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REIGNS OF FUHHÍ AND HIS SUCCESSORS.

201 The long period allotted to human life at that date would allow these arts and improvements to take root, and their memory to remain in popular legends until subsequent historians incorporated them into their writings. This view of the credibility of Chinese chronology was strongly impressed upon the old Romish missionaries, and many of them were in favor of the chronology of the Septuagint from the congruity of the two, though every argument led them to adhere scrupulously to the Vulgate.

To Shinnung, i. e. Divine Husbandman, and Hwangtí, i. e. Yellow Emperor, are also ascribed many valuable inventions, but the Chinese themselves do not endeavor to uphold these particulars, referring their adoption to the age rather than to the monarchs. The first was the patron of agriculture, and discoverer of the medicinal properties of herbs; the second invented the cycle now in use; the calendar was formed in his reign, and characters were made for recording events. The Chinese annalists fill up the reigns of these chiefs, and their successors down to the time of Yau, with a series of inventions and improvements in the arts of life and good government, sufficient to bring society to that degree of comfort and order they suppose consonant with the character of the monarchs. The earliest records of the Chinese correspond rather too closely with their present character to receive full belief; but while they may be considered as unworthy of entire confidence, it will be allowed that they present an appearance of probability and naturalness hardly possessed by the early annals of Greece.

The establishment of the sexagenary cycle in the 61st year of Hwangtí's reign or B. c. 2637, 518 years after the deluge, 82 years after the death of Arphaxad, and about that time before the confusion of tongues, is a remarkable record; and although it would have been easy, as many suppose was done, to have antedated it at some subsequent period in order to impose upon themselves with the belief of antiquity, no arguments or facts are adduced to prove that such was the case. The uniform adherence to this peculiar mode of reckoning time certainly since the days of Confucius, and the high probability that it was generally adopted long before his time; the remembrance of the individual, Nau the Great, who invented it, and the odd date of its adoption in the middle of a reign, are all strong testimonies in favor of the date and antiquity ascribed to it.

VOL. II.

10*

Three reigns, averaging eighty years' duration, intervened between that of Hwangtí and the celebrated Yau, but no records have come down of the history of the rulers, except that they lived and died. They were all elected by the people, much as were Shamgar, Jephthah, and other judges in Israel, and probably exercised a similar sway. The reigns and characters of Yau and Shun have been immortalized by Confucius, and whatever was their real history, that sage showed his sagacity in going back to their remote times for his models, and fixing upon a period neither fabulous nor certain, one which prevented the cavils of scepticism and the appearance of complete fabrication. Whether they were fictitious personages or not, they are represented as following those principles of government which every man of sound judgment must approve; and their system of religious rites savors strongly of the simplicity of patriarchal times, when even in China the knowledge of the true God was not utterly lost.

A tremendous deluge occurred during the reign of Yau, B. c. 2293, caused, it is said, by the overflowing of the rivers in the north of China. Those who place the Noachic deluge B. C. 2348, regard this as only a different version of that event; the variation of 55 years being unimportant; M. Klaproth, who favors the Septuagint chronology, says it is nearly synchronous with the deluge of Xisuthrus, B. c. 2297. The record of this catastrophe in the Shu King is hardly applicable to an overwhelming flood: "Grandees," said the emperor, "we suffer much from the inundation; the waters cover the hills on every side, they overtop the mountains, and scem to be rising even to the skies. If any one can be found who is able to remedy this evil, I wish he may be employed."* They presented Kwan as a proper man, but he showed his inefficiency in laboring nine years without success to drain off the waters. Yau was then advised to employ Shun, who called in Yu, a son of Kwăn, to his aid, and the floods were assuaged by deepening the beds of the rivers and opening new channels. These slight notices hardly comport with a flood like the Noachic deluge, and are with much greater probability referred to an overflow of one of the great rivers, or to the change in the bed of the Yellow river from its former course into the Gulf of Pechele through Chihlí north-east, to its present

* Gaubil's Shu King, p. 8.

DATE OF THE DELUGE RECORDED OF YAU.

203

one along the lowlands of Kiangsu. The weight of topographical evidence, combined with the strong chronological argument, the discussions in council said to have taken place regarding the disaster, and the time which elapsed before the region was drained, all presuppose and indicate a partial inundation, and strengthen - the assumption that no traces of the Deluge exist in the histories of the Chinese. In our view of the chronology of the Bible as compared with the Chinese, it requires a far greater constraint upon these records to bring them to refer to that event, than to suppose they allude to a local disaster not beyond the power of remedy. These remarks of Yau may also have been put into their present shape by Confucius nearly seventeen centuries afterwards, and it may be supposed, without militating against their authenticity, that the extent of the flood has been described so as to do some honor to the distinguished men who remedied it.

