Japan and the Japanese

RETURN OF THE AMBASSADORS.
north of Nipon, including a kingdom of five provinces, in which
were situated the great cities of Suruga and Jedo.
The conquest of this kingdom was speedily achieved, partly by
arts and partly by arms. A new palace was erected for the Dairi, in
place of the old one, which had been burnt during the late troubles
at Miako. A splendid temple had also been built near that city,
in which it was suspected that the emperor intended to cause him-
self to be worshipped, as his predecessor had done ; when, in August,
1588, Father Valignani, appointed ambassador to the emperor and
kings of Japan, from the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, arrived at
Macao, on his way to Nagasaki, having in his company the return-
ing ambassadors to the Pope, who had touched at Goa on their way
home, and who had stopped there a whole year before proceeding
for Japan.*
* During this residence at Macao the Japanese ambassadors were not idle.
They were engaged upon a very remarkable work, printed at Macao in
15'M) in Japanese and Latin, purporting to be composed by the ambassadors,
and giving, by way of dialogue, an account not only of the embassy, but of
Japan and of all the countries, European and Oriental, which they had visited.
The Latin title is De Missione Leyatorum Japonensium ad Romanam.
cnriam, rebusquc in Enropa ac toto in itinere animadversis, Ditiloyus, fyc.
" A Dialogue concerning the Japanese Embassy to the Court of Rome, and the
things observed in Europe and on the whole journey, collected from the journal
of the ambassadors, and rendered into Latin by Ed. de Laude, priest of the
Society of Jesus." It is from this work, though he does not give the title of
it, that Hackluyt extracted the " Excellent Treatise of the Kingdom of China
and of the Estate and Government thereof," contained in his second volume,
and of which he speaks in his epistle dedicatory to that volume, first published
in 15'.)9, as " the most exact account of those parts that is yet come to
light." " It was printed," he tells us, " in Latin, in Makoa, a city of China,
in China paper, in the year 15'.)0, and was intercepted in the great carac
Madre de Dios, two years after, enclosed in a case of sweet cedar wood,
and lapped up almost a hundred fold in fine Calicut cloth, as though it had
been some incomparable jewel."