436. CLIMATE. China stretches through so many degrees of latitude that she possesses great variety of climates. The south lies on the tropic of Cancer; here in the plains rice is the staff of life, and in the mountains the IndoMalayan animals, elephants, rhinoceros, tapirs, and monkeys are found. At Pekin, on the other hand, in lat. 40°, wheat is the principal grain, and the cold of winter is much more severe than it is at London more than 10° north of it; the east side of both the New and the Old World in the northtemperate zone possessing a much more extreme climate than the western side. The climate of Pekin resembles that of New York-the summer very hot, the winter a set frost; for three or four months the ice in the river a foot thick. The north of China is a dry climate; the south and southeast moist. It is in the southern half of China that tea, cotton, and silk, are mostly produced.

437. MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS. The broad physical features of China are very simple: the land rises as we proceed from the eastern sea-coast to the mountainous country on the western border: these mountains, the Yunling, reach the limits of perpetual snow, though both north and south of this snowy chain the two great rivers break through.

Again China naturally divides into three grand bands lying east and west: these are (1) the basin of the Hoangho, bounded on the south by the Peling, or Northern Mountains; (2) the basin of the Yang-tes-kiang, bounded on the north by the Peling, on the south by the Nanling, or Southern Mountains; (3) the basin of the Canton River, lying between the Nanling and the sea. Of these three bands the central is much the largest.

438. RIVERS. (1) The Yang-tse-kiang, length exceed· ing 3,000 miles, its upper course in Mongolia being unknown one of the largest and perhaps most important rivers on the globe. It is navigable for seagoing vessels from the sea for about 800 miles up to the great gorge and falls at Ychang. Below this point it irrigates the rice of the largest and densest population of the globe.

(2) The Hoangho, or Yellow River, length exceeding 2,000 miles, its upper course not known. It irrigates, but also largely overflows, its lower plain.

(3) The Choo-kiang or Canton River.

There are numerous other first-class rivers in China; many affluents of the Yang-tse-kiang are indeed large rivers, but 'their names are unknown out of China. There are several large sheets of freshwater in the basin of the Yang-tse-kiang, but the names of these lakes are unknown out of China.

439. COMMUNICATIONS. Throughout the Eastern (plains) portion of China the rivers are the great channels of communication, and are covered with boats of various sizes. In Southern China there is a large population who live in boats altogether.

The Grand Canal affords a continuous water-communication from the lower basin of the Yang-tse-kiang to the river (Peiho) of Pekin, and thus is the route by which the capital is kept supplied with the rice of the south. But this route has been lately obstructed by the Hoangho having shifted its course.

The Chinese are now beginning to think about railroads. 440. RACES OF MEN. The Chinese are a race of the Mongolian family. Their yellow skin, high cheek-bones, turned-up outer corner of the eye, beardless faces and straight hair, give a good idea of the typical Mongolian characteristics. Their language is entirely monosyllabic and uninflected, and is taken as the type of such languages in contrast to the Aryan languages.

441. HISTORIC SKETCH. The great Chinese Wall on the northern frontier of China was built B.C. 220, to keep out the Tartars. China was conquered by the Mongolians in A.D. 1279, and came under the rule of the Mantchoo Tartars in A.D. 1644, which dynasty holds power to the present time. Hence the ruling class and the soldiers are Tartars, who form but a small fraction of the whole population. In A.D. 1850 a national Chinese insurrection, called the Taeping, rose against the Tartars, but degenerated into sanguinary bands of plunderers, who were at length put down.

442. RELIGION. The practical religion of China is worship of ancestors and respect for national customs. There exists little speculative faith in any religion.

The religion of the educated classes is that of Confucius, which is a system of pure scepticism.

The Taoust religion was originally also a rationalistic system, but has been degraded into a low form of idolatry. Its temples are now seen all over China, and the lower classes of Chinese are largely idolaters.

Buddhism is a system of pessimism; its ceremonial is merely formal, but it has the merit of being humane in its precepts. These do not amount to much: though a Buddhist may not take life, he is at liberty to eat meat that some other man has slaughtered. Buddhists are not in general vegetarians. Buddhism is largely the religion of those Chinese who do not follow the Taoust religion.

443. ANIMALS AND PLANTS. The eastern half of China is so densely populated that no large wild animals exist there. The camel is seen in the northern drier part of China; the buffalo in the moister south. The country is entirely cultivated, so that few wild trees are seen. In the northern Hoangho plain hardly any trees are seen except willows. In the southern provinces bamboos, palms, and other inhabitants of the tropics abound.

As to the interior mountainous west of China little is known, but from the curious similarity between the plants of North-east India and Japan, it is inferred that there is a chain of these plants along the western mountains of China. What little we know of these mountains confirms this view they are described as covered with azaleas, camellias, magnolias, and honeysuckles, while tigers, rhinoceros, and bears are among the animals.

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444. MINERALS. China is known to possess mines of coal, iron, copper, gold, and silver, but the country is unexplored, and the mines actually discovered are worked by childish methods only.

445. DIVISIONS. China is divided into eighteen pro vinces, besides one province outside the Great North

Wall which belongs specially to the Emperor as that whence his dynasty sprang. Ten of these provinces are each as large and populous as England, or thereabouts; but they are almost unknown to Europeans, so that we do not load our memories with their names.

446. TOWNS. The same applies to the towns, many of which are very large; but we only trouble ourselves with the ports which are of interest to the European merchants who reside in them. Till lately Europeans could only reside at the "treaty" ports; that is to say, the Chinese would allow no English merchant to enter China; but the English fought with them till the Chinese were glad to make treaties admitting the English merchants to certain ports named in those treaties.

(1) Pekin, population 1,500,000, by estimate; the capital is surrounded by a wall with towers, and divided into two parts, one division containing the government officials and soldiers, the Tartars; the other division containing the commercial population, the Chinese. A large proportion of Chinese towns are built on this type.

(2) Nankin, the ancient capital, fell into the hands of the Taepings in 1853, who slaughtered all the Tartars in it, and pillaged and destroyed everything, and especially the celebrated Nankin porcelain tower. It is now largely in ruins, but may contain 200,000 inhabitants.

(3) Canton, population 1,200,000, one of the great southern ports. Macao, near the mouth of its estuary, population 30,000, is a Portuguese settlement. Victoria, population 100,000 (of whom 6,000 are English) is the capital of the island of Hong-kong, at the mouth of the Canton River.

(4) Shanghae, near the mouth of the Yang-tse-kiang, population 600,000, is one of the treaty-ports, and has grown up since 1842.

(5) Amoy, population 250,000, a treaty-port opposite For.

mosa.

(6) Hankow, 700 miles up the Yang-tse-kiang, where the river Han joins the Yang-tse. European vessels are now allowed to ascend the river to this central point, where three

towns stand, viz., Hankow, on the left bank of the Yang-tse, on the right bank of the Han; Hanyang, on the left bank of the Yang-tse, on the left bank of the Han; Von-chang, on the right bank of the Yang-tse, opposite the affluence of the Han. In these three towns and close round them are said to be clustered 8,000,000 souls.

(7) Tientsin, population 200,000, a treaty-port and the port of Pekin.

Sect. XXV. JAPAN.

447. EXTENT. The principal island, Niphon, is larger than Britain; the next island, Jesso, is larger than Ireland. The Japanese group of islands is considerably larger than the British, and contains a somewhat larger population.

448. ATTACHED ISLANDS. The Japanese group comprises the islands Niphon, Jesso, Kiusiu, Kicoco, and numerous smaller islands. To these are attached politically the southern part of Saghalien, several of the Kurile islands, and the Loo Choo group.

449. CLIMATE. Japan Proper (omitting the attached islands) stretches through as large a range of latitude as from Norway to Italy, and exhibits an equally large range of climate. In the southern part of Niphon, in Kicoco and Kiusiu, rice, tobacco, and the sugar-cane are cultivated, palms and bamboos are common; while in the north of Jesso the cold of winter is severe, the thermometer frequently falling to 10° below zero of Fahrenheit. The climate is

much less "continental" than that of North China adjoining, but much less "insular" than that of England, lying, as Japan does, on the east of a great continent; in the north temperate zone its climate is more extreme than that of corresponding countries similarly situated in the west of such a continent.

450. MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS. The Japanese islands are generally beautifully diversified with hill and dale, and (like England) admirably suited for cultivation. Moreover the volcanic line passes through the islands, which contain