ETHNOLOGY, ETC., OF CHINA. Jaye) 
mode in which China first became peopled. The only thing 
like testimony that we possess out of China relating to this 
subject occurs in the Institutes of Menu. It is there written 
that ‘many families of the military class, having gradually 
abandoned the ordinances of the Veda and company of the 
Brahmins, lived in a state of degradation as the Chinas and 
some other nations.’ Hvidently with reference to the later 
immigrants, and to a period B.C. 1200, a native historian 
observes that ‘ the Chinese nation was small and feeble; the 
Eastern foreigners, namely, the people between them and the 
east coast, numerous and strong; and the former gradually 
obtained a settlement in the middle of the country. This, so 
far as it goes, might be construed into a proof that China 
was originally peopled from India.” 
Considerable discrepancy, amounting to, absolutely, con- 
tradiction exists between the accounts given by writers in 
respect to the actual condition of those immigrants. 
According to one class of historians, they consisted of a ‘ small 
horde of wanderers, destitute of houses, of clothing, ignorant 
of the knowledge of fire, and consequently of the art of cook- 
ing food; skins of animals slain by them formed their only 
covering, the raw flesh of those animals, insects and roots 
their only food. On the other hand, it is asserted of the early 
immigrants that they brought with them the resources of 
Western Asian culture, a knowledge of writing, and 
astronomy, as well as of the arts which primarily minister to 
the wants and comforts of mankind.’”* 
What say native historians on the subject ? Munerze, other- 
wise Mrncrus, who wrote in the fourth century prior to our era 
(B.C. 875-368) mentioned governors of provinces by the 
designation of “pastors” and “herdsmen,” and princes as 
being “pastors of men.” In Chinese history there occur 
other expressions, and also written characters which point to 
the belief that the earliest Chinese immigrants were pastoral.+ 
The Miaotze.—The people so called have been mentioned in 
* Douglas. 
+ Thus, their descendants at the present day continue to call themselves 
li min, a designation by which they have been known since the commence- 
ment of the Chow dynasty (B.C. 1121). Sinologists observe that the 
written characters for plough and for the Chinese people are nearly alike ; 
also that as at the period mentioned, so it is still the duty of every man, 
from the chief downward, “to hold the plough ”—in other words to engage 
in the work of agriculture. The Chinese themselves explain that the term 
li min means ‘‘ the black-haired people,” which may have come to be its 
secondary meaning, as distinguishing them from the nomadic tribes of a 
lighter complexion. In Northern Asia, and in the neighbourhood of the 
Himalayas, there occur races having light hair and relatively light com- 
plexion. 
