This wall was built at the north of China to keep the Tartars out. It is one thousand five hundred miles long, twenty feet high, and twenty-five broad. But there were not soldiers enough in China to keep the enemies out, and the Tartars came over the wall. The Emperor of China is a Tartar. The Empress does not have small feet, like the Chinese. It is the Tartars who forced the Chinese to shave their heads, for they used to tie up their hair in a knot at the top of their heads. Many of the Chinese preferred losing their heads to their hair. Was it not cruel to cut off their heads, merely because they would not shave them? But the Tartars were very cruel to the Chinese. KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTIONS.--We must allow that the Chinese are very clever. They found out how to print, and they found out how to make gunpowder, and they found out the use of the loadstone. What is that? A piece of steel rubbed against the loadstone will always point to the north. The Chinese found out these three things, printing, gunpowder, and the use of the loadstone, before we in Europe found them out. But they did not teach them to us; we found them out ourselves. But there are two arts that the Chinese did teach us: how to make silk, and how to make china or porcelain. And yet I should not say they taught us; for they tried to prevent our learning their arts; but we saw their silk and their porcelain, and by degrees we learned to make them ourselves. A sly monk brought some silk-worm's eggs from China hidden in a hollow walking-stick. LANGUAGE.--There is no other language at all like the Chinese. Instead of having letters to spell words, they have a picture for each word. I call it a picture, but it is more like a figure than a picture. The Chinese use brushes for writing instead of pens; and they rub cakes of ink on a little marble dish, first dipping them in a little water, as we dip cakes of paint. There is a hollow place in the marble dish, to hold the water. What do you think the Chinese mean by "the four precious things?" They mean the ink, the brush, the marble dish, and the water. They call them precious because they are so fond of writing. Schoolmasters are held in great honor in China, as indeed they ought to be everywhere. Yet schools in China are much like those in Turkey, more fit for parrots than children; only Chinese boys sit in chairs with desks before them, instead of sitting cross-legged on the ground, as in Turkey. They learn first to paint the words, and next to repeat lessons by heart. This they do in a loud scream; always turning their backs to their masters while they are saying their lessons to him. The first book which children read is full of stories, with a picture on each page. Would you like to hear one of these stories?