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seems disposed to attach more belief to the statement of another Japanese writer who places the commencement of Fohi’s reign only 3,588 years before Christ or 396 years after the Creation, according to the Mosaic record as interpreted by Dr. Kaempfer. (p. 146.)
(2) The second Chinese emperor was Sin Noo, who is said to have taught mankind agriculture and to have discovered the uses of several plants. His picture, says Kaempfer, in which he is represented with the head of a horned ox, is held in high esteem among the Chinese, more especially by physicians. His reign extended over 140 years, a period which suggests the reflection that Dr. Kaempfer need scarcely have taken the trouble to divide his Japanese history into three branches, since the second or doubtful division seems scarcely less fabulous than the first.
(3) After this emperor came Kwo Tai, said by the Chinese historians to have really reigned, his reign beginning from the year B. C. 2,689, he being then eleven years of age. (4–8) His five successors reigned in the following order, viz: (4) Tei Gio, (5) Tei Sjun, (6) Uu, (7) Sioo Sei Too, (8) Siu No Bu O. (p. 148). Of these latter five the first named, Tei Gio was a Sefin, well-versed in occult arts. During the reign of the 2nd, Tei Sjun, a great deluge happened in China, overflowing many provinces. To the third of these emperors, Uu, China owes canals and sluices. In the reign of the fourth, Sioo Sei Too, there occurred a seven years’ famine, which reminds the author of the Egyptian famine of Holy Writ. The last emperor of these Siu No Bu O came to the crown 462 years before Synmu and 1122 B. C. and was succeeded in their turn by 37 descendants. In the meantime the authentic history of Japan begins, as apart from that of China, which brings the author to the commencement of the last of the three sras into which he divides the history of this empire. (P. 148).
(Chapter 2). Here begins the long line of Mikados, or, as Kaempfer styles the monarchs of Japan, “Ecclesiastical Hereditary Emperors,” and which dates from the year B. C. 660, being the 17th year of the reign of the
