140 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.

“The Japanese themselves claim a credible history for twenty-five
hundred years, but we outsiders get into the fog a few centuries after
Christ, when we are trying to deal with Japan’s history. The Japa-
nese can count up a list of over one hundred and twenty rulers,
called mikados. Some of these have been very famous, and eight
rulers, by the way, were women. There was an empress, Jingu Kogo,
who became famous, though she was not formally declared the sov-
ereion of Japan. Japanese mothers have shown some brave qualities.

“Yes,” said Rick, “I met some this morning, and they looked real
pleasant.”

“Jingu Kogo, I imagine, could look fierce as well as pleasant. She
conquered Corea. An order she gave her soldiers is worth remembering
by young people who have obstacles in life to meet: ‘ Neither despise a
few enemies, nor fear many.” It was her son, Ojin Tenno, who did
an excellent thing when he sent to China to find out about silk ;
' obtaining, also, some one from Corea to teach his people concerning
silk. The silk-worm has been a good friend to Japan. He also intro-
duced Chinese characters, and a better breed of horses. If I gave the
long string of queer Japanese names, you could not remember about
the rulers; but I want to speak of one way Ojin had for finding out °
a wrong-doer. He was told by the brother of his prime minister that
the latter was plotting against the government, and the emperor made
the informant and the minister both run their arms down into boiling
water, to see who was guilty. It is said that the brother could not
stand it, and was therefore judged to be guilty, and was executed.”

“When was it the Roman Catholics came to Japan?” asked
Uncle Nat.

“Tn the sixteenth century the Romanists came to Japan, and for a while
they prospered; but Catholicism was almost entirely trampled out under
the bloody foot of the persecutor. It should be said, though, that the