For four thousand years the Chinese have patiently pursued the cultivation of the soil hewn no inclination for a nomad life. In the earliest records of their literature we find no traces of nomadic habits or of dwelling in tents. To judge by the classics, they have always lived in houses and always tilled the soil. Ferguson, the great authority on architecture, once came to Canton and a brief examination of Chinese buildings led him to adopt the opinion that the curves of Chinese roots are imitated from the curves of tents. He therefore concluded that the Chinese were nomads before they were agriculturists, and that they adopted curved roofs as a souvenir of their earlier life as enation. The opinion of so good a judge on architectural matters is deserving of all respect, but history does not bear out the hypothesis of a nomadic life out of which the Chinese em to become ploughers and sowers. No trace exists of @ Chinese nomadic age. There was always the same regular habit of industry for as as long as the national traditions are of service. According to the very old tradition preserved in the Book of Changes, the primitive Chinese under the guidance of their first sage were fishermen or they spread nets to catch wild animals. After this they made the plough, the spade and the hoe. The next step was trading, for having grain and gordon stuff as the result of their industry, they began to barter, the one for the other, the three things then useful to them, viz., food, implements, and clothing. ' According to the same-old book, the early Chinese next proceeded to make boats in order to convey goods to more distant markets, After this they tamed oxen and horses to carry burdens. 'They very early invented the pestle and mortar but' the mortar of those days was simply a hole inthe ground. 'I'he bow and arrow followed, for when. China was everywhere covered with trees, wild animals would supply a very large part of the food and clothing of the people. The same old book says that the ancient Chinese lived in caves at first or lay down to rest upon the wild, till their sages taught them to cut down trees and make beams and pillars of them to construct houses fit to be inhabited by a race growing daily in civilisation. Not a word is said of living in tents.
Agricultural life leads to commerce and the nomad life does not. A settled home and a fixed occupation open a door for traders. Each man prepares some sort of goods for sale or barter and a farming population must go to market. Round the market, shops must congregate. Hence the origin of market towns. The life of the fisherman on the waters is the equivalent of the farmer's life on land. So with the silkworm tender, the grower of tea, the spinner and the weaver. produces a special kind of goods for the market, and there he exchanges it for what he needs. The farmer requires for the conveyance of his grain either boats or carts. In the north where there are few waterways he breeds oxen, horses, mules and donkeys in numbers beyond the power of counting, Tu South China the people have boats and where waterways are not to be had the men themselves cary burdens. Agriculture is thus seen to be the basis of the State as much so in undisputed fact as it is in the theory of native political writers. By a regular development, the Chinese have from being farmers become weaversand wheelwrights and house and boat builders and then they have become traders. The cart and the boat may travel far and give occasion to the occupation of the merchant, and the fisherman at some sea-side town becomes a sailor while his boat is transformed into a*large junk. So maritime trade and mercantile voyages to foreign countries originated in' past ages. inning to use the mariner's compass in the 12th century, the Arabs adopted the same useful invention, and passed it on to Europe in the 13th century. But the Chinese are lovers
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.