Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/23

INTRODUCTION. Though Chinese histoiy carries us far enough back into the thickening mists of a hoary antiquity when treating of purely Chinese subjects, it is matter of regret that the historians of the Centre "" of the Uniyerse treat of their barbarous neighbours only when the latter come into contact with the Chinese government by tribute or by war. And even up to the present moment, Chinese literati have failed to regard ethnography or philology as subjects worthy of their attention. Max Miiller com- plains of the ancient Greeks, Hebrews, and Romans, because of their literary isolation and their pride of race ; so the Chinese, even in this nineteenth century, continue to consider their land as the centre of the world, outside of which are barbarians, scarcely distinguishable from each other; their language as the only civilized medium of communication ; and their literature as the only writings worthy of the serious thought of the scholar. Hence it is that, though full, and apparently accurate, accounts are given of China's contact with the various barbarians forming the " Four Seas around her, we search in vain for any critical grappling with either the language or race of the "barbarian" kingdoms treated of; and only in rare instances is an unsatis- fEu^tory list given of the manners and customs of some of those peoplea If this is true of the "barbarians" north and west of China, much more is it true of those of the north-east ; which is all the more r^rettable, inasmuch as this region has played, for many ages, so important a part in the ro2e of Chinese histoiy, and has had so preponderating an influence over China's fata That this region was inhabited long before the Chinese became a nation of any consequence, we have no hesitation in believing ; for we read ancient Chinese histoiy very inaccurately indeed if it does not imply that the Chinese people were preceded every-