the name _Shi-ki,_ or "Historical Annals"--Further evidence
of lost histories--Curious name for Ts'u Annals--Ts'u poetry-
Ts'u's knowledge of past history--The term "Springs and Autumns"--
Baldness of early Chinese annals.

CHAPTER XXXI

_ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE_

Whence did the Chinese come?--All men of equal age and ancestry--
Records make civilization and nobility--Evidences of antiquity--
China and the West totally unknown to each other in ancient times--
Tartars the connecting link--Though tamed by religion they are
not much changed now--Traders then, as now, but no through
travellers--Chinese probably in China for myriads of years before
their records began--Tonic peculiarities of all tribes near China
except the Tartars--Chinese followed lines of least resistance--
Tartars driven back, but difficult to absorb--So with Coreans and
Japanese-Indo-China not so favourable for Chinese absorption--
Records decided the direction taken by culture--Southern half-
Chinese have equal claims with orthodox Chinese--Traditions of
ancient emperors in north, coast, and south parts--Suggestions as
to how the most ancient Chinese spread themselves--No hint of
immigration from anywhere--The old suggestion of immigration from
the Tarim Valley and Babylonia--Suggested compromise with Western
religious views--Creation and Nature--Compromise with the
supernatural and imaginative--Summing up.

CHAPTER XXXII