wisdom and intelligence of the Chinese, and the trustworthiness of their history. Down to the end of last century European acquaintance with the country went on increasing, aided by the translations made of the classical books in French and Latin, and the numerous descriptive works and essays published to illustrate the ancient and modern condition of the people whom we have fallen into the habit of calling, with a tone of pleasant sarcasm, the "Celestials." Many of the men who held up China to the world's admiration lie buried in the two chief Catholic cemeteries in the west of Pekin, not far from the city walls. There are the tombs of Ricci, Schaal, and Verbeist of the older time, and Gaubil and Amyot of the more recent. Down to the time (twenty years ago) of the publication of Legge's Chinese Classics and the works of Biot, it was the custom among many sober judges to accept the ancient history as given in the classical books. The "Book of History," for example, commences with the reigns of the Emperors Yaou and Shun, B.C. 2356 and 2255, and contains an account of a most destructive deluge which occurred at that time, and from which the country was freed by the diligence, energy, and skill of a heroic man named Ta Yu, who became emperor B.C. 2205. This deluge was not like that of Noah, except in its being said that mountains were covered by the rising floods. The sober student of these days will not follow the example set by some Roman Catholic missionaries in former times who identified the deluge of Noah with that of the Chinese Yü. The human population was not destroyed in the Chinese deluge. There was no ship. The time that it lasted was nine years. The deluge of the Bible and of the Babylonian tablets would seem to have taken place long before that of China, and to have been wider spread and more devastating in its effects. The Emperor Yü was one of a group of sages, several of whose sayings have been preserved. They are couched in words which, while very archaic, are not the words of a different language. The Chinese language, in its vocabulary and laws of arrangement in words, as well as in its being monosyllabic, was the same then as now, except that it was less developed and contained many obsolete expressions. Yü was the first emperor of the Hea dynasty, and founder of an imperial line which continued for sixteen descents till B.C. 1766. This to the Jesuits seemed all to be trustworthy history, especially as there are passages in the early parts of this most interesting old book which tell of determinations of the times of the equinoxes and solstices from the observed places of certain stars, either in the morning or evening, or at midnight of the four days on which they occurred. The emperor's words, when giving the order to the court astronomers to go and make these observations, are carefully recorded. Then there is a solar eclipse of about B.C. 2000. Astronomical data like these are not found in the Vedas, or the Zendavesta, or in the Books of Moses, or in Homer or Hesiod. They seemed to give a special character of authenticity to this book of old Chinese history. Du Halde's work on China is unequalled for copiousness, and contains a vast amount of correct information; but the way in which it speaks of early Chinese chronology is much more in accordance with the time when it was compiled than with our own. He writes: "Two hundred years after the Deluge the sons of Noah arrived in North-Western China." This is neither scripture nor is it science. It is a rough-and-ready attempt to reconcile the Hebrew account with early Chinese tradition. In this age we proceed more cautiously. Du Halde goes on to say: "From the reign of Yaou, which began B.C. 2357, their history is very exact. We find the names of emperors, with the length of their reigns, and an account of the troubles, revolutions, and interregnums that have happened, all set down very particularly and with great fidelity." "The Chinese historians," he says, "appear to be sincere, and to regard nothing but the truth." He then describes the burning of the books, and the restoration of literature fifty-four years after under the Emperor Wen te, who ascended the throne B.C. 179. In this way of treating Chinese chronology Du Halde accepts the "Book of History as good authority. It begins with the reign of Yaou, and so does he. The fact is, however, that the ancient chronology does not rest only on the testimony of this book, but also upon the views held by the astronomers of the period introduced by Wen te. They formed a chronology based on a study of the "Book of History," as the Rabbis who formed the Jewish chronology did upon a comparison of the dates contained in the Old Testament. A historical work called, from the material on which it was found written, the "Bamboo Books," also contains a system of ancient chronology; and, as it dates from the time of the Chow dynasty, before the burning of the Confucian books by the first emperor of the Tsin dynasty, introduces new elements into the general question, something in the same way as happens with the Hebrew chronology through the existence of that of the Septuagint and that of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Han