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PREFACE.
xxvii
Prior to the dynasty of Hsia, with the exception of the period of Yảo and Shun, the accounts which we have of the history of China have been, and ought to be, pronounced 'fabulous' and 'legendary.' The oldest documents that purport to be historical are the books in the Shd about Yâo and Shun, and even they do not profess to be contemporaneous with those personages. The earlier accounts open with a Phan-ka, in whose time 'heaven and earth were first separated. To him succeeded the period of the San Hwang, or Three August Lines, consisting of twelve Celestial, eleven Terrestrial, and nine Human Sovereigns, who ruled together about 50,000 years. After them come a host of different Lines, till we arrive at the Wa Tí, or Five Emperors. The first of these is commonly said to be Fahsî, while he and two others are sometimes put down as the San Hwang, in order to bring in Yao and Shun as the last two of the Tîs.
I have entered into these details because of the account which we have of the king of Khin's assuming the title of Hwang Tỉ. We are told : As soon as the king had brought the whole country into subjection, thinking that he united in himself the virtues of the three Hwangs, and that his merits exceeded those of the five Tîs, he changed his title into Hwang Ti.' The three Hwangs are entirely fabulous, and the five Tîs are, to say the least, legendary. That there were either Hwangs or Tîs ruling in China before the age of the Hsiâ dynasty cannot be admitted.
Second, it has been stated above, and is shown in the Introduction to the Sha, pp. 13-19, that the books in the Shů, previous to the Hsià dynasty, are not historical in the sense of their being contemporaneous documents of the times about which they speak. They profess to be compilations merely from older documents; and when they speak of Yão and Shun as Tîs, the title Ti precedes the name or designation, instead of following it, as it ought to do, according to Chinese usage, if Tî is to be taken in the sense of emperor. Yảo Tî would be 'the emperor Yão,' but we have Ti Yao, where Ti performs the part of an adjective. King Wăn, the founder of the Kâu dynasty, is
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