ABSTRACT
The Chinese have endowed them with almost every conceivable virtue and given them credit for such high administrative abilities that they stand worthy of being the first prominent figures in such a grand and stirring history as this Chinese Empire has had. Yau was the son of Ti-kuh by one of his concubines. Historians prefer to believe that he was miraculously conceived by a red dragon as being more consistent with the heroic character he afterwards became. The officers of the court upon this unanimously recommended to him a man of the name of Shun, whose reputation for filial piety had spread far and wide and had reached even the ears of the Emperor himself. On the death of Yau, Shun with the modesty that was characteristic of him, for three years refused to ascend the throne He wished to give an opportunity to Chu, the disinherited son of his celebrated colleague, to become the successor of his father.
