Adequately to explain the philosophy of distance in China, and what it
has meant historically, would require a whole volume to itself; but it
is sufficient for our purpose to indicate here certain prime essentials.
The old Chinese were so entrenched in their vastnesses that without the
play of forces which were supernatural to them, _i.e._, the
steam-engine, the telegraph, the armoured war-vessel, etc., their daily
lives could not be affected. Left to themselves, and assisted by their
own methods, they knew that blows struck across the immense roadless
spaces were so diminished in strength, by the time they reached the spot
aimed at, that they became a mere mockery of force; and, just because
they were so valueless, paved the way to effective compromises. Being
adepts in the art which modern surgeons have adopted, of leaving wounds
as far as possible to heal themselves, they trusted to time and to
nature to solve political differences which western countries boldly
attacked on very different principles. Nor were they wrong in their
view. From the capital to the Yangtsze Valley (which is the heart of the
country), is 800 miles, that is far more than the mileage between Paris
and Berlin. From Peking to Canton is 1,400 miles along a hard and
difficult route; the journey to Yunnan by the Yangtsze river is
upwards of 2,000 miles, a distance greater than the greatest march
ever undertaken by Napoleon. And when one speaks of the Outer
Dominions--Mongolia, Tibet, Turkestan--for these hundreds of miles
it is necessary to substitute thousands, and add thereto difficulties
of terrain which would have disheartened even Roman Generals.

Now the old Chinese, accepting distance as the supreme thing, had made
it the starting-point as well as the end of their government. In the
perfected viceregal system which grew up under the Ming Dynasty, and
which was taken over by the Manchus as a sound and admirable governing