The original seat of the nation appears to have been in the north-west of China, in the provinces of Chensi and Chansi. Under the two first dynasties the principal town was still a movable camp, the villages were thinly scattered; more land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts; Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert; and the southern provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and extent.