they reckon the hours of light and darkness as but six each.1

Among the wonderful inventions which there is every reason to believe originated in China is that of the mariner's compass, which, according to an old tradition, was invented by the same Hwang-ti to guide him through the forests when hunting. This story may be, and most probably is, an utter fiction, but it forms a reasonable ground for supposing that the powers of the magnet were originally discovered by the Chinese ages before the Christian era. It appears, however, from modern research, that although the attractive power of the loadstone has been known to the Chinese from remote antiquity, its property of communicating polarity to iron is for the first time explicitly noticed in a Chinese dictionary which was finished in the first quarter of the second century of the Christian era. The Arabs borrowed the invaluable invention from the Chinese, with whom they then traded, and Europeans borrowed it from the Arabs during the early Crusades; for it is now universally admitted that Gioja of Amalfi, or whoever brought it into notice in the West, was only the introducer, and not the inventor, of the magnetic needle. Gilbert, in his work on the Magnet, asserts directly that Marco Polo brought the knowledge of it to Europe about A. D. 1260. But it was probably used before his time, at least east of the Red Sea; and he does not seem to make mention of it in his own book.

The last two emperors of the line of Fuhi are celebrated, under the names of Yau and Shun, as the wisest

1 HERODOTUS says (lib. ii., ? 109) that the Greeks obtained the division of the day into twelve parts from the Babylonians.

and best of princes, and have always been held up as bright examples to all Chinese sovereigns. They are reckoned among the sages of China, and to them are attributed most of the political institutions by which the country is even now governed. About this time it is mentioned that the lands were flooded. It was then that Yau the Great, one of the ministers of Shun, distinguished himself by draining the lands, which by his means were again rendered fit for cultivation; and for this eminent service, added to his wisdom and numerous good qualities, he was appointed by the emperor to succeed him on the throne, according to the laws of China, by which the reigning sovereign chooses his successor. Yau, to promote Shun, set aside his own son. Even at the present day the choice of the emperor regulates the succession to the throne, and it is seldom that the eldest son succeeds in preference to the rest. By this time the empire was extended over all the northern provinces as far as the Yang-tsz-kiang river, not by conquest, but by the establishment of new colonies as the population increased. The monarchs from time to time bestowed the government of these new settlements on their relatives, so that there arose by degrees a number of petty kingdoms, each having its own sovereign, who was dependent on the emperor. Of the southern part of the country very little was then known, but it is supposed it had but few inhabitants, and that these were in a state of barbarism.

As time rolled on the country became more populous and the people more civilized than in earlier days. The emperors, who succeeded each other without interruption, employed sages to record the principal events that occurred during their several reigns; but in these early

annals much fable is blended with the truth, just as in the early traditions of the classic nations of Europe; and yet there is much less that is extravagant and much more that is designed to convey sound lessons of morality in those of the Chinese. It is supposed that the earliest authentic history relating to the Chinese empire is contained in the compilations of Confucius, who was born in China about five hundred and fifty years before the Christian era, and who was one of the most illustrious characters that ever appeared in that country. He was nearly contemporary with Herodotus, the father of Grecian history, and Pope has given to him a very lofty niche in his Temple of Fame:

"Superior and alone Confucius stood,

Who taught that useful science-to be good."

The monarchy had probably then made great progress in civilization. The people lived under a regular form of government, were skilled in agriculture and were acquainted with many useful and elegant arts. The northern part of the country was still divided into the several small principalities which had been granted by the emperors at different times to their sons and brothers, who constituted the only hereditary nobility of the State, and were all tributary to the chief sovereign. Each of these petty states contained a city, where the prince resided, and all around it were numerous villages and detached dwellings inhabited by the peasantry, who held small farms, which they cultivated for their own advantage, growing rice and vegetables in abundance, so that every poor man could support his family by his own industry. They were not held in bondage by the great, like the

and amongst

peasantry of Europe during the feudal ages; other privileges which they enjoyed were these: a ninth part of the land was in common amongst them for pasturage and farming, and all the poor were at liberty to fish in the ponds and lakes-a right which was denied to the lower orders in feudal countries, where the mass of the people were vassals and slaves. The peasants of China, therefore, appear to have been at that period in a better condition than those of any other part of the world, working for themselves and paying taxes to their respective princes, who by that means raised the tribute which the emperor claimed of them.

At the time of Confucius all taxes and tribute were paid as they are at present, chiefly in kind-usually, as Mencius, who lived in the next generation, says, to the amount of about one-tenth of the produce of the earth. It is, however, supposed there was always some sort of coined money current among the Chinese, and that at a very early period of the monarchy they had coins of gold and silver as well as of lead, iron and copper; but but many ages have elapsed since any other than copper money has been in use among them. Silver is also used as a medium of exchange, beaten out into small bars or pieces, and upon these responsible traders generally put their stamp in a small character, so that they become in time particularly ragged and broken. Yet even in these bits adroit rogues make holes which they fill with lead. In buying and selling men scrutinize them carefully and weigh them, being always provided with a small pair of scales for that purpose. They reckon their accounts by means of an instrument called in the Canton dialect, the sün-pún, which resembles the Roman abacus.

It consists of a frame across which are fastened thin rods of bamboo, like the notation tables used in the primary schools of America. But instead of ten balls, as with us, the Chinese use seven. A cross-bar divides the frame, so that the rods have on one side five balls each, on the other side two each. The two balls on each rod count, however, five apiece. This makes the process of counting more rapid and certain. Commencing at any convenient rod or row, it counts as units, the second as tens, the third as hundreds, the fourth as thousands, and so on. To count five, either the five balls on the lower side of the units row are pushed up or to the middle with the finger, or one of the two balls on the other side of it. Ten is made by the two five balls, or by one of them and five of the other balls. And thus we go on in each row successively for tens, hundreds or thousands. For any number between five and ten a five ball is pushed to the middle and the remainder in single balls from the other end of the same row. An expert accountant pushes the balls with his fingers as rapidly in adding or subtracting as a player strikes the keys upon a piano. It is rarely a mistake is made, and when done it is never to the disadvantage of the accountant. The invention of the sün-pún is attributed to the emperor Hwang-ti, the same who is said to have found his way through the forests by means of the compass. Their arithmetic, as well as their weights and measures, proceeds universally on the decimal scale; and decimal fractions are their vulgar fractions, or those in common use. It is remarkable that the single exception to this consists in their kin or marketing pound-weight, which, like ours, is divided into sixteen ounces or parts. This