Page:Ch'un Ts'ew Pt I.pdf/153

Rh Having first made good a settlement along the Yellow river, in the south-western parts of the present Shan-se, and perhaps also on the other side of the stream, the early immigrants sent forth their branches, scions of different families, east, west, north, and south, as so many suckers, among the ruder populations sparsely scattered about, which gradually gathered round them, till they lost their original peculiarities, and were prepared to be collected into larger communities, or into States. The first stage in the formation of the Chinese nation terminated with the ascendency of the State of Ts&lsquo;in and the establishment of its short-lived dynasty.

We have seen that of the more considerable of the wild tribes during the Ch‘un-Ts‘ëw period their chiefs had titles like the princes of the States of Chow. We read of the viscounts of the Loos, of Fei, of Koo, and of the Këang Jung, and of the baron of the Le Jung; and it has been asked whence they derived those titles. The Tso Chuen gives us no information on the point, and I am inclined to suppose that they assumed them themselves, to assert thereby their equality with the feudal nobles of Chow. Where they claimed to be the descendants of some great name in former ages of Chinese history, it would be easier to do so; and the title might be acknowledged by the kings of Chow. Or where intermarriages were formed with them by the royal House, or by the princes of the States, as we know was frequently done, the fathers of the brides might be ennobled for the occasion, and then the titles would be jealously retained. But the title was generally, I believe, the assumption of arrogance, as the Chinese would deem it.

There is one passage in the Chuen which shows that the tribes differed from the Chinese not only in their habits of life, but also in their languages. In the account of the meeting at Hëang in the 14th year of duke Sëang, which was attended by the representatives of more than a dozen States, and by the chief of at least one of the Jung tribes, who was a Viscount (though the text does not say so), Fan Seun-tsze appears as wanting on behalf of Tsin to seize the Viscount, who belonged to the Këang Jung or the Jung of Luh-hwăn, attributing the loss of Tsin’s power and influence to unfavourable reports of its proceedings leaking out through them among the other States. The Viscount makes a good defence, and says in

134]