ce.

After an unquiet reign of seventeen years Shun-chi died (1661). and
was succeeded by his son K'ang-hi. He came into collision with the
Russians, who had reached the Amur regions about 1640 and had built a
fort on the upper Amur; but by the Treaty of Nerchinsk, concluded in
1689 (the first treaty made between China and a European power), the
dispute was settled, the Amur being taken as the frontier. K'ang-hi
was indefatigable in administering the affairs of the empire, and he
devoted much of his time to literary and scientific studies under the
guidance of the Jesuits. The dictionary of the Chinese language,
published under his superintendence, proves him to have been as great
a scholar as his conquests over the Eleuths show him to have been
famous as a general. During one of his hunting expeditions to Mongolia
he caught a fatal cold, and he died in 1721. Under his rule Tibet was
added to the empire, which extended from the Siberian frontier to
Cochin-China, and from the China Sea to Turkestan. During his reign
there was a great earthquake at Peking, in which 400,000 people are
said to have perished.

K'ien-lung, who began to reign in 1735, was ambitious and warlike. He
marched an army into Hi, which he converted into a Chinese province,
and he afterwards added eastern Turkestan to the empire. Twice he
invaded Burma, and once he penetrated into Cochin-China, but in
neither country were his arms successful. He is accused of great
cruelty towards his subjects, which they repaid by rebelling against
him. During his reign the Mahommedan standard was first raised in
Kan-suh. (Since the Mongol conquest in the 13th century there had been
a considerable immigration of Moslems into western China; and numbers
of Chinese had become converts). But the Mussulmans were unable to
stand against the imperial troops; their armies were dispersed; ten
thousand of them were exiled; and an order was issued that every
Mahommedan in Kan-suh above the age of fifteen should be put to death
(1784).

K'ien-lung wrote incessantly, both poetry and prose, collected
libraries and republished works of value. His campaigns furnished him
with themes for his verses, and in the Summer Palace was found a
handsome manuscript copy of a laudatory poem he composed on the
occasion of his war against the Gurkhas. This was one of the most
successful of his military undertakings. His g