The average Celestial in his own land feels no pride or interest in the glory of his country. In its government he has no voice. Of its history, its achievements in the past, he is ignorant. He is content with it because it is the only one he knows and so must be the best. Of other lands beyond its confines he has dimly heard. But their inhabitants are mere barbarians. Those of them who have intruded themselves into his country are uncivilised according to his standard. They worship false gods; their manners are laughable. All they do is at variance with his customs, and so must be wrong. They cannot read his books and know nothing of the maxims of Confucius. So they must be illiterate as well as irreligious. Yet these strange beings are content with themselves, and scorn his ways! This proves their ignorance and their conceit. How can they boast, he asks, of the superiority of their own countries when they cannot stay there and, in face of contempt and hostility, seek to force their way into his? And as their coming means interference with customs hallowed by age and the uprooting of his dearest prejudices, he resents it. They strive to introduce innovations which he can very well do without. What sufficed for his father and his father’s father is good enough for him. The barbarians come only to disturb. They wish to defile the graves of his worshipped ancestors by constructing railways over the soil in which their bones rest. The shrieks of the chained devils in their engines disturb the _Feng Shui_, the tutelary deities of his fields, and hence follow drought and famine. And that these accursed, unneeded iron highways may be constructed, he is forced to sell the land which has been in the possession of his family for generations. The price for it passes through the hands of the mandarins and officials, and so but little reaches him. Has he not heard that to secure the safety of their bridges little children are kidnapped and buried under their foundations? Out upon the accursed intruders! China has flourished through countless ages without their aid, and wants them not.