CHAPTER XXIX
CURIOUS CUSTOMS
In laying stress upon the barbarous, or semi-barbarous, quality of
the states (all in our days considered pure Chinese), which
surrounded the federal area at even so late a period as 771 B.C.,
we wish to emphasize a point which has never yet been made quite
clear, perhaps not even made patent by their own critics to the
Chinese themselves; that is to say, the very small and modest
beginnings of the civilized patriarchal federation called the
Central Kingdom, or _Chu Hia_--"All the Hia"--just as we say,
"All the Russias."
In allotting precedence to the various states, the historical
editors, of course, always put the Emperor first in order of
mention; then comes CHENG, the first ruler of which state was son
of an Emperor of the then ruling imperial house; next, the three
Protectors Ts'i, Tsin, and Sung; then follow the petty states of
Wei, Ts'ai, Ts'ao, and T'eng, all of the imperial family name, or,
as we say in English, "surname," and all lying between the Hwai
and the Sz systems (T'eng was a "belonging state" of Lu).
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