longer any
free passage between the dominions of the ocean Kami and the world of
men. "Nevertheless afterwards, although angry at her husband's having
wished to peep, she could not restrain her loving heart," and she
sent her younger sister, Good Jewel, to nurse the baby and to be the
bearer of a farewell song to Hohodemi.

The Records state that the latter lived to the age of 580 years and
that his mausoleum was built to the west of Mount Takachiho, on which
his palace stood. Thus for the first time the duration of a life is
stated in the antique annals of Japan. His son, called Fuki-ayezu
(Unfinished Thatch), in memory of the strange incident attending his
birth, married Princess Good Jewel, his own aunt, and by her had four
sons. The first was named Itsuse (Five Reaches) and the youngest,
Iware (a village in Yamato province). This latter ultimately became
Emperor of Japan, and is known in history as Jimmu (Divine Valour), a
posthumous name given to him many centuries after his death.* From
the time of this sovereign dates and events are recorded with full
semblance of accuracy in the Chronicles, but the compilers of the
Records do not attempt to give more than a bald statement of the
number of years each sovereign lived or reigned.

*Posthumous names for the earthly Mikados were invented in the reign
of Kwammu (A.D. 782-805), i.e., after the date of the compilation of
the Records and the Chronicles. But they are in universal use by the
Japanese, though to speak of a living sovereign by his posthumous
name is a manifest anomaly.

THE EXPEDITION TO YAMATO

According to the Chronicles, the four sons of Fuki-ayezu engaged in a
celebrated expedition from Tsukushi (Kyushu) to Yamato, but one
alone, the youngest, survived. According to the Records, two only
took part in the expedition, the other two having died before it set
out. The former version seems more consistent with the facts, and
with the manner of the two princes' deaths, as described in the
Records. Looking from the east coast of the island of Kyushu, the
province of Yamato lies to the northeast, at a distance of about 350
miles, and forms the centre of the Kii promontory. From what has
preceded, a reader of Japanese history is prepared to find that the
objective of the expedition was Izumo, not Yamato, since it was to
prepare for the occupation of the former province that the Sun
goddess and her coadjutors expended so much energy. No explanation
whatever