And as she pronounced these words she shook off her garments one by one, whilst finally the air shook with a burst of Homeric laughter from the assembled gods. Hereupon Amaterasu oho-mi-kami, slightly opening the cavern door, called out from within, “I fancied that in consequence of my retirement both heaven and Japan were in darkness. Why has Ame-no Uzume danced, and why do the gods laugh?” Thereupon Uzume answered, “I dance and they laugh because there is here an honourable deity who surpasses your glory” (alluding to the mirror). As she said these words Ame-no-futo-dama no mikoto, who held the trophy, pushed the mirror toward her, so astonishing her that she came forward to look. As they were putting the mirror into the mouth of the cave it struck against the door and received a flaw, which it bears to this day. As the goddess came forward Ame-no tajikara-wo-no kami pulled open the door and dragged her forth, whilst Ame-no-koya-ne no mikoto passed behind with a straw rope to prevent her return. So light was restored to the world; and in after days Amaterasu oho-mi-kami gave the mirror to her adopted grandson Nini-gi no mikoto, who in turn handed it down to his descendants, who, after various turns of fortune, placed it, in the year 4 B.C., in the sacred shrine on the bank of the Isuzu river, by the village of Uji in Isé, where it is preserved to this day with religious care. [Illustration: MIRROR OF AMATERASU] [Illustration] APPENDIX III. ORIENTAL WRITINGS UPON THE MAGIC MIRROR. M. Stanislas Julien, the erudite author of _Les Industries anciennes et modernes de l’empire chinois_, has given the following extract from the fifty-sixth volume of the Chinese encyclopædia called _Ke-chi-king-yonen_. “_Théou-kouang-kien_, or _Mirrors which let the light pass through_ (an expression due to a vulgar error). If one receives the rays of the sun upon the polished surface of one of these mirrors, the characters or flowers which are in relief on the back are reproduced faithfully in the (reflected) image of the disk. Chin-kouo (a writer who flourished in the middle of the eleventh century) speaks with admiration of them in his memoirs entitled _Mong-ki-pi-tân_, book xix., fol. 5. The poet Kin-ma celebrated them in verse; but, down to the time of the Mongolian emperors, no author had been able to explain this phenomenon. Ou-tseu-hing, who lived under this dynasty (between 1260 and 1341), has the merit of having first done so. This is how he expresses himself on this subject: