Isolated by natural boundaries from other peoples, their civilization, developed under peculiar influences, must be compared to, rather than judged of, by European. A people from whom some of the most distinguishing inventions of modern Europe came (such as the compass, porcelain, gunpowder, and printing), and were known and practised many centuries earlier; who probably amount to more than three hundred millions, united in one system of manners, letters, and polity; whose cities and capitals rival in numbers the greatest metropoles of any age; who have not only covered the earth, but the waters, with towns and streets—such a nation must occupy a conspicuous place in the history of mankind, and the study of their character and condition commend itself to every well-wisher of his race.
It has been too much the custom of writers to overlook the influence of the Bible upon modern civilization; but when a comparison is to be drawn between European and Asiatic civilization, this element forces itself upon the attention as the main cause of the superiority of the former. It is not the civilization of luxury or of letters, of arts or of priestcraft; it is not the spirit of war, the passion for money, nor its exhibitions in trade and the application of machinery, that render a nation permanently great and prosperous. “Christianity is the summary of all civilization,” says Chenevix; “it contains every argument which could be urged in its support, and every precept which explains its nature. Former systems of religion were in conformity with luxury, but this alone seems to have been conceived for the region of civilization. It has flourished in Europe, while it has decayed in Asia, and the most civilized nations are the most purely Christian.” Christianity is essentially the religion of the people, and when it is covered over with forms and contracted into a priesthood, its vitality goes out; this is one reason why it has declined in Asia. The attainments of the Chinese in the arts of life are perhaps as great as they can be without this spring of action, without any other motives to industry, obedience, and morality, than the commands or demands of the present life.
A survey of the world and its various races in successive ages leads one to infer that God has some plan of national character, and that one nation exhibits the development of one trait, while another race gives prominence to another, and subordinates the first. Thus the Egyptian people were eminently a priestly race, devoted to science and occult lore; the Greeks developed the imaginative powers, excelling in the fine arts; the Romans were warlike, and the embodiment of force and law; the Babylonians and Persians magnificent, like the head of gold in Daniel’s vision; the Arabs predacious, volatile, and imaginative; the Turks stolid, bigoted, and impassible; the Hindus are contemplative, religious, and metaphysical; the Chinese industrious, peaceful, literary, atheistic, and self-contained.[23] The same religion, and constant intercommunication among European nations, has assimilated them more than these other races ever could have become; but every one knows the national peculiarities of the Spaniards, Italians, French, English, etc., and how they are maintained, notwithstanding the motives to imitation and coalescence. The comparison of national character and civilization, with the view of ascertaining such a plan, is a subject worthy the profound study of any scholar, and one which would offer new views of the human race. The Chinese would be found to have attained, it is believed, a higher position in general security of life and property, and in the arts of domestic life and comfort among the mass, and a greater degree of general literary intelligence, than any other heathen or Mohammedan nation that ever existed—or indeed than some now calling themselves Christian, as Abyssinia. They have, however, probably done all they can do, reached as high a point as they can without the Gospel; and its introduction, with its attendant influences, will erelong change their political and social system. The rise and progress of this revolution among so mighty a mass of human beings will form one of the most interesting parts of the history of the world during the nineteenth century, and solve the problem whether it be possible to elevate a race without the intermediate steps of disorganization and reconstruction.
[CHAPTER II.]
GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE EASTERN PROVINCES.
The provinces of China Proper are politically subdivided in a scientific manner, but in the regions beyond them, these divisions are considerably modified. Manchuria is regarded as belonging to the reigning family, somewhat as Hanover once pertained to the kings of England, and its scanty population is ruled by a simple military organization, the higher officials being appointed by his majesty himself. The khans of the Mongols in Mongolia and Ílí, the Mohammedan begs in Turkestan, and the lamas in Tibet, are assisted in their rule by Chinese residents and generals who direct and uphold the government.
