The green tea which comes to the market is consumed by the Kalmucks, Tartars, and Siberians. The duty on tea yields a considerable annual revenue, which is the sole advantage the Chinese claim from this important article of commerce. The Chinese will take nothing but cloth in return; and thus the consumers of tea are the persons who are the cloth-manufacturers. The Russians themselves derive no pecuniary advantage from this trade. They might make some profits, and the consumers pay less for their teas, if the trade were not monopolised; and if the tea might be exported from St Petersburg to Odessa on payment of a moderate duty, the northern provinces of China would be obliged to lower the price of their tea, for which they have no other outlet.” Although Fine Art has made little progress, and is little prized, great works, in which genius is joined to utility, are to be met with in China on a larger scale than anywhere else. Such a work is the Great Wall, raised by the first emperor to repel the inroads of the Nomades, and which guards the northern frontier for the space of fifteen hundred miles, from the shores of the Yellow Sea to Eastern Tartary. It is carried over the highest hills, descends into the deepest valleys, crosses upon arches over rivers, and at important passes is doubled;—being, in fact, by far the largest structure that human labour ever raised. A work more extraordinary still is the Imperial Canal. The Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, who fixed the seat of government at Peking, constructed (or rather completed) the canal, in order to remedy the sterility of the plain in which that city stands. From the vicinity of Peking, it extends southwards for a distance of six hundred geographical miles,—now tunnelled through heights, now carried through lakes and over marshes and low grounds by means of stupendous embankments,—and exhibiting not merely a gigantic effort of labour, but sound practical skill on the part of its constructors, in availing themselves of every advantage that could be derived from the nature of the ground. Rivers feed it, and ships of good size spread their sails on its bosom. It is along this watery highway that the chief supplies are brought for the immense population of the capital; and another great merit of the work is, that it acts at once as an irrigator and as a drain to the country through which it flows, from Tientsin to the Yang-tse-keang; for while at some parts fertilising the sterile soil by diffusing its waters, at others being carried along the lowest levels, and communicating with the neighbouring tracts by flood-gates, it renders available for agriculture much land that would otherwise be a useless swamp.