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CHAPTER I. THE ISOLATION OF CHINA

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For thousands of years China was a world to itself, cut off from the races of men. The main causes of this singular seclusion are simple:—

China was protected from serious invasion by her geographical position. Northward, it was no easy business for the barbarous intruder to find a way into China from the Manchurian plain, or for a Chinaman to find a way out; and it was still more difficult to effect a passage by force. To the North-West rose the forbidding walls of the Altai Mountains; and, between them and China, a broad and demon-haunted waste of sand blocked the way. Westward, huge interlocked ranges of Central Asia—the Thian Shan and Pamirs—mountains which o’er top Alp or Caucasus, which rival the loftiest Andes, and which are inferior only to Himalaya, presented perils in abundance. These difficulties surmounted, the vast, trackless sands of Gobi formed a second barrier; and the steep rocks of Ala-Shan and In-Shan were a third. To the South-West rose the plateau of Thibet, interlocking with the Pamirs—a plateau with a mean level of more than 12,000 feet, terminating southward in Himalaya, that highest and broadest of mountain-walls. To the South of China were the dense forests, deep valleys, and rapid rivers of Burma and Tonquin. Eastward the Celestial Empire was guarded by the sea: to reach China from India was a long and perilous voyage; and the boldest navigator might hesitate to entrust his clumsy craft to the caprice of the Indian Ocean, to thread his way through the tortuous straits of Malaysia, and to chance an encounter with the fierce islanders who lined them, only in the end to reach a jealous shore. The unwieldly Chinese junk—a town afloat—did, however, make a periodic and prolonged voyage—at least in later days—to India; and a few bands of bold, hardy traders were wont to cross over the formidable passes of Central Asia on horses, mules, or asses, and to traverse vast, trackless wastes on camels. They exchanged the products of India, Persia, and those States which were watered by the classic streams of Oxus and Jaxartes, for the silks and manufactures of Cathay. Chinese porcelain has been found in Egyptian tombs.

China enjoyed a soil so productive of every kind of wealth that she was independent of commercial intercourse with other lands. Secure from all invaders but the scattered hordes of Mongolia, she developed a high and distinctive civilization, which became more and more fixed and rigid, but was superior in many respects to that of other Eastern States. By the Seventh Century of our Era, good roads, good inns, and an admirable system of canals rendered internal communication easy; the heavens had been surveyed by astronomical instruments of some precision; and the art of printing, which had not then been discovered long, was in use; although to this day the Chinese do without the valuable economy of an alphabet.

Moreover the Chinese People preferred to be undisturbed by stimulus from without. Yet China transmitted her culture to her near and less civilized neighbours—Japan and the Indo-Chinese peninsula—and claimed a precarious overlordship of semi-barbarous Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan and Thibet. During a long stretch of time, the powerful and jealous Persian Empire was a bar to intercourse with the far West; because it tried to preserve a monopoly of its own products.

The records of early intercourse with other countries are few; and those few are meagre. Thirteen centuries before the age in which Hiuen-Tsiang lived, Embassies from distant nations would seem to have reached China. Marcus Aurelius despatched a mission (A.D. 166) to establish direct relations; it travelled by way of India; and failed. Carus sent another (A.D. 284). At the close of the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus knew of the Chinese as a people dwelling on fertile plains enclosed by protecting mountains: “a frugal folk, studying to live peacefully and shunning intercourse with the rest of mankind.” Half a century later, Moses the Armenian spoke of them as “dwelling in wealth and civility at the end of the earth; a people worthy to be called not merely the friends of peace but of life.” Until the Great Age of Discovery arrived as a novel development of the Great Age of the Renaissance to derange and remodel the earth, Cathay was little more than a name to European ears: before the Nineteenth Century, the Celestial Empire remained undisturbed by the Modern World.

Although the Chinese Government was always persistently obstructive to foreign intercourse, it took an interest in foreign religions. This seeming paradox was due to the fact that Confucianism, the official Faith, was essentially a body of moral precepts, as was Taoism, (albeit Taoism had stronger pretension to metaphysic), and both people and rulers were eager to receive any moral doctrine which might strengthen that love of peace and orderly conduct which would seem to be inborn in the Chinese breast. There was no odium theologicum in China. Now, Buddhism was essentially an ethical system, and had much in common with Taoism. On the whole, the Chinese were eager to adopt it; especially as becoming a good Buddhist did not disallow of one’s remaining a good Confucian, or of reconciling Buddhistic and Taoistic speculation. The Chinese government naturally sanctioned a creed fitted to keep a people quiet and submissive; and Buddhism proved to be peculiarly suited to the Chinese mind: it touched the Chinese heart and left a profound effect on Chinese character.

It had to compete with other religions. For with the caravan of the trader came many religious Zealots, such as the Fire-Worshippers of Persia. At the very beginning of Mohammedanism, Wahd-Abi-Kabha, the maternal uncle of the Prophet, reached China, bearing presents to the Emperor; and Mohammedans were to be found there in the third decade of Hiuen-Tsiang’s life; while, in the following decade, Nestorian missionaries introduced Christianity, which, after due examination, an Imperial Decree declared to be a satisfactory and permissible faith. Buddhist missionaries carried the teaching of Gautama to China at a period not yet ascertained; but it must have lost much of its early purity by whatever time that may have been.

Four Pilgrims

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