358 
VOYAGE OP THE POTOMAC. 
[May, 
CHAPTER XIX. 
The empire of China — ^Unknown to the ancients — ^^Its history involved in fable and 
tradition — Founded by Noah — Patriarchal form of government — Location, size, 
cities, towns, villages, monuments, libraries, &c. — Immense population — Obser- 
vations on acclimating her productions. 
The Chinese empire, which, including its tributary states and 
those under its protection, is said to cover more than five milhons 
of square miles, and is computed to contain more than three hun- 
dred milhons of inhabitants — is, perhaps, less accurately known 
than any other kingdom of the earth. To the ancient historians, 
both sacred and profane, China was either entirely unknown, or 
she was, as it were, a " sealed book," into the contents of which 
the eye of curoisity was not permitted to pry ; and though modem 
enterprise, with a freer and bolder spirit of commerce and in- 
quiry, has been more successful in seeking to penetrate the 
mysteries of the " Celestial Empire," comparatively little additional 
light has been thrown upon the subject ; or, at least, much still 
remains to be known. The Portuguese navigators, who followed 
Vasco de Gama round the Cape of Good Hope, after its dis- 
covery by Dias, were the first from whom the Europeans attained 
any tolerably correct ideas of the situation, extent, and character 
of this interesting country. And several subsequent embassies 
from Europe, though all of them failing in the grand object of 
■their respective missions, together with the more recent and 
successful labours of the intelligent and enterprising missionary 
Gutzlaff, have tended in some measure to throw down the myste- 
rious screen of national pride and jealousy, behind which the 
Chinese have ensconced themselves for so many centuries. Other 
Christian missionaries, also, so far as they have been permitted, 
have laboured hard, and somewhat successfully, in the same cause. 
Although Alexander the Great, who flourished three hundred, 
and fifty years before the Christian era, is stated to have subdued 
all the then known world, and to have lamented that there were 
no more nations to conquer, we now know that the vast regions 
