of emergency.

*"The Buddhist baptism consists in washing the top of the head with
perfumed water. The baptismal flags were so called because they had
the same efficiency, raising those who passed under them, first, to
the rank of Tchakra Radja, and, ultimately, to that of a Buddha."
(Aston.)

Two plenipotentiaries were therefore sent from Japan. Their mission
proved very simple. Shiragi acquiesced in all their proposals and
pledged herself once for all to recognize Mimana as a dependency of
Japan. But after the despatch of these plenipotentiaries, the
war-party in Japan had gained the ascendancy, and just as the
plenipotentiaries, accompanied by tribute-bearing envoys from Shiragi
and Mimana, were about to embark for Japan, they were astounded by
the apparition of a great flotilla carrying thousands of armed men.
The exact dimensions of this force are not on record: it is merely
described as having consisted of "several tens of thousands of men,"
but as it was commanded by two generals of the first rank and seven
of the second, it must have been a very formidable army, and nothing
is more remarkable about it than that it was assembled and embarked
in the space of a few weeks. Shiragi did not attempt to resist. The
King tendered his submission and it was accepted without a blow
having been struck. But there were no tangible results. Japan did not
attempt to re-establish her miyake in Mimana, and Shiragi refrained
from sending envoys to Yamato except on special occasions. Friendly,
though not intimate, relations were still maintained with the three
kingdoms of Korea, mainly because the peninsula long continued to be
the avenue by which the literature, arts, and crafts of China under,
the Tang dynasty found their way to Japan. Since, however, the office
in Mimana no longer existed to transact business connected with this
intercourse, and since Yamato was too distant from the port of
departure and arrival--Anato, now Nagato--a new office was
established in Tsukushi (Kyushu) under the name of the Dazai-fu.

LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE INTERCOURSE BETWEEN JAPAN AND KOREA

The record of Japan's relations with Korea, so far as it has been
carried above--namely, to the close of the Empress Kogyoku's reign
(A.D. 645)--discloses in the Korean people a race prone to
self-seeking feuds, never reluctant to import foreign aid into
domestic quarrels, and careless of the obligations of good faith. In
the Japanese we see a nation magnan