1832.] 
CHINA. 
361 
the people which is necessary to procure correct' information of 
their manners, and free access to their historical records. 
So little indeed was known of China, or any part of the eastern 
extremity of Asia, as late as the fifteenth century, that Columbus 
lived and died under the impression that all his discoveries were 
on that coast ; little dreaming that a vast continent, and an ocean 
beyond it of ten thousand miles in width, intervened between 
them. The opinions of Aristotle, Seneca, and Pliny, that by 
sailing west from Cadiz, -a navigator might arrive at the Indies in 
a few days, served to strengthen this impression. Strabo, also, 
the celebrated ancient geographer, had asserted that the ocean 
surrounded the earth, washing -the shores of India on the one 
side, and the western coast of Spain and Mauritania on the other ; 
so that it was easy to navigate from one to the other, on the same 
parallel. 
By reference to the map of Asia, it will be seen that " China 
proper," which is the subject of our immediate consideration, ex- 
tends more than twelve hundred geographical miles from north to 
south, and not much short of that distance from east to west. It 
stretches from latitude 21° to 42° north, covering twenty-one de- 
grees of latitude, and about twenty-five of longitude. The limits 
of the United States include tvi^enty-three degrees of latitude, or one 
hundred and twenty geographical miles more seacoast than China ; 
but the latter extends westward from the coast to such a distance 
as to include more than a million and a quarter of square miles, 
while the whole extent of our own country, including the Oregon 
territory, is only a little more than two millions of square miles. It 
is bounded on the north by the vast regions of Tartary, from which 
it is separated by an artificial barrier fifteen hundred miles in length, 
said to have been erected in the year one thousand one hundred and 
sixty, as a work of defence, and is known by the appellation of 
the " Great wall of China." The eastern boundary of the em- 
pire is the Yellow and China Sea, forming an extensive coast of 
almost every variety of climate. On the south, it is bounded 
partly by the ocean, and partly by the kingdom of Tonquin and 
Cochin-China. Its western boundary consists of lofty mountains 
and extensive deserts, which separate it from Bucharia, Thibet, &c. 
This vast empire is divided into fifteen provinces, which, ac- 
cording to Chinese statements, contain four thousand four hundred 
