sea.

the fault of his father offered his services; which being accepted he, after thirteen years of hard labour, succeeded, by cutting dykes, levelling mountains, &c. &c. to convey the waters to the After enumerating many acts of virtue and piety, such as the forming of laws &c., the missionary informs us that Yau joined a person of the name of Shun in the government, who reigned jointly with him for 28 years; when the government devolved solely to Shun. Now, supposing, according to Couplet, if the deluge happened in the 40th year of a cycle, and the reign of Yau in the 41st, that by the latter is intended the 40th year of a subsequent cycle, then it must have been just 59 years after the commencement of the reign of Yau. The flood remained one year; and supposing Quen to have been appointed the year after, the lands could not have been drained until ten years after the reign of Yau had concluded; for we hear nothing of his colleague Shun having assisted in this business and 59+2+9+13=83; which is just 11 years after Yau entrusted the government to Shun. In like manner, we may correct every part of the chronology of this missionary, whose error appears to have arisen in a very general mistake, that of understanding the Chou, as the reign. But Couplet admits that the reign of Yau commenced A. M. 1651, which only differs

in six years from the Hebrew Bible; and admitting it to have been even somewhat more, it is surely inconsistent in those who mention the impossibility of fixing dates in the early periods of the postdiluvian world, “without supplying the word about, or nearly, before every date, since accuracy cannot be attained and ought not to be required*," to pronounce so trifling a difference as six years, fatal to the Chinese chronology: particularly when we consider these six years as a part of sixteen hundred, which elapsed more than four thousand years past. Such, however, is the fact: for the same author proceeds to inform us, that, after full inquiry and consideration he was convinced that "the Chinese, like the Hindus, believed this earth to have been wholly covered with water; which, in works of undoubted authority, they describe as flowing abundantly, then subsiding, and separating the higher from the lower age of mankind.+" The knowledge of the Chinese relative to the deluge is thereby admitted. But, lest it should be understood according to its true and obvious meaning, he goes on to explain, that the deluge, which "caused the division of time, just preceded the appearance of Fo-hi on the mountains of Chin. For the great

Sir William Jones, Vol. IV. p. 43. and the beginning of Letter II. of this Work.

Sir William Jones, Vol. III. p. 153.

inundation in the time of Yau was either confined to the low lands of his kingdom, if the whole account of it be not a fable, or if it contain any allusion to the flood of Noah, has been ignorantly misplaced by the Chinese annalists." If the Chinese annalists, who place the deluge of Yau in the same year that the Hebrews place the flood of Noah, are accounted ignorant, from an error of six years, in placing the reign of Yau in that year, when his rule is supposed to have began, qualifying the error by observing that his reign commenced the year after the great inundation; what may we not account those, who place the commencement of the reign of Fo-hi at the year B. C. 2952 or A. M. 1054, who assign 115 years for his reign, and place his death just 487 years before the flood, or in the year B. C, 2837, and then insist that the deluge, which caused the division between the old and new world, just preceded the appearance of Fo-hi on the mountains of Chin? if the Chinese annalists err in six years, European annalists err in six hundred the Chinese might fairly retort, and say, that if the account, so given of the flood of Noah, was not altogether a fable, or had any allusion to the flood of Yau, it had been ignorantly misplaced by European annalists. Among the various writers on Chinese Chronology, not one presumes even on a partial inundation, so far back

as A. M. 1054. But the followers of the postdiluvian system, finding it impossible to bring Fo-hi forward to the deluge, carry the deluge back to Fo-hi; pronounce him the person saved in the ark, the eighth person; and place his reign just two years before Noah was born; in direct opposition to the Chinese, who pronounce all those who pretend that any human being existed before Fohi, allegorists. That their astronomical observations might appear as incorrect as their historical ones, finding that a Chinese author places the conjunction of the five planets in the reign of their fifth emperor, we are told that it was in the reign. of the fifth emperor; making a difference of more than 500 years, and placing a remarkable event, which occurred during the reign of Tis-yang, the fifth emperor of China, in the reign of Chwen-hyo, the fifth emperor of the world. This conjunction is likewise mentioned by P. Cassiano.

Navaret is of opinion, that the reign of the first postdiluvian ruler was long subsequent to the year of the world 1054; very properly distinguishing between the birth and the reign of Noah. He likewise places the first kings of China about 131 years after the deluge. The Chinese annalists, in general, place the commencement of the reign of Yu, the first emperor of China, 143 years after the flood of Yau; and it is probable, from the

dispersion which took place at Babylon, even supposing it an hundred and thirty years after the flood, that 12 or 13 years should have elapsed, before the government of China was established.

That neither Noah, nor that son of his, from whom the Chinese descended ever reached that country appears certain. The great age of the patriarch, and the great distance of China from the mountain, where the ark is supposed to have rested, made it impossible for the former; and the Chinese, who appear to have a correct account, from the deluge, of all material events, affirm that their first emperor was of the third generation from Yau; which could not have been so, had an immediate son of Noah migrated to that country. As it is admitted that the Chinese have a perfect knowledge of the deluge, that Fo-hi was the first ruler of the world, and Yau the eighth, and as all the missionaries agree, that the commencement of the reign of the latter was not earlier than A. M. 1650, it follows that the six princes who ruled between Fo-hi and Yau were antediluvian. Of the race, from which they descended, we cannot speak with certainty. For, although the accession of Yau being placed in the year that Lamech died is strong presumptive evidence; yet as the number of years which each of the six princes reigned is not given by any Chinese author, we