply, or for which she had no use. True, navi- 

 gation of the great rivers which irrigated the country be- 



1 The eyes on the bows of Chinese junks (also present on modern Dutch 

 boats) are said to have been copied from ancient Phrenician vessels. 

 Perrot-Chipiez, Hist, de 1'Art, iii., 517. 



