43 & C H ] 
furrounded with walls; yet, in tlie fucceeding age, the 
people dwelt in caves, or perched upon trees as it were 
m nefe Of the third hi we hear nothing; and in the 
fourth we are told that men were then only taught to re¬ 
tire into the hollows of rocks. Of the fifth and fixth 
we have no accounts. Thefe fix periods, according, to 
fome writers, contained 90,000 years: according to others, 
1,100,750. In the feventh and eighth hi, they tell us 
over again what they had faid of the firlt; namely, that 
men began to leave their caves and dwell in lioufes, and 
were taught to prepare clothes. Tchine-fang, the firft 
monarch of the eighth hi, taught his fubjedls to take off 
the hair from fkins with rollers of wood, and cover them- 
felves witli the fkins fo prepared. He taught them alfo 
to make a kind of web of their hair, to ferve as a cover¬ 
ing to their heads againft rain. They obeyed his orders 
with joy, and he called his fubje< 5 ls/>e«//r clothed with fkins. 
His reign lafted 350 years ; that of one of his fucceffors, 
alfo, named Yeou-tfao-chi, lafted more than 300; and 
his family continued for 12 or 18,000 years. But what 
is very furprifing, all thefe thoufands of years had elapfed 
without mankind having any knowledge of fire. This 
was not difcovered till towards the clofe of this period, 
by one Souigine. After fo ufeful a difcovery, he taught 
the people to drefs their victuals ; whereas before, they 
devoured the flefii of animals quite raw, drank their 
blood, and fwallowed even their hair and feathers. In 
the ninth period we find the invention, or at leaft the 
origin, of letters, attributed to Tfang-hie, who received 
them from a divine tortoife that carried them on his fhell, 
and delivered them into the hands of Tfang-hie. During 
this period alfo, mufic, money, carriages, merchandize, 
commerce, &c. were introduced. There are various cal¬ 
culations of the length of thefe hi or periods. Some make 
the time from Puan-ku to Confucius, who flourilhed 
about +79 years before Chrift, to contain 279,000 years; 
others,2,276,000 ;fome,2,759,86oyears 5 others, 3,276,000; 
and fome no lefs than 96,961,74.0 years. Thefe extrava¬ 
gant accounts are thought by fome to contain obfeure and 
imperfect hints concerning the cofmogony and creation 
of the world. Puon-ku, the firft; emperor, they think, 
reprefents eternity preceding the duration of the world. 
Theffucceeding ones, Tiene-hoang, Ti-hoang, and Gine- 
hoang, they imagine fignify the creation of the heavens 
and earth, and the formation of man. The ten hi, or 
ages, nine of which preceded Fo-lii, mean the ten gene¬ 
rations preceding.Noah. This may very polfibly be the 
cafe; for about 300 years before Chrift, fome Jews tra¬ 
velled into China, who might have made the Mofaic 
writings known there. 
What we have now related, contains the fubftance of 
that part of the Chinefe hiftory which is entirely fabulous. 
After the nine hi, or ages above-mentioned, the tenth 
commenced with Fo-lii; and the hiftory, though ftill ob¬ 
feure and fabulous, begins to grow fomewhat more con¬ 
fident and intelligible. Fo-hi was born in the province 
of Shen-li. His mother, walking upon the bank of a 
lake in that province, law a very large print of a man’s 
foot in the fand 5 and, being furrounded by an iris or 
rainbow, became impregnated. The child was named 
Fo-hi-, and, when he grew up, was by his countrymen 
eledled king, on account of his fuperior merit, and ltyled 
Tyent-tfe, “ the fon of hqaven.” He invented the eight 
qua, or fymbols, confiding of three lines each, which, 
differently combined, formed fixty-four characters that 
• were made ufe of to exprefs every thing. To give thefe 
the greater credit, he pretended that he had feen 
them inferibed on the back of a dragon-horfe (an animal 
fhaped like a liorfe, with the wings and feales of a dra¬ 
gon), which arofe from the bottom of a lake. Having 
gained great reputation among his countrymen by this 
prodigy, he is faid to have created mandarins or officers, 
under the name of dragons. Hence we may affign a rea- 
fon why the emperors of China have always borne a dra- 
[ N A. 
