Returning to the point, did Japan become a country resembling China, as was wished by the Sinophil Japanese of old times? On the contrary, the uniqueness, which lay at the foundation of the political and social life of our country, was not thereby much impaired. Even now it is clear to everybody that Japan is not behind any other country in possessing what is unique. It must be borne in mind, however, that what the ancient Japanese thought to be sufficient to distinguish themselves from other people was not the same as that which makes the modern Japanese think their country to be unique. At the same time it can be said that ancient Japan, while unique in some respects, was in a similar condition, social and political, as other countries were at a similar stage of their civilisation. What, then, was the state of Japan in the beginning of her history? It is this which I am going to describe. In a foregoing chapter I stated that the Japanese, whatever ethnological interpretation be given to them, can hardly be considered as autochthons. Most probably the greater part of them was descended from immigrants; in other words, their forefathers were the conquerors of the land. What then was the chief occupation of these conquerors? To this question various answers have been already given by different historians. Some hold that agriculture was the main occupation to which our ancestors looked for a living, while others maintain that they chiefly depended for subsistence on more unsettled sorts of occupation, that is, on hunting or fishing. All that can be ascertained is that the forefathers of the Japanese did not lead, at least in this country, a nomadic life, so that both cattle and horses were rare or almost unheard of in very ancient times. It is very probable, too, that in whatever occupation the original Japanese might have been chiefly engaged, they must have been also acquainted with the elements of agriculture at the same time. No reliable evidence, however, can be found to answer this question. In this respect the certitude of the early history of Japan falls far short of that of the German tribes, which, though not civilised enough to have left records of their own, were yet fortunate enough to be described by writers of more civilised races, especially by the Romans. Early Japan seems not to have had as intimate an intercourse with China as the early Germans had with Rome, so that we have great difficulty in ascertaining any details about social and political conditions as well as the modes of life of the ancient Japanese, in the same way as that in which we are acquainted with the early land-system of the Germans, their methods of fighting, and so forth. As to the land-system of early Japan, almost nothing is known about it until the introduction of the Chinese land-distribution procedure in the first half of the seventh century. We cannot ascertain whether there was anything which might be compared with the early