wrote and Ch'u Yuan sung, was
surprised with the far churr of startling wings under the stars.
Ears intent to listen were surprised; but only for a moment;--
there was that angry howling again from the northern hills and
the southern forests: the two great Tigers of the world face to
face, tails lashing;--and between them and in their path, Chow
quite prone,--the helpless Black-haired People trembling or
chattering frivolously. Not for such an age as that Chwangtse
and Ch'u Yuan wrote, but indeed you may say for all time. What
light from the Blue Pearl could then shine forth and be seen,
would, in the thick fog and smoke-gloom, take on wild fantastic
guise; which, as we shall see, it did:--but what Chwangtse had
written remained, pure immortality, to kindle up better ages to
come. When China should be ready, Chwangtse and the Pearl would
be found waiting for her. The manvantara had not yet dawned;
but we may hurry on now to its dawning.

The Crest-Wave was still in India when China plunged into the
abyss from which her old order of ages never emerged. Soon after
Asoka came to the throne of Magadha, in 284 B.C., Su Tai, wise
prime minister to the Lord of Chao, took occasion to speak--
seriously to his royal master as to the latter's perennial little
wars with Yen.* "This morning as I crossed the river," said
he, "I saw a mussel open its shell to the sun. Straight an
oyster-catcher thrust in his bill to eat the mussel; which
promptly snapped the shell to and held the bird fast.--'If it
doesn't rain today or tomorrow,' said the oyster-catcher, 'there'll
be a dead mussel here.'--'And if you don't get out of this by
today or tomorrow,' said the mussel, 'there'll be a dead
oyster-catcher.' Meanwhile up came a fisherman and carried
them both off. I fear Ts'in will be our fisherman."

------
* The tale is taken from Dr. H.A. Gile's _Chinese Literature._
------

Which duly came to pass. Even in Liehtse's time Ts'in characteristics
were well understood: he tells a sly story of a neighboring
state much infested by robbers. The king was proud of a great
detective who kept them down; but they soon killed the Pinkerton,
and got to work again. Then he reformed himself,--and the
robbers found his kingdom no place for them. In a body they
crossed the Hoangho into Ts'in;--and bequeathed to its policy
their tendencies and aptitudes.

Ts'in had come to be the strongest state in China. Next neighbor
to the Huns, and