Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/44

20 CHAOSIEN. messengers with tribute to Han dynasty. In the beginning of this dynasty, a large force of Japanese made a plundering expedition into Chaosien, as they have often done since. The greatest anarchy prevailed in Wo during the years 147-170 A.D. There was no supreme ruler till a woman, Bei mi hoo, old and immarried, credited with the possession of magical powers, was made queen. She had a thousand servants ; but only one man fiaw her face, who brought her food, and took forth her orders. To the east of Wojoo, in the great sea, was the "Kingdon of Women," These were, however, of nature more gentle than their western sisters, — ^the Amazons of world-wide fame, the ancient advocates of women's rights, who advocated at the point of the sword, and dealt death blows on the battle-field. The successive generations of our eastern Amazons were secured by the women looking down into a certain well in their island kingdom. If the result of this look was a boy child, he was destroyed, if a girl, she was preserved, — so thoroughly did they detest the male tyrant of their sex. Whatever the object of the ancient author of this romance, the Chinese continue to this day, with a slight inclination to scepticism, to believe in the existence of the " Kingdom of Women." Four thousand li south of the Kingdom of Women was Jooli Kingdom ; the men of which were only three to four feet high. To its south-east was Lo ("naked") Kingdom and Heichu ("black teeth") Kingdom. This was the most remote point reached by Chinese in the time of the Han dynasty. Did they reach Singapore ? or did its women then stain their teeth? All this is seriously written by the Chinese historians as the state of eastern Asia, contemporaneous with the Han dynasty. The exaggerations and fabrications are easily discounted by any reader. Though the notes on Japan are beyond the scope of this book, they will not be regarded wholly out of place by those interested in that kingdom, which has been aroused from its dream of ages by the whistle of the steam ship, and the flcreech of the railway engine. But to return. It is stated, and with an appearance of truth,