Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/51

 Yamato being far apart. At the outset, the immigrants who had newly arrived in Kiushiu, imagined that they had to deal with the Izumo folk only. They began by sending envoys. The first of these, bribed by the Izumo rulers, made his home in the land he had been sent to spy out. The second forgot his duty in the arms of an Izumo beauty whose hair fell to her ankles. The third discharged his mission faithfully, but was put to death in Izumo. The sequel of this somewhat commonplace series of events was war. Putting forth their full strength, the southern invaders shattered the power of the Izumo court and received its submission. But they did not transfer their own court to the conquered province. Ignorant that Izumo was a mere fraction of the main island, they imagined that no more regions remained to be subjugated. By and by they discovered their mistake. Intelligence reached them that, far away in the northeast, a race of highly civilised men, who had originally come from beyond the sea in ships, were settled in the province of Yamato, holding undisputed sway. To the conquest of these colonists Jimmu, who then ruled the southern immigrants, set out on a campaign which lasted fifteen years, and ended, after some fierce fighting, in the Yamato rulers' acknowledging their consanguinity with the invader and abdicating in his favour.

Whether Jimmu's story be purely a figment of later-day imagination or whether it consists of