dynasty chronology became current in China, and has satisfied most native scholars down to the present time, as it did till recently European scholars. The grounds stated by Du Halde for giving credit to the accepted native chronology are that it is very self-coherent and substantial; that it has not, like the Greek and Roman history, the air of a fiction at the beginning; that it has an important verification in a solar eclipse at a very early date; that the historians were witnesses of the events they related; that Confucius, as his words show, regarded it as deserving of confidence; and that Mencius says a thousand years elapsed between Shun and Wen wang. Since Wen wang lived about B.c. 1100, the testimony of Mencius makes it clear that in his dayB.C. 300-the accepted chronology, as far back as to the time of the Emperor Shun, was much the same as afterwards determined by the Han scholars, and as that contained in the "Bamboo Books." Du Halde proceeds to remark that later Chinese historians have noticed unsatisfactory points in the received chronology even of the Chow dynasty, and that at the same time they have, in accordance with the traditions retained in the "Book of Changes and other works, classical and non-classical, commenced their narrative of the History of China with the time of Fuhe, B.C. 2852. The reason that they have gone back nearly five hundred years was probably threefold. They wished history to embrace the great legendary personage | history written by Confucius commences. "Anciently," says Confucius, in this passage, "Fuhe, in ruling the world, evoked to the lights of heaven, the laws of earth, the marks on birds and beasts, with the signs capable of being noted on the human body and on all material objects. He then invented the Pakwa or eight diagrams, the art of writing by means of knotted cords, and the methods to be pursued in hunting and fishing. After him came Shin nung, who taught ploughing and hoeing, marketing and trading. Houses, boats; the use of the ox and horse as beasts of burden; the art of grinding corn; the use of the bow and arrow; the introduction of coffins and burial for the dead; and the change of knotted cords into the use of a written character, soon followed; and in the time of Yaou the features of the old Chinese civilisation were complete." This view of the early growth of Chinese polity presents to us Confucius, a grave, erudite, and soberminded sage, looking upon the third millennium before Christ as the period when his countrymen emerged from barbarism into civilisation. He knew of no foreign origin to the Chinese people, nor did he regard it as necessary to assign any of the elements of their early culture to a foreign source. Before Fuhe everything is to him a mysterious unfathomed depth. All he knows is that a succession of wise men appeared B.c. 2850 to B.C. 2350, who, one after the other, instructed the people in the useful arts, in morality, and in the philosophy of nature. No theory of creation had ever, so far as we know, been suggested to him. He had before him, to be taught and explained by his philosophy, the visible universe in a state of incessant changes. The former sages, Fuhe, Hwang te, and Wen wang, had taught a theory of transformations. It accounts for all phenomena of the world political and the world material, for man as an animal and as a social and intellectual being. This was enough. The native view of the first beginnings of the Chinese race should be allowed. The legends that go before Fuhe do not deserve so much attention. They rest on a less respectable authority. There can be no doubt of this historical fragment being fairly He An opinion very different from these writers has been recently adopted and promulgated by Dr. Gustave Schlegel. His studies in the nomenclature of the stars and the peculiarities of the Chinese zodiac have materially affected his opinions. adopts the extraordinary view that the stars were named by the Chinese 17,000 years before the Christian era. His principal reason for this novel doctrine is that the zodiac of twenty-eight constellations commences with the bright star Spica in the sign Virgo. Dr. Schlegel thinks that the sun was in Virgo in the spring when the Chinese stars were first named, and that if he were not in that position, the ancient Chinese would not have begun the zodiac there. When the Greeks took over the Asiatic zodiac which their neighbours communicated to them, they commenced the series of twelve months with Aries. The sun in spring is now thirty degrees behind Aries. The interval represents in time two thousand years, and one twelfth of the zodiacal circle. Twelve times this number of years makes the cycle which represents the time the sun must take to run his course backward round the zodiac. Since the time of Hipparchus and the change of the sun's place among the stars at the vernal equinox from the Ram to the Fishes, certainly the period that has elapsed seems very long, and the science of astronomy has gone through a great variety of remarkable phases. But this is quite a short term of years compared with that which has been recognised by Dr. Schlegel as having passed away since the first Chinese