6 INTRODUCTION. 



monarcli, with whom he hecame not merely a favorite, but in some degree a necessity. At 

 length, in 1295, after an absence of some twenty years, he returned to Venice, and was the first 

 European traveller who made known the existence of Japan to the inhabitants of the west. He 

 had not visited it in person, (as he is carelul to state,) but he had traversed the greater part of 

 China, and had there heard what he related concerning Japan. We may remark, in passing, 

 that his statements of what he had seen and heard so far surpassed the experience and knowledge 

 of his countrymen that he shared the fate of some modern travellers, and was not believed. 

 Nothing, however, is more sure than that modern research has impressed with the character of 

 truth all that he related on his personal observation, and much of that which he gathered from 

 the statements of others. He, as we have already said, called Japan Zipaiuju; it was the name 

 which he had heard in China. The Japanese themselves call their country Dai Nippon, which 

 means ' ' Great Nippon. " As to the origin of the latter word, it is a compound of two others ; nitsu, 

 " the sun," and pon or foil, " origin ;" these, accordmg to the Japanese rule of combination, 

 become Nippon or Nifon, signifying " origin of the sun ;" in other words, the East. In the 

 Chinese language, Nippon, by the usual change of pronunciation, becomes Jih-pun, to which 

 Koue is added, meaning " country" or " Kingdom." The whole Chinese word, Jih-pun-hme, 

 therefore, is, in English, " Kingdom of the origin of the sun," or " Eastern Kingdom." The 

 reader will readily perceive how, on the lips of an European, the name would become Zi-pan-gu. 

 We thus have the derivation, Nippon, Jih-pun, Japan. 



As to the extent of the Kingdom : it consists of a great number of islands, said to be 3,850, 

 lying off the eastern coast of Asia, and spread over that part of the ocean which extends from 

 the 129th to the 146th degree of east longitude from Greenwich, and is between the 31st and 

 46th degrees of north latitude. The chain to which they belong may be traced on the map from 

 the Loo-Choo islands to the southern extremity of Kamtschatka, and from this latter peninsula, 

 through the Kurile islands, to the promontory of Alaska, on our own continent. They are in 

 the line of that immense circle of volcanic development which surrounds the shores of the Pacific 

 from Tierra del Fuego around to the Moluccas. 



The Kingdom is divided into Japan proper and the dependent islands. The first named 

 division consists of the three large islands, Kiu-siu, Sitkokf, and Nippon, and the whole Empire 

 contains about 160,000 square miles. Of many of the islands we know nothing. Their coasts 

 are so difficult of access, and shallow seas and channels, with sunken rocks and dangerous whirl- 

 pools, added to winds as variable as they are violent, have interposed most serious obstacles to 

 nautical exploration, so that we have yet much to learn of the navigation of the waters around 

 the islands of Japan. 



Those of which we have as yet most information are Kiu-siu, Nippon, and Yesso, or Jesso. 

 On the first of these is the town of Nagasaki, and this is the port to which the Dutch have been 

 most rigorously confined, in all their commercial transactions, for two hundred years. Indeed, 

 they have not been permitted to live within the town itself, but have been literally imprisoned 

 on a very small island in the harbor, called Dezima, where they have been most closely watched, 

 and many rigid restrictions have been imposed on their intercourse with the people. Under 

 certain circumstances, they have been at times jiermitted to go into the town, but not to remain 

 for any long period, nor have they ever been allowed to explore the island. Their ojjijortuni- 

 ties, therefore, except in the case of Siebold, have been very limited for acquiring, from personal 

 observation, a knowledge of anything on the island of Kiu-siu beyond what they could see from 

 their prison. 



