ies between the Chinese and Pythagorean
systems of music place it beyond a doubt that one must have been derived
from the other. The early Jesuit fathers declared that the ancient
Greeks borrowed their music from the Chinese; but we know now that the
music in question did not exist in China until two centuries after its
appearance in Greece.

The music of the Confucian age perished, books and instruments together,
at the Burning of the Books, in B.C. 212; and we read that in the first
part of the second century B.C. the hereditary music-master was
altogether ignorant of his art. Where did the new art come from? And how
are its Greek characteristics to be accounted for?

There are also equally extraordinary similarities between the Chinese
and Greek calendars.

For instance, in B.C. 104 the Chinese adopted a cycle of nineteen years,
a period which was found to bring together the solar and the lunar
years.

But this is precisely the cycle, enneakaidekaeteris, said to have been
introduced by Meton in the fifth century B.C., and adopted at Athens
about B.C. 330.

Have we here another coincidence of no particular importance?

The above list might be very much extended. Meanwhile, the question
arises: Are there any records of any kind in China which might lead us
to suppose that the Chinese ever came into contact in any way with the
civilisation of ancient Greece?

We know from Chinese history that, so far back as the second century
B.C., victorious Chinese generals carried their arms far into Central
Asia, and succeeded in annexing such distant regions as Khoten, Kokand,
and the Pamirs. About B.C. 138 a statesman named Chang Ch'ien was sent
on a mission to Bactria, but was taken prisoner by the Hsiung-nu, the
forebears of the Huns, and detained in captivity for over ten years. He
finally managed to escape, and proceeded to Fergana, and thence on to
Bactria, returning home in B.C. 126, after having been once more
captured by the Hsiung-nu and again detained for about a year.

Now Bactria was then a Greek kingdom, which had been founded by Diodotus
in B.C. 256; and it would appear to have had, already for some time,
commercial relations with China, for Chang Ch'ien reported that he had
seen Chinese merchandise exposed there in the markets for sale. We
farther learn that Chang Ch'ien brought back with him the walnut and the
grape, previously unknown in China, and taught his countrymen the art of
making wine.

The wi