Excerpt from Historical and Descriptive Account of China, Vol. 1 of 3: Its Ancient and Modern History, Language, Literature, Religion, Government, Industry, Manners, and Social State; Intercourse With Europe From the Earliest Ages; Missions and Embassies to the Imperial Court; British and Foreign Commerce; Directions to Navi The importance and interest attached to the subject of this Work appear to be now fully appreciated by the Public. China, from the antiquity of its origin, its early progress in arts and civilisation, and the very peculiar form which its institutions have as. Sumed, exhibits an aspect differing from that of every other empire, ancient or modern. Its story is that of the largest portion of mankind that have ever been united under one political and social system. These considerations have induced us to bestow peculiar attention on the history, learning, commerce, and statistics of that immense sovereignty. There does not, so far as we know, exist at present any channel by which the historical inquirer can obtain a complete and connected view of them. Successive missionaries transmitted to Europe many important communications, but from their magnitude, nearly inaccessible to the ordinary reader. Such are the General History, in thirteen large quarto volumes, and the Miscellaneous Memoirs in sixteen. Du Halde alone attempted to reduce to a convenient form the very valuable records of which he had the command but his volumes are now, in a great de gree, superseded by fuller and more recent informa tion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.