Moreover the Chinese People preferred to be undisturbed by stimulus from without. Yet China transmitted her culture to her near and less civilized neighbours—Japan and the Indo-Chinese peninsula—and claimed a precarious overlordship of semi-barbarous Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan and Thibet. During a long stretch of time, the powerful and jealous Persian Empire was a bar to intercourse with the far West; because it tried to preserve a monopoly of its own products. The records of early intercourse with other countries are few; and those few are meagre. Thirteen centuries before the age in which Hiuen-Tsiang lived, Embassies from distant nations would seem to have reached China. Marcus Aurelius despatched a mission (A.D. 166) to establish direct relations; it travelled by way of India; and failed. Carus sent another (A.D. 284). At the close of the fourth century, Ammianus Marcellinus knew of the Chinese as a people dwelling on fertile plains enclosed by protecting mountains: “a frugal folk, studying to live peacefully and shunning intercourse with the rest of mankind.” Half a century later, Moses the Armenian spoke of them as “dwelling in wealth and civility at the end of the earth; a people worthy to be called not merely the friends of peace but of life.” Until the Great Age of Discovery arrived as a novel development of the Great Age of the Renaissance to derange and remodel the earth, Cathay was little more than a name to European ears: before the Nineteenth Century, the Celestial Empire remained undisturbed by the Modern World. Although the Chinese Government was always persistently obstructive to foreign intercourse, it took an interest in foreign religions. This seeming paradox was due to the fact that Confucianism, the official Faith, was essentially a body of moral precepts, as was Taoism, (albeit Taoism had stronger pretension to metaphysic), and both people and rulers were eager to receive any moral doctrine which might strengthen that love of peace and orderly conduct which would seem to be inborn in the Chinese breast. There was no _odium theologicum_ in China. Now, Buddhism was essentially an ethical system, and had much in common with Taoism. On the whole, the Chinese were eager to adopt it; especially as becoming a good Buddhist did not disallow of one’s remaining a good Confucian, or of reconciling Buddhistic and Taoistic speculation. The Chinese government naturally sanctioned a creed fitted to keep a people quiet and submissive; and Buddhism proved to be peculiarly suited to the Chinese mind: it touched the Chinese heart and left a profound effect on Chinese character.