Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/38

 "In the seventy-second year of Koré Tenno," says the Kok Shi Riak, "a man named Hsü Fu arrived in Japan from the state of Ts'in, accompanied by a thousand persons, consisting of men, women, and children. He also brought with him a certain book, and the object of his visit was to find the Elixir of Immortality. In this he was unsuccessful, and he therefore never went back. He took up his abode at Fusiyama, and his memorial temple is still to be seen at Kumano-san." It would appear from this, then, that a second expedition was fitted out and despatched at a later period; unless we are to conclude that the version given by Ssŭ-ma Kuang is altogether erroneous. The Chinese themselves say that Hsü Fu was the first mortal who ever set foot in Japan, and that it is from him that the entire nation of the Japanese are descended. This theory is to be traced, we believe, to Ou-yang Hsiu, the well-known historian and statesman of the Sung dynasty. The story of his voyage to Japan forms the basis of a curious legend which, though largely mixed with fable, is worth repeating here. "In the reign of Ts'in Shih Huang Ti," we read, "a number of murders were committed in Khokand, and the roads were strewn with corpses. But birds came, holding a certain sort of grass in their beaks which they spread over the faces of the dead men, whereupon the corpses immediately revived. The local authorities having reported the circumstance to the Emperor, he despatched messengers in search of this wonderful grass, commanding them to make inquiries upon the subject of Wang Hsü, the recluse of the Demon Valley, who told them that in the Eastern Sea there was an island called Tsû Chou, where the Herb of Immortality was to be found. 'It grows,' he said, 'in the Coral Fields,