In the year 1392, by the mediation of O-ooji, lord of the provinces in the west part of Nippon, peace was brought about. He induced the Emperor of the South to bring to Miako the three emblems, and to give them up to his rival, accepting the title of Dai jio ten wo. Thenceforward both Emperors lived in Miako, Go ko matz reigning. During the first troublous times Ashikanga had been strengthening his position, enriching himself and rising in rank and favor to the highest position to which a subject could attain. He built a splendid house for himself in Muro Matchi Street, called the Palace of Flowers, and two others called respectively the Gold and Silver Houses, which were large enough to be taken away in pieces (after his death) and form parts of different temples, of which these parts are still looked upon as the chief ornaments. Such is the temple of Tchikuboo shima in the Great Lake. The titles given him were the head of the Gen family: Joone san goo--_i.e._, as the Emperor’s second son--and Dai Shiogoon. He was at length, before he was forty, raised to be Dai jo dai jin, and during the following year he gave up his titles and place, and, shaving his head, retired under the Buddhist name of Zensan, or Heavenly Mountain. He moved about with a style and equipage similar to that used by the Emperor. He sent an embassy to China, and received an answer, in which he was styled Nippon wo or King of Japan. The Emperor visited him, and conferred on him the title of Kubosama--Kubo being the title of the father or predecessor of the Emperor after abdication, sama implying that he is equal to or “the same as.” He was the first to whom the title was given, and it is still a title which is conferred by the Emperor, and is not inherent in any office. He died in 1408. The office of Shiogoon became hereditary in the family of Ashikanga, and henceforth the position of Kwanrei or Minister to the Shiogoon was aspired to as conveying the chief power in the empire. Kamakura was still the usual residence of this officer. Eight families were set apart, from among whom it was eligible to name the Kwanrei, chief among whom were Hossokawa, Hatake yama, and Ooyay soongi--the family of Hossokawa being at this time the most powerful. After the death of the great Ashikanga, his descendants were unable to wield the power which he had transmitted to them. He does not seem to have established any powerful government throughout the empire, but would appear to have held what he had seized rather from the country being tired of civil war than from any great administrative talent in himself. During the century which followed, civil war seems to have been the normal state of Japan--one man after another rising to seize the reins--at one time at Miako, at another at Kamakura. No one chief was able to reduce the whole empire to a settled state of tranquillity. If one rose a little above his compeers, they combined against him; while the monasteries