[1] The work of Kœmpfer, to which reference, as to Japanese history, is frequently made, singular to say, was never written by him. It was written by one Camphay, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, and at one time the superintendent of the trade in Japan. The manuscript was only given to Kœmpfer to bring home, and to place it in the archives of the Dutch East India Company at Amsterdam; but instead of complying with the trust, he took the pages with him to Germany, and kept them until he died. After his death, more than a century ago, a friend of his named Scheuchzer, residing in London, went immediately to Germany, procured the manuscript, and it was first published in Great Britain in English, and subsequently translated into other languages. With such sources of information as these, it would be a piece of affectation to suppose the majority of the reading community without some knowledge of the early and past history of Japan; but for such as may possibly have not given it any attention, it may be well to give a hurried glance at the early history of the country, as derived from compilations of the before-cited authorities, and also down to the condition of the empire at the time of our visit—which is to be found in a fine synoptical article which appeared some time since in a foreign Quarterly Review—without further acknowledgment. Well, then, to begin with the mythological. As the Japanese have it, their origin was superhuman, and their primitive history is in this wise: From primeval chaos arose a self-created supreme God, throned in the highest heaven, to whom, with some brevity, is given the name, _Ameno-mi-naka-nusimo-kami_. What then existed of a universe was governed by seven celestial gods who next arose. The last of these, not admiring the celibacy of his predecessors, with whom the goddesses had dwelt as sisters, took unto himself a wife. The marital state, it appears, had the effect of awakening his latent energy, and one day he said to his spouse: “There should be somewhere a habitable earth; let us seek it under the waters that are boiling beneath us.” Like Ithuriel, he possessed a spear, and thrusting it into the waters he then withdrew it. The drops which fell from the spear—which, perhaps, was weeping the puncture which he had given the aqueous element—like the tears of Niobe, became solidified, and thus came into existence the present insulated empire. Others, however, not having the fear of Japanese gods before their eyes, have a perverseness in the belief, that the receding waters of the deluge left bare Japan, or that it may have been since upheaved by volcanic action from the mighty deep. The Adam of Japan was _Ten Sio Dai Dsin_. From him sprang the nation; though _Syn Mou_ is represented as the founder of the empire. The physical conformation of the Japanese indicates their Mongolian origin.