Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/166

Ganges valley to a place near Calcutta, where he took ship for Ceylon, Java, and finally Kiaochou—now a German naval base—in Shantung. Two centuries later, Hüanchwang, also a Buddhist pilgrim, made a similar journey, going and returning by land and spending no less than seventeen years en route. Other Buddhist devotees in the seventh and eighth centuries—sixty are recorded by name—made the tour to India, some by land and some by sea, and all in obedience to religious fervour which impelled them to study Buddhism at its source in India, just as Japanese priests in the same centuries crossed constantly to China, which they, in turn, regarded as the great fountain-head of the faith.

It has been stated above that in the seventh century Arab traders opened factories in Canton and other Chinese ports, and a record of their presence in Canton still exists in the form of a massive pagoda built in 751. Canton did not then give any promise of the greatness it subsequently attained. It was a small place, and the inhabitants of the region in which it stood were chiefly aborigines. The Arabs did not remain long without competitors. They found the field soon invaded by Persians, who, coming oversea, appear to have excelled the Arabs in tradal energy, and to have considerably extended the area of commercial operations with China. There can be no doubt that during the period (618-907) of the Tang dynasty's vigorous sway both Arabs