Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER XII.
BECAPITULATION. EXTENT OF TUE JAPANESE EMPIRE. VALIGNANI AR
EIVES AT NAGASAKI. PROGRESS HITHERTO OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH.
THE EMPEROR'S PROJECTS AGAINST CHINA. VALIGNANI'S VISIT TO THE
EMPEROR AT MIAKO. UCONDONO. THE RETURNED JAPANESE AMBASSA-
DORS. AUDIENCE GIVEN TO VALIGNANI. THE VICEROY'S LETTER. TUB
INTERPRETER RODRIGUEZ. A. D. 15881593.
THE Japanese islands had been found by Xavier and his suc-
cessors divided into numerous principalities, which, though they
acknowledged a nominal subordination to one imperial head, were
substantially independent, and engaged in perpetual wars with each
other. The superior abilities of two successive military usurpers,
Nobunanga, who ruled from 1567 to 1582, and Faxiba, who took
first the title of Kambacundono, and subsequently that of Taiko-
Sama, had consolidated these numerous states into a real empire,
embracing then as now the three principal islands of Nii'Ox,
XIMO (or Kiusiu), and SIKOKE, with many smaller ones, and some
claims also of authority over parts, at least, of the large northerly
island of MATSMAI or JESO, the latter the aboriginal name.
Among the dependencies, at present, of the Japanese empire,
are reckoned at the north, besides this island, the southern half of
the large island or peninsula of Sagalecn, called by the Japanese
ORE JESO (upper Jeso), or, as Siebold says, KRAFTO, and the three
smaller Kurile islands, Kona Shir, Ecfoorpoo, and Ooroop, num-
bered on the llussian charts as the 20th, 19th and 18th Kurilo
islands, and the two latter called by the Dutch State's Island and
Company's Island. On the south, the Lew Chew Islands form, or
did form (for the Japanese seem lately to have renounced their
claim of sovereignty), a dependency of the kingdom of Satsuma.
But all these are of comparatively recent acquisition, subsequent