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History of the Ming Dynasty.

Nov.

ing the time of the revolution, and the United States at the present moment, are illustrations of the sad disasters ensuent upon its depar- ture. So it was also in older times in the central empire, though assignates, bills, and notes never could here assume the reality of the pure element, though frequently attempting to do so. Amongst the instances mentioned there is one similar to an event that took place at Bencoolen, when the white ants there got to the treasury chest and ate up șo many dollars, that the hon. E. I. Company sent out a bundle of files to their servants, with which to blunt the teeth of these destroyers. It was in the eighth year of Hungwú, somewhere about four hundred years ago, that all the gold and silver in the im- perial treasury took flight. Now, patient reader, remember that your humble servant has not coined this story, but merely translates a pas- sage from the grave historian of the Ming, and if thou shouldest appear incredulous, know then, that this flight has taken place from of old, for riches have wings as good as any eagle, and that the historian of Táukwáng's reign will have to record a similar miracle. About the same time, we are told that a bell in the palace struck of its own accord and then burst; and not long after streams of light issued from all the shields and spears in the arsenal, with many other portentous omens relating to this element of metal.

We now descend from this celestial transcendentalism to terrene matters, and have a verbal treatise on geography-for it is full of names. The territory over which the Ming princes ruled was not so large by far as the possessions of this dynasty; there pertained no foreign countries to their crown, and all their attempts to extend the frontiers proved fruitless. The Tartars retained their indepen- dence, the Cochinchinese struck off the yoke, and towards the con- fines of Yunnan the country was rather curtailed.

The chapters on hydraulics are interesting, and when we reckon up the successive devastations occasioned by the inundations of the Yellow River, which are carefully recorded, we are astounded at the terrible invasions of “China's Sorrow.” Millions of families have found in it a watery grave; dykes at which myriads were at work for years together, have been swept away in a few minutes, and the work of man set at naught and ruined to show his utter impotence. We are furnished with an account of the canals dug during the dynasty, which is as instructive as any in the work, and shows what the go- vernment did to promote the welfare of the nation at large. Wher- ever there is level ground, through it canals are cut, and the pea- santry imitate the works of the government, in their sluices for