d), is somewhat like the efforts of one to give an idea of
Saint Peter's at Rome, after a single glimpse through its portals.

However, I may venture to speak of these people from what I have seen,
fully aware that plenty of more potential pens, held by persons who have
lived longer among them, and penetrated their country to a greater
extent than I shall ever be able to do, have given their peculiarities
to the public.

Another difficulty prevents a better knowledge of their forms and
systems, and that is ignorance of their language, and the disposition of
those with whom one can communicate to mislead and misinform the
inquirer. For much as their interests may lead them to pretend to it,
they really have but little respect for the "outside barbarian."

The Chinese are, not only numerically but comparatively, a great people,
and their government (the oldest now known) a marvel and a wonder. As a
nation, they have consistently carried on their system, whilst other
congregations of people, arising successively upon the sea of Time, have
spent their force and dashed their sparkling particles upon the shores
of Oblivion. They, like the ocean, though occasionally vexed by storms
and convulsions, still cover the expanse allotted to them.

The Egyptian, who held the Jew captive, became himself a slave. The
"people of God," who broke through and displaced the nations of the
plain, vainly opposing their passage to the promised land, themselves at
last dispersed, sought refuge throughout the world; when the "Holy City"
Jerusalem became in turn a prey to the Roman. And Rome, the mistress of
the world! Rome, too, was blotted from the list of nations.

An empire, which, extending from ninety-eight to one hundred and
twenty-three degrees of east longitude, and eighteen to forty-two north
latitude; bounded on the north by Russia and Siberia, on the east by the
great Pacific Ocean; south by the islands (many of them independent
powers) which fill the China Sea, and disconnect it from the Indian
Ocean; and westward by the independent Tartar nations, covering with
its dependent provinces an area of five millions of square miles, of
which only about one-fourth is included within the geographical limits
of China proper, governs, at the present time, a population of four
hundred millions of souls (a proportion of one-third of the estimated
inhabitants of the globe), with a code of laws which has been handed
down from the earliest ages