Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/42

20 covers an area of 1,298,000 square miles, the empire is now swelled by the annexation of Chinese Tartary, a thinly peopled, but outstretched region, extending from the sea of Ochotsk, on the east; to Bukaria, on the west; and from the Altay and Nershink mountains, on the north, to the great wall, on the south.

The power of China is strengthened, by having Thibet on the one hand, and Corea and Loo-Choo on the other, almost entirely subject to its influence; while its importance, in the eyes of eastern nations, is augmented by claiming to include Cochin-China, Camboja, Burmah, and Siam, among its tributary kingdoms. What an enormous and overgrown dominion is thus presented before us, extending over thirty-five degrees of latitude and seventy of longitude, and covering an area of upwards of 3,000,000 square miles.

The Chinese empire occupies no inconsiderable space in our map of the earth's surface, and fills up nearly the whole of their own; no wonder, then, that the Chinese should consider their country as the middle kingdom, including all within the four seas; and that, with them, the world and their empire should be synonymous terms. It is true, that a great part of these territories are uninhabitable deserts, and Chinese Tartary may have only four inhabitants to a square mile; yet the government of that country extends an influence over nearly as much of the earth's surface, and more of its population, than either England or Russia, and makes its orders heard and obeyed from Peking to E-le, and from the capital to Canton, amongst several hundred millions of people. By its new accessions of territory