K`ang Hsi several times visited Hangchow, returning to Tientsin by the
Grand Canal, a distance of six hundred and ninety miles. This canal, it
will be remembered, was designed and executed under Kublai Khan in the
thirteenth century, and helped to form an almost unbroken line of water
communication between Peking and Canton. At Hangchow, during one
visit, he held an examination of all the (so-called) B.A.'s and M.A.'s,
especially to test their poetical skill; and he also did the same at
Soochow and Nanking, taking the opportunity, while at Nanking, to visit
the mausoleum of the founder of the Ming dynasty, who lies buried near
by, and whose descendants had been displaced by the Manchus. Happily for
K`ang Hsi's complacency, the book of fate is hidden from Emperors, as
well as from subjects,--

All but the page prescribed, their present state and he was unable to
foresee another visit paid to that mausoleum two hundred and seven years
later, under very different conditions, to which we shall come in due
course.

The census has always been an important institution in China. Without
going back so far as the legendary golden age, the statistics of which
have been invented by enthusiasts, we may accept unhesitatingly such
records as we find subsequent to the Christian era, on the understanding
that these returns are merely approximate. They could hardly be
otherwise, inasmuch as the Chinese count families and not heads, roughly
allowing five souls to each household. This plan yields a total of
rather over fifty millions for the year A.D. 156, and one hundred and
five millions for the fortieth year of the reign of K`ang Hsi, 1701.

No record of this Emperor, however brief, could fail to notice the
literary side of his character, and his extraordinary achievements in