Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/149



ACCURATE information relating to the origin and development of commerce in the opening centuries of the State's existence is very scanty. The positions of the principal markets seem to have been fixed from a time as remote as the third century of the Christian era—the tenth of the Japanese dynasty,—but the dimensions of commerce were evidently insignificant, inasmuch as only one market is mentioned in each reign until the Nara epoch (709—784 ), when the list extends to five places in central Japan and two on the northeastern and southwestern coasts, respectively. Incidental evidence is furnished of the existence of itinerant traders, or pedlars, for in the fifth century one of the Island-sea provinces is said to have been the haunt of a pirate whose raids upon travelling merchants were sufficiently notorious to entitle him to a place in history. Beyond these meagre facts there are no materials for constructing the story of trade in remote times.