palaces and from the various officials, and were carried thither and stored in huge quantities.  Artificers were ordered to construct mechanical crossbows, which, if any one were to enter, would immediately discharge their arrows.  With the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made—­the Yangtsze, the Yellow River, and the great ocean—­the metal being made to flow from one into the other by machinery.  On the roof were delineated the constellations of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the earth.  Candles were made from the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated to last for a very long time.  The Second Emperor said:  ’It is not fitting that the concubines of my late father who are without children should leave him now;’ and accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead monarch into the next world, those who thus perished being many in number.  When the internment was completed, some one suggested that the workmen who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out.  Therefore, so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving access to the sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end, the outside gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the mausoleum was effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen escaped.  Trees and grass were then planted around, that the spot might look like the rest of the mountain.”

The career of the Second Emperor finds an apt parallel in that of Richard Cromwell, except that the former was put to death, after a short and inglorious reign.  Then followed a dynasty which has left an indelible mark upon the civilization as well as on the recorded history of China.  A peasant, by mere force of character, succeeded after a three-years’ struggle in establishing himself upon the throne, 206 B.C., and his posterity, known as the House of Han, ruled over China for four hundred years, accidentally divided into two nearly equal portions by the Christian era, about which date there occurred a temporary usurpation of the throne which for some time threatened the stability of the dynasty in the direct line of succession.  To this date, the more northern Chinese have no prouder title than that of a “son of Han.”

During the whole period of four hundred years the empire cannot be said to have enjoyed complete tranquillity either at home or abroad.  There were constant wars with the Tartar tribes on the north, against whom the Great Wall proved to be a somewhat ineffectual barrier.  Also with the Huns, the forbears of the Turks, who once succeeded in shutting up the founder of the dynasty in one of his own cities, from which he only escaped by a stratagem to be related in another connexion.  There were in addition wars with Korea, the ultimate conquest of which led to the discovery of Japan, then at a low level of civilization and unable to enter into official relations with China until A.D. 57, when an embassy was sent for the first time.  Those who are accustomed to think of the Chinese as an eminently unwarlike nation will perhaps be surprised to hear that before the end of the second century B.C. they had carried their victorious arms far away into Central Asia, annexing even the Pamirs and Kokand to the empire.  The wild tribes of modern Yunnan were reduced to subjection, and their territory may further be considered as added from about this period.