Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/271

 The numerous migrations from India into Indo-China, both before and after the Christian era, give ample ground for the belief that the ports of South India and Ceylon were in truth, as the Periplus states, the center of an active trade with the Far East, employing larger ships, and in greater number, than those coming from Egypt.

The great migration from Gujarāt to Java in the 6th century A.D., and the resulting Hindu kingdoms, have already been referred to, and their greatest monuments remain to us in the tremendous Buddhist temples of Boroboedor and Brambanan. If Clifford's belief is correct, the ruins at Angkor-Wat in Cambodia are no less distinctly of ancient Hindu origin. Of these he quotes François Garnier: "Perhaps never, in any place, has a more imposing mass of stone been raised with more art and science. If we wonder at the Pyramids as a gigantic achievement human strength and patience, then to a strength and patience no whit less here we must add genius!"

64. A Land called This.–This can hardly be other than the great western state of China, Ts'in, and "the city called Thinae" (meant, probably, as the genitive of This), was its capital Hién-Yang, later known as Si-ngan-fu, on the Wei river not far above its confluence with the Hoang-ho, in the present province of Shen-si. This state of Ts'in was for centuries the most powerful of the Chinese states, and a constant meance to the imperial power. The Chóu dynasty, which ruled from 867 to 255 B. C., found itself harassed in the west by the Tartar tribes, and in the east by rebellious subjects, the states of Wei, Han, Chau, Ts'i and Ch'u. Very early in the dynasty, perhaps in the 8th century B. C., a portion of their sovereign rights were resigned to the prince of Ts'in, in consideration of his undertaking the defense of the frontier against the Tartars. This policy naturally profited Ts'in more than the empire, and the princes of Ts'in, as the annals put it, "like wolves or tigers wished to draw all the other princes into their claws, so that they might devour them." The power of Ts'in grew until it overbalanced the confederation of eastern states, and the imperial power itself. As Tartar territory was conquered it was incorporated into the Ts'in dominions, and finally a Ts'in prince became Emperor of China in 255 B. C. The greatest of the Ts'in monarchs, Ts'in Chi Hwangti, who ruled from 221 to 209 B. C., is one of the brightest names in Chinese history. It was he who began the Great Wall, and who pushed the Chinese frontier across the Gobi desert, making Hami, under the Tian-Shan mountains, his outpost, and thus preparing the way for direct communication with Bactria. Regular caravan travel between China and Bactria is said to have begun in 188 B. C.