Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/37

To the above brief allusions to the principal events of Chinese history, a regular list of Chinese emperors will be added in the Appendix, with some of the remarkable occurrences of each successive dynasty. This list is made up from the Kang-këen-e-che, a Chinese historical work, and is calculated according to the cycle of sixty years, compared with the eras of the western world, that both the Chinese scholar and the European reader may be alike assisted in referring to it. Some explanation of the cycle will be required, for those who wish to consult the list. This mode of reckoning has been adopted by the Chinese from the commencement of their monarchy. They ascribe its invention to Hwang-te, who lived in the traditionary period, before the flood of Yaou. The latter is said to have commenced his reign in the forty-first year of the fifth cycle, while the cycle itself is said to have begun with the sixty-first year of the reign of Hwang-te. During the period anterior to Yaou, however, the events of history, in Chinese books, are not marked by the years of the cycle, while subsequent to Yaou's accession, every important occurrence is carefully noted down by the appropriate horary character, so that a student can easily ascertain the date of any given event, by a reference to this mode of calculation. The inference, therefore, is, that the cycle was not known before Yaou, if so early; and that the assumption of the forty-first year of the fifth cycle, for the accession of that monarch is merely arbitrary, for the sake of fixing the date of subsequent, rather than of preceding events. The sixty years of the cycle are made out by joining ten horary characters, called the "ten celestial stems," with twelve others, called the "twelve terrestrial branches." These united together,