waves of a homogeneous population.' These opinions, long avowed by the authors, are
confirmed by the views and new facts of Layard.(291)
But we finish with orthodoxy’s “ Chinese f :—
From a previously small feod of the Celestial Gates, called Thsin, given by Hiao-Wang,
about b . c. 909, to one of his jockeys, issued a line of princes whose constant acquisitiveness
had enabled them, by the year b . c . 249, to incorporate a fifth part of the Chinese
realm, and to extend over it their patronymic title of Thsin. Out of this stock sprung Thsin-
Chi-Hoang-Ti, at once the Augustus and the Napoleon of China—founder of the fourth or
Thsin dynasty, whose name signifies “ the first absolute sovereign of the dynasty of Thsin.”
About b . c. 221, all the principalities of China were consolidated under his supreme sway;
and, as a consequence, the name Thsin became, in common parlance, synonymous with'the
whole empire. Proud of his mighty exploits, although detesting the individual, the
Chinese, from and after his day, adopting the word Thsin as typical of China itself, originated
the Hindoo appellative “ Tchina,” whence we inherit our corrupt designation
“ China.” Under these circumstances we tender to future sustâiners of Chinese in Scripture
a many-horned dilemma : —
Either the Prophet Isaiah (whose meaning is so naturally explained above) by the word
SINIM does not refer to the Chinese, or inasmuch as the Chinese empire was not called
Thsin previously to b . c. 221 — which is about 450 years after Isaiah wrote — the. verse 12
of chapter xlix of the book called “ Isaiah” cannot possibly have been penned by Isaiah,
but is the addition of some nameless interpolator: who must have lived, too, later than the
first century after Christ, when the existence of China first beicame known, under its
recent name Thsin, to nations dwelling west of the Euphrates. The writers called the
“ Seventy” knew nothing of this absurd Chinese attribution, as their “ Land of the
Persians” attests.
Were it not for them who thus had paraphrased SINIM between b . c . 260 and 130; th e
interpolation of a mere verse, after the year a . d . 1 0 0 , in a prophetic book wherein whole
chapters had been previously interpolated, would excite small surprise among biblical exe-
getists. “ If,'for example,” writes the great Hebraist of the “ Bibliothèque Impériale,” (292)
“ in a prophetic book, bearing the name of Isaiah, they speak to you of the return from
Babylonish exile ; if they go so far as even to name Cyrus, who is posterior to Isaiah by
about two centuries, be assured that it is not Isaiah who speaks.” And if that explanation does
not satisfy theological exigencies, then let some people bear in mind that the word SINIM
occurs in the forty-ninth chapter of Isàiah; and that, according to the highest biblical
critics of Germany, whose mouth-piece is the eminent Professor of Theology at Basle, (298)
“ the whole of the second part of the collection of oracles under Isaiah’s name (xl. — lxvi.)
is spurious.” But they say Chinese vases have been found in tombs of the Mosaic age in
Egypt ; and, ergo, that China was known some 3300 years ago to the ancient Egyptians.
The archæological interest of this alleged fact has been revived in the present year by
two new phases :—
First. The presence at New York, among a variety of Egyptian antiquities, less
authentic, of— *
“ No. 626.—A Chinese vase, with 17 others of different forms. All found in tombs.
Some from Thebes ; others from Sakharah and Ghizeh.
“ These vases are curious, inasmuch as they prove the early communication between
Egypt and China. Vide Rosoleni [sie for Rosellini] ; Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s Manners
and Customs; Sir John Davis’s Sketches of China, p. 72, and Revue Archoeologique, by
Mr. E. Prisse.
“ No. 627.—A Chinese padlock, found in the tombs at Sakharah.” (294)
This last bijou is a confirmation of ancient intercourse between Pharaonic Egypt and
(291) Op. cit.f pp. 373, 383-386.
(292) Münk: Palestine; p. 420.
(293) D e W e t t e : Parker’s transi, ii. p. 336; and also H en n e l l: Origin of Christianity; 1845; pp. 354, 355.
(294) §jCatalogue o f a Collection o f Egyptian Antiquities, the property of Henry Abbott, M. D., now exhibiting at
th e Stuyvesant Institute, No. 659, Broadway, New York” ; 1853; p. 44.
China., of which orthodox navigation may well be proud, especially now that two additional
vases have been discovered since Joseph Bonomi, in his sly way, indicated the extreme
rarity of such antiques at Cairo, 1843.
