rt. The clearest of skies, the most
favoring of breezes, the smoothest of seas, favored the god-sent
expedition; and tradition says that even the fishes swarmed in shoals
about their keels, and carried them on to their desired haven. The fleet
ran safely across to southern Corea, but instead of finding battles and
struggles awaiting them, the king of the country met them on the beach
to receive and tender allegiance to the invaders, whose unexpected
appearance from the unexplored East had led the natives to believe that
their gods had forsaken them. The expedition returned laden with vast
wealth, not the spoil of battle, but the peaceful tribute of a bloodless
victory; and from that time forward Japan, through Corea, and later by
direct contact with China itself, began to receive and assimilate the
civilization, arts, and religions of China. Thus through a woman Japan
received the start along the line of progress which made her what she is
to-day, for the sequel of Jingo K[=o]g[=o]'s Corean expedition was the
introduction of almost everything which we regard as peculiar to
civilized countries. With characteristic belittling of the woman and
exalting of the man, the whole martial career of the Empress is
ascribed to the influence of her son as yet unborn,--a son who by his
valor and prowess has secured for his deified spirit the position of God
of War in the Japanese pantheon. We should say that pre-natal influences
and heredity produced the heroic son; the Japanese reason from the other
end, and show that all the noble qualities of the mother were produced
by the influence of the unborn babe.

With the introduction of literature, art, and Buddhism, a change took
place in the relations of the court to the people. About the Emperor's
throne there gathered not only soldiers and governors, but the learned,
the accomplished, the witty, the artistic, who found in the Emperor and
the court nobles munificent patrons by whom they were supported, and
before whom they laid whatever pearls they were able to produce. The new
culture sought not the clash of arms and the shout of soldiers, but the
quiet and refinement of palaces and gardens far removed from the noise
and clamor of the world. And while emperors sought to encourage the new
learning and civilization, and to soften the warlike qualities of the
people about them, there was a frontier along which the savages still
made raids into the territory which the Japanese had wrested