Mr. Davis's Memoir concemtn<r the Chinese. 



'O 



is certainly extraordinary. I am inclined to think that the present rule for 

 commencing the Chinese year, near the middle of Aquarius, has a reference 

 to the position of the Winter Solstitial Colure at a remote period, though it 

 would not be so far back as the reputed age of Chuen-Mo, but short of it by 

 about six hundred years. From the circumstance of the Winter Solstice 

 being at present observed as a festival, there is a possibiUty that it was at 

 first the period of their year's commencement ; though I mention this 

 merely as a conjecture. 



The only direct and positive testimony that we seem to possess, out of 

 China, relating to the first origin of the Chinese nation, exists in the 

 Institutes of Menu : and I cannot help thinking that the observations of 

 Sir W. Jones on the passage in question are deserving of great attention. 

 It is there written, that " many families of the militai-y class, having 

 gradually abandoned the ordinances of the Veda, and the company of 

 Biahmens, lived in a state of degradation, as the Chinas and some other 

 nations." The great antiquity of the laws of Menu is in favour of the 

 authenticity of the above testimony ; for at the period at which Sir W. Jones 

 supposes them to have been written (above one thousand years B.C.), there 

 can be no doubt whatever but the Chinese nation was yet in its infancy, 

 and that it could lay no claim to the character of an extensive, united, and 

 powerful empire, until many centuries after tliat date : as I shall attempt to 

 shew. I content myself with noticing in tliis place the statement of one of 

 their own histories,* that twelve hundred years before Christ, "the Chinese 

 nation was small and feeble, the eastern foreigners (that is, the aborigines, 

 perhaps Tartars, between them and the east coast) numerous and strong," 

 and that the former " gradually obtained a residence in the middle of the 

 country," namely, in Honan. It is universally admitted among themselves, 

 that the seat of government was at first in Shen-si, the north-west part of 

 the present empire, where the colonists, mentioned by the Indian Lawgiver, 

 are supposed to have settled, and that they subsequently carried on wars 

 against a state called Yen, in Pe-che-li, and another named Tsi, in Shan-tung, 

 until they succeeded in fixing themselves in Honan. 



The opinion, hazarded by M. de Guignes, that the Chinese were a colony 

 from Egypt, seems hardly capable of being supported by sufficient proof. 

 Such a distant and extensive emigration could not have taken place without 



* See Morrison's Chinese Chronology, p. 52. 

 h '2 



