might multiply writing in the same way that he could multiply the impressions of a seal. The idea was simple and natural, and the only difficulty in the way was how to make a stamp like the writing to be multiplied. A little observation soon instructed him. He placed a page of writing, while it was wet, upon the face of a smooth piece of wood. The writing made a mark on the wood, just as a letter does when it is turned down upon a sheet of blotting-paper. A copy of the writing was, in other words, impressed on or transferred to the wood. Then all that part of the surface of the wood not touched by the writing,—that part between and around the strokes of the characters,—was cut away with a chisel or graver, so that the wood was converted into an engraved tablet; with the difference that in an engraving, the letters are cut into the face of the material, like the inscription on a tombstone; while in this kind of printing, the face itself was cut away, leaving the letters standing out, like the raised letters we see on a shop front. The letters thus formed by Foong-taon were wetted with some kind of ink, paper was then pressed upon them, and an inken copy of the letters was thereby transferred to the paper. This was really and truly the art of printing.

The Chinese are remarkable for their stationary character. They are nearly the same to-day as they were a thousand years ago, and a thousand years ago as they were thousands before. They were the inventors of gunpowder,

but they have made no use of it because their fathers did not. As they built houses and temples, and made silk and porcelain ten centuries since, so they do now, neither better nor worse; neither their music nor painting, nor any other art, has undergone any change during the course of time. They have, in a word, buried their talents in a napkin. Printing has fared no better than the other arts in China. To this day the Chinese print in the same manner as they did nine hundred years ago; or, according to their own reckoning, nineteen hundred years ago. A wooden block or plate of wood, generally cut from the apple or pear tree, is shaped to the size of the page of the book which it is proposed to print. The surface of the block is then rubbed with paste, made sometimes from boiled rice, and it is thus rendered very smooth. The words which each page is to contain, are finely written on soft transparent paper, and while the ink is still wet, the paper is laid on the surface of the block, the side written on being downwards, so that the writing appears in an inverted order through the thin paper on which it is written. The paper is then gently rubbed on the back, and a clear copy of the writing remains on the surface of the wood. The wood is then cut away as already described, and a wooden copy of the writing is left. The printing is done without a press; for so delicate is the paper of which the Chinese

books are formed, that it would be broken by any heavy pressure. A little friction, indeed, is sufficient to give the required impression. The printer holds in his right hand two brushes, or rather a handle with a brush at each end of it; with one of these brushes he lays the ink on the letters; then having laid the paper on the inked letters, with the other brush he gently rubs the back of the paper. This effects the printing; and so expert are the workmen, that even in this rude way, one man can print two thousand copies in a day.

It is a striking circumstance, certainly, that the Chinese who were the first inventors of printing have been the last to improve the art. But though national character has

much to do with the matter, it is not the sole cause of it. The fact is not so unnatural as it may seem, when all circumstances are considered. It is partly owing to the nature of the Chinese written language. The English written language consists of twenty-six letters, each having a particular sound attached to it, and by changing the position of these letters, we can form all our words, and express all our thoughts. Nor is there any practical limit to the power of expression which these twenty-six letters possess, since they may be formed into no less than 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000 different combinations or words without a single repetition. The Chinese written language is not, however, expressed by different

combinations of a few simple letters, but consists of a separate character for every separate word. Chinese characters are, in fact, signs of words, formed without the use of letters. The language may be described either as all alphabet and no words, or as all words and no alphabet; and, in consequence, a person must learn, some say 5,000, others say as many as 60,000 characters, before he can read a Chinese book with ease. The use of moveable types, which constitutes the great improvement in printing, the Chinese generally consider more tedious than printing in blocks as we have described. The time occupied in cutting or casting the number of separate characters required to print a book in the Chinese language, it was long held by other nations would actually be greater than the time in which it might be written. But the principles of the language having been intimately studied, it has been found practicable to print the Chinese characters by a combination of moveable types. One mode, the invention of Legrand, of Paris, consists in adding to the character representing the key, another character which alters the sense. The number of punches used, that is, the number of different types required, is 4,600, and this is the mode most simple and most generally used. Another mode, invented in Austria, consists of a number of points and strokes, which are put together in the form of the Chinese words.

For three hundred years the Chinese practised the art unknown to the western nations which boasted of greater progress in arts and civilization. China itself was unknown to the rest of the world, except by name. But the veil which had so long concealed one of the most wonderful nations of the world, was removed in the thirteenth century by the enterprising traveller Marco Polo. In the year 1250, two brothers named Polo, who were merchants at Venice, sailed up the Black Sea on a trading voyage. Drawn farther and farther by the allurements of profit, mingled with a love of enterprise, they reached Bokhara, the capital of the kingdom of the same name, situated in the centre of Asia. Though they were strangers, the inhabitants treated them well, and they remained three years at Bokhara studying the Mongol language. In 1264 an ambassador from Hulako, the grandson of Gengis, king of Persia, passed through Bokhara on his way to the court of Kublai, a great khan of the Mongols, who at that time ruled over Tartary and China. The adventurous Venetians, accepting an invitation from the Persian ambassador, accompanied him to Kemenfu, which they reached after a year's journey. Kublai received them kindly, and listened with wonder and admiration to their description of the unknown nations from which they had come. A European was as great a curiosity to him as a Japanese still is to us. Eventually he made the brothers his