Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/196

routes from Burma to Yunnan on the south and from Syria to Kansuh on the north were blocked, Yunnan being in arms against the Ming dynasty, and the Mongols maintaining an almost perpetual attitude of menace or active hostility along the northern frontier. Thus Europeans, however enterprising, were not likely to think of any expedition to China through either Turkestan or Burma, and those that might have gone thither viâ the Persian Gulf were probably deterred by rumours of Chinese military and naval activity in the regions along that route.

A word must be interpolated here about tribute-bearing missions, which had visited China from very early times and which became notably frequent during the early sway of the Ming dynasty. The despatch of such embassies is not to be interpreted strictly as a token of vassalage. The custom of sweetening acquaintance by presents had been among the graces of Oriental intercourse from time immemorial, and even when the Pope and the King of France despatched envoys in the thirteenth century to Asian Khans, they conformed with the Eastern custom so far as to take care that their messengers did not go empty-handed. Chinese statesmen in after ages described the carrying of tribute as a mere interchange of neighbourly courtesies, and though the definition was inspired partly by a convenient desire to evade the responsibilities of suzerainty, its general truth must be accepted. There can