XLVIII. 1841. all Asia, of any class of landed proprietors in the Euro- CHAP. pean sense of the word, and the scanty nature of its foreign commerce. China is essentially an agricultural country, and its principal wealth is drawn, and its immense population supported, from the resources of the soil. 7. cal descrip The territory of even China proper being of such enormous extent, no general or uniform character can be Geographiassigned to its surface any more than could be done tion of the to the whole of Europe. In so far as any general descrip- country. tion can be applied to it, the country consists of a series of basins formed by the ramifications of different chains of mountains, breaking off from the great central mass which forms the kingdom of Thibet, and the eastern ranges of which extend far into China. The great basins which these chains form are four in number, and they are all traversed by the great rivers which flow eastward from the Thibet Mountains into the Pacific Ocean. The southernmost of these basins lies to the south of the NanLing chain; the second is bounded by that chain on the south, and the mountains of Peling on the north; the third extends from the latter mountains to the chain of Yan; and the fourth lies to the north of the last-mentioned chain, and includes the city of Pekin. ranges of mountains are, for the most part, of great elevation, and their summits are covered with perpetual snow, which, in the south of China, implies a height of 12,000 feet above the sea. They are, like the Himalaya and the Caucasus, of inestimable importance, by providing in their icy caverns perennial supplies of water by which irrigation may be afforded to the plains which adjoin the rivers flowing from them in their progress towards the sea. The greatest and most important plains of China are those which lie between the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, and the Yang-tze-kiang, or Blue River. These two great rivers rise near each other in the mountains of Thibet, but separate before they emerge from the hills, and embrace the richest agricultural districts of the These XLVIII. 1841. CHAP. empire, and from whence the chief supplies of food for its inhabitants are drawn. They are both above a thousand leagues, or 2600 miles, in length; and some of their tributary streams are larger than the Rhine or the Danube. In addition to these magnificent natural canals, there are, especially in the northern provinces of China, great numbers of lakes formed by chains of mountains intercepting the rivers in their course to the sea, some of which are of vast extent, being 80 or 90 leagues in circumference, and of great service to the inhabitants, both as furnishing the means of internal communication, and as affording inexhaustible supplies of fish.1 1 Balbi, 974; MalteBrun, ix. 339.341, 343. 8. especially one. The Chinese have turned to good account the supCanals, and plies of water which their snow-fed rivers afford them, by the great conducting it into an infinite number of canals, which serve the double purpose of promoting internal communication, and furnishing the means of irrigation indispensable, especially in the southern provinces, to agricultural production. As in Lombardy, the large canals which draw off the water from the rivers are conducted into innumerable little rills, which are preserved with the utmost care, and carry the fertilising stream into every garden and field of the level country. But, in addition to this, there are several great canals intersecting the territory in different directions, which serve the purposes of internal commerce, and compensate, in some degree, the enormous distances which separate one part of the empire from the other. The most important of these internal arteries is that called the Imperial Canal, which is 600 leagues in length, and connects Pekin with the southern provinces of the empire. It was begun in the year 1181 of the Christian era, and finished in the end of the thirteenth century. It is 90 feet broad over the greater part of its extent, is edged by cut stones, and so great a number of persons are employed, either in the canal itself or the irrigation connected with it, that its sides are generally lined with rows of houses, continuous like XLVIII. 1841. the streets of a town. At every league locks are estab- CHAP. lished, connected with large tanks to let off the superfluous water in the rainy season, and store it up for the use of the adjoining fields. This canal, which may be called the great artery of the empire, is indispensable to 1 Dechalde, Pekin and the northern provinces, by furnishing the i. 33; Macmeans of transporting the tribute paid in kind from the Malte great grain provinces in the south to the capital, and 343, 344. supplying it with the means of subsistence.1 artney, 174; Brun, ix. 9. the climate productions. The vast extent of China, and the circumstance of its being bounded on the one side by the warm ocean, and on Variety of the other by the mountains of Thibet, have rendered the and natural climate and average temperature of its different provinces extremely various. In its eastern provinces the heats of summer are tempered by the balmy breezes of the Pacific; in the western, they are chilled by the cold winds which sweep down from the snows of Tartary. In the south the sugar-cane, cotton-plant, and all the productions of the tropics, are to be found in abundance; in those a little to the