ols, non-agglutinative
and non-inflexional, and were written in vertical columns, probably
from having in early times been painted or cut on strips of bark.

Achievements of the Chinese

As the result of all this fitful fever during so many centuries,
we find that the Chinese, after having lived in nests "in order to
avoid the animals," and then in caves, have built themselves houses
and palaces which are still made after the pattern of their prototype,
with a flat wall behind, the openings in front, the walls put in after
the pillars and roof-tree have been fixed, and out-buildings added on
as side extensions. The _k'ang_, or 'stove-bed' (now a platform made
of bricks), found all over the northern provinces, was a place scooped
out of the side of the cave, with an opening underneath in which (as
now) a fire was lit in winter. Windows and shutters opened upward,
being a survival of the mat or shade hung in front of the apertures
in the walls of the primitive cave-dwelling. Four of these buildings
facing each other round a square made the courtyard, and one or more
courtyards made the compound. They have fed themselves on almost
everything edible to be found on, under, or above land or water,
except milk, but live chiefly on rice, chicken, fish, vegetables,
including garlic, and tea, though at one time they ate flesh and
drank wine, sometimes to excess, before tea was cultivated. They
have clothed themselves in skins and feathers, and then in silks
and satins, but mostly in cotton, and hardly ever in wool. Under
the Manchu _regime_ the type of dress adopted was that of this
horse-riding race, showing the chief characteristics of that noble
animal, the broad sleeves representing the hoofs, the queue the mane,
etc. This queue was formed of the hair growing from the back part
of the scalp, the front of which was shaved. Unlike the Egyptians,
they did not wear wigs. They have nearly always had the decency to
wear their coats long, and have despised the Westerner for wearing
his too short. They are now paradoxical enough to make the mistake
of adopting the Westerner's costume.

They have made to themselves great canals, bridges, aqueducts, and
the longest wall there has ever been on the face of the earth (which
could not be seen from the moon, as some sinologists have erroneously
supposed, any more than a hair, however long, could be seen at a
distance of a hundred yards). They have made long and wide roads, but
failed