# The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Japan

Edition of 1879. See also Japan on Wikipedia; and the disclaimer.
​JAPAN (called by the natives Dai Nippon or Dai Nihon), an empire consisting of a group of islands lying off the E. coast of Asia, between lat. 23° and 50° N., and lon. 122° and 153° E. The name Japan is a corruption or Marco Polo's term Zipangu, which represents the Chinese Shi-pen-kue, meaning "root of day" or "sunrise kingdom." The Japanese empire comprises the three most southerly islands of the Kuriles chain; Karafto or Saghalien S. of the 50th parallel, Yezo (Yesso), the main island, incorrectly called Niphon by Europeans; Shikoku (Sikok), Kiushiu (Kiusiu), and the Riu Kiu or Liu Kin (Loo Choo) islands. Karafto is claimed by both Japan and Russia, and is jointly occupied by them. The entire number of islands composing Dai Nippon is officially stated to be nearly 4,000, though many of these are so small as to be hardly worthy of the name. The Japanese have no special name for the main island, and the foreign name Niphon is unwarrantable and confusing. It is about 800 m. long, and its area is about 80,000 sq. m. Yezo contains about 30,000, Shikoku about 7,000, and Kiushiu about 15,000 sq. m. Japan has been from ancient times divided into circuits similar to our terms eastern, middle, southern, and western states, and territories, a system of division still kept ​up by the government, and taught in native geographies. Kioto (formerly Heian or Heianjo, Kioto being a Chinese word signifying capital, of which the synonyme miako is used by the Japanese chiefly in poetry for Kioto or any great city, and not as a proper noun) was formerly the capital, and the divisions were named in reference to their direction from it. They were: the Gokinai, "five home provinces," surrounding Kioto; the Tokaido, "eastern-sea circuit," 15 provinces; the Tozando, "eastern mountain circuit," 8 provinces; the Hokurokudo, "northern land circuit," 7 provinces; the Sanindo, "mountain-back circuit," 15 provinces; the Sanyodo, "mountain-front circuit," 8 provinces; the Nankaido, "southern-sea circuit," 6 provinces; the Saikaido, "western-sea circuit," 9 provinces; the Hokkaido, "northern-sea circuit," 11 provinces; in all, 84 provinces, subdivided into 717 districts or shires. All these provinces, except the eleven of the Hokkaido (Yezo, Kuriles, Karafto, &c.), and the seven into which Oshiu and Dewa have been divided since the late civil war, have each two names, one of purely native derivation, and the other composed of the Chinese word shiu added to the Chinese pronunciation of the character with which the native name is written; thus, Nagato is also called Choshiu, and Satsuma, Sasshiu. In many places the pedantic Chinese name has completely superseded the original Japanese in the mouths of the people; in a few both are used concurrently; while in some the original name is retained. Almost every Japanese word and name has also a Chinese synonyme or counterpart, which leads to endless confusion, and this is made greater by the names which foreigners continually misapply to mountains, rivers, and things in common use. For governmental purposes the empire is further divided into three fu or imperial cities, and 62 ken or prefectures. The most noted cities of Japan are Tokio, the capital (formerly called Yedo), Kioto, Ozaka (or Osaka), Nagoya, Hiroshima, Saga, Kagoshima, Kanagawa, and Fukuoka. These are cities of the first class, each reckoned to contain at least 100,000 inhabitants. Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Fukui, Kurume, Yokohama, Gifu, and Yonezawa rank in the second class, having more than 50,000. Hakodate (Hakodadi), Matsumaë, Niigata, and Hiogo have from 20,000 to 50,000 each. There are probably 50 cities more, containing on an average more than 20,000. The population of Japan has never been properly ascertained, the Japanese method being merely to count the houses and average five persons to one house. Such a "census" was taken in 1804, and gave a population of 30,000,000. A hasty estimate was made by the department of education in 1872, and about 33,000,000 souls were reported. Foreign travellers and those who have long resided in Japan assign 20,000,000 as the highest and 15,000,000 as the lowest figures. Shikoku, Kiushiu, and the central provinces are thickly populated, especially along the great roads. In the N. part of the main island the population is thin, and in the whole of Yezo, Karafto, and the Japanese Kuriles, according to the native estimate, there are fewer than 60,000. In the Riu Kiu (Loo Choo) islands a population of 124,000 is claimed. Tokio (Yedo) contains 800,000, Kioto 567,334, and Ozaka 530,885 souls.—The coasts of Japan abound with promontories, and are much broken by bays and inlets; but there are many good harbors, of which the Japanese number 56 large and 290 smaller ones. There are many rocks along the coast, but the Japanese have excellent charts for the use of their junks and steamers, and the long continued work of foreign survey parties has reduced the danger of shipwreck by daylight to a minimum, while at night every great promontory on the coast is indicated by lighthouses or beacons of the most approved construction and equipment, which have been erected since 1869. The Japanese never give names to their straits or bays; all such names have been given by foreigners. Owing to the narrowness of the main island, and the smallness of the others, there are no very large rivers in Japan; most of them are mountain torrents, with short and rapid courses. Kawa or gawa is the native word for river. The Tonegawa is the longest and widest, being 172 m. long. The Yodogawa, the outlet of Lake Biwa, flows past Ozaka. The Kisogawa flows into the bay of Owari. The Tenriugawa is the outlet of Lake Suwa in Shinano. The current of the Oigawa is very swift, and that of the Fujikawa is still more rapid. The Sumidagawa flows past Tokio. The river called Logo by foreigners is properly named Rokugo. The chief lakes are Biwa, Inawashiro, Suwa, Hakone, and Chiuzenji. The three latter lie far above the level of the sea. Lake Biwa, or Otsu, is more than 60 m. long, and about 20 m. wide.—The most extensive plains are those of the Kuanto or plain of Yedo, Echigo, and the north of Oshiu. The provinces of Mino, Mikawa, and Owari are also very flat. The table land of Shinano lies about 2,500 ft. above the sea. The general trend of the mountain ranges is from N. to S., usually presenting a steep face to the E. and sloping on their W. side. The most noted peak is the volcanic cone Fusiyama (properly Fujisan, or Fujinoyama, "Rich Scholar peak"), 14,000 ft. high, in the province of Suruga, 70 m. 8. W. of Tokio. Thousands of pilgrims ascend it annually. Its craters and hollows only are snow-covered in summer. Hakuzan or Shiroyama, in Kaga, is 9,000 ft. high. Gassan, Mitake in Shinano, the Nikko range, Omine in Yamato, and Tateyama in Etchiu, are also well known. There are some active volcanoes, such as Asamayama, Asoyama, Kirishima, and Yakeyama in Nambu. A perpetual pillar of steam rises from Asamayama; and in past times great destruction of life and property has been caused by eruptions of this and other volcanoes in Japan. The entire group of islands is volcanic, and earthquakes ​are common, as many as 87 in one day having been counted. Scarcely a month passes without greater or less vibrations, and in some cases whole towns are destroyed by them. They are the frequent causes of fire in cities by overturning lights and braziers. An earthquake in Yedo in 1854 killed several thousand people, and threw down hundreds of houses. In general, however, the shocks are light, and the natives and resident foreigners care little about them. The houses are built with reference to resisting or neutralizing the shocks, mostly of timber, and their chief supports are set into sockets cut in round or waterworn stones. The roof is constructed of massive logs and beams covered with heavy tiles. The inertia of this mass secures stability, while the force of the shock is interrupted in its continuity, and greatly lessened by being broken at the sockets. Many temples, pagodas, and castles have thus withstood the shocks for centuries. The eastern half of the main island is most subject to earthquakes, and Shikoku and Kiushiu are far less so. Superstition attributes the cause of earthquakes to a huge catfish, whose head is under Oshiu and his tail under Kioto. His anger and struggles cause the seismic throes.—The surface of the whole empire is almost entirely a succession of hills and valleys. The soil is mainly diluvium and disintegrated lava, though every kind is known. It is in general fertile and well cultivated, but large tracts on the mainland and in Yezo lie uncultivated, being either not urgently needed, or, as in many cases, being useless from lack of scientific methods of improvement and fertilization. Japan could easily maintain double its present population. Rice land is made wherever possible, and after centuries of patient toil the largest part of the fertile land is laid out in the form of irrigated rice fields. In many places the mountain sides are terraced and tilled. The area under cultivation is not known, but is assessed at 31,620,000 koku. A koku is 5.13 bushels. Rice has hitherto been the standard of value. The amount which a given piece of land will produce is determined by threshing the rice grown on it and measuring the grain. The fertility of the soil varies greatly in different places, but rice land is worth five times more than arable land. Almost all agricultural labor is done by hand, and with the rudest tools.—The climate resembles that of our Atlantic seacoast states, though not so changeable as the latter. The meteorological records of one year (1864) in Yokohama were as follows, in monthly averages: January, 36.50°; February, 38.12°; March, 43.28°; April, 57.36°; May, 64.04°; June, 69.14°; July, 76.49°; August, 79.55°; September, 70.44°; October, 62.55°; November, 52.09°; December, 44.30°. Annual mean range of temperature, 58.02°. First frost, Nov. 26; first ice, Dec. 14. There were 205 fair, 61 cloudy, 92 rainy, and 8 snowy days. In 1864 71.44 inches of rain fell. The general direction of the wind was N. in winter and autumn, and S. in summer. Rain and snow are rather more common on the W. coast than on the E. Rain falls abundantly in the spring and summer; June is considered the rainy month. In some years it rains constantly through September and October. Snow rarely remains on the ground longer than 24 hours in Tokio or S. of it. In the provinces N. of Kioto, on the W. coast, the snow lies for weeks at the depth of from 6 to 10 ft. Storms with thunder and lightning are much more rare than in the United States, but floods of rain and high winds are common. At least once if not oftener in the summer or early fall a cyclone or tai-fun (typhoon) visits the country, destroying life and property to an appalling extent. One which passed over Kobe July 4, 1871, dashed scores of junks and ships far up on land, demolishing houses, and killing more than 200 persons. In Fukui it blew down houses and damaged nearly every fence and roof in the city. Tidal waves after earthquakes are also to be looked for, and one on Dec. 22, 1855, destroyed part of the town of Shimoda, swept scores of the people into the sea, ruined the harbor by sweeping all the mud from the rocks, so that anchors were useless, and destroyed the Russian frigate Diana and a fleet of native junks.—Japan is rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, mercury, tin, coal, sulphur, and salt. Iron is also found in many of the provinces, but as it is in the form of magnetic oxide, the cost of smelting it is very great; hence Japan will not be able to produce enough native iron to supply her wants. The quality of Japanese iron, however, is very good, and often equal to the best Swedish. Tin is now more extensively mined than formerly, owing to the increasing use of tinned iron. Copper is so abundant that it was formerly of the same value as iron. Large quantities are still exported in the form of bars and blocks, old bells, idols, &c. Gold is obtained in many places, both by washing the earth and sands of rivers, and from the ore. Silver is extracted from its ores, but chiefly from argentiferous galena. Sado island, where most of the precious metals are mined, has a population of 3,000 native miners. The mines are worked under the supervision of two English miners, who have the most approved modern machinery. Many of the old mines throughout the country have been abandoned, but under an approved system of mining the mineral wealth of Japan will be increased. Blasting, introduced by Prof. Pumpelly, is now generally practised, and pumping, crushing, and washing are done by machinery. Graphite of excellent quality is mined in Satsuma, and used for pencils made by the natives. Bituminous coal of an inferior quality is dug in many places, but coal is largely mined in Yezo, Amakusa, Karatsu, and near Nagasaki, and sold for the use of steamers. Sulphur is abundant and of excellent quality. Petroleum is obtained in Echigo, Suruga, Yezo, and other ​places, and used in the "Yankee lamps" now everywhere prevalent. Alum and green and blue vitriol are made by the natives. Granite, porphyry, obsidian, syenite, gneiss, freestone, and a great variety of the softer building stones are obtained in almost every province. Agates, carnelians, and jasper of great size and beauty are found. Small garnets are plentiful. Pearls are fished up along the coast, and the pearl fisheries may yet become a very important branch of industry. The rock crystals of Japan have long been celebrated for their great size and clearness. One at the Vienna exposition was a sphere, perfectly clear, and seven inches in diameter. The Japanese cut them into balls, and the native lapidaries are very skilful in their craft. Salt is produced by repeatedly saturating sand with salt water, drying it, and dissolving out the salt. Malachite and cinnabar are well known. Petrifactions and fossils are often seen. Sulphurous, chalybeate, and mineral springs, the waters of which are variously impregnated, are very numerous throughout the empire.