, a new nation was to be born.

Chau Tsiang died in 251; and even then one could not clearly
foresee what should follow. In 253 he had performed the significant
sacrifice to Heaven, a prerogative of the King-Pontiff: but he
had not assumed the title. Resistance was still in being.
His son and successor reigned three days only; and _his_
son, another nonentity, five years without claiming to be
more than King of Ts'in. But when this man died in 246, he left
the destinies of the world in the hands of a boy of thirteen;
who very quickly showed the world in whose hands its destinies
lay. Not now a King of Ts'in; not a King-Pontiff of Chow;--not,
if you please, a mere _wang_ or king at all;--but Hwangti, like
that great figure of mythological times, the Yellow Emperor, who
had but to sit on his throne, and all the world was governed and
at peace. The child began by assuming that astounding title:
_Ts'in Shi Hwangti,_ the First August Emperor: peace to the
ages that were past; let them lie in their tomb; time now
should begin again!--Childish boyish swank and braggadocio, said
the world; but very soon the world found itself mistaken.
_Hwangti;_--but no sitting on his throne in meditation, no
letting the world be governed by Tao, for him!

If you have read that delightful book _Through Hidden Shensi,_ by
Mr. F. A. Nichols, the city of Hienfang, or Changan, or, by its
modern name, Singanfu or Sian-fu in Shensi, will be much more
than a name to you. Thither it was that the Dowager Empress fled
with her court from Pekin at the time of the Boxer Rebellion;
there, long ago, Han Wuti's banners flew; there Tang Taitsong
reigned in all his glory and might; there the Banished Angel sang
in the palace gardens of Tang Hsuantsong the luckless: history
has paid such tribute of splendor to few of the cities of the
world. At Hienfang now this barbarian boy and Attila-Napoleon
among kings built his capital;--built it right splendidly,
after such ideas of splendor as a young half-Hun might cherish.
For indeed, he had but little and remote Chinese heredity
in him; was of the race of Attila and Genghiz, of Mahmoud
of Ghazna, Tamerlane, and all the world-shaking Turkish conquerors.
--Well, but these people, though by nature and function destroyers,
have been great builders too: building hugely, monumentally,
and to inspire awe, and not with the faery grace and ephemeral
loveliness of the Chinese;--though they learned the trick
of