New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1877-05-02
CHINA,

of any other country-beyond even the
records of history and the apocryphas of
tradition continued, until a COM
paratively recent. date, a fable land to all
other portions of the world. Greece and
Rome rose and declined without any
knowledge of the Flowery Kingdom. The
traditional cradle of the human race was
not far distant from them. They knew of
Persia and Of Palestine; Of the rivers of
Babylon and the Pillars of Hercules, but
nothing of apeople who had grown into
greatness and power on the same CONT
nent and separated from them by dis
lance even less than that which separates
New Orleans from st. Louis. Though the
conquering arms of Alexander had been
carried to the Indus, and that celebrated
warrior is said to have wept because the
world afforded no new fields of conquest,
China, conscious of her own security, if
not superiority, and surrounded by the
ramparts of her own exclusiveness, main
tanned unchallenged the integrity of her
empire end developed religion, civil
ization and philosophy of which "out-
side barbarions" were wholly ignorant.
The exclusiveness of the Chinese was
encouraged by the geographical position
Of their country Between the seats of
civilization which clustered along the
shores of the Mediterranean and their
temperate region, which sloped towards
the shores of the Pacific, wild Scythian,
Parthian and Tartar tribes interviewed,
and an impossible wall was raised to keep
these warlike tribes without aud them
selves within. Thusi it happened that the
people of Greece knew as little concern
ing the great wall of China as the Son of
the Sun did of the Athenian Acropolis,
the Pyramids of Egypt or the Tower of
Babel.
The ancient Chinese maps, like those
of Europe in the middle ages, represented
all unknown lands-all, indeed, beyond
their own shores and walls-as inhabited
by monsters, giants, gnomes and dragons.
Not until the days of Marco Polo did the
Western world become possessed of any
trustworthy knowledge concerning the
extent and grandeur of the fowery king
dom of the East. Even the stories told
were, however, considered by the general
inhabitants of Europe as but a new edi-
ton of the Arabian Nights Entertain
ments, though in the breasts of the few
spirit of adventure was aroused which
ultimately eliminated in those voyages of
discovery SO rich in results, undertaken
with view Of securing a shorter route to
India.
That the polarity of the needle was
known to the Chinese centuries before il
was to Europeans is now generally ad.
mitted fact. In this, as in many other
respects, the people Of China were in adj
vance of other nations, and though theiI
navigation may not have been Of very
extended or adventurous character, it il
considered by no means improbable that
stray Chinese junks, waited across the
Pacific, carried into the land of Fu-sang,
now known as Mexico and Guatemala,
the faith, customs, skill end civilization
which even yet, present on both sides o.
earths broadest sea, the most striking Of
similarities. The Aztecs, whom Cortes
conquered, were Mongolians in color, fea
lures, and in all their distinguishing
characteristics, and the architectural re
mains found in Mexico, Guatemala ant
Peru are wholly distinct from anything
discovered in the more Northern portions
of the American continent.
Almost within our own generation sh,
isolation Of China has been interrupted
by forces from without. England, France
Holland and the United States have eacl
done something toward breaking dow
the wall Of Chinese exclusiveness, and o
opening up the interior of the celestia
kingdom to the commerce Of the world
In the encounters which ensued, the
warriors Of China readily discovered til
inferiority of their weapons and tactics
as compared with those of their oppo
nents, and the authorities Of the countr,
accepted the inevitable with all the phi
losophic patience possible under the cir
cumstances. To Great Britain has fallel
tho lions share Of the advantages Sc
cured, but even this country has not beel
| without benefits in the premises, and th
probabilities are that with the lapse o
each commercial year their measure vii
increase.
| Recent explorations BY Baron Richthoi
fen show the high commercial importane
Of the interior portions Of Southern China
According to the baron's report se-Tch
ouan Is equal in area 70 the whole Of Ger
many, and numbers st least thirty-as
miliions Of inhabliania Il staples en-
bnes honey, susaE, tObaeso opium sd