Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/38

16 of course, exhibit an excess of two branches, after every ten stems, which, being carried over to the next row, vary the associations, until the ten stems are repeated six times, thus forming sixty: when the process has to begin again. The origin of the ten stems may be ascribed to the ten digits, and of the twelve branches, to the twelve signs of the zodiac, which are to be met with in all the primitive nations of antiquity, and are supposed by some to be antediluvian. Indeed, the twelve stems are, in calendars and astronomical books, used for the signs of the zodiac, beginning with Aquarius. As the characters denoting these twelve branches have little or no signification in themselves, the common people, in order to remember them the more easily, have attached to each branch-character another word, with the meaning of which they are familiar; as mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, pig, fowl, and dog, which were, probably, the ancient terms for the Chinese signs of the zodiac; so that the supposition that they were, originally, derived from that source, is not altogether without foundation. The Chinese make frequent use of these horary characters in the notation of time, not only as designating years, but months, days, and hours. Thus there are in each year twelve months and three hundred and sixty days; while in each day there are twelve hours, all exhibiting numbers easily denoted by peculiar modifications of twelve. These characters are frequently used in designating the age of individuals, and most requisite in calculating destinies; while in chronological matters, they form the only safe method of denoting time.

The history of China exhibits many traits of human