gon in their banners. Having eftablilhed a prime minif- 
ter, he divided the government of his dominions among 
four mandarins, and died after a reign-( 5 f 115 years. Af¬ 
ter Fo-hi, followed a fucceffion of emperors, of whom no¬ 
thing remarkable is recorded, except that in the reign of 
Yay, the feventh after Fo-hi, the fun did not fet for ten 
days, fo that the Chinefe were afraid of a general confla¬ 
gration. This event the compilers of the Univerfal Hif¬ 
tory take to be the fame with that mentioned in the book 
of Joffiua, when the fun and moon flood ftill for about 
the fpace of a day. Fo-hi they will have to be the fame 
with Noah. They imagine, that after the deluge,' this 
patriarch continued fome time a,t the head of his defen¬ 
dants ; but on their combination to build the tower of 
Babel, he feparated himfelf from them,’with as many as 
he could perfuade to go along with him ; and that, ftill 
travelling.eaftward, he at length entered the fertile coun¬ 
try of China, and laid the foundation of that vaft em2 
pire. In refutation of this fabled detail of the origin of 
the Chinefe empire, the late learned and accompliflied 
writer, Sir William Jones, appears to have taken infinite 
pains, by inveftigating the earlieft records of the Afiatic 
languages and literature. He allows the Chinefe empire 
to be very ancient, w'hen compared with the oldeft Eu¬ 
ropean ftate, yet he is decidedlyof opinion, that it was 
not founded at an earlier period than the rath century 
before the Chriftian era; and that the people, fo far from 
being Aborigines, are a mixed race of Tartars and Hin¬ 
doos. He begins hisinveftigations withalking, “Whence 
came the Angular people, who long had governed China, 
before they were conquered by the Tartars ? On this pro¬ 
blem, fays he, four opinions have been advanced, and all 
rather peremptorily afferted, than fupported by argument 
and evidence. By a few writers, it has been urged, that 
the Chinefe are an original race, who have dwelt for ages, 
if not from eternity, in the land which they now pollefs. 
By others, and chiefly by the miffionaries, it is infilled 
that they fprung from the fame ftock with the Hebrews 
and the Arabs. A third affertion is that of the Arabs 
themfelves, and of M. Pauw, who hold it indubitable, 
that they were originally Tartars, defeending in wild 
clans from the fteeps of Imaus: and a fourth, that of the 
Brahmans, who decide, that the Chinas (for fo they are 
named in Sanfcrit) were Hindoos of the military call, 
who, abandoning the privileges of their tribe, rambled 
in different bodies to the north-eaft of Bengal; and, for¬ 
getting by degrees the rites and the religion of their an- 
ceftors, eltabliflied feparate principalities, which were af¬ 
terwards united in the plains and valleys which are now 
poffeffed by them. Of thefe opinions, Sir William havino- 
refuted the firlt three, proceeds to eftabliffi the fourth^ 
which he confiders interefting as well as new in Europe. 
Iji the Sanfcrit inftitutes of civil and religious duties, re¬ 
vealed, as the Hindoos believe, by Menu the fon of 
Brahma, we find, lays he, the following curious paffage : 
‘Many families of the military clals, having gradually- 
abandoned the ordinances of the Veda, and the company 
of Brahmans, lived in a ftate of degradation ; as the peo¬ 
ple of Pundraca and Odra, thole of Draviraand Camboja, 
the Yavanas and Sacas, the Paradas and Pahlavas, the 
Chinas, and fome other nations.’ This record would in 
a great meafure decide the queition, could we be fure that 
the word China fignifies a Chinefe. Of this faft Sir William 
Jones took the very bell methods to be latisfied. He con- 
fulted a number of Pandits feparately, who all affured 
him that the word China has no other fignification in Sanf¬ 
crit ; that the Chinas of Menu fettled in a fine country to 
the north-eaft of Gaur, and to the eaft of Camarup and 
Napal; that they had long been, and ftill are, famed as 
ingenious artificers; and that they had themlelves feen 
old Chinefe idols, which bore a manifeft relation to the 
primitive religion of India. He then laid before one of 
the bell informed pandits a map of Alia ; and, when his 
own country was pointed out to him, the pandit imme¬ 
diately 
