More than forty centuries ago the Nile was completely at the service of the ancient Egyptians, and the prosperity of Babylon and Nineveh leaves no doubt as to the subjugation of the Tigris and the mighty Euphrates. To come to later times, the Rhine itself, even in the days of the early Roman emperors, must have been subjugated by the labours of the primitive Batavians, and the revolt of Civilis, with his Batavian legions, testifies as to the energy and intelligence of the race. And now by the patient industry of their descendants, that land, seemingly doomed by nature to be wasted on one side by the turbulent ocean, on the other by the great rivers which traverse it, presents a spectacle unequalled in the world. Even the despised Oriental race of China, that unsolved problem in the history of mankind, whose capital the combined forces of England and France now threaten, seems never to have had a difficulty in mastering the great problems which the necessity for the subjugation of rivers forces on civilized man; the Chinese waters have been turned to the most profitable account; their deltas seem healthy, and abound with life, with Chinese life, at least. The great rivers of the Celestial empire give no trouble to its inhabitants; agriculture is said to be perfect; no one seems to have proposed to throw the refuse of Pekin into the nearest stream, that stream too, as it might happen to be, the source from which the inhabitants of the capital obtain the water required for their manufactures and for the arts of life.[56]