«No. 254.—Padlock, Chinese, said to be found at Sakhara.
É No. 255.^Thirteen Chinese bottles, of the usual form, and with the inscription in the
Chinese characters ; and three bottles of different shape, found in Egyptian tombs, both in
Upper Egypt and Sakhara. The larger portion of this collection was found in Sakhara.
Bottles exactly similar may be purchasèd in the perfume bazaar of Cairo ; and in 1842 the
Jannissary of the Prussian Mission purchased ten of them.” (295)
Second. The deterration of two similar Chinese vases by Layard, one from the mound of
Arban, and another from its vicinity. These are the more; precious as they show the orthodox
and primeval overland route of Egypto-Chinese intercourse by way of Assyria, in ages
preceding the discovery of the monsoons, about a . d . 45, by the Greek pilot Hippalus. (290)
“ In a trench on the south side of the ruin, was found a small green and white bottle,
inscribed with Chinese characters. A similar relic was brought to me from a barrow in the
neighbourhood. Such bottles have been discovered in Egyptian tombs, and considerable
doubt [not the remotest] exists as to their antiquity, and as to the date and manner of their
importation into Egypt. (Note.— Wilkinson, in his ‘ Ancient Egyptians,’, vol. iii. p. 107,
gives a drawing of a bottle precisely similar to that described in the text, and mentions
one which, according to Rosellini, had been discovered in a previously unopened tomb,
believed to be of the eighteenth dynasty. But there appears to be considerable doubt on
the subject.) The best opinion now is, that they are comparatively modern, and that they
were brought by the Arabs, in the eighth or ninth century, from the kingdoms of the far
East, with which they had at that period extensive commercial intercourse. Bottles precisely
similar are still offered for sale at Cairo, and are used to hold the kohl or powder for
staining the eyes of the ladies.” (297)
Since the conquest of Algeria, Parisian naturalists have been constantly employed by the
French Government to collect every specimen of natural history that region affords. One
of these enthusiastic savans, lamenting that his predecessors had exhausted the resources
of the country, was supplied' by the Zouaves with sundry live examples of a wild rat, the
species of which was entirely unknown at the Jardins des Plantes. The soldiers called it,
rat à trompe. On arrival of these novelties at the Museum, (298) it was perceived that
each rat was adorned by a flexible and hairy proboscis. In time these appendages happening
to drop off, some assistant ascertained that the malicious Zouaves had inserted an
amputated tail of one species of rat into the nasal cartilage of another! It behooves
archaeologists, therefore, to view any such marvels as Sinico-Nilotic “ padlocks” with more
. than caution ; for, as De Longpérier, the Conservator of the Louvre Museum, writes to
De Saulcy, Director of the Musée d’Artillerie, “ above all things, now-a-days, gardons nous
des rats à trompe.”
• Chinese vases, of the genus mentioned, having been familiar things to the writer ever
since his boyhood’s visit to Cairo in 1823, no less than during his official residence there
from 183i to 1841, it was against his wishes (while aiding his revered friend Morton with
a few hieroglyphical indices in 1842-3) that the following passage ever saw the light without
some qualifying reservation : ‘ ‘ That the Chinese had commercial intercourse with the Egyptians
in very early times, is beyond question ; for vessels of Chinese porcelain, with inscriptions
in that language, have been repeatedly found in the Theban catacombs. (Wilkinson’s
Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. p. 108.)” (299) But Dr. Morton relied upon the accuracy
of Wilkinson, and the latter upon that of Rosellini, (300) as to the matters of fact ; at the
(295) B onomi : Catalogue of ditto : Cairo, 1846 ; pp. 25, 26, 35. [Printed in London. We saw its proof-sheets
there.]
(296) Puny: lib. vi. p. 26.
(297) Babylon: p. 279.
(298) Yide Histoire Naturelle de MM. les Professeurs aux Jardins des Plantes: 12mo, Paris, 1847.
(299) Crania Ægyptiaca : 1844; p. 63.
(300) Compare Ch am po lu o n -F ig e a o : ÉgypteAricienne: 1840; voce “ Nechao,” p. 369; and Notice sur deux
Grammaires de la Langue Copte: Jnne, 1842; pp. 7-10. The perusal of these two critiques might benefit the
author of Horce Ægyptiacoe.