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Updated: May 25, 2025
Keeping his eyes strained, he pretty soon saw the glare now of one eye, now two eyes, as the beast with swaying head crept along the great roof to the place on the eaves directly under the mikado's sleeping-room. There it stopped. This was Yorimasa's opportunity. Aiming about a foot to the right of where he saw the eye glare, he drew his yard-length shaft clear back to his shoulder, and let fly.
The technical difficulties were many and well-nigh insurmountable: the lack of transports, the distance at which the Mikado's troops in Europe would be from their base of supplies, and the length of time that must elapse before they could replenish their stores of ammunition, whether these were drawn from Tokyo or manufactured in Europe.
The Mikado's people emerged from the Russian conflict with energies enormously aroused, and a few months later every condition was favorable to a realization of the dream of empire giving to Japan an importance amounting almost to sovereignty over a vast section of the Far East.
A further proof of the transformation of the primitive god-way in the interest of practical politics, is shown by Professor Kumi in the fact that some of the festivals now directly connected with the Mikado's house, and even in his honor, were originally festivals with which he had nothing to do, except as leader of the worship, for the honor was paid to Heaven, and not to his ancestors.
In the Mikado's empire the average citizen to-day must pay 30 per cent, of his total income in taxes, the great proportion of this enormous national expenditure growing out of past wars and preparations for future wars.
This last effort led the Mikado's officers to fire on the ships of the foreign nations. The punishment which these inflicted in the harbor of Shimonoseki so impressed the emperor, in conjunction with his fear lest the foreigners should help the Shogun, that he completely reversed his policy, and proceeded to remove the barriers to intercourse with them.
It was reserved for four other men to lay bare the facts of the Mikado's divine right and to rehabilitate the Shinto cult. Associated with them were other scholars of less note, but these are overshadowed by the four great masters. Kada, indeed, did not achieve much more than the restoration of pure Japanese literature to the pedestal upon which it deserved to stand.
"Having deposits of coal and iron, why may not Japan be developed into the Eastern equivalent of England?" ask stay-at-home admirers of the Japanese, who believe that to them nothing is impossible. The Mikado's territory has coal, iron and copper, it is true; but in no instance is the mineral present to an extent making it a national asset of importance.
A magnificent avenue of cryptomeria shades the Tokaido for a short distance out of Hakone village; on the left is passed a large government sanitarium, one of those splendid modern-looking structures that speak so eloquently of the present Mikado's progressive and enlightened policy. The road then turns up the steep mountain-slopes, fringed with impenetrable thickets of bamboo.
The sides of the pavilion were quite open, the roof being simply supported on pillars; so that we could see everything that went on, both inside and out. The floor was covered with red cloth; the daïs with an extremely ugly Brussels carpet, with a large pattern. On this the Mikado's throne was placed, with a second canopy above it.
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