Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER V.
POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF JAPAN, A3 FOUND BY THE PORTU
GUESE. THE JACATAS, OR KINGS, AND THEIR VASSALS. REVENUES.
MONEY. DISTINCTION OF HANKS. THE KUBO-SAMA. THE DAIRI.
SINTO. BUDDHISM. 81UTO. A. D. 1550.
JAPAN, as found by the Poiluguese, embraced three large islands,
besides icany smaller ones. XIMO (or KIUSIU), the most southern
and western of the
group, and the one with which the Portuguese
a narrow
first became acquainted, is separated at the north, by
strait, from the much larger island of NIPON, forming with its
western portion a right angle, within which the third and much
smaller island of SIKOKF is included. These islands were found
to be divided into
sixty-six separate governments, or king-
doms, of which Nipon contained fifty-three, Ximo (or Kiusiu)
nine, and Sikokf four the numerous smaller islands being
reckoned as appurtenant to one or another of the three larger
ones. These kingdoms, grouped into eight, or rather nine, larger
divisions, and subdivided into principalities, of which, in all,
there were not less than six hundred, had originally (at least
such was the Japanese tradition) been provinces of a consol-
idated empire ;
but by degrees and by dint of civil wars, by which
the islands had been, and still were, very much distracted, they had
reached, at the period of the Portuguese discovery, a state of almost
complete independence.
Indeed, several of the kingdoms, like that
of Fiyen, in the west part of Ximo, had still further disintegrated
into independent principalities.
It still frequently happened, however, that several provinces were
united under one ruler ; and such was especially the case with live
central provinces of Nipon, including the great cities of Miako,
Ozaka, and Sakai, which five provinces formed the patrimony of a
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