A LOST ART. 7! 



invention of the compass became a matter of international 

 dispute should be completely silent on the subject of the 

 magnet, if it were in common use. 



The fact that the tradition of the ambassadors persisted 

 in itself, does not render it any the less mythical. Besides, 

 like the older legend, it is encountered in bad company. 

 Azuni 1 quotes from the Chinese work, in which he finds 

 it, an equally grave narration concerning men "with 

 bodies of beasts and heads of bronze, who ate sand and in- 

 vented arrows and frightened the world." And the 

 "Mirror of Chinese History," whence I have transcribed 

 the verbatim recital here given, likewise solemnly records 

 the appearance of a yellow dragon and of a flame which 

 presently "changed into a red bird having a soothing 

 voice." 



The most ancient historical record of chariots indicating 

 the south is that found in the work of Han-fei-tsu, a Tao 

 philosopher who lived in the fourth century B. C. His 

 work is non-existent, but, as usual, is quoted in a com- 

 paratively modern Cyclopaedia, lu-hai, as follows: 



"The ancient sovereigns established indicators of the 

 south (See-nan) to distinguish the morning side from the 

 evening side." 2 



A later writer Liu-hiang (80-89 B - C.) ascribes the char- 

 iots to an 'earlier date, asserting that the Duke Hien of 

 Tsin, who lived between 822 and 8n B. C., attempted to 

 construct them and failed, and that the Duke Huan of Tsi, 

 a century and a half later, succeeded. 3 If the art was lost 

 and recovered at this early epoch, it is a curious fact that 



1 Dissertation sur la Boussole, cit. sup. I^egge (Chinese Classics, 

 Shoo-king, Vol. III., 535-7) rejects both the Hoang-ti and the ambassa- 

 dors' legends. 



2 Biot: Comptes Rendus, cit. sup. Klaproth, contra, says that the 

 earliest work containing a like reference dates only from the fourth 

 century A. D., and that merely fragments of it have come down. 



3 De Lacouperie, cit. sup. 



