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4
EAST ASIA.
re-ions were in the popular imagination
transformed to strange and terrible monsters.
The two civilisations were independently developed at either extremity of the continent
without exercising any mutual influence one on the other, following parallel
lines, yet as distinct one from the other as if they had been born on two different
l.lum-ts.
There was undoubtedly a time when South China had even more frequent
relations with the scattered islands of the South Sea than with the western regions
with which it is connected by an unbroken continental mass. Common physical
traits prove that towards the south the Chinese race has been intermingled with the
tribes peopling the oceanic regions.
Nevertheless, the barrier of plateaux and highlands shutting in the Chinese world
offers here and there some wide gaps, some opening towards the south, others in the
direction of the north. Nor are the snowy ranges themselves inaccessible. Altai,
Tian-shan, Tsung-ling, Kuen-lun, Nan-ling, are all crossed by tracks, over which
the trader makes his way regardless of fatigue and cold. The slopes
of these
uplands, and even the plateaux,
are inhabited to an elevation of from 10,000 to
1"),000 feet, and traces of the permanent or passing presence
of man are everywhere
met along the route. But owing to their barbarous lives and rude political
state
these highland populations added a fresh obstacle to that presented by the physical
conditions to free international intercourse. The unity of the Old World was
finally established when the Europeans of the West, by means of the sea route, esta-
blished direct relations with the peoples of the eastern seaboard. But before that
time direct communications even between the Yang-tze and Amur basins across
the barbarous populations of the intervening plateaux took place only at rare inter-
vals, and were due as much to the great convulsions of the Asiatic peoples
as to
the growing expansive power of the Chinese political system. But such rare and
irregular
international movements had but little influence on the life of the Chinese
nation. For thousands of years this race, being almost completely isolated from
the rest of mankind, was thrown back on its own resources in working out its natural
development.
INTERCOURSE WITH INDIA AND EUROPE.
The first great internal revolution of China took place at the time of the intro-
duction of the Indian religious ideas. However difficult it may be to interpret the
ancient doctrine of Lao-tze, there can be scarcely any doubt that it was affected by
Hindu influence. Some of his precepts are identical in form with those of the
sirred writings of the Buddhists, and all are imbued with the same sentiment of
humanity and universal philanthropy. Nor 'does Lao-tze ever cite the leading
characters of Chinese history as models of virtue or as examples to be followed, so
that the body of his doctrines is associated by no traditional ties with the past
annals of his country. According to the unanimous tradition he travelled in the
regions lying to the west of China, and the popular legend
highlands
points to the Khotan
as the place whence he was borne heavenwards.
The barrier raised by the mountains, plateaux, and their barbarous inhabitants
between China and India was so difficult to be crossed that the communications