Inkyo was a younger brother of his predecessor, Hansho, as the latter had been of Richu. No formal nomination of Inkyo as Prince Imperial had taken place, and thus for the first time the sceptre was found without any legalized heir or any son of the deceased sovereign to take it. In these circumstances, the ministers held a council and agreed to offer the throne to Inkyo, the elder of two surviving sons of Nintoku. Inkyo was suffering from a disease supposed to be incurable, and, distrusting his own competence, he persistently refused to accept the responsibility. The incident responsible for his ultimate consent was the intervention of a concubine, Onakatsu, afterwards Empress. Under pretext of carrying water for the prince she entered his chamber, and when he turned his back on her entreaty that he would comply with the ministers' desire, she remained standing in the bitter cold of a stormy day of January, until the water, which she had spilled over her arm, became frozen and she fell in a faint. Then the prince yielded. A year later envoys were sent to seek medical assistance in Korea, which was evidently regarded as the home of the healing science as well as of many other arts borrowed from China. A physician arrived from Sinra, and Inkyo's malady was cured. In this reign took place a celebrated incident, already referred to, when the lineage of the nobles was corrected by recourse to the ordeal of boiling water. But a much larger space in the annals is occupied with the story of an affair, important only as illustrating the manners and customs of the time. From an early period it had been usual that Japanese ladies on festive occasions should go through the graceful performance of "woven paces and waving hands," which constituted dancing, and, in the era now occupying our attention, there prevailed in the highest circles a custom that the danseuse should offer a maiden to the most honoured among the guests. One winter's day, at the opening of a new palace, the Empress Onakatsu danced to the music of the Emperor's lute. Onakatsu had a younger sister, Oto, of extraordinary beauty, and the Emperor, fain to possess the girl but fearful of offending the Empress, had planned this dance so that Onakatsu, in compliance with the recognized usage, might be constrained to place her sister at his disposal. It fell out as Inkyo wished, but there then ensued a chapter of incidents in which the dignity of the Crown fared ill. Again and again the beautiful Oto refused to obey her sovereign's summons, and when at length, by an unworthy ruse, she was induced to repair to the palace, it was found impossible to make her an inmate of it in defiance of the Empress' jealousy. She had to be housed elsewhere, and still the Imperial lover was baffled, for he dared not brave the elder sister's resentment by visiting the younger. Finally he took advantage of the Empress' confinement to pay the long-deferred visit, but, on learning