86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Now, by an easy reach of imagination, in place of the 

 mythical sun goddess, put historic Japan She became 

 known to the Western world just fifty years after Columbus 

 discovered America. The naval and commercial marine of 

 Europe, — of Portugal, Spain and Holland, — in the six- 

 teenth century was god of the sea, adventurous, and inclined 

 withal to be somewhat aggressive toward a weaker though 

 elder sister. Annoyed and perhaps alarmed by the harrass- 

 ing inroads of these rovers of the deep, and at their efforts 

 to cast upon her domain the unwelcome product of their 

 trade, as well as religious and political contaminations, she 

 withdrew in high dudgeon nearly a century later, and for 

 two hundred years secluded herself from the rest of the 

 world. The cupidity of the outer world was in the mean- 

 time more keenly incited thereby, but vain were its attempts 

 to allure her forth. 



But now the modern god of strength, American civiliza- 

 tion, had quietly but firmly posted himself close by the 

 rocky gates of her retreat, and in 1854 the artful caresses 

 and novel divertisements of our gallant commodore (Perry), 

 together with music of the world's activity without, strains 

 of which oft reached her ear, excited that keen curiosity so 

 marked in her character, and she warily pushed the diplo- 

 matic door ajar and peeped out. 



Again the stratagem prevailed. The " great strength" of 

 our day threw open the gates, Japan was brought forth from 

 her seclusion, and her retreat from the community of nations 

 cut off by a barrier of cross-character treaties. Brought 

 thus suddenly into unsought relationships, doubt and hesita- 

 tion soon gave way, and she became not only willing, but 

 eager, to join in the race of modern progress. 



That this legend is generally supposed to explain, in the 

 light of Shinto-mythology, the wonder-exciting phenomena 

 of a solar eclipse, does not impair the aptness of the com- 

 parison. The children of the gods who now people the 

 " land of the sun " have emerged from a national eclipse, 

 the recurrence of which no political astronomer would ven- 

 ture to predict. 



With the main features of Jsipan's wonderful history most 

 of us have perhaps become tolerably familiar, through the 



