of some Japanese whom he encountered at the Hawaiian islands, to assign to
them a Malay origin. Others, judging from language, consider them of the
Mongol stock. Yery close affinities cannot probably be found between the
J apanese and any other Asiatic language ; but in its grammatical structure
the Yomi of Japan is by some thought to be most analogous to the languages
of the Tartar family. Siebold found, as he supposed, analogies between it
and the idioms of the Coreans, and the Kurilians, who occupy the islands of
Jesso and Tarakai or Karafto. He has described the coast of Tartary
opposite to this last island, (called improperly by Europeans Sakhalian,) and
thinks he finds a resemblance in customs ; but Klaproth has shown that the
language of the Tartary coast (Sandan) is a Tungusian dialect, and says
that the language of Japan bears no decided marks of affinity either with it or
with any other of the idioms named by Siebold. I t is clearly not Tungusian.
Klaproth’s vocabularies of some of the idioms of Asia, particularly of the
Mongolian, the Finnish, and some Indian dialects, show a very considerable
number of simple and original words which belong also to the Japanese. In
the present state of our information, the more commonly received opinion seeans
to be that the Japanese are of the Tartar family. But they certainly do not
all have the Tartar complexion or physiognomy. The common people, according
to Thunberg, are of a yellowish color all over, sometimes bordering on
brown and sometimes on white. The laboring classes, who in summer expose
the upper parts of their bodies, are always brown. Their eyes are not round,
but oblong, small, and sunk deep in the head. In color they are generally
dark brown or rather black, and the eyelids form in the great angle of thè
eye a deep furrow, which gives them the appearance of being sharp or keen
sighted. Their heads are large and their necks short, their hair black, thick,
and from their use of oil, glossy. Their noses, although not flat, are yet
rather thick and short.
The inhabitants of the coast of Kiu-siu, according to Siebold, differ in
physical aspect, as well as in other respects, from those in the interior of the
island. Their hair is most frequently black, in some cases crisped, the facial
angle is strongly marked, the lips puffed, the nose small, slightly aquiline and
depressed at the root. In the interior the people, mostly agriculturists, are
a larger race, with broad and flattened countenances, prominent cheek bones,
large space between the inner angles of the eyes, broad and very flat noses,
with large mouths and a reddish brown skin.
But beside these, Thunberg also tells us that the descendants of the eldest
and noblest families, of the prirces and lords of the Empire, are somewhat
majestic in their shape and countenance, being more like Europeans, and
that ladies of distinction, who seldom go out into the open air without being
covered, are perfectly white. Siebold also, speaking of the inhabitants of
Kiu-siu, informs us that “ the women who protected themselves from the influences
of the atmosphere have generally a fine and white skin, and the
cheeks of the young girls display a blooming carnation.”
These facts, as Dr. Latham has said, do not necessarily involve the assumption
of a double source of population, while, at the same time, such a
second source is not an ethnological improbability. The darker race, he intimates,
may have come from Formosa.
S E C T I O N I I I .
GOVERNMENT.
J a p a n presents the singular feature of having two Emperors at the same
time, the one secular, the other ecclesiastical; but it is a mistake to suppose
that this duplicate sovereignty was established from the beginning, as one of
the original elements of her civil polity; it has resulted from historical
events that occurred long after Japan had a system of Government. The
Japanese, like many other people, claim for their nation an immense antiquity
; but the authentic history of the Kingdom commences with Zin-mu-
ten-woo, (whose name signifies “ the divine conqueror,”) about the year 660
B. C. Klaproth thinks he was a Chinese warrior and invader; be this however
as it may, he conquered Nippon, and built a temple palace, dedicated to
the sun-goddess, and properly called a dairi ; his own appropriate title was
Mikado, though the two terms are frequently confounded by European
writers. He was the founder of the sovereignty of the Mikados, and from
him, even to this day, the Mikados descend.
He was sole sovereign, both secular and spiritual, and claimed to rule by
divine right. His successors, asserting the same right, added to it that of
inheritance also, and their government was a despotism. By degrees these
monarchs ceased to lead their own armies, and entrusted the military command
to sons and kinsmen, though the supreme power still was theirs.
This power, however, appears gradually to have been weakened by a custom
which prevailed, of abdication by the Mikados, at so early an age, that the
sovereignty descended upon their sons while they were yet children, the abdicating
monarch frequently governing for the young king. The cause of
these abdications was the desire to escape from the grievous burden of
monotonous ceremonies, and complete isolation from intercourse without,
which made the occupant of the throne little better than a royal prisoner.
At length it happened that the reigning Mikado, who had married the
daughter of a powerful prince, abdicated in favor of his son, a child three
years old, while the regency passed into the hands of the grandfather of the
infant monarch. The regent placed the abdicated monarch in confinement