Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... VII FOREIGN RELATIONS THE subject of the earlier foreign relations with China can only be dealt with here in the briefest manner possible--merely so far as to enable the reader to understand the later relations between China and the outer world. Those readers who may be anxious to acquire some further knowledge of this interesting subject will find in the works of the Jesuit Fathers, of Davis, Yule, Richthofen, and other writers, a large fund of information. At eras far apart China has been distinguished by different appellations, says Yule, "according as it was regarded as the terminus of a southern searoute coasting the great peninsula and islands of Asia, or as that of a northern land traversing the longitude of that continent. In the former aspect the name applied has nearly always been some form of the name Sin, Chin, Sinae, China. In the latter point of view the region in question was known to the ancients as the land of Seres; to the Middle Ages as the Empire of Cathay." 1 1 "The region of the Seres is a vast and populous country, touching on the east the ocean and the limits of the habitable world; and extending west nearly to Imaus and the confines of Bactria. The people are civilized men, of mild, just, and frugal temper; eschewing colli Besides Ptolemy, Pliny has notices of the Seres, whose country he places upon the eastern ocean of the extremity of Asia. The information contained in these two authors was all that was available down to the time of Justinian, and, though the account given by them was not of a very comprehensive character, their description of the Chinese of that time is, as Yule remarks, applicable to-day. The old reputation of the Seres for honesty is frequently referred to by Yule: "Indeed, Marco's whole...