1832.] 
CHINA. 
of northern Tartary, China proper, and even further India, were 
not included in his conquests. This exception in favour of the 
countries just named, is supposed by some writers to be attributa- 
ble to their early knowledge of gunpowder, and the use of artil- 
lery. Philostratus, as we have stated in a previous chapter, wrote 
under this impression in his Life of ApoUonius Thyanseus. 
But whatever credit rhay be attached to this historian, there are 
strong reasons for believing that the empire of China was totally 
unknown to the ancient Greeks, as it is not mentioned or even 
alluded to by Homer, or Herodotus, the great father of history. 
It has been conjectured, however, from a passage in Quintius Cur- 
tius, the Latin historian, who wrote the Life of Alexander the 
Great, that the Macedonian hero had attained some knowledge of 
the Chinese during his conquests in India, about three hundred 
and twenty years before Christ, and that it is to them the historian 
refers in these words — liinc in regnum Sophitis ;perventum est. 
Gens ut barbari sapientia excelUt, bonisque morihus regitur. In 
confirmation of this conjecture, it is added that Strabo, the great 
Latin geographer, calls this kingdom of Sophites, Cathea, a word 
which is supposed to bear a resemblance to Cathay, the name 
given to China by the Tartars. The Jews are supposed to have 
found their way into China, after Alexander, by his conquests in 
the east, had opened a communication with India ; and their ar- 
rival in the country is said to be noticed in the historical records 
of China. The date of that event is iixed by some in the year 
two hundred and six, and by others in the year two hundred and 
fifty-eight before Christ. They abound chiefly in the silk provinces. 
The ancient history of China is too much enveloped in dark- 
ness, fable, and extravagant tradition, to furnish us, with any data 
on v/hich to erect a plausible hypothesis respecting its origin. 
Some of their writers have claimed an antiquity for the nation of 
more than ninety millions of years ! The more moderate and 
reasonable of them, however, are content to ascribe their origin to 
the immediate survivers of the general deluge, and suppose that 
Noah himself was the actual founder of the empire ! 
This supposition has been ingeniously sustained by some 
European writers, particularly by the authors of the " English 
Universal History." It is suggested that the patriarch Noah, 
whom the Chinese call Fohee, and whose ark they suppose may 