The series of chieftains down to the accession of Yu may here be recapitulated. The fabulous period ends with Sui-jin, and ancient history commences with Fuhhí, who with four of his successors (Nos. 2, 3, 7, and 8), are commonly known as the Five Sovereigns. Their names and reigns are as follows:

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The records in the Shu King of Yau and Shun, and their successor Yu the Great, who began to reign B. c. 2205, are longer than those of any other persons who lived prior to Abraham. Those who follow Usher, regard Yu as being the leader of the first band of colonists from the west after the deluge, 139 years before,―much too short a time, however, for the collecting of a large colony when the intermediate countries were barely settled, and men were more inclined to join their efforts in building a tower. The chronicle represents the merits of Yu to have been first exhibited in reducing the waters, and dividing the country into nine regions, and as he had assisted Shun in his government

during his lifetime, he was unanimously called to the vacant dignity, and became the founder of the Hia dynasty. Allowing that the records of these times and people are brief and disjointed, and many things in them hard to reconcile, still they are superior to the legendary tales describing the formation of some other ancient states; and should not, in fairness, be ridiculed as trivial or rejected as fabulous. No one regards them as entirely trustworthy, but if Abraham found the Egyptians to be living under a regular government not 150 years after this, and Damascus, Nineveh, and other cities were then old, no one need be unwilling to give the Chinese a line of monarchs, and a population quite sufficient to have deepened the channel of a river, or raised dikes to restrain it. The glorious reigns and spotless characters of these three sovereigns are looked upon by the Chinese with much the same feelings of veneration that the Jews regard their three patriarchs; and to have had, or supposed to have, such progenitors and heroes is, to say the least, as much to their credit as the Achilles, Ulysses, and Romulus of the Greeks and Romans. A curious analogy can also be traced between the scheming Ulysses, warlike Romulus, and methodical Yau, and the subsequent character of the three great nations they represent.

Chinese historians supply many details regarding the conduct of Yu and Kieh Kwei, the first and last princes of the house of Hia, all the credible particulars of which are taken from the classics, particularly the Book of Records. One of the most remarkable records of the reign of Yu is an inscription traced on the rocks of Hăng shan, one of the mountains where annual sacrifices were made by the ancient emperors, and preserved in Sí-ngan fu in Shensí. This inscription relates to the inundation, and is thus given by Amyot, who regards it as genuine, although it cannot be allowed to possess the same authenticity in its copied form as the inscriptions at Karnac and Mosul, which are still, so to speak, in situ.

"The venerable emperor said, Oh! aid and councillor! Who will help me in administering my affairs? The great and little islets (the inhabited places) even to their summits, the abodes of the beasts and birds, and all beings are widely inundated. Advise, send back the waters, and raise the dikes. For a long time, I have quite forgotten my family; I repose on the top of the mountain Yohlu. By prudence and my labors, I have moved the spirits; I know not the hours, but repose myself only

REIGN OF YU, FOUNDER OF THE HIA DYNASTY.

205

in my incessant labors. The mountains Hwa, Yoh, Tai, and Hăng, have been the beginning and end of my enterprise; when my labors were completed, I offered a thanksgiving sacrifice at the solstice. My affliction has ceased; the confusion in nature has disappeared; the deep currents coming from the south flow into the sea; clothes can now be made, food can be prepared, all kingdoms will be at peace, and we can give ourselves to continual joy."*

Whatever may be the exact date of this legend, it is confessedly a very ancient one, perhaps the most ancient of any in the world, though the tombs of Beni-Hassan, and the obelisk at Heliopolis erected by Osirtasen, are nearly as old, and much more trustworthy in regard to their antiquity. Chinese historians do not discard it, nor the other facts recorded of the princes of Hia, for those times would then be blank, but they receive them with doubt. Every one has observed how tame and reasonable are the Chinese annals of these remote times compared with the high wrought poetical legends of similar periods in other ancient states; and Klaproth remarks, that "this defect of incident is a proof in favor of their authenticity, for the ancient historians of China had rather own the absence of historical monuments, than to suppose such imaginary annals as the Shah-nameh. It is a new evidence of the exact matter-of-fact spirit which characterizes the Chinese."

Without exaggerating the importance and credibility of the Shu King and other ancient Chinese records, they can be received as the writings of a very remote period; and while their claims to trustworthiness would be fortified if more intimations had been given of the manner in which they were kept during the long period antecedent to the era of Confucius, they still deserve a more respectful consideration than some modern writers are disposed to allow them. For instance, Davis remarks, "Yu is described as nine cubits in height, and it is stated that the skies rained gold in those days, which certainly (as Dr. Morrison observes) lessens the credit of the history of this period." Now, without laying too much stress upon the record, or the objections against it, this height is but little more than that of Og of Bashan; and if kin, here called gold, be translated metal (which it can just as well be), it may be a notice of a meteoric

* Pauthier's Chine, p. 53; J. Hager's Inscription of Yu, Paris, 1802.

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