where their frontiers join. They were then (about 2500 or
3000 B.C.) in a relatively advanced state of civilization. The country
east and south of this district was inhabited by aboriginal tribes,
with whom the Chinese fought, as they did with the wild animals and the
dense vegetation, but with whom they also commingled and intermarried,
and among whom they planted colonies as centres from which to spread
their civilization.

The K'un-lun Mountains

With reference to the K'un-lun Mountains, designated in Chinese
mythology as the abode of the gods--the ancestors of the Chinese
race--it should be noted that these are identified not with the range
dividing Tibet from Chinese Turkestan, but with the Hindu Kush. That
brings us somewhat nearer to Babylon, and the apparent convergence
of the two theories, the Central Asian and the Western Asian, would
seem to point to a possible solution of the problem. Nue Kua, one of
the alleged creators of human beings, and Nue and Kua, the first two
human beings (according to a variation of the legend), are placed
in the K'un-lun Mountains. That looks hopeful. Unfortunately, the
K'un-lun legend is proved to be of Taoist origin. K'un-lun is the
central mountain of the world, and 3000 miles in height. There is
the fountain of immortality, and thence flow the four great rivers
of the world. In other words, it is the Sumeru of Hindu mythology
transplanted into Chinese legend, and for our present purpose without
historical value.

It would take up too much space to go into details of this interesting
problem of the origin of the Chinese and their civilization, the
cultural connexions or similarities of China and Western Asia in
pre-Babylonian times, the origin of the two distinct culture-areas
so marked throughout the greater part of Chinese history, etc., and
it will be sufficient for our present purpose to state the conclusion
to which the evidence points.

Provisional Conclusion

Pending the discovery of decisive evidence, the following provisional
conclusion has much to recommend it--namely, that the ancestors
of the Chinese people came from the west, from Akkadia or Elam,
or from Khotan, or (more probably) from Akkadia or Elam _via_
Khotan, as one nomad or pastoral tribe or group of nomad or pastoral
tribes, or as successive waves of immigrants, reached what is now
China Proper at its north-west corner, settled round the elbow of
the Yellow River, spread north-eastward, eastwar