CHINESE CHRONOLOGY. 59 
the necessary materials. He traces his descent up to the 
time of the sovereign Chwan-hsii, a grandson of Hwang Ti, 
and claims that members of this line exercised functions 
connected with astronomy and historiography down into the 
dynasty of Chau. In the 8th century B.c., they assumed 
the surname of Sze-ma, and were, for a century and a half, 
one Head of the family after another, the Grand-Historiogra- 
phers at the Royal Court. The troubles of the kingdom 
drove them from the capital about B.c. 650, and individuals 
of them are traceable, now in one, and now in another of the 
feudal states, till in B.C. 320, or thereabouts, we find a Sze- 
ma Ch’o at the court of the ambitious and growing state of 
Ch’in, which was already meditating the overthrow of all 
the other states or kingdoms, and the establishment of an 
imperial sway. His descendants served in Ch'in till the fall 
of the short-lived dynasty which was set up by Shih Hwang 
Ti, the builder of the Great Wall, the burner of the books, 
and the fell opponent of the Confucian Literati. On the 
rise of the Han dynasty they followed its fortunes, and we 
come to Sze-ma Tan, the father of Ch’ien, in the position 
of Grand-Historiographer in the time of the emperor Wai. 
For thirty years, from B.c. 140 to 110, he filled that office. 
He was also versed in astronomy; an earnest student of the 
Yi-Ching; and endeavouring to survey impartially the 
various schools of thought which had arisen in past ages. 
The principles of Mo Ti which Mencius had vehemently 
assailed attracted him, and still more did those of Liao-tsze. 
He had conceived above all the purpose of writing the 
history of the nation from the earliest times, and made con- 
siderable progress with it. Death surprised him, however, 
with his work unfinished; but he had the presence of his 
son, Chien, with him, and soiemnly and pathetically com- 
mitted to him the completion of his undertaking. 
Cliien was then, it has been thought, about thirty years 
old. He had been born at Lung-miin in the present Shen- 
hsi, near which the great Yii had commenced his famous 
labours on the deluge more than 2,000 years before. At the 
age of ten he could repeat the most celebrated pieces of 
the ancient literature. At twenty he commenced a series of 
extensive travels through the Empire, and visited the spots 
hallowed by memories of the departed great, and especially 
of Confucius. Not long before his father died, he had re- 
turned to the capital, to report the results of a military 
expedition to the western parts in the present province of 
Sze-ch’wan. He was appointed to succeed his father as 
