The Chinese themselves declare that virtue is associated with mountains, wisdom with water, cynically implying that no one is both virtuous and wise.

Between the inhabitants of the various provinces there is little love lost.

Northerners fear and hate southerners, and the latter hold the former in infinite scorn and contempt.

Thus, when in 1860 the Franco-British force made for Peking, it was easy enough to secure the services of any number of Cantonese, who remained as faithful as though the attack had been directed against some third nationality.
The population of China has never been exactly ascertained.

It has been variously estimated by foreign travellers, Sacharoff, in 1842, placing the figure at over four hundred millions.