prominence in the Chinese annals. The attention of the Government was called to large numbers of Western traders settled in Canton. They are described as *' dark-bearded men, who take no wine and use no music ; but are brave because their heaven is promised to those who shall die in battle." One of their embassies refuses to fall down before the emperor, as wont to bow to God only.
By and by came the Arab travellers, Wahab and Abuzail, famous for bringing back the first substantially authentic account of this veiled and mystic land.[1] When they wrote, in the ninth century, the Moslem were but traders in Asia, not yet conquerors of India. They met no form of exclu- siveness worse than the warehousing of trader's goods in the ports for six months and a duty on them of thirty per cent, taken out of them in kind.[2] They were free to trav- erse, open-eyed, the wondrous land ; saw its customs and productions, its marvellous social order, and civil adminis- tration ; the "majesty of its tribunals," always rendering justice; its offices held by "men of experience only."[3] They tell of the judge's proclamation, repeated thrice daily, that if any one had been wronged by the king himself he should have immediate justice.[4] They describe the strangely pictured dresses, the copper money, passports, registration of travellers ; the drums at the official gates, and trumpets sounding the hours, and bell-rope reaching three miles {sic) from the governor's head, that all might get at it who had been wronged ; the light taxes, the severe laws ; the eunuchs, the penal rod, the revenues from salt monopoly, and from tea, which they praise as cure for all diseases.[5] Alas, we fear good Ebn Wahab stretches a point when he reports the emperor as saying that he honored the King of Irak as king of kings, himself being
