Still, it must never be forgotten that Corea was not only the bridge on which civilization crossed from China to the archipelago, but was most probably the pathway of migration by which the rulers of the race now inhabiting Nihon reached it from their ancestral seats around the Sungari and the Ever-White Mountains. True, it is not absolutely certain whether the homeland of the mikado’s ancestors lay southward in the sea, or westward among the mountains, but that the mass of the Corean and Japanese people are more closely allied in blood than either are with the Chinese, Manchius, or Malays, seems to be proved, not only by language and physical traits, but by the whole course of the history of both nations, and by the testimony of the Chinese records. Both Coreans and Japanese have inherited the peculiar institutions of their Fuyu ancestors—that race which alone of all the peoples sprung from Manchuria migrated toward the rising, instead of toward the setting, sun. CHAPTER IX. KORAI, OR UNITED COREA. The fertile and well-watered region drained by the Amur River and its tributaries, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Baikal, covers the ancestral seats of many nations, and is perhaps the home of nations yet to arise. It may be likened to a great intermittent geyser-spring which, at intervals, overflows with terrific force and volume. The movements of population southward seem, on a review of Chinese and Corean history, almost as regular as a law of nature. As the conquerors from the central Asian plateaus have over and over again descended into India, as the barbarians overran the Roman empire, so out of the region drained by the Amur and its tributaries have burst forth, time and again, floods of conquest to overwhelm the rich plains of China. Or, if we regard the flowery and grassy lands of Manchuria and beyond as a great hive, full of busy life which, from the pressure of increasing numbers, must swarm off to relieve the old home, we shall have a true illustration. Time and again have clouds of human bees, with the sting of their swords and the honey of their new energy, issued from this ancient hive. The swarms receive different names in history: Hun, Turk, Tartar, Mongol, Manchiu, but they all emerge from the same source, giving or receiving dynastic names, but being in reality Tungusic people of the same basic stock.