Iroquois prosperous settlements in the 19th century, supporting themselves via farming and the sale of sleds, snowshoes, boats, and baskets. In 1884, about 100 Canadian Iroquois were hired by the British government to serve as river pilots and boatmen for the relief expedition for the besieged General Charles Gordon in Khartoum in the Sudan, taking the force commanded by Field Marshal Wolsely up the Nile from Cairo to Khartoum. On their way back to Canada, the Canadian Iroquois river pilots and boatmen stopped in London, where they were personally thanked by Queen Victoria for their services to Queen and Country. In
Shina (word) Shina (word) The Sanskrit word ' ( ), meaning China, was transcribed into various forms including (), (), () and (). Thus, the term "Shina" was initially created as a transliteration of "Cina", and this term was in turn brought to Japan with the spread of Chinese Buddhism. Traditional etymology holds that the Sanskrit name, like Middle Persian "Čīn" and Latin "Sina", derives from the Qin state or dynasty (, Old Chinese: ') which ruled China in 221–206 BC, and so "Shina" is a return of "Qin" to Chinese in a different form. The Sanskrit term for China eventually spread