Page:Hindu astronomy, Brennand (1896).djvu/30

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6
Hindu Astronomy.

To enumerate all who rove this wide domain
Surpasses human power. The Gods can tell—
The Gods alone, for nothing's hid from Heaven.
Let it suffice if I their worth declare:
These were the first great founders in the world—
Founders of cities and of mighty states,
Who show'd a path through seas, before unknown,
And when doubt reigned and dark uncertainty,
Who rendered life more certain. They first viewed
The starry lights, and formed them into schemes.
In the first ages, when the sons of men
Knew not which way to turn them, they assigned
To each his just department; they bestowed
Of land a portion and of sea a lot,
And sent each wandering tribe far off to share
A different soil and climate. Hence arose
The great diversity, so plainly seen
'Mid nations widely severed. . . . .

But it was not only Southward to India that the Nomads of Central Asia migrated. They spread Westward and Eastward.

Du Halde, in his account of the Jesuit Missions in China, given in his description of the Empire, says:—"It is a common opinion of those who have endeavoured to trace the origin of the Empire, that the posterity of the sons of Noah, spreading themselves over the Eastern parts of Asia, arrived in China about 200 years after the Deluge, and settled themselves in Shen-Si." He supposes the Flood to have happened in the year 3258 B.C., preferring the accouut of the Septuagint to that of the Vulgate. He then rejects the dates of the first Emperors of China, which are given in "Annals of the Chinese Monarchs," as being uncertain, and as involved in some degree of obscurity, and estimates that Yu the Great—the first Emperor of the Dynasty called Hya—began to reign in the year 2207 B.C. As an eclipse of the sun happened in the year 2155 B.C.,