of Japan. Then this god made eight millions of other gods, and
also created the ten thousand things. Having ordered matters to his
satisfaction, he made a present of his Japanese earth to his pet
daughter, the sun goddess. The sun goddess reigned only two hundred and
fifty thousand years, and her four successors filled the next two
million; the last of the four, being the great-great-grandson of the sun
goddess, fancied a mortal life, and left a mortal boy, who reigned on
earth, and was the first Mikado: from him all Mikados are descended.
This is the native Japanese religion, called Sintoo; worshipping the sun
goddess, and _Kami_, which are minor gods or saints. The Sintoos bow
before no images, but put as emblems in their temples a sheet of white
paper and a mirror, to denote the soul pure and incapable of stain. The
worshipper kneels, gazes at the mirror, offers sacrifice of fruit or
rice, deposits money, and retires. Upon this creed Buddhism has been
grafted; but the religion of the learned Japanese is Sintoo--a
philosophic moral doctrine which they cherish secretly, while outwardly
observing rites prescribed by custom.

But _revenons a nos Mikados_: the first Mikado, though of fabulous
descent, is an historical person, Zin-mu-teen-woo, and with him Japanese
history begins--at a period from whence we date rational annals in some
other countries, about 660 B.C. We will note those points of history
that are essential to a comprehension of the present government. Mikados
followed each other, sole rulers and powerful, until they fell into a
trick of abdicating in favor of their children, and then doing the duty
without being annoyed by the ceremonies of their office. That had its
inconvenient results, for presently came one Mikado who married the
daughter of a powerful papa; and when the time came for retirement, and
he had abdicated in favor of a son three years old, the powerful papa
thrust him aside into a prison, and usurped the regency. A civil war was
the result of this; Yoritomo leaped up as champion of the imprisoned
man, so recently a king, released him, and restored him to the regency
over his infant son. For this essential service good Yoritomo was made a
sort of field-marshal, or Ziogoon. The ex-Mikado dying, left Yoritomo
the guardian of his son; and so for twenty years the Ziogoon was regent.
Infant Mikados still continuing to be the fashion, regency became
hereditary to the Ziogoons; and these last being m