612 MODES OF KEEPING TIME KNOWN AMONG THE CHINESE. 
The Chinese must have commenced clock-making at an early period, 
for no one now engaged in the trade can tell me when or where it origi- 
nated, nor can it be easily ascertained whether their imitative powers 
alone enabled them to engage in such a craft, or whether they are in- 
debted to the Jesuits for what skill they possess. It is certain that 
the disciples of Loyola had for a long time, and until quite recently in 
their corps at Peking, some who were machinists and watch-makers 
One of these horologists complains in Les Lettres Edifiantes that his. 
time was so much occupied with mending the watches of the grandees 
that he had never been able to study the language. Doubtless the 
fashion which Chinese gentlemen have of carrying a couple of watches, 
which they are anxious should always harmonize, gave the man con- 
stant employment. A retired statesman of this province has published 
a very good account of clocks and watches, accompanied with draw- 
ings representing their internal structure in a manner sufficiently in- 
telligible. The Chinese divide the whole day into twelve parts, which 
are not numbered, but each one is designated by a character, termed 
horary. These characters were originally employed in forming the 
nomenclature of the sexagenary cycle, which is still in common use. 
It was not until a much later period that the duodecimal division of 
the civil day came into use, when terms to express them were bor- 
rowed from the ancient calendar. The same characters are also ap- 
plied to the months. The first in the list, tsz’ son, is employed at the 
commencement of every cycle, and to the first of every period of twelve 
years, and also to the commencement of the civil day, at 11 P. M., com- 
prising the period between this and 1 A.M. The month which is des- 
ignated by this term is not the first of the Chinese year, and singu- 
larly enough coincides with January. Each of the twelve hours is 
divided into kih, answering to a quarter of an hour. This diurnal divi- 
sion of time does not appear to have been in use in the time of Confu- 
cius, aS mention is made in the spring and autumn annals of the ten 
hours of the day, which accords with the decimal divisions so long 
employed in clepsydras, the indices of which were uniformly divided 
into one hundred parts. A commentator in the third century of our 
era, explaining the passage relating to the ten hours, adds a couple of 
hours, but even at that time the present horary characters were not 
employed. 
