but denote as well all the time covered by the twelfth part of a day which each of them connotes. In this way the term "noon," which would seem as definite as any, is employed of the entire period from eleven to one o'clock. "What time is it," a Chinese inquired in our hearing, "when it is noon by the moon?" Phrased in less ambiguous language, the question which he intended to propound was this: "What is the time of night when the moon is at the meridian?"
Similar uncertainties pervade almost all the notes of time which occur in the language of everyday life. "Sunrise" and "sunset" are as exact as anything in Chinese can be expected to be, though used with much latitude (and much longitude as well), but "midnight," like "noon," means nothing in particular, and the ordinary division of the night by "watches" is equally vague, with the exception of the last one, which is often associated with the appearance of daylight. Even in the cities the "watches" are of more or less uncertain duration. Of the portable time-pieces which we designate by this name, the Chinese as a people know nothing, and few of those who really own watches govern their movements by them, even if they have the watches cleaned once every few years and ordinarily keep them running, which is not often the case. The common people are quite content to tell their time by the altitude of the sun, which is variously described as one, two, or more "flagstaffs," or if the day is cloudy a general result can be arrived at by observing the contraction and dilatation of the pupil of a cat's eye, and such a result is quite accurate enough for all ordinary purposes.
The Chinese use of time corresponds to the exactness of their measures of its flight. According to the distinction described by Sydney Smith, the world is divided into two classes of persons, the antediluvians and the post-diluvians. Among the latter the discovery has been made that the age of man no longer runs into the centuries which verge on a
