The dynasty has been occasionally changed; but the laws, customs, institutions, all that makes national life, have continued.

The authentic history of China commences some two thousand years before Christ, and a thousand years in this history is like a century in that of any other people.

The oral language of China has continued the same that it is now for thirty centuries.

The great wall bounding the empire on the north, which is twelve hundred and forty miles long and twenty feet high, with towers every few hundred yards,--which crosses mountain ridges, descends into valleys, and is carried over rivers on arches,--was built two hundred years before Christ, probably to repel those fierce tribes who, after ineffectual attempts to conquer China, travelled westward till they appeared on the borders of Europe five hundred years later, and, under the name of Huns, assisted in the downfall of the Roman Empire.

All China was intersected with canals at a period when none existed in Europe.