—There is perhaps no other country in the world of the same area that produces such a variety of conifers. They are everywhere abundant, the main roads are lined with them, and clipped hedges of cryptomeria, retinospora, biota, &c., are very general. Around the temples, where they are never cut down, they attain the greatest size and grandeur. They are often trained to spread out over bamboo frames, and particular limbs are propped up and grow to a great length. Timber is very plentiful, cheap, and of great variety. The mulberry tree grows wild, but the young trees that are reared for the food of the silkworm are not allowed to grow more than 6 ft. high. The varnish tree (rhus vernicifera), from which the famed lacquer is made, also produces oil and vegetable tallow, like its near ally the rhua succedanea. Large quantities of camphor are exported, being obtained from the camphor trees which attain great age and size in Japan. The chief fruit trees are the apple, pear, plum, apricot, peach, chestnut, walnut, persimmon, pomegranate, fig, orange, lemon, and citron. The grape is the best fruit in Japan. Strawberries grow wild, but are nearly tasteless. Loquats and kumquats, as in China, are common. The persimmons are often as large as apples, and very sweet. The cherry tree blossoms, but bears no eatable fruit. The bamboo is found almost everywhere from Karafto to Riu Kiu, and is put to an astonishing number of uses. The box tree, juniper, ivy, palm, elm, and a black wood like ebony are also found. The camellia grows wild, often 40 ft. high, and is cultivated everywhere for the beauty of its blossoms, an immense number of varieties being produced. Beans, peas, white and sweet potatoes, carrots, lettuce, beets, yams, tomatoes, ginger, egg plant, gourds, cucumbers, mushroom, lilies (the bulbs of which are eaten), bamboo (the young sprouts are eaten), spinach, leeks, radishes, garlic, capsicum, endive, fennel, pumpkins, squashes, beets, turnips, and asparagus are the principal vegetables for the table. Many of these were introduced by the Dutch, and some by Com. Perry. The daikon, an enormous radish, often 30 in. long and 4 thick, is a staple article of food in both the fresh and pickled state. The food of the people is mainly vegetables and fish. Rice, millet, and buckwheat are eaten in great quantities; maize and barley are also raised. Rape for oil, hemp for cordage and cloth, cotton for clothing, indigo, and tobacco which is very mild, are cultivated. Many specimens of the American flora are now common in Japan.—The poverty of the Japanese fauna is well known, but, like the flora, it corresponds more closely to that of the American than to that of the Asiatic continent. In the woods and wilds are bears, wild boars, wolves, deer, badgers, foxes, ground squirrels, and hares. The monkeys are so numerous as to be troublesome at times. Weasels, martens, and moles are very common. Wild ducks and geese, pigeons, woodcocks, snipes, pheasants, teal, herons, and storks are among the birds used for food. The hawk, buzzard, crow, eagle, cormorant, gull, sparrow, red-billed magpie, and ortolan are numerous. The canary is now well domesticated in Japan, and the unguisu or Japanese nightingale is noted for its music. Tame animals are now more numerous than formerly, owing to the increasing habit of eating meat. Venison, wild boar, and monkey meat have been eaten from ancient times; and beef, pork, and mutton, especially the first, are now eaten in all the large cities. Goats are found around Nagasaki, cows and bulls in every province, hogs in many places, and sheep in a few. The native horses are small and active. In Satsuma they are woolly, and in Tosa as small as Shetland ponies. Dogs are very numerous, but of gentle dispositions; and the highly prized variety of spaniel called chin, having a snub nose and silky fur, is supposed to be the original of the English variety called Prince Charles's spaniel. The cats are generally short-tailed; on the W. coast long-tailed cats are found, but most Japanese cats have tails from 1 to 3 in. long. Rabbits and guinea pigs are common pets. Among the domestic fowls, the turkey, peacock, goose, and swan are less common; but the bantam fowls, ordinary chickens, ducks, and pigeons are reared extensively for food. Fish is the staple animal food, and the great variety displayed in the markets, from river, lake, and sea, astonishes foreigners. The Japanese are especially fond of raw fish. A large proportion of the population are fishers. Many of the women are expert divers, often remaining for hours in the water; they can swim with bags full of heavy shell fish on their shoulders. Fishing is carried on with nets, hooks and lines, spears, bows and arrows, and with cormorants. Whales are pursued and killed whenever met with. Enormous squids with arms 25 ft. long, and crabs ​whose outspread claws measure 14 ft. from tip to tip, are occasionally caught in the bay of Yedo. Sea otters and seals are shot in great numbers in Karafto and the Kuriles. The salamander is sometimes seen in the lakes and rivers. The reptiles and insects of Japan are varied and interesting.—The Japanese people are of middling size, in general active and vigorous; and in their mental characteristics they resemble Europeans more than the average Asiatic peoples. Their skins range through all colors from white to light brown, yellow copper color, dirty red, and almost black. The average hue is a pale copper on the body, and shades of yellowish brown in the face. The color depends greatly upon the degree of exposure; the ladies of the upper class, who rarely go out of the house, are often perfectly white and fair, while some of the coolies are almost as black as negroes. Their eyes are oblong, of a very dark brown, often deeply sunk in the head, and not so oblique as those of the Chinese. The upper lid toward the nose is folded so as to prevent the eyes from opening as widely as those of Caucasians. Their noses are flat, thick, short, depressed at the bridge, and round and open in front, instead of beneath. Their hair is not a true black, but of a very dark brown, sometimes distinctly red. Its blackness and coarseness are promoted by the universal practice of shaving the heads of the children from their birth. Usually it is made to appear very black and glossy with unguents and bandoline made from a mucilaginous plant. Some of the mountaineers, boatmen, and coolies are tall and muscular, but the average Japanese is flat-breasted, undersized, and weak in physique, compared with Caucasians. Both sexes have small hands and feet. The women are usually small and dumpy, though often very beautiful, and exceedingly neat in dress and coiffure. People of every age and sex bathe daily in hot water. In the public bath houses, so numerous in every street, the water is often intensely hot, which the bathers delight in, at the cost of half a cent. The heat of the water and the price of a bath are now regulated by government, which has also of late years prohibited the practice of promiscuous bathing. The married women, and those above 20 years of age, blacken their teeth with a mixture of galls and powdered iron, which forms a jet-like black, but is not more corrosive than common writing ink. The origin of this custom is now lost in obscurity. Formerly the emperor and court nobles blackened their teeth; they ceased to do so in 1868. The practice is now discouraged, and many women are forsaking it, following the example of the empress. Married women formerly shaved off their eyebrows, a custom now also falling into disuse. The Japanese maiden, wife, or widow may be distinguished by her coiffure. Among the men, the old percussion gun-hammer style of topknot or shaven scalp is rapidly giving way to the foreign style of hair dressing. In character, the people are lively and volatile, quick of apprehension, frank, liberal, and hospitable. They are peculiarly fond of military life, and make excellent soldiers and sailors. They learn rapidly, and show much aptitude for the acquisition of European knowledge. In the schools of America and Europe they have won the highest praise, and in some cases honors, which have not tended to decrease their natural vanity. Regard for truth and chastity, or reverence for human life, cannot be said to characterize the Japanese. The youth seems to be a model of all that is frank, noble, impulsive, obedient, grateful, and polite. The same individual as an official often appears the incarnation of deceit, meanness, ingratitude, and untruth, though always outwardly polite. The people are very industrious, but social and pleasure-loving, fond of feasts and frolics, and have frequent national and religious holidays. Music, dancing, and the theatre are the favorite amusements of all classes. Mountebanks, conjurers, jugglers, tumblers, and strolling players and musicians were formerly often seen in the streets, and were highly popular, but are now much less so. Japanese jugglers and acrobats have appeared in America and Europe, and have fully sustained the reputation of the people in these matters. Dancing consists almost entirely in posturing and quick movements of the body, our idea of moving about while dancing not being understood. Education, consisting in the arts of reading and writing the native syllabary, perusing the popular story books, and reckoning on the abacus, is very general, but not so much so as former accounts would lead one to suppose. The higher classes can read the Chinese and Japanese classics, which are now giving place to the study of foreign languages and books. The women are carefully educated in household duties, but in the lower classes receive very little instruction in book learning. In the higher classes the young ladies spend much time in making fancy work, and in being taught the various books relating to the duties of a wife, mother, and housekeeper. The "Woman's Great Study" is a large book containing minute details of woman's duty and culture. The three great duties of a woman are: 1, obedience to her parents when a child; 2, obedience to her husband, when a wife; 3, obedience to her eldest son, when a widow. Politeness is a national characteristic. A vast and minute system of etiquette is the life study of the higher classes, and among the lowest class mutual courtesy is strictly observed. The foreigner in Japan is surprised to hear the politest phrases and to see mutual forbearance among the commonest coolies. The Japanese make no distinction between politeness and morals. They say that cheating, lying, &c., are not polite. Politeness is goodness and virtue in their eyes. The rules that govern social intercourse are formed into a regular system, which is taught in schools. ​Formerly the education of a Japanese was one half in books of etiquette, and one half reading and writing. In the school at Fukui in Echizen, over the foreign department of which the writer presided, the course of native studies required seven years. Five of these were devoted entirely to theoretical and practical study of etiquette, the reading of the lives of illustrious men and women, exhortations to duty, the classics of Confucius, the histories of Japan and China, and the composition of private and official letters. Such schools however existed only for the higher classes. Lower schools for teaching the rudiments of reading, writing, and reckoning also existed. Even the language is unique in its courtliness of expression, which is shown in its very structure. The people are in general neat and clean in their houses, persons, and dress. Tea is a universal beverage, and is served on all occasions in cups holding about half a gill, which are drained many times during the day. Every man and boy carries in his girdle a pipe with a tube of bamboo, and mouthpiece and tiny bowl of brass. The mild fine-cut tobacco is used, and smoking is general among men and women. The visitor is always