astronomers divided the stars into groups and gave them names. All that the Chinese themselves claim for their astronomy, is an antiquity of 4,000 years, when the sun had just entered Taurus, being sixty degrees in front of his present position. They will be astonished when they find that, among the foreign students of their ancient books, there is one who believes that their names for stars are more than four times older, and that since the primeval mapping of the constellations, the sun has slowly travelled backward through nine signs of the zodiac to the point where he now is. It is now about fifteen years since the publication of Dr. James Legge's translation of the "Book of History." He arrives at a conclusion unfavourable to its historical character. In his "Prolegomena' he represents it as half legend, and suspects that the names of many emperors were invented by subsequent writers. The Rev. J. Chalmers examined the astronomical data, and pronounced them unsatisfactory. In his dissertation, inserted after the "Prolegomena," he declares them to be wanting in all essential points. The question of the antiquity of the Chinese assumed a new shape. The credible and selfconsistent history of ancient China was believed by many, from the time that this change in opinion took place, to dato no earlier than B.C. 781, when the Dutch Institute for Ethnology, Philology, and Geography, 1875. The argument of this author is expanded into two octavo volumes, and illustrated from a rich variety of sources, Chinese and European, in the most learned manner. The reasons against the acceptance of his hypothesis are very strong. The names of stars embrace the whole imperial régime of ancient China, with a • " Uranographie Chinoise." Printed at the expense of the Royal multitude of details all harmonising with what we know of the country from the classical books. The ancient ideas of the Chinese about government, their modes of naming officers and court buildings, their sacrifices, derivation of houses, agriculture, markets, and many circumstances of popular and official life, are reflected in the stellar nomenclature. We see there the old customs as they were during the time of and after Yaou and Shun. The supposition that this régime should have lasted in the same form through nearly twenty millenniums seems very unreasonable, and contrary to the lesson derived by history from the past of every other country, that incessant change is the law of all human affairs. were made seventeen thousand years ago, by the speculations of writers favourable to the Darwinian account of the origin of man. Between the dawn of humanity and the dawn of history a vast chasm yawns. Some Darwinians say that men were cannibals for many millenniums before they became civilised. Others say they were without articulate speech for many millenniums, and that they became separated into great families before they attained the power to express themselves in words. Our author thinks he has found in the zodiac of China a safe basis for a theory which extends the history of that country back to a time which agrees with the requirements of Darwinian writers, and might lend support to the most incredibly ancient of the Egyptian dynasties. This author has made a careful study (and he is probably the only European who has done so) of the The Chinese themselves, however, do not thus old Chinese astrology. In books written about 2,000 read their old records, nor has any foreign student years ago, the stars are described with a great mul- of Chinese yet come forward to announce his convertiplicity of lucky and unlucky indications. The sion to this author's view. classics are several centuries older, and the astrological indications are not found in them. Yet the classics speak in such a way that both magic and astrology must have existed. To say, however, as Dr. Schlegel does, that the identical astrology which is contained in books of the Han dynasty still extant, was a prime element in the knowledge of those who made the names of the stars, and that it existed in their day in much the same form as at the court of the emperors of the early Han dynasty, is to maintain the incredible, and to invite adverse criticism. It is marvellous that a man of great ingenuity and learning should originate a hypothesis so difficult to defend. In justice to the author, let me here mention what appears to me one of his most plausible arguments. Among the twenty-eight groups of stars which constitute the Chinese zodiac, and roughly represent the place of the moon every day in one lunation, are the two well-known and beautiful constellations lutter so named because its appearance indicated the arrival of the rainy season. In China the Hyades are called Pi, and in the "Book of History," the most important of the classics, Pi is called "Ruler of Rain." Schlegel says, that since Pi was, in the time of the "Book of History," a spring constellation, as it is in the Greek astronomy, it could not have been called the ruler of rain because it then indicated the rainy season, the spring of North China being dry. It must have been so named, he thinks, at that immensely ancient date when it was an autumn constellation, the