and integrity almost unchanged through the lapse of many rolling centuries.

IMPERFECT KNOWLEDGE OF CHINA.

FROM the hitherto exclusive policy of the Chinese Government, our accounts of the country and people have been generally very imperfect and distorted. The observations of visiters have been restricted within extremely narrow limits, while exaggerated descriptions of singular and odd practices of rare or local occurrence have been published as characteristic of the whole people. But the country, having been forced to a more liberal policy, is now open to the researches of the traveller, and will soon take its proper place among the nations of the earth. Indeed, it is not unlikely that ere many years shall elapse, we may have Chinese travellers making observations in our own land.

NAME OF THE COUNTRY.

No such name as China is known among the people of that country. They designate it by various titles; as, "The Middle Kingdom," all within the four seas, a term denoting the same as "The World" among the ancient Romans; “The Flowery Land;" and "The Heavenly Dynasty;" from which last the appellation of "Celestial Empire," so often applied by us, is probably derived. The word China is supposed to have been derived through the Persians, from Tsin, an ancient province, the ruler of which was the first who reduced under his control the whole of what we now call China.

EXTENT OF TERRITORY, &c.

THE vast empire embraces a tract of country three thousand two hundred and fifty miles in length in its longest part, and two thousand one hundred miles in its greatest width. It is twelve thousand five hundred and fifty miles in circumference; and its line of coast is three thousand three hundred and twenty miles, which is four hundred miles longer than that of the United States. Its extent of territory is one-third larger than the whole of Europe, and twice as large as that of the Roman

empire in the time of its greatest dominion. It comprises three principal divisions,-China Proper, Manchouria, and Soongaria. The two latter, which are regarded as mere colonies and dependencies, embrace the immense territory on the north and west of China Proper; much of it is desert and uninhabitable, and the remainder is very thinly peopled, chiefly by wandering Tartar tribes.

CHINA PROPER

Is divided into eighteen provinces, the smallest of which is as large as the State of Ohio, and the largest is four times that size. These provinces are again subdivided into districts, answering to our counties.

RIVERS.

NOTWITHSTANDING its great line of sea-coast, China has but three great rivers. This is accounted for by the nature of the country, which is divided by ranges of mountains into three vast plains or valleys. The upper valley is drained by the Hoang Ho, called the Yellow River, from its being coloured with yellow clay, which it brings down from its source. It is more than two thousand miles long, and discharges itself in the Yellow Sea, which is tinged by its waters to a distance of more than one hundred miles from its outlet. The second, or central valley is drained by the Yang Tse Kiang, a name which signifies, "Son of the Ocean." It is one of the largest rivers in Asia, being nearly three thousand miles long. The city of Nanking is situated on its bank, about one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth. Choo-Kiang, on which the city of Canton stands, is about six hundred miles long.

CLIMATE.

THE climate of China is not so warm as in other countries

lying in the same degrees of latitude. This is probably owing to the land in general lying very high, and partly also to the lofty mountains on the north and west. The temperature may be said to be about ten degrees colder in winter than in the same latitudes in the United States. In Pekin, which lies one degree south of New-York, the cold is now as

severe as in Quebec. Canton, which is on a parallel with Havannah, is about the same temperature as Tennessee. In no part of China have they any rainy season, as there is in India. The coast near Canton is sometimes visited during the hot weather with a terrific wind, or tornado, called the typhoon. An American vessel, of three hundred tons' burden, was once driven a mile and a half in shore by one of these winds; and was afterward floated to the sea by digging a canal. The climate of China is on the whole as salubrious as any in the world.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

THE natives of China are not of a yellow complexion, as sometimes pictured, but rather of a sickly white. Very few red cheeks are seen among them. They have black hair and eyes. A Chinese with blue eyes and light hair would be regarded as a curiosity, and put in a museum. They represent the devil as having blue eyes; and when foreigners, with blue eyes and light hair, first visited them, they were astonished at their appearance, and called them devils. The faces of the Chinese are rather rounder than those of the Caucasian race. Their eyes, though as large as ours, appear smaller, from the eyelids not opening so wide. The people are about as tall as we are, and inclined to fulness of body. When working on board American vessels, they appear to be about the same size as our sailors, but are not able to do as heavy work. Corpulence is rather admired among them, and a full man is called a happy man.

