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with Ceylon, India, Indo-China, and the other Indian colonies, while the northern sent and received commodities viâ Parthia. As yet no restriction whatever was imposed, nor were any duties levied.

In the last quarter of the fifth century the Turks presented themselves on China's northern frontiers as buyers of silk and wadding in exchange for iron articles of their own manufacture, and tea being now added to China exports, her trade acquired new importance. It presented no novel features, however, until the seventh century, when Arab traders, pushing out the Indian colonies in Java, the Malay Peninsula, and Indo-China, opened factories in various places between Persia and the Far East as well as in Canton and other Chinese ports. Thus is presented the first instance of foreigners settling in China for commercial purposes. And now, too, for the first time (middle of seventh century) the records show that duties in the form of tithes were levied in kind upon imports of spices, camphor, and precious woods, an official being stationed at Canton as overseer of foreign trade. The Nestorian Christians of Syria appear also upon the scene about the same time, and were permitted to travel freely throughout China, a fact attested by a tablet—the celebrated Nestorian Stone—found at Hsian. The inscription upon this tablet (dated 781 a. d.) is in Chinese and Syriac characters. It alludes gratefully to the liberal atti-