sun having had time to travel, in the interim, through more than half the zodiac. The coincidence is certainly most remarkable that the Hyades should rule the rain in both Greece and China. To explain this coincidence without the hypothesis of Dr. Schlegel is, perhaps, not impossible, though beset with difficulty. But it should be remembered that about the Mediterranean Sea, spring is rainy and autumn fair, while in China the reverse is the case. Let it then rather be supposed that the Hyades were named first in western countries, and communicated, in some manner unknown, to China while the "Book of History was being written; or let it be supposed that the Greek word Hyades meant originally, as some say, "the little pigs," and that the coincidence is accidental. Dr. Schlegel has felt encouraged to adopt the extravagant opinion that the Chinese names of stars But while early Chinese history cannot lend much aid to views now current on the antiquity of the human race, it seems to indicate the need of a longer scripture chronology than satisfied the theologians of other days. To allow for the natural development of language, and of the differences found to exist between races in the various climates of our globes, we may require an age for the human race considerably more lengthened than that which Archbishop Usher adopted. Yet there is nothing in the Chinese classics which demands a longer period for the presence of the Chinese in their own country than 2,800 years. NATURAL HISTORY ANECDOTES. HELVELLYN AND THE FAITHFUL DOG. A CORRESPONDENT sends some interesting particulars about the faithful dog of Helvellyn, and the event made memorable by the pen of Sir Walter Scott. The interest in, and pity for, this devoted creature is heightened by the fact that near the remains of her dead master was found the body of a little puppy, born soon to die amid those bleak surroundings. The fate of the unfortunate tourist was not known until more than three months from the time of his disappearance. The account of this tragical event was communicated to Sir Walter by Thomas Clarkson, the friend of the enslaved African, who was in the neighbourhood about the time the remains were discovered. These are the facts. On the morning of April 17th, 1805, the deceased, who was considered venturesome, was met by one of the mountain guides, and warned by him that it was too early in the season to be safe, as the snow was still on the mountains. This he admitted, but said he would chance it. Later in the day he took refreshment at an inn in Patterdale, and thence set out for Helvellyn to fish. Probably none marked particularly his comings or goings, or a search would have been immediately set on foot. About the middle of July following, a shepherd found, at the foot of the great rock of Helvellyn, the remains of the unfortunate tourist, who, it was supposed, had slipped and fallen about one hundred feet, as on further search a stick, a great-coat, etc., were found above the spot where his fishing-tackle, his pocket-book (by which he was identified), a watch, and other relics had previously RAT CUNNING. been discovered. The poor dog barked at the | to be the result of intelligence and ingenuity, but strangers who thus intruded on her melancholy vigil. they are instinctive, since we find every indiHow this faithful animal had lived through the long vidual of the species, from its earliest days of selfweeks and months during which she had thus guarded foraging, acting in the same manner. the poor relics of "the friend of her heart," who shall tell? She was greatly attenuated by famine or grief, and bleached by long exposure to the bleak mountain blasts. A gentleman who visited the spot took her away with him in his carriage, probably with the view of restoring her to the mother of her dead master. SWARM OF BEES FOLLOWING MUSIC. S. II. S. Mr. Frank Buckland, Director of the Natural History Department of "Land and Water," formerly Assistant-Surgeon to the 2nd Life Guards, received the following interesting communication from his friend, Colonel Stewart, commanding officer of his old regiment:-"I know you are fond of curious facts-allow me to retail one for your information. While the 2nd Life Guards were returning from a field-day this morning down the Long Walk, a swarm of bees, attracted by the music, followed us all the way into the barracks over the heads of the band. On coming into the barrack-yard, the band formed up to play the regiment into barracks. The bees followed their example, and formed up also, settling upon the branch of a chestnut-tree over their heads. We have taken them prisoners, and they are now in a hive in a barrack-yard. They followed us for nearly a mile. I used to think the old woman with the tin-kettle and the key an idiot, but have changed my mind. It was fortunate they did not select the head of the bandmaster as a resting-place, for the swarm is a very large one, and would have made an unpleasant head-dress." The above communication will be most interesting to naturalists. "May we not conclude," says Mr. Buckland, "from the facts so praiseworthily put on record by Colonel Stewart, that bees have the power of hearing? In the most magnificent