served with tea, sweetmeats laid on white paper on a tray, and a little bowl with a live coal in it to light his pipe with. It is etiquette to carry away the remnants of the cake or candy folded up in the paper and put in the wide sleeve. Chop sticks take the place of the knife and fork. Meat, venison, poultry, game, and large vegetables are cut or sliced before being brought on the table. Food is eaten out of lacquered wooden bowls and porcelain cups. A feast is accompanied by music and dancing, and the last of the many courses is rice and tea. Saké, or rice beer, is served throughout the feast; it is kept in tall bottles, which are first set in boiling water to heat the saké, which is always drunk hot. The cups used at a feast are very small, and are passed around or thrown across to each other by the guests, and filled by pretty damsels in waiting. At a banquet any one can introduce himself to another person by offering the cup; if he drinks and returns the cup, the introduction is made and acquaintance begins. The ordinary dress of both sexes and all ranks is somewhat similar in form, differing chiefly in the colors, fineness, and value of the materials, those of the higher orders being of silk, and of the lower orders of hemp and cotton cloth; it consists of a number of loose wide gowns worn over each other, and fastened by a girdle. Every class of the people is distinguished by certain peculiarities of dress. On the back and breast of the outer garment of the higher classes a family or clan crest is woven or worked. The sleeves are very long and wide, and serve for pockets. The Japanese display very good taste in their dress, but the women wear brighter colors than the men, and bolder their robes with gay embroidery and gold. On occasions of ceremony, a hempen jacket, open at the sides and projecting in wings at the shoulder, and wide trousers of the same material, together forming the kamishimo, are worn. The hakama or loose trousers, like a long kilt, are the distinguishing murk of the dress of a samurai. Within doors socks or foot mittens, having a special compartment for the great toe, are worn. For outdoor use, clogs, heavy blocks of wood, or straw soles, having a double thong which fits between the great and second toe and binds over the top and side of the foot, are worn. Straw sandals are used by farmers, coolies, and travellers. Usually neither men nor women wear head coverings, except broad screens to shed the rain and to keep off the sun. In cold weather a cloth cap, covering all but the eyes and nose, is worn. Rain coats made of oiled paper, and cloaks made of straw or pieces of matting, are common in rainy weather. Their umbrellas are very large, the frames of bamboo, and the covering of oiled paper. The fan is carried by both sexes. Hitherto the custom of wearing two swords, one above the other on the same side of the body, was the distinguishing mark of the samurai; the lower classes were allowed to carry one sword. These customs are now nearly obsolete. European dress is becoming common among all classes, and the government officials are required by law to wear it. Even the court costume has been laid aside for black coats, white neckties and gloves, black pantaloons, and boots. The houses of the Japanese are low, and built of a frame of wood, with wattling of reeds or bamboo, the interstices filled with mud and covered with white plaster. The eaves are very broad, and a veranda extends around the house. The windows and doors are frames of wood, covered with paper, and sliding in grooves. Most of the partitions consist of sliding paper doors, which can be removed in a moment and a great hall extemporized. Outer shutters or "rain doors" protect the paper doors at night and in stormy weather. Almost every house, rich or poor, has a garden attached, which is usually a miniature landscape. Fire-proof warehouses are made by coating a strong frame of timber and bamboo with layers of mud amounting to a foot in thickness. The walls, doors, and windows are all of the same thickness and material. The merchant stores his goods and families put their valuables in these. Should a fire occur near by, a mud paste is quickly made, and several candles are lighted within the warehouse to convert the oxygen of the air into carbonic acid gas. The doors and windows are then closed, and the mud smeared over the cracks, to prevent any draft. After a fire these warehouses stand unharmed, like islands in a sea of ashes. Fires are frequent and terribly destructive. One in Tokio, April 3, 1872, destroyed 5,117 houses and made over 20,000 people homeless. It is estimated that the entire space of the city is burned over every seven years.—Polygamy is not allowed in Japan, but concubinage is very prevalent. ​The emperor is allowed 12 concubines, though he rarely has so many. Usually a man does not take a concubine unless his wife is unfruitful; if the former bears a child, it is treated as legitimate, and becomes the father's heir, unless a child is born to the true wife. Divorces are common. Seven causes for divorce are enumerated in the "Woman's Great Study," viz.: barrenness, disobedience to husband or mother-in-law, gossiping, lewdness, leprosy, jealousy, theft. Prostitution is legalized, and is not specially disreputable. In the large cities the yujomachi or prostitutes' quarter is the most beautiful part of the city. Children are no longer bred to the trade from their infancy, as formerly, but young girls may voluntarily choose to be courtesans, and bind themselves to the brothel-keepers for a term of years. They are taught music and several other accomplishments, and often marry well, being better educated than the mass of the women. In the afternoon, at the brothel, they dress, paint, and powder themselves, put on splendid robes, and toward evening sit in a semicircle, motionless and waiting for the choice of some passer-by. The front of the raised room in which they sit is open to the street, or separated only by latticework for visitors to look through. Prostitution is in the cities confined to particular quarters, and is under strict governmental inspection. Prostitutes must wear a certain kind of dress, and tie their girdles in front instead of behind. Suicide is very common in Japan, and the ancient style of committing hara-kiri (belly-cut) is still in vogue, though evidently becoming obsolete. During the year 1872 at least 20 public instances of ripping up the belly took place. A proposition made in the supreme council to abolish the custom was not adopted.—The agriculture of the Japanese is conducted with diligence and skill. Irrigation is judiciously applied, and manure of all kinds, especially human, is carefully collected, and used in the production of generally good harvests. The grain principally raised is rice, which is of a superior quality, and is now an article of export. Next to rice tea is the great object of cultivation. Since the opening of the country an immense number of new tea plantations have been set out. The teas of Uji and Suruga are considered the best. Coarse sugar is obtained from Satsuma and universally used by the people, but the process of sugar refining is not yet fully understood. The gardeners of Japan have attained the art of dwarfing as well as enlarging vegetable productions. In the miniature gardens and at the flower shows they exhibit full-grown trees of various kinds 2 and 3 ft. high. Pine trees 3 in., bamboo 2 in., and blossoming plum trees 6 in. high are common. The pine, bamboo, and plum are usually planted together in pots, and called shochikubai, a word compounded of the three names. Trees and plants are also trained to grow so as to resemble birds, tortoises, quadrupeds, men, ships, mountains, &c. In ornamental gardening the Japanese possess wonderful skill, and every kind of landscape is represented in their gardens.—The Japanese are admirable workers in metals. Iron, copper, and brass are wrought in every part of the country, and the swords of Japan have long been famous. They are made of the finest iron, with an edge of steel. The ornaments upon their hilts and handles, made of copper, silver, or gold, with inlaid work of various metals, are not only curiosities, but works of high art, often representing national heroes, mythology, &c. In alloying and coloring metals they are famous experts. They are skilful in carving wood and metal, in die-sinking, and in the casting of metal statues used for idols, lanterns, cannon, &c. A copper statue of Buddha (Jap. Dai Butsu) at Kamakura is nearly 50 ft. in height, and is a fine work of art. Their bronzes, which embody the national art, and express in metal their legendary lore and symbolism, have won admirers in every land, being sought after for their chaste proportions, exquisite beauty, excellence of mechanism, and fineness of metal. Their lacquering in wood excels that of all other nations. At the Vienna exhibition in 1873, not only their bronze and lacquer work, but their wood and stone carvings, mosaics, basket work, tortoise shell, inlaid and ivory work, fans, silk flowers, toys, cut crystal, and leather, were greatly admired and highly praised. The manufacture of glass is still in its infancy in Japan, and only the simplest articles are made, and these of inferior glass. They make a great variety of cotton goods; in crapes, camlets, brocade, and figured silk for girdles, they excel. Paper, which is applied to manifold uses, even for napkins and handkerchiefs, is made from the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), and is noted for its silkiness, lustre, toughness, and softness. It is very abundant, and of all qualities. Paper shops are exceedingly numerous. Kioto, Tokio, and Ozaka are the chief seats of manufactures. Kioto is noted for its damasks, satins, camlets, crapes, silk fabrics of every sort, lacquered articles, screens, fans, paints, grindstones, porcelain, and earthenware. At Tokio nearly every kind of manufacture is carried on. The people show the greatest eagerness and aptitude for imitating all kinds of European manufactures. In nearly every house of the samurai class is seen a map or globe, thermometer, barometer, Yankee clock, or lamp. Most of the intelligent natives who can afford them wear watches. Telescopes, microscopes, knives, and spoons are made by the natives from European models, at a cheap rate. In all the cities and large towns shops filled with foreign articles are found, where looking glasses, clocks, watches, spoons, notions, boots and shoes, condensed milk, beer, colored engravings, fancy soap, canned fruit, pickles, brushes and combs, panes of glass, wine and brandy, rugs, carpets, underclothing, &c., are sold. All these things ​are rapidly changing the manners, customs, and household habits of the Japanese people. Very good iron and brass cannon, shot and shell, breech- and muzzle-loading rifles, gunpowder, percussion caps, and many other articles of war material, are now made by unassisted native workmen.—The internal trade of Japan is brisk and constant. The roads are good and kept in excellent order, and hotels, warehouses, and stables for the accommodation of man, beast, and baggage are abundant, and their terms reasonable. Many of the merchants become rich, but there are not as yet five millionaires of any class in Japan. In the open ports there are probably a few score merchants who may each be worth $50,000, but this is a large sum in Japan. Goods are conveyed on land by pack horses, oxen, and coolies. The principal carriage of merchandise is by water; for although the Japanese junks cannot make long sea voyages, they are well fitted to navigate the rivers, to coast from port to port, and to cross from island to island. The shores of the Japanese group afford great facilities for a coasting trade, from the abundance of harbors and shelters for vessels of small size, and these facilities are energetically used by the people, who keep afloat a vast number of vessels, from fishing boats to junks of 300 tons. At present the great bulk of the coasting trade is done by the steamers of the Pacific mail steamship company. Japanese trading companies also own steamers, which ply regularly between the large ports. Scores of small river and lake steamers, owned and manned by Japanese, now ply on the inland waters and seacoast. On Lake Biwa alone there are seven steamers. Commerce is comparatively free from tolls and duties, though the government seems to have a chronic tendency to meddle with the merchants, and privileged corporations help to fetter and restrict commerce. The inland trade is assisted by great fairs held at Kioto and other cities. Until the summer of 1859, for more than two centuries, the foreign commerce had been limited to the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki. The Dutch had a small factory at Deshima, on which 12 or 13 merchants lived, closely watched by the Japanese, and allowed very little liberty. Two ships were annually sent from Batavia, with cargoes consisting chiefly of sugar, ivory, bar iron, tinned iron, fine chintzes, broadcloths, shalloons, cloves, tortoise shell, drugs, spectacles, looking glasses, watches, various herbs and roots, and Dutch medicines. The writer in his travels through Japan has found two or three popular Dutch medicines advertised in Roman letters in nearly all the large towns and cities. The words in use among the natives for glass, tinned iron, table, Sunday, electricity, laudanum, and many other things, are corruptions of the Dutch names for the same. The chief articles of export by the Dutch were copper, camphor, lacquer ware, porcelain, and rice. In 1854 American diplomacy succeeded in removing the barriers against foreign commerce, and many ports have since been opened to foreign residence and trade. The articles most in demand by the Japanese are tissues of all kinds, cotton prints, calicoes, flannels, cotton and woollen yarn, knit goods, chintz, velvet, woollens, blankets, glass ware, mirrors, drugs, ivory, cheap clocks, watches, petroleum and lamps, flour, rod iron, machinery, sugar, boots and shoes, hats, wine, spirits and beer, zinc, sail cloth, soap, leather, and tea lead. The most profitable exports are rice, silk, tea, camphor, vegetable oil and tallow, wax, lacquered ware, porcelain, sulphur, silkworms' eggs, and a variety of sundries that find a market in China. The value of the imports into Japan during the year 1872 amounted to $26,188,441: of exports, $24,294,532; total value of exports and imports, $50,482,973. The local trade, imports and exports, between the open ports of Japan during 1871, was to the value of $4,436,539; for 1872 it was valued at $4,263,232. The declared value of imports in 1873 was 29,000,000 yens, or dollars, and the declared value of the exports, $21,000,000. The total amount of duties collected, including for exports, imports, rent of warehouse, entrance and clearance fees, fines and penalties, and miscellaneous, was $1,735,000. The value of cotton manufactures imported into Japan in 1871 was $8,011,478, and in 1872 $10,065,155. Of woollen manufactures, the value in 1871 was $2,056,789, and in 1872 $6,335,014. The export of raw silk in 1871 was $8,416,712, in 1872 $7,355,623; silkworms' eggs in 1871 $2,184,688, in 1872 $1,963,159; tea in 1871 $4,651,292, in 1872 $5,445,438; rice in 1873 $2,988,548; copper in 1873 $1,353,545. In 1872 the shipping returned at all the open ports was: British, 31 mail steamers, 351 ships, tonnage 204,077; American, 293 mail steamers, 69 ships, tonnage 683,401; other nations, 118 ships, tonnage 73,024. On the first opening of the ports to foreign commerce, the chief obstacle to profitable trade was the peculiar ideas of the Japanese government relating to currency. Little trouble is now experienced on this score, as the mint at Ozaka turns out gold and silver coins of satisfactory weight and fineness, which are graded in value according to the decimal system.—In science, the Japanese have particularly cultivated medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. The European system of medicine is now followed by nearly all the doctors of Japan, and dissection is openly practised in the great cities, and secretly in the smaller by private individuals. A great many Dutch books on therapeutics, medicine, and surgery have been translated of late years and diligently studied. The native doctors are highly respected by the foreign practitioners, and while they are very successful with local diseases, they do not hesitate to attempt very difficult cases, with average good success. Among their many inventions are acupuncture ​and moxa (Jap. mogusa, burning grass), both of which, though now generally superseded, were long practised in Europe, into which they had been introduced from Japan. The Japanese people are troubled with a disease which is not known in other countries, called kakke (leg humor), which baffles the skill of both native and foreign physicians. Its diagnosis is as yet very obscure. It is especially prevalent in Tokio, and the summer of 1873 was noted for the mortality caused there by this disease. It begins in the feet; the legs swell, the patient has great difficulty in walking, and has to remain quiet; the legs continue to swell, and after headache, palpitation of the heart, and excruciating pains in the small intestines, death ensues. Their so-called "remarkable medical discovery," the dosha powder, which Titsingh asserted could restore flexibility to a stiffened human corpse, and cure disease in the living body, refresh the spirits, &c., is and always was a pious fraud. It is made of common quartz sand, drawn from certain bubbling springs in the provinces of Kii and Hitachi, by priests of the Buddhist Shin Gon sect, with long prayers to Buddha to give it efficacy. With this a few grains of mica are mixed. It is not now believed in except by the lowest and most ignorant people. In chemistry, botany, and astronomy, the Japanese have gained considerable knowledge by means of translations from the Dutch and English. In the fine arts they have made but little progress. Their music is very disagreeable to European ears, though the people take a passionate delight in it. The Japanese gamut is very rude, and most of the music is in the minor key. They have a considerable body of printed music, among which is a collection of very ancient classical pieces performed on public occasions. The bands for the army and navy are now trained by European instructors, in European style. The use of the samisen or three-stringed banjo is always a part of female education. The koto and the biwa are the principal other stringed instruments. They have a large variety of wind instruments, and several kinds of drums and cymbals. In the arts of design and painting they show great taste, but only a resident in the country itself can fully appreciate their delineations. There are several distinct styles or schools of drawing and painting, easily recognized by a connoisseur. The style used on fans, battledoors, story books, broadsides, caricatures, &c., is most popular and pleases the vulgar eye. Another style is used on the kakemono or hanging pictures and scrolls seen in every house; and still another on folding screens and pictorial scroll books. In this last style the coloring is very rich, and the details are minutely portrayed. In the second, the salient points are emphasized, but the pictures, while very suggestive, leave much to the imagination. The first named style combines the qualities of the second and third. Cultivated Japanese do not like foreign pictures, on account of their intense realism. Their delineations of birds, flowers, and fruits are exquisitely beautiful. Not only does their lacquered, porcelain, and inlaid work of all kinds show this, but the walls of the palaces in Kioto and Tokio, and the tombs at Nikko and Shiba, are renowned for the remarkable beauty and correctness of their carvings and paintings. They are not very successful in portraying the human form. They know little of the higher plastic art, and have scarcely a conception of that ideal human form which is such a passion with Europeans. Their best sculptured representations of sacred animals are fair specimens of clever chisel work rather than of ideals. Printers and booksellers are numerous, and keep the market well supplied with cheap books, many of them profusely illustrated with woodcuts. They print only on one side of the paper, using cut wooden blocks for type. Kioto was formerly the chief seat of the book trade, and was eminently the centre of literature, the fine arts, and religion. Tokio is now fast robbing it of all its glories, and becoming the manufacturing, fine-art, literary, and religious, as well as the political capital of the empire. All the people are fond of reading, and circulating libraries, carried on men's backs from house to house, are very common. Their dramas, of which the people are passionately fond, are nearly always founded on national history or tradition, or the exploits, lives, or adventures of Japanese heroes and gods. Many of them are designed to enforce and illustrate moral precepts. Their general tendency is elevating, patriotic, and decorous, though some of them are strongly tainted with the old national passion for revenge, and have horrible exhibitions of cruel punishments. The actor is most esteemed who can most frequently change parts in the same play. The female parts are usually taken by men or boys, though women are now becoming actresses. The best actors receive $1,000 a season, which is a high salary in Japan. The theatrical stage is a turn-table, which can be turned and made to present a new scene in a moment. The scenes are perfectly true to Japanese life and fact, the actual scene of the play being always laid in Japan. The theatres as yet are very rude structures. The playing begins in the morning and lasts all day, the spectators bringing their food with them. The actors are looked upon as a very low class.—The two great religions of Japan are Shinto and Buppo, or Shintoism and Buddhism. Shinto is supposed to be the ancient religion of Japan. Buddhism was brought from Corea. The word shinto is Chinese. The Japanese name for the same is kami no michi, "the way of the gods." Shin means god; to, way, doctrine, cult. The essence of Shinto is ancestral worship and sacrifice to departed heroes. Mori says: "The Shintos believe in a past life, and they live in fear or reverence of the spirits of the dead." The number of Shinto deities is enormous, and variously estimated, but ​the reputed divine ancestress of the mikado Ten Sho Dai Jin, or Ama Terasu o Migami, "great goddess of the celestial effulgence," or "the heavenly illuminating spirit," is the chief and supreme. The first name is Chinese, the second pure Japanese. The Shintoists have very obscure notions about the immortality of the soul, a supreme creator, or a future state of rewards and punishments. Their chief end, in opposition to the Buddhists, is happiness in this life. in its precepts Shinto lays great stress upon keeping the body pure with water and the heart by prayer to the kami or gods. Pilgrimages to sacred places and attendance upon the religious festivals are enjoined as duties. The Mecca of the Shintoists is the collection of temples in Ise, about 200 m. S. W. of Tokio, which are visited by the mikado, the recognized spiritual head of the Shinto system, hence called tenno, which means "heavenly king." The eating of flesh was formerly an abomination, but modern civilization, a knowledge of physiology, and experience of the taste of well cooked steaks, have overcome this prejudice, and the most devoted Shintoists now eat beef habitually. The great end and aim of Shintoism is obedience to the edicts of the government, as shown in the sermons of the lecturers and priests. The three great commandments, issued by the department of religion in 1872, intended to be the basis of a reformed Shinto and national religion, are as follows: "1. Thou shalt honor the gods and love thy country. 2. Thou shalt clearly understand the principles of heaven and the duty of man. 3. Thou shalt revere the emperor as thy sovereign, and obey the will of his court." In its higher forms Shinto is a cultured and intellectual deism; in its lower forms it consists in blind obedience to governmental and priestly dictates. The Shinto temples are called miyas, and are made of the pure wood called hi no Ki, "sun wood." In a perfectly pure Shinto temple there is neither altar, image, nor picture. A mirror, the emblem of self-examination, and strips of white paper, symbols of purity of life, are always seen, but nothing else. Around or outside of the temple often hang votive tablets, pictures of horses and of ancient heroes, a stone lavatory, often a sculptured cow, or "two heavenly dogs." The sun is worshipped under the name of O Tento Sama, "lord of the heavenly path;" and the moon under the title of O Tsuki Sama. The Shinto belief supposes the existence of an infinite number of spirits who exercise an influence over the affairs of the world, who are to be propitiated by prayers and the observance of certain rules of conduct, cleanliness of person, and purity and cheerfulness of heart. The inferior spirits, who are very numerous, are chiefly heroes canonized for their worthy deeds or illustrious qualities. The most prominent and popular of these minor deities is Hachiman, the god of war, who is an apotheosis of the 16th emperor of Japan. The worship paid to the spirits residing in the miyas is of a very simple character. The devotee approaches under the sacred gateways until within a short distance of the door. He then stops, flings a few coins in the box or on the floor, folds his hands in a posture of reverence, mutters his prayers, and departs. The Shinto priests are called kannushi, spiritual teachers. They form a high class of society, but have no ordination or special privileges. They marry and have families. They wear a peculiar costume when officiating. It is highly probable that Shinto never became a definite system of religion until after the introduction of Buddhism. Many of its legends and even titles are Chinese. Buddhism accepted its deities and caused them to be worshipped as Buddhist deities; and the two religions became gradually so mixed together, to the advantage of Buddhism and the loss of Shinto, that the existence of the latter has been little more than nominal during the past five or six centuries. On the accession of the mikado to his ancient supreme power, in 1868, a "purification" was begun, and all the Shinto temples throughout the empire were purged of Buddhist symbols, images, writings, &c.; the use of Chinese religious names, titles, and terms was discouraged, and that of pure Japanese encouraged, in the language of religion. But the attempts made by the government to proselyte all the people to the Shinto faith and to abolish Buddhism failed, and Buddhism is still, as it has been for more than ten centuries, the popular religion of Japan. It is said to have been introduced from Corea in the first century of the Christian era, but was not propagated extensively until the year 552, when the king of Hakkusai, a district of Corea, sent an embassy with a present of an image of Shaka (Buddha) and a set of Buddhist books of the sacred canon. Though at first violently opposed, it gradually made converts, until the son of the emperor, afterward regent of the empire, became a convert, after which the success of Buddhism in Japan was assured. Bands of zealous priests continued to pour into the empire, and, not content with their success in southern Japan, accompanied or followed in the wake of the conquering armies northward, who drove the aboriginal Ainos before them, or tranquillized and governed them. Long before the introduction of Christianity Buddhism was thoroughly established wherever the Japanese language was spoken, even in the Liu Kiu islands. In 1869 there were 168,000 Buddhist priests and 460,244 temples and monasteries. There were originally six sects which entered Japan. Now there are seven large and "orthodox" sects, with 30 subdivisions or offshoots, and 12 "irregular," "eclectic," or very small sects. Probably in no other country has there been a richer development of Buddhism than in Japan. Here the latest phases and developments of the wonderful doctrines of the Indian sage are found. Its effects on the civilization of Japan have been ​as marked as those of Mohammedanism upon Turkey, or Christianity upon England. The chief deity in the Buddhist pantheon in Japan is Amida (Sanskrit Amitabha), and the essential part of the worship offered to Amida is the repetition of the prayer Namu Amida Butsu, "Save us, eternal Buddha." Next to the worship of Amida is that of Kuanon, the goddess of mercy. She is always addressed by those who are in sorrow or affliction of any kind. The most astonishing answers to prayers made to her are on record, and form the subject of a series of remarkable tableaux of life-size figures at the great temple of Asakusa in Tokio. There are 33 celebrated shrines to her honor, and pious pilgrims often make the tour of the empire, visiting and praying at every one of them. Yemma is the god of hell and the chief judge of the infernal regions. Jizo are six deities whose images are placed along the highways of the empire, and who are besought by those who suffer from the consequences of sin and lust. The Go-hiaku-rakan, or 500 original disciples of Shaka, are found in many temples devoted to their honor. Japan is a country of wayside shrines and images, and of temples without number. Some of the great temples in Kioto are enormous structures, capable of seating 5,000 persons, and some contain as many as 3,000 life-sized gilt images of sages, saints, and deities. Monasteries and nunneries are numerous, and were formerly well filled; but Buddhism has been so weakened by governmental fines and confiscations, and by the decay of belief incident to the study of foreign science, that it is slowly but surely decaying, and the number of its priests and nuns has greatly decreased. The Japanese Buddhist priests are called bozu, corrupted into the English word bonze, and are often very learned men. Sanskrit is their sacred language, but is little studied in Japan. A large body of Japanese, especially the higher classes, reject idol worship entirely, and found their rule of life on merely philosophical and abstract notions. They are followers of Confucius, and are called Ju-sha, or the school of philosophers. There is very little hostility between the various forms of religion in Japan, and many profess them all. The Ju-sha have no shrine or ritual, but they pay supreme homage to Confucius, to whose honor there is a temple built in Tokio, but they cannot be said to worship him. They religiously venerate their own ancestors. Indeed, the veneration, if not worship, of ancestors is common to all the religions of Japan. The Yamabushi sect of mountebank priests, once numerous, have been suppressed by the government since 1871. The authorities of the state are indifferent to mere doctrines, so long as the public peace is not disturbed. One reason why the several religions are tolerated by the government, and by each other, is because the divinity of the mikado (whom the officials call tenno, or heavenly king) is dogmatically taught and politically insisted upon, and all people are commanded to obey and reverence him, as the descendant, representative, and vicegerent of the gods. The cause alleged before the foreign ministers of the persecution and punishment of the Christians of Urakami in 1868 and 1869 was, that they acknowledged Christ as the Lord of heaven, and that such a doctrine was a subversion of the dogma of the mikado's divinity, on which the government of Japan rests. In addition to those which have been described, the worship of Inari, the deified introducer of rice into Japan, and the patron of foxes, is common throughout the empire. Inari shrines and images of foxes, which are worshipped, are numerous everywhere, often alone, but usually attached to Shinto temples. Many superstitions in regard to the fox are popularly held. He deceives people, injures them, transforms himself into a beautiful woman, and lures men away by bewitching them or promising them sensual pleasure. He is also believed to enter the hearts of people and make them wicked and devilish. Sometimes he acts benevolently. Hence the people propitiate him, and worship Inari, who rules over the foxes, and whom they obey. The worship of the phallus, which must once have been very prevalent, judging from the immense number of phallic symbols and even shrines until lately seen in Japan, has now faded almost entirely away in the parts visited by foreigners, though it still lingers in the rural districts. The public sale of the phallic emblems, so very common in Yedo, Ozaka, Kioto, and other cities, prior to 1868, has been prohibited and entirely suppressed by the government.—The government of Japan consists of: 1, the emperor; 2, the dai jo kuan or supreme executive, consisting of the dai jo dai jin, or premier, and the u dai jin and sa dai jin, right and left junior prime ministers; 3, the sa in, or left chamber of the council of state, consisting of seven sangi or high counsellors, and the u in or right chamber of the council of state, consisting of all the ministers and vice ministers who are heads of departments, nine in number. There are also the prefectures of the fu or imperial cities, the ken or districts, formerly provinces, and the emigration department having control of the Hokkaido, or territory north of the main island, which are under the dai jo kuan, or supreme government of Japan. The departments are as follows: 1, guai mu sho, foreign office; 2, o kura sho, treasury department, having nine bureaus or subdivisions; 3, riku gun sho, war department, with four bureaus; 4, kai gun sho, navy department, with ten bureaus; 5, mom bu sho, education department; 6, ko bu sho, public works department, with nine bureaus; 7, kio bu sho, department of religion; 8, shi ho sho, department of justice, two bureaus; 9, ku nai sho, department of the imperial household, three bureaus. At the present time (1874) Japan has legations and ministers resident in the United States, ​England, France, Russia, Austria, Italy, and Prussia, and consuls in China and several other countries. It has a foreign debt of over $30,000,000, a system of national banks based upon that of the national banks of the United States, custom houses with American inspectors, and paper money consisting of both government and national bank notes. There is a mint at Ozaka, built and equipped in modern style under English supervision. It coined in the year ending July 31, 1873, $25,162,614, and in 1872 $14,488,981 in gold, and from 1871 to 1873 $10,213,598 in silver. All the old gold and silver coinage of the empire has been called in, and the new round milled coins substituted. The new copper coinage appeared in 1874. The money system of the Japanese is decimal, the units being the yen, equal to the American dollar, and the sen, equal to the cent. The national postal service is under the control of the treasury department, and is based mainly on the American system, and Japan now has postal treaties with the chief countries of the world. The national revenue in 1872 was $65,831,362, of which $59,363,625 was from land taxes. The disbursements for the same year were $62,371,574. The customs duties amounted to $1,191,171. The expenses for feudal commutations amounted to nearly $24,000,000. The army is organized on the French model. The country is divided into six military districts, in which are camps and garrisons as follows: Tokio, 7,140; Sendai, 4,460; Nagoya, 4,260; Ozaka, 6,700; Hiroshima, 4,340; Kumamoto, 4,780; total, 31,680 soldiers, constituting the army on a peace footing. Of these troops, 8 regiments of infantry (6,456 men), 1 squadron of cavalry (96 men), and 2 regiments of artillery (1,444 men) constitute the konoye, or imperial guard. The main army is divided into 14 regiments of infantry, 3 regiments of cavalry, 18 companies of artillery, and 10 companies of engineers. The estimates for the army on a war footing are not yet (May, 1874) made, but 90,000 is usually regarded as the number of soldiers that could easily be sent into the field in an emergency. The navy is organized on the English model, and consists of 2 ironclads, 10 men-of-war, 8 gunboats, and 4 transports. On these are 1,514 sailors and officers; 298 boys are on school ships, training to be officers, and there are nine companies of marines. The education department has in Tokio a medical college with 8 German professors and 300 students. The imperial university, consisting of the three departments English, French, and German, has 25 foreign professors and 600 students. The national scheme of education provides for 8 universities, 32 high schools or academies, 250 grammar schools, and 55,000 primary schools. Foreign languages and learning are to be pursued only in the two higher schools, but the method of study in all is to be closely modelled on the foreign system. In 1874 this scheme was about one sixth fulfilled. Chinese learning is neglected, and foreign science and languages take precedence. An immense number of foreign books, many of them of a high character, have been translated. The department of religion takes charge of the Shinto shrines, and propagates the dogmas of Shinto and the three commands of the government, the chief of which is, "Thou shaft revere the mikado, and obey the will of his court." There is a railway 18 m. long from Yokohama to Tokio, completed in October, 1872; the average traffic receipts per week in 1874 were nearly $10,000. The road between Kobe and Ozaka was finished May 11, 1874. The route for a trunk line from Kioto to Tokio, and from Ozaka, via Kioto, to Tsuruga in Echizen, has been surveyed. A system of 18 lighthouses of the finest kind, with buoys, beacons, &c., under the care of trained Europeans, with native assistants, and costing over $1,000,000, has robbed the coast of Japan of its former terrors to mariners. There is a telegraph line from Nagasaki to Tokio, with branches, and the capital of Japan communicates directly with San Francisco, via Asia and Europe. The railway, lighthouse, telegraph, and mining bureaus follow the English system, and have British assistants. In 1872 there were 224 foreigners employed in the service of the government, on salaries ranging from $480 to $16,000, and one at $36,000 per annum. Of these, 119 were English, 50 French, and 26 American. In 1874 Americans held the highest offices given to foreigners, in the treasury, emigration, education, and state departments. While American and British citizens hold the paramount foreign influence in Japan, they are all, except one American in the state department, who holds a commission as officer of the second rank, and one English officer, in the strictest sense of the word employees, and have neither title, rank, nor commission, but render service by contract. The emigration department has engaged a staff of American officials, who have surveyed and explored a great part of Yezo, built