are said to appear. This is on a stone
tablet alleged to have been erected on Mount Heng in the modern Hupeh
by the legendary Emperor Yue, as a record of his labours in draining
away the great flood which submerged part of China in the 23rd century
B.C. After more than one fruitless search, the actual monument is said
to have been discovered on a peak of the mountain in A.D. 1212, and a
transcription was made, which may be seen reproduced as a curiosity in
Legge's _Classics_, vol. iii. For several reasons, however, the whole
affair must be regarded as a gross imposture.

Out of the "official script" two other forms were soon developed,
namely the [Ch][Ch] _ts'ao shu_, or "grass character," which so
curtails the usual strokes as to be comparable to a species of
shorthand, requiring special study, and the [Ch][Ch] _hsing shu_ or
running hand, used in ordinary correspondence. Some form of grass
character is mentioned as in use as early as 200 B.C. or thereabouts,
though how nearly it approximated to the modern grass hand it is hard
to say; the running hand seems to have come several centuries later.
The final standardization of Chinese writing was due to the great
calligraphist Wang Hsi-chih of the 4th century, who gave currency to
the graceful style of character known as [Ch][Ch] _k'ai shu_,
sometimes referred to as the "clerkly hand." When block-printing was
invented some centuries later, the characters were cut on this model,
which still survives at the present day. It is no doubt owing to the
early introduction of printing that the script of China has remained
practically unchanged ever since. The manuscript rolls of the T'ang
and preceding dynasties, recently discovered by Dr Stein in Turkestan,
furnish direct evidence of this fact, showing as they do a style of
writing not only clear and legible but remarkably modern in
appearance.

The whole history of Chinese writing, then, is characterized by a slow
progressive development which precludes the idea of sharply-marked
divisions between one period and another. The Chinese themselves,
however, have canonized quite a series of alleged inventors, starting
from Fu Hsi, a mythical emperor of the third millennium B.C., who is
said to have developed a complete system of written characters from
the markings on the back of a dragon-horse; hence, by the way, the
origin of the dragon as an Imperial emblem.