monograph on the anatomy and physiology of bees by Mr. Michael Girdwoyn I do not find that the ear of this insect is figured at all. Bees communicate their ideas by sound, and I understand that bee-keepers can often tell what is going on in the hives by the noise the bees happen to be making at the moment. The bandmaster of the 2nd Life Guards should be proud of his power to charm bees. He is a modern Orpheus." VARIETIES OF INSTINCT. There are three creatures-the squirrel, the fieldmouse, and the bird called the nuthatch (Sitta Europea)—which live much on hazel-nuts, and yet they open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two with his long foreteeth, as a man does with his knife; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth as regular as if drilled with a wimble, yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel could be extracted through it; while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill, but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman he fixes it, as it were, in a vice, in come cleft of a tree or in some crevice, where, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post where nuthatches have been known to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily penetrated them. While at work they make a rapping noise, which can be heard at a considerable distance. These diverse modes of getting at the kernel might seem A farmer had rats in his sty, and shot some in the trough. They never came again unless the pigs were feeding. A KNOWING DOG. R. W. Being a sincere lover of "our four-footed friends," I am desirous of adding my mite to the fund of authenticated interesting anecdotes. When I first made the acquaintance of my friend "Bob" he was a handsome mastiff, of about six years old, broadchested though tall, with a thick, curly, dark-grey coat, and short bob-tail. He divided his time pretty equally between my brother's house and my own. We lived a quarter of a mile apart. Meal-times at each house were at the same hours, except on Sundays, when my brother and his family dined earlier than we did, but Bob's activity and punctuality always enabled him, when at home, to get a dinner at each house every day, by dropping first into my brother's and then trotting down to my house, never letting the difference in our week-day and Sunday time put him out in his reckoning. He and the cats and kittens at both houses were always on the most affectionate terms, and nothing pleased them better than to crouch up to his warm curly coat and have a snooze. He always received these attentions from his frisky friends with great kindness and condescension on his part, but I am sorry to say he was guilty of a good deal of hypocrisy towards them and their mother. He would never drive them from a dish, or a dripping-pan, or anything else. Oh, no! but when he happened to see them eating out of either he quietly, but quickly, walked up to the coal heap, and picking up as large a lump as he could well hold between his teeth, he would walk gently up to where his friends were feasting, and drop the lump of coal into either basin, dish, or dripping-pan, looking quite innocent all the time. Pussies immediately licked their mouths and walked away, while their amiable friend finished their meal for them. One of Bob's duties was to accompany our waggoners on their journeys in taking out our goods (we were manufacturers). This he did not at all approve of, and in order to shirk his duty he at first absconded as soon as he saw any signs of packing and loading of the waggons, and would not be found till after he knew that waggons and waggoners were gone and at a safe distance. This he must have learnt by watching them off. He then returned to society, looking as amiable and as affable as ever. But, being of a social disposition, he got tired of secreting himself in solitude, so in order to escape the toil of travel and to enjoy the pleasures of society he adopted another expedient, for which, I think, he merits the title of being "a very knowing dog." It was this his inquiring eyes were always on the watch, and after he had given up absconding, whenever he saw packing and preparation for a journey going on, he became distressingly lame, first with one leg, then with another, but with one or other constantly, frequently lying down as if too lame to stand, much less to walk. But as soon as the waggons were well away Bob's lameness vanished, and he could walk and run as well as ever. Newport, Monmouth. J. G. W. PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. Declaration of Independence General Washington first President John Adams Thomas Jefferson James Madison James Monroe John Quincey Adams General Andrew Jackson... Martin Van Buren General William Henry Harrison (died April 4) Darieties. July 4, 1776 1789 and 1793 1797 1801 and 1805 1809 and 1813 1817 and 1821 1825 and we may here mention-what is not generally known—that there is a fixed uniform charge of £40 a ton made for conveyance of the costly fruit and vegetables from Marseilles to London. This arrangement, of course, much facilitates the trade in such things as early asparagus, peaches, and so forth. The consumption of cocoa increases