roads, and introduced scientific agriculture, American stock, &c. In 1874 there were about 2,500 foreign residents in Japan, exclusive of soldiers and sailors, of whom 300 were in Tokio. Yokohama, once a wretched fishing village, is now a splendid city, with most of the institutions of civilized cities in Europe, having a foreign population of about 1,500, and a native population of 50,000. Kobe is a similar instance of rapid growth and transformation. The British residents in Japan are mainly commercial and diplomatic, the Americans mostly professional. In May, 1874, there were 31 male and 10 female American Protestant, 12 British, 3 Russian, and about 30 French Roman Catholic missionaries. Nearly the whole of the New Testament has been translated into Japanese, and several native Christian churches have been established. Since 1864 Japanese have been visiting foreign countries, and while several thousand have passed through Europe or America, about 400 have ​remained, chiefly in England and the United States, as students, during periods varying from one to six years. Among the reforms carried out by the mikado and his government are the abandonment of the old life of seclusion, and his conformance to the dress and public manner of life of European sovereigns; the elevation of the Eta or pariah class to citizenship; the abolition of the feudal system; the encouragement of a native press; the establishment of a national post; the reorganization of the army and navy on European models; the suppression of the sale of obscene pictures and phallic symbols; the adoption of foreign dress by Japanese officials; the abolition of the custom of wearing two swords; reform in the marriage laws; the reformation of the penal code; the adoption of railways, telegraphs, lighthouses, steam lines of transports, arsenals, and dockyards; a civil service of foreign employees; the abolition of the lunar and adoption of the solar calendar; the establishment of legations in foreign countries; the colonization of Yezo; the annexation of the Riu Kiu or Loo Choo islands; and the planning of an educational system on the foreign model, in which science has a high place.—The history of Japan, like that of other ancient nations, begins with a mythological period. According to the holy hooks of Shinto: "In the beginning the world had no form, but was like unto an egg. The clear portion (the white) became heaven, and the heavy portion (the yolk) became earth." Something like a reed then appeared and became a god, or kami; he was the father of a line of spiritual beings, who ruled the universe as it then was for millions of years, ending in a god and goddess Izanagi and Izanami (evidently the equivalents for the Chinese ying and yang, the male and female principles that pervade all creation). From their union sprang the islands of Japan, the mountains, seas, and other natural objects therein. Another legend is that Izanagi, taking his heavenly jewelled spear, stirred up the sea, and the drops which fell from the point of it congealed and became an island, upon which the two gods descended and took up their abode. Subsequently a daughter was born, whose body was so bright that she ascended to heaven and became the sun, and was called Ten Sho Dai Jin. Another daughter became the moon, O Tsuki Sama. These divinities are of no further importance in history than as serving to make a line of ancestry for the reigning family. At the time when, according to tradition, the genealogy merged into mortal men, the country was found to be peopled, and there is no attempt to show whence these people came, though described as hairy, uncivilized, and living in the open air. What seem to be the authentic annals of the country begin about 600 B. C., though there is no native documentary proof of this, and the Japanese have no writings that antedate the 7th century. At the time when Jimmu Tenno, who is called the first emperor, set out upon his career, the people of the country are said to have been hairy and uncivilized, living under the rule of a head man in each village. The Japanese have to this day a great contempt for the people of Yezo, who may he thus described, and they allege that similar tribes occupied the whole of the islands, and that they were gradually driven back by the armies of Jimmu. It is more likely that they were conquered and gradually amalgamated with their conquerors, by the intermarriage of these with native females, and that in this way, and by the effects of the warm climate of the south, they lost that hirsute appearance which is so characteristic of the people of Yezo, who are called Ainos. There are two strongly marked varieties of feature in Japan, which are strikingly portrayed in their own pictures; these are the broad flat face of the lower classes, and the high nose and oval face of the higher. The difference is so marked as to be some argument in favor of a previous mixing of two different races, the one of which had extended southward from the Kurile islands and Siberia, hairy and broad-featured, while the other had originated from the south, with Indian features and smooth skins. Jimmu, setting out from Hiuga, on the east side of the island of Kiushiu, gradually overran that island, the adjoining one of Shikoku, and the west half of the main island, as far as Mino. His capital was a place near Kioto, which was finally selected after several changes. He began the civilization of the people, and established laws and a settled government. For many centuries his posterity reigned on the throne he had founded, bearing the title of mikado, and claiming to rule by divine right and inheritance. They exercised the most absolute power. Women were not excluded from the succession, and in ancient Japanese history there were many famous empresses. Jingo Kogo, the empress regent, conquered Corea and gave birth to a son, who succeeded her. At his death he was deified, and is now the Japanese god of war. A social revolution in Japan followed the conquest of Corea. Learned Coreans brought over to Japan the works of Confucius and other Chinese books, and the language and literature of China became the study of the higher classes. In A. D. 552 a Corean prince presented the emperor with Buddhist idols and hooks. The doctrines of Buddhism won their way in spite of all opposition. On the accession to the throne of the empress Suiko, the first female sovereign, in 593, full toleration was declared to the Buddhist faith. Written codes and official grades were now formed; the empire was resurveyed, and the provincial boundaries were fixed more exactly. The invention of native syllabaries or alphabets (the hiragana, the script or running hand, and katakana, or square letters) to facilitate the reading, understanding, and pronunciation of Chinese, was the work of the famous priest Kobo, ​who died in 835. The abdication of the emperors after short reigns began at this time or a little earlier to be a regular custom; after abdication they would become priests. Among other notable events in Japan, Yezo was invaded and completely subdued about the year 658, the art of brewing saké was invented in 693, and gold was discovered in 749, after which money was coined and came into general use. In 788 a people from the west, supposed to be Mongols, attempted the invasion of Japan, but were driven away, and their army and fleets nearly annihilated by the valor of the natives and the fury of the elements. For three or four centuries the history of the empire may be written in the successive rise to power of individuals of the great families of the nobles, whose names, such as Fujiwara, Taira, Minamoto, and Tachibana, fill the pages of the Japanese annals, and are venerated at the present day. The imperial power began to decay, and the throne finally became the toy of leaders and the prey of contending factions. The real origin of the decline of imperial power is found in the basis of the system of succession. The looseness of the marriage tie produced weakness in the social structure and in the government. The mikado was allowed 12 concubines and one wife, so as to insure offspring; but no law existed defining the constitution of a legal heirship, or the rights of an heir to the throne. The succession did not depend upon birth, but wholly upon the arbitrary will of the sovereign. Every member of the imperial family was, under these circumstances, left free to promote his ambitious designs upon the throne as best he could. The natural consequences of such a rude system of inheritance are obvious, and the pages of Japanese history for nearly four centuries reflect the story of turbulence, intrigue, and bloody strife, as the different clans in turn got possession of the throne; and at one time there were two emperors. From the civil custody of the courtiers, the throne finally became the bauble of the military class, like the throne of imperial Rome. Meanwhile the vassal princes took advantage of the weakness of the imperial government to strengthen their own power, adding to the national confusion. To remedy these evils, the court of the mikado created the office of shogun, or governor generalissimo, and appointed Yoritomo to it. This man, one of the most renowned heroes in Japanese history, was the son of a court noble of the Minamoto family by a peasant woman. After quelling the turbulence of the great vassals, and restoring the authority of the throne, he gradually concentrated in his own hands the real power of the government, without however depriving the mikado of his nominal rank, dignity, and religious supremacy. The office of shogun was made hereditary in the family of Yoritomo, but did not finally remain so. Abnegating official titles and rank, he nevertheless held the fulness of sovereignty. He chose Kamakura, about 35 m. from Yedo, for his capital, and made the court of the first shogunate one of great magnificence and dignity. From this date, 1195, the shogun was regarded as the lord of the land, and the influence and power of the emperor became nominal. The Mongols having invaded China in 1260, and conquered the greater part of it, their leader Kublai Khan sent envoys to Japan in 1268, and again in 1271 and 1273. On their arrival at Kamakura the first envoys were insulted, and those who came later were arrested and put to death. In 1274 an expedition was sent by the Mongol conqueror, which was defeated. In 1281 an immense fleet and army were despatched to Japan, which when off the coast of Chikuzen, were destroyed in a storm and by Japanese valor. From that time Japan has not been molested by invaders. From 1331 to 1392 occurred the civil wars between the factions of the northern emperor and the southern emperor, both of whom claimed the throne. The period from 1336 to 1573 is known as the "epoch of war," and the country was ruled by 13 shoguns of the Ashikaga family. About this time there rose into notice three of the greatest names that adorn the pages of Japanese history; they are Nobunaga, Hidoyoshi, and Iyeyasu. Nobunaga conceived the idea of bringing the whole empire under his sway; and reducing first the weak clans, he gradually overawed the great clans, but was killed by a traitor before he finished his work. Hideyoshi hastened to complete it, and succeeded in bringing the whole empire under his absolute rule. Nobunaga hated the Buddhist priesthood, and persecuted them with sword and fire. Hideyoshi likewise hated them, and both pretended to welcome the Jesuit missionaries, in order to offset them against the Buddhists and diminish their power. Hideyoshi is usually called by the Jesuit fathers Faxiba (correctly Hashiba), a name chosen by himself in a trivial mood, and made up of the first and last halves of two different men's names. He is also called Taiko Sama by foreigners, but this was merely the title of his office, and there have been many taikos. Hideyoshi was not only a great warrior, but a consummate statesman and legislator, and the "laws of Taiko" have been venerated for centuries. Aspiring to conquer the vast empire of China, he sent by the way of Corea in 1592 an army 160,000 strong. Corea submitted, being entirely unprepared, but further advance was stopped by the death of Hideyoshi, and the expedition returned. The country was now distracted by two parties, one led by the adherents of the infant son of Hideyoshi, the other by Tokugawa Iyeyasu. The latter triumphed, and founded the shogunate of Tokugawa, the family which ruled over Japan from 1603 till 1867, during which period the country enjoyed profound peace. He made Yedo, then a small town, his capital, and in a few years it became a great city. Iyeyasu is regarded as ​the greatest character in Japanese history. His system of government was that under which Japan continued during the period of her seclusion from the rest of the world, which has been so well described by Kämpfer, Titsingh, and Klaproth, and which so long excited the wonder of other nations. It was a normal outgrowth of peculiar circumstances. Having no foreign enemies, the feudal condition of the country necessitated a dual government