NEW GUINEA Neuendettelsau, Rhenish THE NEAR EAST THE JEWS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V. THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA, JAPAN AND ELSEWHERE CHINA. [Sidenote: The Land.] China is the most ancient of the great empires of the world. It comprises more than four million square miles and is divided into eighteen provinces. Among the various annexed countries are Tartary, Mongolia and Manchuria. There is a wide variety of scenery and climate, there are mountains of great elevation and there is an enormous and fertile river plain, which lies on the lower courses of the Huang Ho and Yang-tse-Kiang Rivers and which supports a larger population than any other region of the globe of equal size. A Danish Lutheran missionary describes thus the features of the Chinese landscape: “The soil of the valley is clothed with light green or yellow rice-fields, through which the water course winds like a glittering silver ribbon; along the stream, or on either side of the valley, wave the delicate leafy crowns of the bamboo reeds, bowing to the slightest breeze. If we look up to the mountain-sides on either hand, these are covered below with mulberry groves, cotton plantations, and trim tea-grounds, which are often disposed in artificial terraces, which sometimes also bear corn. Higher up, as far as the mountain will consent to be ‘clothed’, grow woods, among whose foliage the light leaves of the camphor-tree, the reddish leaves of the tallow-tree, and the dark green leaves of the arbor vitae occupy a conspicuous place; but there are also found cedars and cypresses. Where the wood sinks into shrubbery, it frequently consists of azaleas and similar plants, which we grow in green-houses or in windows fronting the south, and which in the flowering time afford a spectacle of dazzling beauty. There are also found groves of roses or jessamines. On the whole, there are many very beautiful landscapes in China. Nor are there wanting wild mountain regions of an Alpine character. Deserts there are none; but, on the other hand, there are dreary and melancholy marshes, and the coasts are often flat and tiresome. “While plant life is thus richly developed in China, the opposite is true of animal life. There is certainly no region on earth where it plays so slight a part and is so scantily represented as here. The greedy and reckless children of men have consumed or expelled the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air.” [Illustration: LUTHERAN CHURCH IN BORNEO.] [Illustration: LUTHERAN CHURCH IN JAVA.]