rapidly, having nearly doubled in the space of ten years; the duty is only id. a pound, so that the cocoa trade only yielded £31,559 to the revenue. Currants, 1829 and 1833 raisins, and dried fruits, it was formerly imagined, were an index 1837 to the well-being of the working-classes, who were supposed to 1841 buy these in large quantities when wages were good. But this 1841 view is an exploded one. What really affects the dried fruit 1845 trade is the abundance or otherwise of fresh fruit at home; thus 1849 in a good apple year currants and raisins are much less in 1850 demand. As to wheat, we may mention that in 1869 the 1853 Government abolished the small remaining import duty on 1857 breadstuffs which had been left at the time of the repeal of the Abraham Lincoln (assassinated April 14, 1865) 1861 and 1865 corn laws; not at all so left as a source of revenue, but as a Andrew Johnson (elected as Vice-President)...... 1865 means of keeping an accurate record of the quantities imported. General Ulysses S. Grant .... This duty was 3d. a cwt. on grain, and 4d. on meal, and so great has been the growth of our import of corn from abroad, that if this small duty still existed it would yield £1,382,889 to the Exchequer annually. John Tyler (elected as Vice-President).. James Knox Polk.... General Zachary Taylor (died July 9, 1850)...... 1869 and 1873 In regard to the next Presidential election, it is pleasant to read words so generously disinterested as those of the "Montreal Witness:""Canadians might well wish for Democratic success in the approaching contest, for a more enlightened and liberal foreign trade policy—which is that part of the government of the United States which most affects Canada -might be expected from the Democrats than from the Republicans. The latter, however, have much the best set of principles for the United States on other matters than foreign trade, and these are most important to the American people at present. Although, also, there are many good men in both parties, there is no doubt that the larger proportion of the dangerous element is included in the Democratic party, and that the greater number of honest, upright men are among the Republicans. There is, therefore, little reason to doubt that with better general principles, and with a better general class of men to carry them out, the Republicans are most deserving of success." " CIRCASSIAN IN BULGARIA.-Dr. Humphry Sandwith (of Kars celebrity) thus described in the "Times this Asiatic colony in European Turkey :-"About twelve years ago these Circassians were planted in Bulgaria precisely for the service they have so well performed to terrorise the Christian population. There were abundant lands unoccupied for them in Asia Minor, but they were politically wanted in Bulgaria. They did not build villages; the Christians were made to build houses for them; and ever since this Asiatic immigration complaints have been incessant of the plundering propensities of these mountaineers. These facts are so notorious that no one knowing that country can read the Prime Minister's words without astonishment. Mr. Baker, who wrote to the Times' on the subject of these atrocities, gives the Circassians the character they deserve, and he has lived years in Bulgaria. I myself travelled in Bulgaria about two years ago, and heard the same stories everywhere of the savage and turbulent propensities of Mr. Disraeli's lambs.' They were the terror of the country, and no redress could be obtained for any outrage on their part, as they were so well protected by their women friends in the harems of the capital." FOOD SUPPLIES.-Indian corn, or maize, says "Land and Water," has now acquired a permanent footing in this country as an article of food. Most of what we get is sent from the United States, the total import for 1875 being 20 million cwt., <r three times greater than the import ten years ago. The quantity of cheese imported has nearly doubled during the last eight years, the home supply being wholly inadequate to meet the ordinary requirements for our consumption. Eggs were sent to us last year-chiefly from France-to the number of 741 millions that is, nine per cent. greater than the quantity sent in 1874. Five years back the number was but 400 millions, and this rapid increase still continues, although poultry farming is now being more carefully attended to among us than it used to be. The price of eggs, however, has fallen from 8s. 7d. per long hundred to 8s. 3d. More potatoes arrived here in 1875 than in the previous year by 710,000 cwt. Most of these potatoes are set down as coming from France, but a considerable quantity come really vid France from the South of Europe; TIT FOR TAT.-An American judge was obliged to sleep with an Irishman in a crowded hotel, when the following conversa tion ensued:-"Pat, you would have remained a long time in the old country before you could have slept with a judge: would you not, Pat?" "Yes, yer honour," says Pat; "and I think yer honour would have been a long time in the old country before ye'd been a judge too." a ENGLISH INFLUENCE IN INDIA.-At the annual distribution Lord of prizes at the Royal Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, |