and two capitals: a divine emperor, the fountain of honors and titles, to be venerated; and a strong hand of power, the shogun, with castles, wealth, and armies to be feared. The one dwelt amid a semi-sacred nobility and a host of learned priests, in a quiet capital filled with temples and colleges; and the other, from his moated castle ruling the turbulent vassals and enforcing military authority in every part of the land, resided in a bustling capital filled with wealth, luxury, and all the circumstance of actual power. Though the shogun was the de facto ruler of Japan, the mikado was by no means the empty shadow that Kämpfer and his copyists make him to be. Title and rank in Japan have a significance even greater than in Europe, and all high ranks and titles had to be obtained from the mikado. He was the true sovereign of Japan, and the shogun was a usurper, and in no sense of the word a king or emperor. He was but a military governor, a commander-in-chief. Properly he was a senior baron, primus inter pares. His family was but a clan like the others, which had obtained its supremacy by the genius and labors of Iyeyasu, and which held it by force and superior resources. Probably no greater diplomatic mistake was ever made in the history of the world than that of the foreign nations who made treaties with Japan, and accepted the seal of the shogun as surety, without having them ratified by the mikado. In fact, the foreign nations were content to make treaties with the lieutenant, or the mayor of the palace, through their ignorance of the facts, while the emperor's consent was actually withheld. The term taikun (or tycoon) means "great sovereign," and was an absurd title, to which the shogun had no right whatever, and which was invented to deceive foreigners. When the foreign ministers in Japan found out the true state of affairs, and that the mikado was and had always been de jure the true sovereign, they insisted upon and obtained his ratification of the treaties. The assumption of this title by the shogun helped to bring on the civil war of 1866–'9 which reduced his power to that of a daimio, and restored the emperor to his ancient power and rights. There never were two emperors in Japan, and the loose statements about a "secular" and an "ecclesiastical" emperor originated in deception.—The first European known to have written of Japan is Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, who visited China, and in his narrative speaks of Zipangu, a modification of the Chinese name. He gave such glowing accounts of the people and the wealth of the land, that Columbus seems evidently to have had the quest of that country in mind when he sailed westward, and on first landing in the Bahamas believed himself to be in Zipangu. After the circumnavigation of Africa by Vasco da Gama in 1497, the Portuguese rapidly extended their discoveries and conquests in southern Asia. In 1542 three Portuguese sailors arrived at Taneshima, and "breathed into the Japanese atmosphere the first breath of Christianity." About three years later a Portuguese adventurer, Fernam Mendez Pinto (whose name for a long time was a synonyme for liar, but whose veracity has been reëstablished by modern criticism), while cruising with some companions of his own nation in the vessel of a Chinese pirate, was driven by foul weather into a harbor in one of the smaller Japan islands. He was well received, and carried back to the Portuguese settlements in China such reports of the riches and magnificence of Japan, that great numbers of traders and adventurers flocked thither, and an active commerce sprang up. Missionaries speedily followed the merchants, and in 1549 Japan was visited by the celebrated "apostle of the Indies," St. Francis Xavier. Both merchants and missionaries were favorably received, and while the one class found a ready and most profitable market for their goods, the other rapidly converted vast numbers of the natives to Christianity. Three of the most powerful nobles, the princes of Bungo, Harima, and Omura, were among the converts. In 1582 the Japanese Christians sent an embassy with letters and presents to Rome to do honor to the pope, and assure him of their submission to the church. In the two years which followed their return (1591–'2), it is said that 12,000 Japanese were converted and baptized. Tempted by the success of the Portuguese, the Dutch East India company in 1598 despatched five merchant vessels to Japan, one of which reached it in 1600. In 1609 other Dutch ships arrived, and were well received by the Japanese, who conceded to them a port on the island of Hirado (called by them Firando) for a factory or settlement, with considerable privileges. Before the arrival of the Dutch, who were then at war with Portugal, the Japanese government had become distrustful of the Portuguese, whose astonishing success made them haughty and disdainful of the feelings and prejudices of the natives. The effects of the missionaries' labors had scarcely been perceived during the anarchy into which the country was plunged, and Nobunaga had utilized the enthusiastic energy of the new converts in the suppression of their common enemy, the Buddhist priesthood. His successor Hideyoshi found the native Christians disobedient and unyielding under his rude and arbitrary orders. He is said to have asked a subject of the double kingdom of Spain and Portugal how his king had managed to possess ​himself of half the world. The Spaniard's reply, "He sends priests to win the people; his troops are then sent to join the native Christians, and the conquest is easy," made a deep impression upon Hideyoshi. The vicious habits and inconsistent conduct of the Portuguese Christians, mostly sailors and traders, the wild and offensive behavior of the converts toward the sacred temples of the Shinto deities and of the popular religion of Buddha, and the performance of pretended miracles by the missionaries, added to his political jealousy, excited the displeasure of Hideyoshi, who issued an edict for the banishment of the missionaries. The edict was renewed by his successor in 1596, and in 1597 23 priests were put to death in one day in Nagasaki. The Christians on their part took no measures to pacify the government, but defied it and began to overthrow idols and pull down heathen temples. This led to dreadful persecutions in 1612 and 1614, when many of the Japanese converts were put to death, their churches and schools were destroyed, and their faith was declared infamous and rebellious. The Portuguese traders were no longer allowed free access to the country, but were confined to the island of Deshima, at Nagasaki. In 1622 a frightful massacre of Christians took place near Nagasaki, and horrible tortures, endured with heroic constancy, were inflicted on multitudes in the vain effort to make them recant. In 1637 it was discovered by the Japanese government that the native Christians, driven to despair by their persecution, had entered into a conspiracy with the Portuguese to overthrow the imperial throne. The persecutions were renewed with increased rigor. Edicts were issued banishing the Portuguese for ever from Japan, and prohibiting any Japanese or Japanese ship or boat from leaving the country, under the severest penalties. By the close of 1639 the Portuguese were entirely expelled, and their trade was transferred to the Dutch, who, as enemies to the Portuguese and to the Roman Catholic faith, were not involved by the Japanese in their condemnation. In 1640 the oppressed Christians rose in open rebellion in the island of Amakusa, crossed over to the mainland, seized the castle of Shimabara, and made a long and gallant stand against the shogun's army. The Christians were at length subdued by the superior military skill of their opponents, who brought to their aid artillery, which the Dutch lent them. The Christian stronghold was finally carried by storm, and all within its walls, to the number of 31,000, were put to the sword. In the next year the Dutch were ordered to quit their factory at Hirado, and take up their residence under very strict inspection on the island of Deshima. There they remained for more than two centuries in undisturbed monopoly of the entire European trade of Japan. The occasional efforts of the Russians and English to obtain intercourse with the secluded empire were resolutely repulsed, and led in one case to the imprisonment for two years in Japan of the Russian Capt. Golovnin and several of his companions. During all this time the governmental system inaugurated by Iyeyasu, and perfected by his grandson Iyemitsu, worked smoothly and gave the country peace and prosperity. Under this dual system, the emperor, called the mikado (illustrious gate, or sublime porte), lived in Kioto, surrounded by the kuge or imperial nobles related to him. He was the centre and fountain of titles, honor, and power. The shogun never aspired to be mikado, but from his capital Yedo ruled the country as lieutenant of the emperor. The word shogun means commander-in-chief, and when the "barbarians" (foreigners) entered Japan, after Com. Perry's treaty, the mikado commanded the shogun to expel them. The foolish stories told about the mikado, who was also called dairi, by Kämpfer and others, were mainly the superstitious beliefs of the vulgar lower classes, though all Japanese believed him to be of divine descent. The daimios, or territorial nobles, resided in Yedo, and were divided into four classes: 1, the kokushiu, lords of provinces, princes; 2, the kamon, family doors, i. e., relatives of the shogun's family; 3, the tozama, landed noblemen descended from those who assisted Iyeyasu; 4, the fudai, the vassals of original retainers of Iyeyasu. In 1865 there were 21 kokushiu, 10 kamon, 30 tozama, and about 200 fudai. To be a daimio ("great name"), one must belong to one of these four classes, and have a revenue of not less than 58,000 bushels of rice. The annual revenue of the richest daimio was more than 5,400,000 bushels of rice. The shogun's revenue was over 40,000,000 bushels. Only the fudai daimios were eligible to office, or could take part in official business; and their power over the large daimios thus grew to be almost absolute. The source of the de facto power in Japan until 1866 lay in the two councils of state in Yedo, the members of which were called respectively toshi yori and waka doshi yori, senior senators or elders and younger senators. The daimios were allowed to visit their palaces only at certain periods, and never permitted to take their wives and children out of the capital, they being kept as hostages. The daimios were always closely watched by the councils of state, by means of spies and informers, and were always kept poor by heavy contributions levied upon them, and by their luxurious habits fostered by the system under which they lived. They were so harassed by surveillance and restraint that they generally sought relief in abdication of their troublesome dignities as soon as they had sons of proper age to succeed them. To prevent opportunity for conspiracy, they were kept in constant motion, and the great princes rarely met alone with each other. A most cunningly devised and rigidly executed system of espionage held every one in dread and suspicion, from the most powerful daimio ​to the meanest retainer. The ignoble quality of deception became to a large extent a national characteristic, which still clings to Japanese officials. Every Japanese head of a family was personally responsible for the conduct of his wife, children, servants, and guests. The whole population was divided into groups of five families, every member of which was responsible for the conduct of the others. No one of the common people could change his residence without obtaining a certificate of good conduct from the neighbors he was about to leave. Every one of the lower classes must also be registered at some temple, and have a wooden tablet or card officially certifying his name, occupation, residence, and temple. The result of this organization, which in a great measure still continues, is that a criminal has almost no hiding place, and robberies and other heinous crimes are reduced to a minimum. The Japanese people were formerly divided into eight classes: 1, the kuge, or Kioto nobility; 2, the daimios, or Yedo nobility; 3, the hatamoto, or lower daimio class, including the military literati, under the general name of samurai; 4, the priests, inferior officials, physicians, &c.; 5, the farmers and untitled landholders; 6, artisans; 7, merchants; 8, actors, beggars, &c. Beneath these were the eta, or tanners, skinners, and all workers in leather, who were the pariahs of Japan, and were obliged to live in quarters separate from the towns or villages; they were never allowed to touch any citizen, and had to execute and bury criminals. No samurai could be prosecuted or punished for killing one, nor would any help be offered to a drowning or starving eta. By a decree of the present emperor, published in 1871, all the social disabilities of these people were removed, and they are now citizens of the empire. Prostitutes and brothel-keepers were considered to be on the same social level as beggars. The first four classes had the privilege of wearing two swords, the others but one. About nine tenths of the population of Japan are included within the four lower classes. The chief causes for the recent changes in the government of Japan, and the social revolution among the whole people, are, first, the reverence of the people for the imperial throne and the true sovereign authority of the mikado; and second, the influence of western civilization.