Western China is no longer the terra incognita from which, until quite recently, rare travellers alone lifted the veil at long intervals, to be followed by relapses into absolute seclusion. Since the outbreak of the great Mahometan revolt in 1856, and the subsequent establishment of a Panthay Sultan in Ta-li-fu, up to the present day, public attention has been increasingly directed to this region, until now an extensive literature has grown up around it. Its latent resources and its actual trade not seldom form the theme of economists and newswriters, while the interest felt in the great Chinese race is now so general, that no apology is any longer needed for approaching what was once a recondite subject, and for presenting to the general reader fresh pictures of the varied regions that go to make up the Empire of China. If it cannot be said literally of a lady of fashion of our day, as was said in Juvenal's Rome,—

at least the spirit of enquiry is abroad, and the metropolis of the modern world is as anxious for news from beyond the pale of European civilisation as it is dependent upon these outlying regions for the daily supply of its material wants.