term for God. The term approved, if not suggested, by K`ang Hsi, and
indisputably the right one, as shown by recent research, was set aside
by the Pope in 1704 in favour of one which was supposed for a long time
to have been coined for the purpose, but which had really been applied
for many centuries previously to one of the eight spirits of ancient
mythology.

In addition to his military campaigns, K`ang Hsi carried out several
journeys of considerable length, and managed to see something of the
empire beyond the walls of Peking. He climbed the famous mountain,
T`ai-shan, in Shantung, the summit of which had been reached in 219 B.C.
by the famous First Emperor, burner of the books and part builder of the
Great Wall, and where a century later another Emperor had instituted the
mysterious worship of Heaven and Earth. The ascent of T`ai-shan had been
previously accomplished by only six Emperors in all, the last of whom
went up in the year 1008; since K`ang Hsi no further Imperial attempts
have been made, so that his will close the list in connexion with the
Manchu dynasty. It was on this occasion too that he visited the tomb of
Confucius, also in Shantung.

The vagaries of the Yellow River, named "China's Sorrow" by a later
Emperor, were always a source of great anxiety to K`ang Hsi; so much so
that he paid a personal visit to the scene, and went carefully into the
various plans for keeping the waters to a given course. Besides causing
frequently recurring floods, with immense loss of life and property,
this river has a way of changing unexpectedly its bed; so lately as
1856, it turned off at right angles near the city of K`ai-fêng, in
Honan, and instead of emptying itself into the Yellow Sea about latitude
34º, found a new outlet in the Gulf of Peichili, latitude 38º.