r the last time she ties the garters of her lord going
to his death, and we find a sovereign corresponding in verse with his
consort whose consent to his own dishonour he seeks to win.

Yet in the lives of all these men and women of old, there are not
many other traces of corresponding refinement or romance. We are
constrained to conjecture that many of the verses quoted in the
Records and the Chronicles were fitted in after ages to the events
they commemorate. Another striking feature in the lives of these
early sovereigns is that while on the one hand their residences are
spoken of as muro, a term generally applied to dwellings partially
underground, on the other, we find more than one reference to high
towers. Thus Yuryaku is shown as "ordering commissioners to erect a
lofty pavilion in which he assumes the Imperial dignity," and the
Emperor Nintoku is represented as "ascending a lofty tower and
looking far and wide" on the occasion of his celebrated sympathy with
the people's poverty.

ENGRAVING: ANCIENT ACROBATIC PERFORMANCE

ENGRAVING: DAIRISAMA (KINO) AND OKUSAMA (QUEEN) OF THE FEAST OF THE
DOLLS

CHAPTER XIII

THE PROTOHISTORIC SOVEREIGNS (Continued)

The 22nd Sovereign, Seinei A.D. 480-484

" 23rd " Kenso " 485-487

" 24th " Ninken " 488-498

" 25th " Muretsu " 499-506

" 26th " Keitai " 507-531

" 27th " Ankan " 534-535

" 28th " Senkwa " 536-539

DISPUTE ABOUT THE SUCCESSION

THE Emperor Yuryaku's evil act in robbing Tasa of his wife, Waka,
entailed serious consequences. He selected to succeed to the throne
his son Seinei, by Princess Kara, who belonged to the Katsuragi
branch of the great Takenouchi family. But Princess Waka conspired to
secure the dignity for the younger of her own two sons, Iwaki and
Hoshikawa, who were both older than Seinei. She urged Hoshikawa to
assert his claim by seizing the Imperial treasury, and she herself
with Prince Iwaki and others accompanied him thither. They
underestimated the power of the Katsuragi family. Siege was laid to
the treasury and all its inmates were burned, with the exception of
one minor official to whom mercy was extended and who, in token of
gratitude, presented twenty-five acres of rice-land to the o-muraji,
Lord Otomo, commander of the investing force.

THE FUGITIVE PRINCES

The Emperor Seinei had no offspring, and for a time it seemed that