290

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

tion from the manners of a people, who, possessed of sufficient science in themost destructive arts to enable them to triumph and tyrannize over a very con-siderable part of Asia, have been content to suffer that knowlege to sleep withrespect to the power of hurting or injuring the rest of mankind, and hare permit-ted themselves not only to be branded with every degree of obloquy which themore ambitious inhabitants of the world have unboundedly heaped upon them,but have patiently submitted to Various insults and injuries which the superiorexpertness and tyrannical genius of other countries have enabled them to offertowards inoffensive manners, and a total disregard of that consequence which,among other countries, particularly those of Europe, is considered as the onlytrue basis of political greatness.

Any serious attempt to trace the ancient history of Chinese navigation were, inthis place, particularly improper, not only because the enquiry is somewhat irre-lative to the present subject, but that it could scarcely be carried through with anydegree of correctness or precision. Jealous only of the superior antiquity ofother nations, the people of China have so studiously struck into the re-gions of fancy, that the documents from which such an account must bedrawn, except the compiler himself thought proper to follow the example ofthe people whose history lie attempted to wfite, would prove as insufficient forthe purpose, as the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth would be, when supportedby no stronger proofs than his own assertions, to furnish materials for that of GreatBritain.

It is admitted, even by their own historians, and their testimony is supported bysuch collateral circumstances, as to engage the belief of the most shrewd andcritical enquirers, not only that improvement has been much more stationarythroughout that immense empire than it has been in any other civilized countryin the universe ; but that it has, in almost the strictest possible sense of the word,been completely quiescent for more than thirty centuries. But though on one handthe more experienced artificer of Europe may, in some measure, affect to hold inderision the clumsy structure called a junk ; however unable he may justly con-sider one of (he first rate to maintain a contest with any of the most inferior ships otwar, constructed according to the principles practised by Europeans; howeverdangerous he may think it would be to attempt the circumnavigation of the worldin a vessel so ill-calculated in many respects to meet the boisterous and unitedattacks of the waves and of the wind, yet he cannot but view with admirationbordering on astonishment, that boldness, and even that degree of skill, w hich,. . in