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 distance 

 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 Ptolemy, but they are noticed by Pliny, 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 carrying on 

 trade at a fixed frontier station only, and. under the strict- 

 est precautions % as selling their own commodities, without 

 receiving the commodities of other nations in return % 



This 



* It may be proper here to notice a report which militates against our view 

 t>f the subject. Some authors describe the Seres as a people remarkable for their 

 honesty. Thus Mela says, " gens plenum justitiae, ex commercio, quod re- 

 ** bus in solitudiDe relictis absens peragit, noti^murn." 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 bv 

 merely laying down the goods in each others absence. It is remark- 

 able, that rumours of a trade so conducted have been transmitted in all a^es. 

 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, the quiet and cautious habits of the Seres would very naturally cause 

 the application to be made to them. If such a trade did exist, it must have 

 been a political precaution ; and, in that case, public authority would enforce 

 that fair-dealing, without which it could not subsist. We may finally remark, 



that 



