e
household, and separated from the main building by a well-kept little
garden. In any case, as long as they live they will spend their days in
quiet and peace; and it is to this haven, the _inkyo_, that all Japanese
look forward, as to the time when they may carry out their own
inclinations and tastes with an income provided for the rest of their
days.[*137]

CHAPTER VI.

COURT LIFE.

The court of the Emperor was, in the early ages of Japan, the centre of
whatever culture and refinement the country could boast, and the
emperors themselves took an active part in the promotion of
civilization. The earliest history of Japan is so wrapped in the mists
of legend and tradition that only here and there do we get glimpses of
heroic figures,--leaders in those early days. Demigods they seem,
children of Heaven, receiving from Heaven by special revelation the
wisdom or strength by means of which they conquered their enemies, or
gave to their subjects new arts and better laws. The traditional
emperors, the early descendants of the great Jimmu Tenno,[25] seem to
have been merely conquering chieftains, who by virtue of their descent
were regarded as divine, but who lived the simple, hardy life of the
savage king, surrounded by wives and concubines, done homage to by armed
retainers and subject chiefs, but living in rude huts, and moving in and
out among the soldiers, not in the least retired into the mysterious
solitude which in later days enveloped the Son of the Gods. The first
emperors ruled not only by divine right, but by personal force and
valor; and the stories of the valiant deeds of these early rulers kept
strong the faith of the people in the divine qualities of the imperial
house during the hundreds of years when the Emperor was a mere puppet in
the hands of ambitious and powerful nobles.

[25] The Japanese claim for their present Emperor direct descent from
Jimmu Tenno, the Son of the Gods; and it is for this reason that the
Emperor is supposed to be divine, and the representative of the gods on
the earth. The dynasty, for about twenty-five hundred years since Jimmu
Tenno, has never been broken. It must, however, be said in connection
with this statement, that the Japanese family is a much looser
organization than that known to our Western civilization, on account of
the customs of concubinage and adoption, and that descent through family
lines is not necessarily actual descent by blood.

Towards the end o