The century which saw America discovered in the west, was that of Japan’s greatest activity on the sea. On every coast within their reach, from Tartary to Tonquin, and from Luzon to Siam, these bold marauders were known and feared. The Chinese learned to bitterly regret the day when the magnetic needle, invented by themselves, got into the hands of these daring islanders. The wounded eagle that felt the shaft, which had been feathered from his own plumes, was not more to be pitied than the Chinese people that saw the Japanese craft steering across the Yellow Sea to ravage and ruin their cities, guided by the compass bought in China. They not only harried the coasts, but went far up the rivers. In 1523, they landed even at Ningpo, and in the fight the chief mandarin of the city was killed. Yet, with the exception of incursions of these pirates, Chō-sen enjoyed the sweets of peace, and two centuries slipped away in Morning Calm. The foreign vessels from Europe which first, in 1530, touched at the province of Bungo, in Southern Japan, may possibly have visited some part of the Corean shores. Between 1540 and 1546 four arrivals of “black ships” from Portugal, are known to have called at points in Japan. It was from these the Japanese learned how to make the gunpowder and firearms which, before the close of the century, were to be used with such deadly effect in Corea. Now came back to Europe accounts of China and Japan—which were found to be the old Kathay, and Zipangu of Polo and the Franciscans—and of “Coria,” which Polo had barely mentioned. It was from the Portuguese, that Europe first learned of this middle land between the mighty domain of the Mings, and the empire in the sea. Stirred by the spirit of adventure and enterprise, and unwilling that the Iberian peninsulars should gain all the glory, an English “Society for the Discovery of Unknown Lands” was formed in 1555. A voyage was made as far as Novaia Zemlia and Weigatz, but neither Corea nor Cathay was reached. Other attempts to find a northeast passage to India failed, and Asia remained uncircumnavigated until our own and Nordenskjöld’s day. The other attempts to discover a northwest passage to China around the imaginary cape, in which North America was supposed to terminate, and through the equally fictitious straits of Anian, resulted in the discoveries of the Cabots, and of Hudson and Frobisher—of the American continent from the Hudson River to Greenland, but the way to China lay still around Africa. From Japan, the only possibility of danger during these two centuries was likely to come. In the north, west, and south, on the main land, hung the banners of the Ming emperors of China, and, as the tribute enforced was very light, the protection of her great neighbor was worth to Chō-sen far more than the presents she gave. From China there was nothing to fear.