William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[212] Kong after death. An Irish settler has to brave the roughest sea and scale the highest mountain-road on earth, while a Mongolian from Fokien or Kiang-Su is borne from port to port, along a summer zone, in waters smoother than those of the Ladies' Sea. What other proofs are needed that, when Cork and Canton cast out any of their surplus tenants, the starving overflow from Canton must arrive at San Francisco in advance of that from Cork? If China has a mouth unfed, that mouth is likely, if American ports are open, to seek for food within the Golden Gate.

2. China, California's nearest neighbour, is the poorest and most crowded country in the world. Fokien, Che-kiang, and Kiang-su, are more like beehives and ant-hills than ordinary dwelling-places of human beings. The swarm is altogether out of proportion to the width of Chinese territory and even the fertility of Chinese soil. In mere extent of surface, China is a country of the second rank; a trifle bigger than Mexico, a trifle less than Brazil. She is not half so vast as Canada or the United States. But in the number of her population she exceeds all countries under heaven. That population is incredible. If the inhabitants of Mexico and Brazil, Canada and