—In 1852 the United States government, in consequence of complaints made to it that American sailors wrecked on the coast of Japan had been harshly treated by the authorities of that country, despatched an expedition under the command of Commodore M. C. Perry, who was instructed to demand protection for American seamen wrecked on the coast, and if possible to effect a treaty by which American vessels should be allowed to enter one or more ports to obtain supplies and for purposes of trade. In February, 1854, Com. Perry, with a squadron of seven ships of war, entered the bay of Yedo, and anchored within a few miles of the city. During the previous year he had entered the same bay, and delivered to the Japanese a letter to the shogun from the president of the United States. The proceedings of Com. Perry were characterized, throughout the difficult task of dealing properly with the Japanese, by consummate tact and diplomatic skill, and were finally crowned with success. By a treaty dated at Kanagawa, the nearest large town, though really signed at Yokohama, then a mere fishing village, March 31, 1854, the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate (usually written Hakodadi) were opened as harbors of refuge, supply, trade, and consular residence. In September a British squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Sir James Stirling, entered the harbor of Nagasaki, and concluded a treaty with Japan, by which Hakodate and Nagasaki were opened to foreign commerce. The Russians made a similar treaty and obtained similar privileges, and were followed by the Dutch. On June 17, 1857, a new treaty was negotiated at Shimoda with the Japanese government by Mr. Townsend Harris, United States consul general to Japan, by which the port of Nagasaki was also opened to American trade. In 1858, in spite of all opposition, Mr. Harris succeeded in reaching Yedo, where he concluded a still more favorable treaty. During the same year a British squadron conveyed Lord Elgin to Yedo, where on Aug. 26 a new treaty was concluded between Great Britain and Japan, by which the ports of Hakodate, Kanagawa, and Nagasaki were to be opened to British subjects after July 1, 1859; Niigata, or some other convenient port on the W. coast of the main island, after Jan. 1, 1860; and Hiogo after Jan. 1, 1863; and various other commercial privileges were granted to British merchants. At the present date, 1874, Japan has treaties with the United States, Great Britain, Russia, Holland, Prussia, Portugal, France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Greece, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Hawaii, Peru, and China, which are similar in most respects. In 1860 a Japanese embassy, the first ever sent from the country, visited the United States, and another embassy visited Europe in 1861. The signing of the treaties by the shogun, who was wholly unprepared for the advent of the American commodore, caused an intense excitement throughout the country, general dissatisfaction, and deep indignation at the imperial court in Kioto. The sympathy of many daimios was excited and developed in behalf of the emperor, and the tide of power and influence began to set toward Kioto and away from Yedo. The shogun having died in 1858, the premier and regent at this time, an insolent and haughty man, disregarding the popular choice, selected the infant daimio of the province of Kii, and by execution and imprisonment suppressed all the leaders of the party who opposed his will. On March 23, 1860, the regent, who had despatched the embassy to the United States, was ​assassinated in the public streets of Yedo in broad daylight. After his death the custom of the shogun making personal visits to the sovereign at Kioto was revived, thus showing where the supreme power lay. Influences from Kioto now became so strong that the families of the daimios, long held as hostages, were withdrawn, and the custom of the daimios visiting Yedo was abolished. From this period Kioto became superior to Yedo, and while the power of the mikado daily increased, that of the shogun decreased, until the Yedo government was despised and openly defied. The cry of all the conservative and "patriotic" Japanese now was, "Honor the mikado, and expel the barbarians." In July, 1863, while the shogun's government was engaged in trying to persuade the foreigners to close the ports and leave Japan, the forces of the daimio of Choshiu (Nagato), acting upon orders from the imperial court of Kioto, fired on the ships of the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. These treaty powers afterward sent their ships of war to Shimonoseki, the port at which the batteries were erected. A complete victory of the foreigners was the result, and an indemnity of 3,000,000 Mexican dollars was demanded and obtained. This victory opened the eyes of the anti-foreign party to the power and resources of the "outside barbarians." Choshiu had acted in disobedience to the express command of the shogun, who had obtained a rescission of the order of the imperial court to "expel the barbarians." The shogun made an expedition against Choshiu to punish him for his disobedience, and to suppress his province. He set out with a large but motley force, equipped in the old style of armor, and armed with bows and arrows, spears, and swords. The forces of Choshiu were well drilled in foreign style, armed with rifles, and lightly and tightly clothed. A most decided and disastrous defeat of the shogun's army was the result. Defeat, mortification, and disease together carried off the shogun, Sept. 19, 1866, and he was succeeded by the new shogun, the last of his line, Hitotsubashi. Seven of the most influential daimios were summoned to Kioto, and one, the prince of Tosa, boldly proposed the abolition of the shognnate, and suggested the unification of the power of the nation in the hands of the emperor. The shogun accepted the situation, and tendered his resignation. This however did not seriously alter the form of government, and left the machinery of power in very much the same order as before, the mikado merely taking the authority of the shogunate to himself. In the winter of 1867–'8 the party in favor of an utter abolition of the shogunate, and a return to the ancient imperial system of government, formed a conspiracy and resolved on a bold coup d'état. Iwakura, now junior minister and chief of the embassy to the United States and Europe in 1872, was a prominent leader as well as instrument of the conspiracy. They created a government, under which the highest offices were filled by the kuge, or court nobles of the imperial family, those next in order by daimios and courtiers, and those of the third grade by able men selected from the samurai or gentry. All the power was thus thrown into the hands of a clique, composed almost entirely of the men of the four clans of Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen. These proceedings aroused the indignation of the ex-shogun, and he withdrew from Kioto to Ozaka with his followers. Under their influence, and by their persuasion, he undertook to reënter Kioto, with the view of driving out his opponents and of punishing the conspirators. At Fushimi, near Kioto, his vanguard was fired on, and his army, numbering nearly 30,000 men, after three days' fighting, were defeated by the opposing forces, chiefly from Satsuma and Choshiu, and numbering but 6,500 men. The ex-shogun escaped to Yedo in an American steamer, and on his arrival, although surrounded by a large army and possessed of a splendid navy, he declared his intention never to oppose the mikado's will. A small party supported him in this resolve, but the daimios of the northeast entered the field against the imperial forces, and gallantly maintained the desperate struggle for six months. The commander of the ex-shogun's navy took the island of Yezo, and setting up an aristocratic republic held out against the imperial forces for many months, when, the greater part of the fleet being sunk and the forts silenced by the ram Stonewall, supported by a large land force, the imperialists obtained a complete victory and the submission of the enemy. The whole country was now at peace. A complete and marvellous change took place in the foreign policy of the mikado's party. Hitherto the court at Kioto had been the centre of the anti-foreign spirit, and the motive and grand object of the coalition that overthrew the power of the shogun was to centralize all power in the imperial throne, strengthen the empire, and then to sweep away the foreigners from the country. The immense superiority of foreign arms, war material, and discipline first opened their eyes, and since all the treaties bore the signature of the shogun they were afraid lest the foreigners should aid him, and, regarding them as rebels, should seriously endanger their future course. In their extremity they invited the foreign representatives, then temporarily at Hiogo, to a conference and an imperial audience in the very heart of the old anti-foreign Kioto. The conversion of the court nobles was thorough and instantaneous. Many of them had never seen a foreigner. The men from the western nations were found to be neither wild beasts nor demons. From this point the mikado's government was known and recognized by all foreigners as the only and supreme government in Japan. In the spring of 1869 the four clans, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen, addressed a ​memorial to the throne, in which it was argued that the fiefs of the daimios ought not to be looked on as private property. Other clans supported the memorial. The imperial court, after consulting the general opinion, abolished the titles of court and territorial noble (kuge and daimio), and replaced them by that of "noble families" (kuazoku). In the summer of 1871 the entire power of the empire was centred directly in Tokio (Yedo), which had received its new name in 1868. All public property throughout the empire came into possession of the imperial government, and the former daimios were given the alternative of travelling abroad or living in Tokio, one tenth of their former revenue being allowed them for support. In December, 1871, an embassy consisting of the ambassador and junior prime minister Iwakura, and the vice ambassador Kido, three ministers of the cabinet, and inferior officers and secretaries, numbering 49 persons in all, sailed from Yokohama to visit all the nations having treaties with Japan. They spent seven months in the United States, and about a year in Europe, reaching Japan on their return, by way of Suez, Sept. 13, 1873.—The principal writers on Japan are: Kämpfer, "History of Japan" (2 vols. fol., London, 1727); Golovnin, "Memoirs of Captivity in Japan," translated from the Russian (2d ed., 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1824); Meylan, Japan voorgesteld in schetsen (Amsterdam, 1830); Doeff, Herinnerungen uit Japan (Haarlem, 1833); Titsingh, Annales des empereurs de Japon (Paris, 1834); Siebold, Nippon (20 vols., Leyden, 1832–'57); Mrs. Busk, "Manners and Customs of the Japanese," compiled and translated from Siebold and other Dutch authorities (London, 1841); Charles Macfarlane, "Japan" (London, 1852); Richard Hildreth, "Japan as It Was and Is" (Boston, 1855); Francis L. Hawks, "Narrative of the Japan Expedition" (3 vols. 4to, Washington, 1856); Laurence Oliphant, "Narrative of Lord Elgin's Mission to China and Japan" (2 vols., London, 1859); Capt. Sherard Osborne, "A Cruise in Japanese Waters" (Edinburgh, 1859), and "Japanese Fragments" (London, 1861); Robert Fortune, "Visits to Japan and China" (London, 1863); Sir Rutherford Alcock, "The Capital of the Tycoon" (2 vols., London, 1863); Walter Dickson, "Japan, a Sketch of the History, Government, and Officers of the Empire" (Edinburgh, 1869); A. Berg, Die preussische Expedition nach Ost-Asien (4 vols., Berlin, 1854–'73, the first two volumes being devoted to Japan); Léon Pagès, Histoire de la religion chrétienne au Japon (2 vols., Paris, 1869); Aimé Humbert, Le Japon illustré (2 vols., Paris, 1870; English translation, London, 1873); Charles Lanman, "The Japanese in America" (New York, 1872); Bayard Taylor, "Japan," &c., compiled from Humbert, Alcock, and others (New York, 1872); Das alte und das neue Japan, by Steyer and Wagner, brought down to the present time by Ed. Hintze (Leipsic, 1873); A. Mori, "Education in Japan" (New York, 1873); Mossman, "New Japan" (London, 1873); Adams, "History of Japan" (London, 1874 et seq.).