north the tea-plant grows in profusion, which has become in a manner a necessary of life in Great Britain and some parts of Europe. In the central provinces vast crops of rice and wheat furnish food to the immense population of the country; while in the north barley and oats are to be found, and all the cereal productions of northern Europe. The indifference of the Chinese people and their government to foreign 2 Kirwan, commerce is mainly to be ascribed to this cause. Their Essa empire forms a world within itself, containing nearly all Temperathe productions of all climates; the foreign commerce of Mem. des other nations is to them a home-trade, and no external Etrangers, vi. 509; disaster seriously affects either their wealth or subsistence Malteso long as their internal communication continues unin- 345, 346. terrupted.2 To the same cause is to be ascribed the indifference of the Imperial Government of Pekin, in the general case, to the concerns of their distant provinces, or the quarrels sur la ture, 179; Savans Brun, ix. 1841. 10. powers of in difference of Govern ment to their con cerns. CHAP. in which they may be involved, and the ample powers, XLVIII. amounting almost to independence, which the viceroys over them enjoy. The concerns or disputes of the remote Despotic viceroys excite little attention in the imperial cabinet, so the Vice- long as they remit their portion of the revenue regularly, rors, and of which, being for the most part paid in kind, is not liable the Central to be affected in any considerable degree by a stoppage or diminution of foreign commerce. The viceroys at Canton, Shanghai, or the other great ports of the empire, are rather independent sovereigns paying a tribute, than the lieutenants of a vigorous and efficient central government. So thoroughly centralised, however, is the machine of society, and so entirely dependent, as elsewhere in the East, on the Imperial Government, that this independence exists only so long as the appointed tribute is regularly paid, or no great disaster forcibly arrests the attention of Government. If the revenue fails, or an external calamity rouses the anxiety of the Emperor, the viceroy or mandarin is recalled, and ere long the bastinado or the bowstring may remind him of the precarious tenure by which his authority, great as it was, had been held.1 1 De Guignes, ii. 445; Mem. des Mission aires, viii. 41, 348; MalteBrun, ix. 400. 11. of China. Agriculture being the main resource of China, and Agriculture the means not only, as in other countries, of furnishing food for the inhabitants, but of paying the revenue to the Government, the whole energies of the people are directed to this one object. Incredible is the industry exerted, the pains bestowed, to fertilise and increase the produce of the soil. Not only is a greater proportion than in any other state of equal extent under cultivation, but what is devoted to crops is worked with an unparalleled amount of attention and diligence. Tanks are cut out of the rocks on the summit of mountains, to collect the water which gathers on those humid heights, from whence the fertilising stream is conducted to the slopes. beneath, which are shaped into terraces. If there is a river at their foot, its water is conveyed to the top by XLVIII. iii. 326; means of portable machinery. The summits, if sterile CHAP. and barren, are planted with pine-trees, so that every 1841. part may be made to contribute something to the use 1 De of man. They have even in some provinces contrived to Guignes, render the lakes productive of more than fish, by plant- Macartney, ing and cultivating in them aquatic plants having tuber- Maltecles something like the carrot (Sagittaria tuberosa), 317. capable of forming human food.1 iv. 210; Brun, ix. 12. Little attention is paid to the rearing of animals, and very few of them are employed in the labours of cultiva- Continued. tion. Everything almost is done by the human hand, and the greater part of the crops which are raised are for human subsistence. Among any other people this state of things would lead to a want of manure and a deterioration of produce, but this is prevented among the Chinese by the diligence with which they collect, and the economy with which they distribute, the whole human refuse, which is returned chiefly in a liquid form to the fields. No difficulty is experienced by them in disposing of the sewerage of cities, or the drainage of houses. It is all collected in tanks, and applied through wateringpans to the roots of plants, as is sometimes done in our gardens. Farms are small, seldom exceeding eight or ten acres, generally only three or four, and the occupants 2 Barrow's all live in detached houses on their little possessions. China, iii. Thus the general aspect of the country, both in its level Guignes, and mountainous regions, is that of a vast garden; and it Malteis this mode of cultivation which explains how the immense 343. population is fed.2 66; De iii. 288, 329; Brun, ix. tenures. Like all other Oriental states, the Chinese have no 13. landed proprietors in the European sense of the word— The land that is, owners of considerable tracts of land interposed between the Emperor and the cultivators of the soil. In China, as in Hindostan and over the whole East, the sovereign is the real landed proprietor. The land-tax, generally from a third to a half of the produce, is the real rent of the soil, and the limit of each cultivator's |