d to fix the months. After Royal Earth comes
Jin-Hwang-She,--"Sovereign Man,"--who divided the land, and was
forty-five thousand years about it.

Following the string of their traditions, we come down to two thousand
three hundred and fifty-six years before Christ, when was founded the
first dynasty,--that of Te-yaou,--according to their chronology, Hea
being Emperor, or Chief, as De Guignes rationally supposes. This is
about the time of the dispersion of the human family, and, I think, the
proper date for the birth of this nation. Let that be as it may, there
is a great similarity between their traditions and our sacred record.
Their first man was produced by superior power, and was placed over the
inferior animals.

In the reign of Te-yaou there was an account of a great flood. Shortly
after, wine was discovered, and its intoxicating effects found out in
the reign of Fohi, who answers the description of Noah. Then came a
prince noted for his fondness for hunting, who was contemporary with
Nimrod. And there was a seven years' drought, like that described in
Genesis, ch. xli.

Another singular coincidence in their chronology, which I may be allowed
to refer to before dismissing this part of the subject, is the fact set
down by one of their historians, that in the fifty-fifth year of the
forty-fifth cycle, the Emperor Ming-te, in about the tenth year of his
reign, sent messengers to look for "_the holy man of the West_." Now
this period corresponds with the commencement of the Christian era: and
allowing for discrepancies unavoidable in such a calculation, could it
not have been possible that a faint glimmering of the "Star of
Bethlehem" had crossed this monarch's vision, and that, but for their
dilatory footsteps, these ambassadors of the Chinese Emperor might have
knelt by the side of those other "wise men of the East," who were guided
by its beams to the cradle of the infant Saviour? Certain it is, that
Buddhism was introduced into China about that time, and that this ruler
felt the need of a holy man, as if by inspiration!

The Chinese appear rapidly to have progressed in the arts, and to have
been foremost in all those inventions, which in their application have
conduced so much to the amelioration and welfare of the human race.
Eleven hundred and eight years before we commence to count our era
(B. C. 1108,) the unerring magnet that points so steadily to the pole,
was discovered by this ingenious people; and who