Japan and the Japanese

THE DAIRI AND HIS COURT. 57
BOD at Miako, or its neighborhood, sufficient to repress any attempt
on the part of the Dairi or his partisans to reestablish the old
order of things, an idea which, when the islands first became
known to
abandoned.
the Portuguese, seems not yet to have been
entirely
We may trace a still further resemblance between the position of
the Dairi of Japan and the Queen of England, in the circumstance
that all public acts are dated by the years of his reign, and that
all titles of honor nominally emanate from him, though of course
obliged, as to this matter, to follow the suggestions of the Kubo-
Sama. Even the Kubo-Sama himself condescends, like a British
prime minister, to accept such decorations at the hands of the Dairi,
affecting to feel extremely honored and flattered titles which had
^at
been, in fact, dictated by himself.
The whole court of the Dairi, and all the inhabitants of the quar-
ter of Miako in which he dwelt, consisted of persons who plumed
themselves upon the idea of being, like the Dairi himself, descended
from Tensio Dai-Dsin, the first of the demigods, and who in
consequence looked down, like the Indian Brahmins, all upon the
rest of the nation as an inferior race, distinguishing themselves as
Kuge, and all the rest of the nation as Geye. These Kuge, who
may be conjectured to have once formed a class resembling the old
Roman patricians, all wore a particular dress, by which was indicated,
qflt only their character as members of that order, but, by the
length of their sashes, the particular rank which they held in it ; a
distinction the more necessary, since, as generally happens with
these aristocracies of birth, many of the members were in a state of
poverty, and obliged to support themselves by various handicrafts.*
Of the magnificence of the court of the Dairi, and of the ceremo-
nials of it, the missionaries reported many stories, chiefly, of course,
on the credit of hearsay. It was said that the Dairi was never
allowed to breathe the common air, nor his foot to touch the
ground ; that he never wore the same garment twice, nor eat a
* According to Rodriguez, there had been also an ancient military nobil-
ity, called buke ; but in the course of the civil wars many families of it had
become extinct, "while other humble families, who had risen by way of
arms, mostly formed the existing nobility.