The geography of foreign countries has not been studied by the Chinese; and so few educated men have travelled even into the islands of the Indian Archipelago, or the kingdoms of Siam, Corea, or Burmah, that the people have had no opportunity to become acquainted with the countries lying on their borders, much less with those in remoter parts, whose names, even, they hardly know. A few native works exist on foreign geography, among which four may be here noticed. “1. Researches in the East and West, 6 vols. 8vo. It was written about two centuries ago; the first volume contains some rude charts intended to show the situation and form of foreign countries. 2. Notices of the Seas, 1 vol. Its author, Yang Ping-nan, obtained his information from a townsman, who, being wrecked at sea, was picked up by a foreign ship, and travelled abroad for fourteen years; on his return to China he became blind, and was engaged as an interpreter in Macao. 3. Notices of Things heard and seen in Foreign Countries, 2 vols. 12mo; written about a century ago, containing among other things a chart of the whole Chinese coast. 4. The Memoranda of Foreign Tribes, 4 vols. 8vo, published in the reign of Kienlung.”[24] A more methodical work is that of Lí Tsing-lai, called ‘Plates Illustrative of the Heavens,’ being an astronomical and geographical work, much of whose contents were obtained from Europeans residing in the country. But even if the Chinese had better treatises on these subjects, the information contained in them would be of little use until it was taught in their schools. The high officers in the government begin now to see the importance of a better acquaintance with general geography. Commissioner Lin, in 1841, published a partial translation of Murray’s Cyclopædia of Geography, in 20 volumes; Gov. Seu Ki-yu, in 1850, issued a compend of geographical notices with maps, and many others, more accurate and extensive, are now extant.
However scarce their geographical works upon foreign countries may be, those delineating the topography of their own are hardly equalled in number and minuteness in any language: every district and town of importance in the empire, as well as every department and province, has a local geography of its own. It may be said that the topographical and statistical works form, after the ethical, the most valuable portion of Chinese literature. It would not be difficult to collect a library of 10,000 volumes of such treatises alone; the topography of the city of Suchau, and of the province of Chehkiang, are each in 40 vols., while the Kwangtung Tung Chí, an ‘Historical and Statistical Account of Kwangtung,’ is in 182 volumes. None of these works, however, would bear to be translated entire, such is the amount of legendary and unimportant matter contained in them; but they contain many data not to be overlooked by one who undertakes to write a geography of China.
CLIMATE OF THE PROVINCES.
The Climate of the Eighteen Provinces has been represented in meteorological tables sufficiently well to ascertain its general salubrity. Pestilences do not frequently visit the land, nor, as in Southern India, is it deluged with rain during one monsoon, and parched with drought during the other. The average temperature of the whole empire is lower than that of any other country on the same latitude, and the coast is subject to the same extremes as that of the Atlantic States in America. The isothermal line of 70° F. as the average for the year, which passes south of Canton, runs by Cairo and New Orleans, eight degrees north of it; the line of 60° F. average passes from Shanghai to Marseilles, Raleigh, St. Louis, and north of San Francisco; and the line of 50° F. average goes near Peking, thence on to Vienna, Dublin, Philadelphia, and Puget’s Sound, in lat. 52°. These various lines show that while Shanghai and Peking have temperatures similar to Raleigh and Philadelphia, nearly on their own parallels, Canton is the coldest place on the globe in its latitude, and the only place within the tropics where snow falls near the sea-shore. One result of this projection of the temperate zone into the tropical is seen in the greater vigor and size of the people of the three southern provinces over any races on the same parallel elsewhere; and the productions are not so strictly tropical. The isothermal lines for the year, as given above, are not so irregular as those for winter. The line of 60° F. runs by the south of Formosa and Hongkong, to Cairo and St. Augustine, a range of nine degrees; but the winter line of 40° F. passes from Shanghai to Constantinople, Milan, Dublin, and Raleigh, ending at Puget’s Sound, a range of twenty degrees. A third line of 32° for winter passes through Shantung to N. Tibet and the Black Sea, Norway, New York, and Sitka—a range of twenty-five degrees.