THE PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 
31 
their way down to Mexico, unhurt and in apparent every-day 
health, is a feat so incredible that we may well set the matter at 
rest by consigning the whole narrative to the region of the fabulous. 
I will only add that this matter has been taken up fully by a 
French savant, M. D'Eichtal, who believes in the correctness of 
the theory, and brings evidence from sculptures in Mexico to show 
that Buddhism had diffused itself at an early date through the 
country, and that it was introduced there by Chinese priests. 
"Were I not afraid of tiring your patience, I would allude at 
length to the valuable remarks respecting Japan and Japanese 
literature made by M. de Eosny at the Congress. Suffice it, how- 
ever, to say that he agrees entirely with the opinion, held amongst 
others by our associate Mr. W. Cope! and Borlase, that the popula- 
tion of Japan is not purely Mongolian, but that there is a mixture 
of a northern immigrant race with the southern conquerors of the 
country, which has resulted in a mixed population, where both 
types are plainly observable. Perhaps we may thus account for the 
marked character of the people themselves. Brave and courteous 
by nature, they are also full of northern energy and practical 
genius. They are already beating some European countries in 
post-offices and iron-clads, and they can mobilize an army of 
twenty or thirty thousand men with perhaps less trouble than it 
would take some of us to do the same thing in case of sudden emer- 
gency. What the future of this people is to be depends very much 
on the foresight and prudence of their present rulers. They may 
hurry into a wild communism ; they may advance steadily towards 
constitutional liberty. In the first case, there will certainly be a 
reaction, and the work of the last twenty years entirely over- 
thrown. In the second, Japan may become the free England of 
the East, and the harbinger of a new order and revived prospects 
of usefulness for her neighbours in Corea and China. 
With regard to her literature I will say very little. I have had 
enough to do lately with one small section of it at least to weary 
myself as well as others of the subject; but I cannot but allude 
to the remark made by one of the speakers at St. Petersburg, that 
there is no country in the world where literature is so cheap, and 
generally so well prepared, as in Japan. The people are essen- 
tially a book-loving race ; and from the child of five or six, who 
has his illustrated " Puss in Boots," up to the grave master of 
sixty, who studies the mysteries of Confucius, there is no class but 
