Japan was then emerging from its stone age and introducing metals; there were countless small principalities and states, of which the state of Yamato, then ruled by a queen, was the most powerful.

Yamato had certain interests in Korea, where it already ruled a small coastal strip in the east.

Wei offered Yamato the prospect of gaining the whole of Korea if it would turn against the state of Yen in South Manchuria.

The queen of Yamato accordingly sent a mission to Wei; she had already decided in favour of that state.

ICHIHASHI, YAMATO.

Yamato Ichihashi (A); 22Apr60; R255907.

ICHIHASHI, YAMATO.

Yamato Ichihashi (A); 22Apr60; R255907.

The Precepts of Knighthood, begun at first as the glory of the elite, became in time an aspiration and inspiration to the nation at large; and though the populace could not attain the moral height of those loftier souls, yet Yamato Damashii, the Soul of Japan, ultimately came to express the Volksgeist of the Island Realm.

Should your Yamato spirit Strangers seek to scan, Sayscenting morn's sun-lit air, Blows the cherry wild and fair!"

The Yamato spirit is not a tame, tender plant, but a wildin the sense of naturalgrowth; it is indigenous to the soil; its accidental qualities it may share with the flowers of other lands, but in its essence it remains the original, spontaneous outgrowth of our clime.

Is, then, this flower, so sweet and evanescent, blown whithersoever the wind listeth, and, shedding a puff of perfume, ready to vanish forever, is this flower the type of the Yamato spirit?

Full well I knew this course must end in death; It was Yamato spirit urged me on To dare whate'er betide.