arden. Tibet is the mother
of great rivers, and she feeds them from her eternal snows. On her
highlands is a lake or cluster of lakes which the Chinese describe
as _Sing Su Hai_, the "sea of stars." From this the Yellow
River takes its rise and perhaps the Yang-tse Kiang. A Chinese
legend says that Chang Chien poled a raft up to the source of the
Yellow River and found himself in the Milky Way, _Tienho_,
the "River of Heaven."

Fifty years ago two intrepid French missionaries, Huc and Gabet,
made their way to Lhasa, but they were not allowed to remain there.
The Chinese residents made them prisoners, under pretext of giving
them protection, and sent them to the seacoast through the heart
of the empire. They were thus enabled to see the vast interior
at a time when it was barred alike to traveller and missionary.
Of this adventurous
[Page 64]
journey Huc's published "Travels" is the immortal monument.

We have thus gone over China and glanced at most of her outlying
dependencies. The further exploration of Tibet we may postpone
until she has made good her claims to dominion in that mountain
region. The vastness of the Chinese Empire and the immensity of
its population awaken in the mind a multitude of questions to which
nothing but history can give an adequate reply. We come therefore
to the oracle whose responses may perhaps be less dubious than
those of Delphi.

[Page 65]
PART II

HISTORY IN OUTLINE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

[Page 67]
CHAPTER XIII

ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE

_Parent Stock a Migratory People--They Invade China from the
Northwest and Colonise the Banks of the Yellow River and of the
Han--Their Conflicts with the Aborigines--Native Tribes Absorbed
by Conquerors_

That the parent stock in which the Chinese nation had its origin
was a small migratory people, like the tribes of Israel, and that
they entered the land of promise from the northwest is tolerably
certain; but to trace their previous wanderings back to Shinar,
India, or Persia would be a waste of time, as the necessary data
are lacking. Even within their appointed domain the accounts of
their early history are too obscure to be accepted as to any extent
reliable.

They appear to have begun their career of conquest by colonising
the banks of the Yellow River and those of the Han. By slow stages
they moved eastward to the central plain and southward to the Yang-tse
Kiang. At that early epoch, betwee