Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/641

Rh  error of ’s conception of the as a closed basin rendered it impossible but that he should misplace the Chinese. But considering that the name of Sîn has come down among the from time immemorial as applied to the, considering that in the work of Ptolemy this name certainly represented the furthest known East, and considering how inaccurate are ’s configurations and s much nearer , it seems almost as reasonable to deny the identity of his  with ours as to deny that his Sinæ were.

If we now turn to the ' we find this name mentioned by classic authors much more frequently and at an earlier date, for the passages of Eratosthenes (in Strabo), formerly supposed to speak of a parallel passing through Thinæ—διὰ Θινῶν, are now known to read correctly δι᾿ Αθηνῶν. The name ' indeed is familiar to the of the, but always in a vague way, and usually with a general reference to and the further East. We find, however, that the first endeavours to assign more accurately the position of this people, which are those of Mela and Pliny, gravitate distinctly towards China in its northern aspect as the true idea involved. Thus Mela describes the remotest east of as occupied by the three  (proceeding from south to north),, Seres, and ; just as in a general way we might say still that  is occupied by the , China, and.

Ptolemy first uses the names of Sera and Serice, the former for the chief, the latter for the country of the, and as usual defines their position with a precision far beyond what his knowledge justified,—the necessary result of his system. Yet even his definition of Serice is most consistent with the view that this indicated the Chinese in its northern aspect, for he carries it eastward to the 180th  of, which is also, according to his calculation, in a lower  the eastern boundary of the Sinæ. Ammianus Marcellinus devotes some paragraphs to a description of the and their country, one passage of which is startling at first sight in its seeming allusion to the, and in this sense it has been rashly interpreted by Lassen and by Reinaud. But Ammianus is merely converting Ptolemy’s dry tables into fine writing, and speaks only of an encircling of s within which the spacious and happy  of the  lies. It is true that Ptolemy makes his Serice extend westward to, i.e., to. But the Chinese did so extend at that epoch, as it did twenty  ago, and we find Lieut. John Wood in speaking of &ldquo;China&rdquo; as lying immediately beyond, just as the  of the  spoke of the country beyond the  as &ldquo;Sîn,&rdquo; and as Ptolemy spoke of &ldquo;Serice&rdquo; as immediately beyond. If we fuse into one the ancient notices of the and their country, omitting anomalous statements and manifest s, the result will be something like the following:—&ldquo;The region of the is a vast and populous country, touching on the east the  and the limits of the habitable world, and extending west to  and the confines of. The people are, mild,, and , eschewing with their neighbours, and even shy of close , but not averse to dispose of their own products, of which  is the staple, but which include also -s, fine s, and  of remarkable quality.&rdquo; That is manifestly a definition of the Chinese. That and knowledge of the true position of so remote a  should at best have been somewhat hazy is nothing wonderful. And it is worthy of note that the view entertained by the ancient Chinese of the and its inhabitants, under the name of Ta-thsin, had some striking points of analogy to those views of the  which are indicated in the classical descriptions of the. There can be no mistaking the fact that in this case also the great object was within the horizon of vision, yet the details ascribed to it are often far from being true characteristics, being only the accidents of its outer borders.

China as known to.

is the name by which the Chinese empire was known to, and is in its original form that by which China is still known in, and to most of the s of. West of the name has long ceased to be a  expression, but it is associated with a remarkable phase in the  of  and, of which we purpose under this head to give some account. The name first became known to in the, when the of  and  drew a new and vivid attention to. For some three centuries previously the northern of China had been detached from indigenous rule, and subject to northern conquerors. The first of these foreign was of a race called Khitán, issuing from the basin of the, and supposed (but doubtfully) to have been of the blood of the modern. The rule of this endured for two centuries, and originated the application of the name Khitât or Khitâï to Northern China. The dynasty itself, known in as, or &ldquo;Iron,&rdquo; disappeared from China , but the name remained attached to the. The Khitán were displaced by the Nyûché or Chûrché, akin to the modern who now rule China. These reigned, under the title of Kin, or &ldquo;en,&rdquo; till and his  invaded them in turn. In the conquest of the Kin  was completed, and the  extinguished under, the son and  of. Forty later, in the reign of, grandson and ablest successor of , the  rule was extended over Southern China , which till then had remained under a native , the , holding its royal residence in a vast and splendid , now known as , but then as Ling-ngan, or more commonly as King-sze, i.e., the. The southern was usually called by the conquerors Mantzi (or as some of the old travellers write, Mangi), a  which  seem to have identified with Mâchîn (from the  Mahâchîn), one of the names by which China was known to the  from n and n s. The conquests of  and  had spread not only over China and the adjoining East, but westward also over all, , , part of , and , threatening to deluge. Though the wave retired, as it seemed almost by an immediate act of, when  lay at its feet, it had levelled or covered all political barriers from the frontier of  to the , and when  recovered from its alarm,  lay open, as never before or since, to the inspection of. s,, s,—half- half-—visited the of the great  in ; and besides these, the accidents of , , or opportunity carried a variety of persons from various classes of human life into the depths of. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis worthy of the grateful remembrance of all people,&rdquo; says an able   of the next age (Ricold of Monte Croce), &ldquo;that just at the time when  sent forth into the  the  to slay and to