Who the Chinese originally were, whence they came, how long they have dwelt in their present realm, are questions easier to ask than to answer. Their history does not reach back to their origin, except in vague and doubtful outlines. The time was when that great territory known as China was the home of aboriginal tribes, and the first historical sketch given us of the Chinese represents them as a little horde of wanderers, destitute of houses, clothing, and fire, living on the spoils of the chase, and on roots and insects in times of scarcity. These people were not sons of the soil. They came from some far-off region. Some think that their original home lay in the country to the southeast of the Caspian, while later theorists seek to trace their origin in Babylonia, as an offshoot of the Mongolian people to whom that land owed its early language and culture. From some such place the primitive Chinese made their way by slow stages to the east, probably crossing the head-waters of the Oxus and journeying along the southern slopes of the Tian-Shan Mountains. All this is conjecture, but we touch firmer soil when we trace them to the upper course of the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, whose stream they followed eastward until they reached the fertile plains of the district now known as Shan-se. Here the immigrants settled in small colonies, and put in practice those habits of settled labor which they seem to have brought with them from afar. Yet there is reason to believe that they had at one time been nomads, belonging to the herding rather than to the agricultural races of the earth. Many of the common words in their language are partly made up of the characters for sheep and cattle, and the Chinese house so resembles the Tartar tent in outline that it is said that the soldiers of Genghis Khan, on taking a city, at once pulled down the walls of the houses and left the roof supported by its wooden columns as an excellent substitute for a tent. However that be, the new-comers seem to have quickly become farmers, growing grain for food and flax for their garments. The culture of the silk-worm was early known, trade was developed, and fairs were held. There was intellectual culture also. They knew something of astronomy, and probably possessed the art of hieroglyphic writing,--which, if they came from Babylonia, they may well have brought with them.