othing very much by which a Chinese biography can be
distinguished from biographies produced in other parts of the world. The
Chinese writer always begins with the place of birth, but he is not so
particular about the year, sometimes leaving that to be gathered from
the date of death taken in connexion with the age which the person may
have attained. Some allusion is usually made to ancestry, and the steps
of an official career, upward by promotion or downward by disgrace, are
also carefully noted.

_Geography and Travel._--There is a considerable volume of Chinese
literature which comes under this head; but if we exclude certain brief
notices of foreign countries, there remains nothing in the way of
general geography which had been produced prior to the arrival of the
Jesuit Fathers at the close of the 16th century. Up to that period
geography meant the topography of the Chinese empire; and of
topographical records there is a very large and valuable collection.
Every prefecture and department, some eighteen hundred in all, has each
its own particular topography, compiled from records and from tradition
with a fullness that leaves nothing to be desired. The buildings,
bridges, monuments of archaeological interest, &c., in each district,
are all carefully inserted, side by side with biographical and other
local details, always of interest to residents and often to the outside
public. An extensive general geography of the empire was last published
in 1745; and this was followed by a chronological geography in 1794.

Fa Hsien.

The Chinese have always been fond of travel, and hosts of travellers
have published notices, more or less extensive, of the different parts
of the empire, and even of adjacent nations, which they visited either
as private individuals or, in the former case, as officials proceeding
to distant posts. With Buddhism came the desire to see the country which
was the home of the Buddha; and several important pilgrimages were
undertaken with a view to bring back images and sacred writings to
China. On such a journey the Buddhist priest, Fa Hsien, started in A.D.
399; and after practically walking the whole way from central China,
across the desert of Gobi, on to Khoten, and across the Hindu Kush into
India, he visited many of the chief cities of India, until at length
reaching Calcutta he took ship, and after a most adventurous voyage, in
the course of which he remained two years in Ceylon, he finally