340 RAMBLES OP A NATURALIST. [Ch. XX. 



Chinese, who pay from lOZ. to 20Z. per ton for it in various 

 parts of the country, although its cost of production is 

 somewhere about Bl. or 4Z. per ton. Indeed English salt 

 could be sold ia China for Bl. per ton, were its importation 

 allowed ; and did the Chinese sell it at half the present rate, 

 it might yield a revenue much greater than it does at pre- 

 sent. But unfortunately their political economists have not 

 learned the important principle that the reduction of a ne- 

 cessary article from a high price would greatly increase the 

 demand, and that low taxes produce a revenue equal to that 

 of high duties, by promoting consumption. It is difficult to 

 persuade a people who run so evenly in the same groove, that 

 a radical change in the collection of so certain a source of 

 revenue as salt can possibly be beneficial ; and the time has 

 not yet come when foreign salt can obtain a footing in 

 China — though indeed an approach to that desirable end 

 may be perhaps foreseen in the recent recognition of private 

 salt-factories in the Chusan islands. 



No visitor to Canton can fail to be struck with the unity 

 of the Chinese people, and their remarkable consolidation 

 as a nation. The curious method of dressing the hair gives 

 them all an extraordinary general similarity of appearance, 

 so that it would be more easy to distinguish a Chinaman in 

 a crowd than a man of any other nationality whatever ; and 

 the stereotyped form of their costume assists in establishing 

 this aspect of unity. And when reference is had to the un- 

 doubted age of the Chinese Empire, and to its immense 

 extent, no less than to its wonderful isolation, it is a moral 

 and political phenomenon which has not its equal upon the 

 whole globe. For no one can live long in China without 

 becoming aware that the defects in its government are of 

 the most frightful and glaring kind, such as not for a single 



