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as Thinæ, Sinæ, and Serica, or the country of the Seres, all which have reference to China.

A knowledge of China cannot be traced back to a more remote period than the age of Alexander. The Macedonian Greeks, having carried their arms into India, there heard of it under the ancient names of Thinæ and Sinæ; but this was not the origin of commerce with China. Anterior to that date the Greeks had used silk, and it appears probable that it was used in Western Asia before it was known to the Greeks. It was from Western

Asia that the Greeks first obtained it, and they used it long before they knew whence the substance came. Centuries passed, indeed, before they, or even the Romans, had any information about the remote country from which silk came, or of the manner in which it was produced. Thus Virgil supposed that the Seres carded the silk from leaves; and Dionysius, the geographer, conceived it to be a vegetable product. In the days of Pausanias more distinct information had been obtained concerning the silk-worm, and the country whence it came; and about A.D. 166, the increasing demand for the article, with the increase of luxury among the Romans, suggested the idea of a direct commercial intercourse with China. The emperor Marcus Antoninus sent an embassy thither for the purpose, but the policy of that empire was as exclusive then as it is at the present day. The embassy was coldly received, and a second embassy in 284 met with a similar reception. The Romans were compelled still to receive the article through an indirect medium, and the question may be asked, what that medium ? Ancient authors furnish so little informa

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tion about China, and their notions of the country moreover are so obscure, that it would be difficult to describe the direct route by which the silk of the " remote east" found its way into Europe. In the earliest ages, however, it would appear that silk was brought from China, where it was originally found, to India, by an inland communication, beginning from the bay of Issus in Cilicia; and that it was brought out of India by the Red Sea to Egypt, and thence to Greece and Rome. At a later date, the Romans obtained it from Persia. Merchants of Samarcand and Bokhara proceeded through the northern provinces of Chinese Tartary, by a dangerous and difficult route, to China; these on their return transported it into Persia, and the Persian merchants sold it to the Romans at the fairs of Armenia and Nisibis. About A.D. 550, the Persians had obtained the monopoly of the whole silk trade; and whatever nation desired this article of luxury was compelled to seek it from them. They were so jealous of the trade, that no person from the west was allowed to traverse the dominions of Persia towards China, nor was any traveller thence allowed to proceed to the west. They were thus enabled to control the supply, so that the inhabitants of Tyre and Berytus in Phenicia, who had manufactured the article for the Roman market, were sometimes unable to procure an adequate quantity of the raw material. In the reign of Justinian, indeed, an event happened which put an end to the indirect intercourse between China and Europe, and in a short time served to obscure the slight knowledge which had been obtained of that country. The government

of Constantinople put an entire stop to the importation of silk, and in this extremity Justinian applied to the Arabians, and to the king of Abyssinia, hoping to induce them to undertake the import of the raw material. His application, however, was unsuccessful, and the luxurious Romans had the mortifying prospect before them of being compelled to substitute cotton for silk. But an incident occurred which furnished the means through which an abundant supply of the raw material was eventually procured. Two Nestorian monks of Persia, who had travelled to Serindi, or China, had made themselves acquainted with the history and treatment of the silkworm, as well as the process of manufacture. These monks stated their information to the emperor, who engaged them to return to Serindi, and bring away some of the eggs of the silk-worm. Accordingly they returned to Serindi, and secured a quantity of the eggs, which they deposited in a hollow cane, and brought to Constantinople. These eggs were hatched by the heat of a dung. hill, and the worms were fed with mulberry leaves; and from that time silk was manufactured in Europe.

The manner in which the Chinese anciently conducted commerce may be gathered from a passage in Vincent's Periplus, in which they are spoken of as trading with a Tartar race called Sesatæ. The passage reads thus :-"The Sesatæ are a race of men squat and thick set, with their face broad, and their nose greatly depressed. The articles they bring for trade are of great bulk, and enveloped in mats or sacks, which in their outward appearance resemble the early leaves of

the vine. Their place of assembly is between their own borders and those of the Thina; and here spreading out their mats, on which they exhibit their goods for sale, they hold a fair for several days, and at the conclusion of it return to their own country in the interior. Upon their retreat the Thinæ, who have continued on the watch, repair to the spot, and collect the mats which the strangers left behind at their departure: from these they pick out the haulm, which is called petros, and drawing out the fibres, spread the leaves double, and make them into balls, and then pass the fibres through them. Of these balls there are three sorts, the large, the middle sized, and the small in this form they take the name of malabathrum, and under this denomination the three sorts of that masticatory are brought into India."

At a more recent date, the process of traffic with the Chinese is thus described by Pomponius Mela:-" The Seres are a nation celebrated for their justice, and have become known to us by their commerce; for they leave their merchandise in the desert, and then retire, until the merchants they deal with have left a price, or barter, for the amount, which, upon their departure, the Seres return and take."

That the Thinæ and Seres were one and the self-same people, is proved, by the similarity observable in their mode of traffic. By the same test it is discovered, that both were the Chinese ; for their land trade is to this day conducted in the same manner. They still retain their character for exclusiveness.

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After the age of Justinian, all traces of European intercourse with China, whether directly or indirectly, are lost for a series of ages. In the ninth century, the Arabians appear to have extended their commerce by sea to the southern coasts of China, while their caravans maintained a land intercourse with that country, through Persia and Tibet, or India. The knowledge of this intercourse was furnished by two Mohammedan travellers, who were there about the middle of the ninth century. Such was the state of learning, however, that this knowledge was not made known to Europeans till 1718, when this work was translated and published by the abbé Renaudot. Still Europe had benefited from the Arabian intercourse with China. The art of papermaking was introduced by them in the eleventh century; and soon after they taught Europeans the art of block-printing, of making pendulum clocks, and the use of the mariner's compass. All these arts had been long in the possession of the Chinese, and it seems probable that the Arabs gathered a knowledge of them from that people, and brought them into Europe.

The Arabian merchants appear to have been privileged to enter into the interior of China. Their geographical works, at least, mention the names of various cities, though it is not always easy to discover to what town their descriptions refer. But this much can be collected, that the northern provinces were called Cathay; the southern, Tchin, or Sin; and that the capital of the country was called Cambalu.

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