POPULATION.

THIS is a matter on which there is much diversity of opinion. Our only means of information is the national census taken about thirty years ago, which gives three hundred and sixtytwo millions, for the population of the empire, three hundred and sixty millions of whom are in China Proper. This enormous population is, however, less incredible in the detail than in the gross: it amounts to two hundred and seventy on each square mile. Now in England there are two hundred and sixty to the square mile, and the land is abundantly able

to sustain them. In some of the most thickly-settled parts of China, the census gave the almost incredible number of eight hundred to the square mile; but Com. Wilkes found an island in the South Seas in which there were one thousand to the square mile. The districts in China are taxed according to the number of householders; so that it is the interest of each village rather to underrate its population than otherwise. The census is taken by households, and the general result is obtained by computing each household at five persons.

The

In estimating the ability of China to sustain such a population, it should be remembered that the whole land is brought into cultivation, while a large part of England lies waste. people, too, eat little animal food, except eggs, poultry, pork, and fish; they keep few or no beasts of burden, and wear no woollen clothes; so that land is not required for pasturage. Near Canton a few sheep are kept, and mutton is sold to the foreign residents at half a dollar a pound. In some parts of the country they get two crops of fruit in the year.

PRODUCTIONS.

THE natural productions of China are as abundant as those of any country in the world. They have all the metals except platina. Iron, copper, silver, gold, and quicksilver, are abundant; so also is coal, which in some parts is the principal fuel. The principal timber-tree is the fir: there are but few oaks. But the great staple of the country is

THE TEA PLANT.

TEA began to be used by the Chinese about the seventh century. (Mr. Williams gave a description of the manner of curing the tea, and preparing it.) The plants are raised from seed. In the third year of the growth they begin the picking of the leaves; and afterward there are three or four pickings in each year. Pekoe tea is made from leaves covered with a whitish down the word pekoe means white-haired. The difference in the qualities and kinds of tea depends upon the nature and age of the trees, differences of soil, cultivation, mode of curing, &c. The leaves, after being gathered, are exposed for some time to the sun; then rolled in the hand, and

:

placed on iron plates heated nearly red hot, where they are suffered to remain till the heat has cracked the cuticle of the leaf. After another rolling and drying, they are put into a pan made as hot as the hand can bear, in which they remain till they are so much unrolled as to require rolling again. The object of this is to drive out the oil. The leaves receive their last drying over a charcoal fire; in which process the finer kinds are sometimes scented by drying fragrant flowers under them. The green tea is frequently discoloured in the process of drying, for which reason it is generally recoloured by a mixture of turmeric and indigo. No copper is used in the preparation of any kind of tea.

The green tea is brought to Canton from a distance of eleven hundred miles, and the black tea nine hundred miles. When it arrives there, it frequently requires to be unpacked and dried again, to expel any dampness it may have acquired. Qne hundred million pounds of tea are annually exported from China; and one hundred thousand persons are said to be employed at Canton alone in preparing, packing, and shipping it.

The Chinese themselves do not use green tea. They prepare their tea by pouring hot water on it in the cup, and drink it off with the addition of either milk or sugar. They also use the infusion of other plants in the same manner

as tea.

THOMAS CARLYLE.*

SECOND PAPER.

PHILOSOPHERS, at various times, have chosen to give definitions of man. Mr. Carlyle, also, has undertaken the task.

* It has only just occurred to us, that some years ago a writer with a similar name obtained an unhappy notoriety, along with one or two other members of the modern infidel school. The reader must not for a moment confound with that Mr. Carlyle, the one from whose productions we are making these quotations. He has written extensively in reviews, periodicals, &c. Perhaps he will be chiefly known by his "French Revolution," in three volumes. He is one of that important class, more so now, in this age of reviews and pamphlets than ever, to whom literature is, as the French would say, a metier, their trade, their profession. Their scholarship is their trade-stock.