China cannot look back to a past when she did not appear as a leader. An the dawn of her history when she came down the banks of the Yellow River from no one can do more than guess where, she came armed with a superior civilization. She lifted Imperial eyes, and with the generous consciousness of superiority, she welcomed or com-felled the neighbouring tribes to her aegis. The embodiment of her ideals may be seen in the doings of her legendary monarchs, Yao and Shun, All within the four seas, we fare told, were grateful for Emperor Shun's services: which services consisted in subjugating the bar-parians on all sides—an action of Imperial interference, however ood may have been for the barbarians. The period of Chow does not give 'x0 much in the way of examples of imperialism because the sister states are too busy with mutual intrigue and, latterly, fighting among themselves to concern themselves wit outside nations; but it was this spirit which made them strive thus together until at last Shih Huang-ti succeeded in binding all the states together in a bond of Imperial unity which has lasted for more than two thousand years. It may be contended that Shih Huang-ti, so far from seeking to extend, built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians cut, but there are bounds to the capacity of any nation, and self-preservation comes before aggres-ion,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.