tion of water, used in the irrigation of the rice
crops, were constructed in the imperial provinces, and encouragement was
everywhere given to the growing industries of the country.

The Emperor Sujin was succeeded by his younger son who is known as the
eleventh emperor under the name of Suinin. He is said to have reigned
ninety-nine years, and to have died at the age of one hundred and
forty-one.

A conspiracy came near ending the life of this emperor. A brother of the
empress was ambitious to attain supreme authority. He approached his
sister with the subtle question, Which is dearer to thee, thine elder
brother or thy husband? She replied, My elder brother is dearer. Then he
said, If I be truly the dearer to thee, let me and thee rule the empire.
And he gave her a finely tempered dagger and said to her, Slay the emperor
with this in his sleep. So the emperor, unconscious of danger, was
sleeping one day with his head on the lap of the empress. And she,
thinking the time had come, was about to strike him with the dagger. But
her courage failed her, and tears fell from her eyes on the face of the
sleeping emperor. He started up, awakened by the falling tears, and said
to her, I have had a strange dream. A violent shower came up from the
direction of Saho and suddenly wet my face. And a small damask-colored
snake coiled itself around my neck. What can such a dream betoken? Then
the empress, conscience-stricken, confessed the conspiracy with her
brother.

The emperor, knowing that no time was to be lost, immediately collected a
force of troops and marched against his brother-in-law. He had entrenched
himself behind palisades of timber and awaited the emperor's attack. The
empress, hesitating between her brother and her husband, had made her
escape to her brother's palace. At this terrible juncture she was
delivered of a child. She brought the child to the palisades in sight of
the emperor, and cried out to him to take it under his care. He was deeply
moved by her appeal to him and forthwith planned to rescue both the child
and its mother. He chose from among his warriors a band of the bravest and
most cunning, and commanded them, saying, When ye go to take the child, be
sure that ye seize also the mother.

But she, fearing that the soldiers would try to snatch her when they came
for the child, shaved off her hair and covered her head with the loose
hair as if it were still adhering. And she made the jewel-strings aroun