As the rise of the Nile at Cairo is the only intimation which the inhabitants of Lower Egypt have of the tropical rains of Central Africa, so the inundation of the countries adjacent to the head waters of the great rivers of China may alone have informed the inhabitants of that country of serious elemental disturbances, only reaching, and in a modified form, their western frontier; and it may well have been that the deluge which caused a national annihilation in Western Asia was only a national calamity in the eastern portion of it.
This view is strengthened if we consider that Chinese history has no record of any deluge prior to this, which could hardly have been the case had the Chinese migrated from their parent stock subsequent to an event of such importance; assuming that it had occurred, as there seems valid reason to suppose, within the limits of written history. The anachronism between the two dates assigned by Chinese authors (2297 B.C.) and the Jewish historian’s calculation (2104 B.C.) is only one hundred and ninety-three years, and this is not so great but that we may anticipate its being explained at some future date. Strauchius’ computation of 2293 B.C. for the date of the Biblical deluge is within four years, and Ussher’s (2349-2348) within fifty-one of the Chinese one. The reason for supposing the deluge of Yao to be historically true, will be inferred from the arguments borrowed from Mr. Legge on the subject of the Shu-king, in another portion of this volume. It is detailed in the great Chinese work on history, the T‘ung-këen-kang-muh, by Choo He, of which De Mailla’s History of China professes to be a translation.
This states that the inundation happened in the sixty-first year of the reign of Yao (2297 B.C.), and that the waters of the Yellow River mingled with those of the Ho-hi-ho and the Yangtsze, ruining all the agricultural country, which was converted into one vast sea.
But neither in the Bamboo Books nor in the Shu-king do we find that any local phenomena of importance occurred, with the exception of the inundation. In fact, the first work is singularly silent on the subject, and simply says that in his sixty-first year Yao ordered K‘wan of Ts‘ung to regulate the Ho, and degraded him in his sixty-ninth for being unable to effect it, as we learn elsewhere.
The Shu is more explicit. The Emperor, consulting one of his chief officials on the calamity, says: “O chief of the four mountains, destructive in their overflow are the waters of the inundation. In their vast extent they embrace the mountains and overtop the hills, threatening the heavens with their floods, so that the inferior people groan and murmur.”
According to De Mailla’s translation, K‘wan laboured uselessly for nine years, the whole country was overrun with briars and brushwood, the people had almost forgotten the art of cultivating the ground—they were without the necessary seeds—and wild animals and birds destroyed all their attempts at agriculture.
In this extremity Yao consulted Shun, his subsequent successor, who recommended the appointment of Yu, the son of K‘wan, in his father’s place.
Yu was more successful, and describes his labours as follows:—
“The inundating waters seemed to assail the heavens, and in their vast extent embraced the mountains and over-topped the hills, so that people were bewildered and overwhelmed. I mounted my four conveyances,[111] and all along the hills hewed down the woods, at the same time, along with Yih, showing the multitudes how to get flesh to eat.
“I also opened passages for the streams throughout the nine provinces, and conducted them to the sea. I deepened, moreover, the channels and canals, and conducted them to the streams, at the same time, along with Tseih, sowing grain, and showing the multitudes how to procure the food of toil in addition to flesh meat.”