lation is computed to amount to five hundred millions. The foil is rich, and it produces corn in the greatest abundance, the moft delicious fruits, plants, drugs, and gums, and in its mines are found diamonds, gold, filver, copper, and iron. The difference of climate, manners, and productions, is fo ftrongly marked, that they cannot be included under one defcription. No objects which it prefents are more interesting to us than the Chinese Empire, and the British territories in Hindooftan.

China. This country, exclufive of Chinese Tartary, is about 2000 miles in length, and 1600 in breadth. It is divided into 16 Provinces, the total population of which is faid to be 333 millions of fouls. This amount was delivered to Lord Macartney, at his particular request, by Chow ta Zhin, a Chinese Mandarin, and is founded on authentic documents, taken from one of the public offices at Pekin. Pekin, the metropolis, contains three millions of inhabitants. China is bounded on the north by Chinese Tartary; on the fouth, by the sea of China; on the east, by the Pacific Ocean; and on the weft, by great Thibet, and Tonkin. The Chinefe are remarkable for the early period at which they were civilized, and had made fome progrefs in the arts and fciences. But they appear to have been ftationary for a confiderable time; and from their having made no improvements, they feem to be incapable of doing fo; and it may therefore be prefumed, that they received their arts from fome other people, probably the Hindoos of India.

Their language feems to exclude the poffibility of improvement in fpeculative refearches, from the difficulty of expreffing abftract ideas in it. Of aftronomy they know little, and cannot calculate eclipfes. Their knowledge of medicine is flight, and is blended with fuperftition. They are faid to have been acquainted with gunpowder from an early period, but they never employed it in artillery or fire arms, till inftructed by the Europeans. They claim the invention of printing at a remote age; yet they are ignorant of the ufe of moveable types, and print from blocks of wood. Their mode of painting is a mere mechanical imitation, without grace or expreffion. They have no idea of the rules of perfpective; and in fculpture, the figures of their idols fhow the pleasure they take in deformity and disproportion.

Yet we must allow, that in fome arts they have reached a great degree of excellence. Every fpot in China is highly cultivated; the Emperor glories in being the first husbandman in his dominions, and annually directs the plough with his own hands. The whole furface of the country prefents the appearance of a garden, and is appropriated to the pro-. duction of food for man. Their husbandry is fingularly neat, and in their fields, whatever is the produce, fcarcely a weed is to be feen. The great attention to agriculture, which extended to the whole empire, may account for the fuftenance of fo large a population as that of the Chinese. Their embellishments of rural nature have never been done juftice to by the imitations of Europeans.

The manufacture of porcelain is an original invention of their own; and although we furpass them in the ornamental parts of china, we cannot reach the excellence of their material. Their canals are the largest and fineft in the world, extending fometimes more than 1000 miles, and deep enough to float large veffels. Their greatest monument of antiquity is the wall of China, built by Tfin Chi-Hoang, 221 years before Chrift, to feparate China from Tartary, and defend it from a more warlike people. It is carried across mountains and vallies for 1500 miles, is from 20 to 25 feet high, and is ftrengthened by various forts. The top, which is wide enough for fix horsemen to travel abreaft, is terraffed, and cafed with brick.

To the Chinese we are indebted for a fpecies of beverage the most agreeable and falubrious, The tea fhrub is diftinguished into four forts, Song-lo-tcha, Vou-y-tcha, Pou-eul-tcha, and a fpecies which grows wild. The manner of cultivating the tea fhrubs is this:-the Chinese plant them in rows, after which they are pruned, to prevent their growing too high; the natural height of the firft being ten feet; in four or five years they are replanted, which prevents the leaf from grow, ing thick, hard, and tough. The flowers are white, composed of five petals, and fhaped like a rofe; they are fucceeded by berries, in the form of a nut, partaking of the tafte of the leaf. The leaves of the fecond fort are fhort, and round at the top. Of this fhrub the inhabitants make three pickings; first, the tender leaf when it appears;-this

is feldom expofed to fale, but is fent as a prefent to the Emperor, and other great perfons;-fecondly, when the leaves are of a middling fize; and thirdly, when they are full grown. The third fpecies differs from the two former, being a bushy fhrub; the decoction made from its leaves is efteemed exceedingly falutary by the inhabitants. The fourth fort is little inferior to the other three, though produced without culture; but the Chinese, from interefted motives, always condemn it.

The Chinese are indefatigable in the culture of rice, with which they are chiefly fed; and of cotton, with which they are clothed. The cotton fhrub rifes about two feet in height, and bears a yellow flower, fometimes tinged with red; this is fucceeded by a pod, which, when opened, contains three or four bags in the form of a filk-worm's covering, filled with very white cotton".

Before the conqueft of China by the Tartars, their government was patriarchal. Duty to the father of each family was enforced, under the moft rigorous penalties; and the Emperor was confidered as the father of his people. The Mandarins, or great officers of ftate, were acknowledged as his fubftitutes. Degrees of fubmiflion from an inferior to a fuperior, are obferved with the greatest formality; at prefent they are governed by their antient laws, and others impofed upon

them by the Tartars. They have no established religion; the Emperor is of one, the mandarins of another, and the common people of a third, which is that of the God Fo. They are very fuperftitious, crafty, and difhoneft; and the fact feems to be too well established to admit of a doubt, that they deftroy great numbers of their infant children. They have no pretenfions to the very high antiquity to which they lay claim, yet ftill if we confider their immenfe numbers, their industry, their early promotion of the arts, and their fyftematic and well regulated government, they must be allowed to be a very extraordinary people,

Hindooftan, or the Empire of the Great Mogul, in, cludes the peninsula within the Ganges; it is bounded by Perfia and the Arabian fea on the weft, by West Tartary and Great Tibet on the north and north-eaft, by the kingdom of Ava and the bay of Bengal on the eaft, and by the great Indian ocean on the fouth. The length of this country, from Cape Comorin on the fouth, to the frontiers of Weft Tartary on the north, is nearly 2000 miles; and its breadth, in its wideft extent, from Perfia to the kingdom of Ava, is near 1500 miles. Hindooftan is at prefent divided into a great number of ftates; the chief of them are tributary to the British nation, which poffeffes the whole province of Bengal, Bahar, part of Oriffa, and the diftrict of Benares in Oude; Madras, on the coaft of Coromandel, the Circars, a Jong tract on the fame coaft; on the western coafts, the Jlands of Bombay and Salfette, and in the Myfore Country