Interesting as these talks with Taru were, Bob was most of all pleased when his host, in the evenings, after being invisible all day, entertained him with stories of his country’s history, and recounted the picturesque tales of old Japan. He learnt of the long tyranny of the Shoguns, who kept the titular sovereign, the Mikado, in strict seclusion and usurped all his powers until the great Revolution of 1868, when the restoration of the Mikado overthrew the Shogunate for ever. He learnt about the old class distinctions: the daimios, great feudal princes owing vassalage to the sovereign, holding their fiefs on condition of doing military service; the samurai, the warlike retainers of the daimios, themselves chieftains of large bands of warriors, and often more powerful than their lords; the priests of the two religions, Shinto and Buddhism, some of whose wonderful temples in Nikko Bob visited in company with his host; below all these the trading and farming classes, who were held of no account, however wealthy they might become. He learnt of Japan’s strange awakening that followed the Mikado’s final triumph over the Shogun: the abolition of the feudal system, the disarming of the samurai, the eagerness to learn western ways, the readiness to adopt western inventions. Besides all this, he heard some of the legendary stories of old Japan, and one evening saw Kobo dressed in the old armour of the samurai, a combination of chain-mail and armour-plate, with penthouse shoulder-pieces, nose-piece and gorget, helmet and greaves, a long spear, and two swords worn one above the other on the left hip. Bob was carried back to the days of chivalry in Europe, when knights in armour went out adventuring, soldiers of fortune selling their services to any potentate who would employ them; and he understood something of the fierce energy and enthusiasm which, withdrawn from mere warlike enterprises, had found an outlet in Japan’s astonishing development in commerce and industry.