To those of my readers who are familiar with Japan I offer an apology for a chapter of elementary facts, and ask them to omit it. The few who have never previously read a book on Japan, and the many who have forgotten what they read, or whose far eastern geography is rusty, or in whose memories the curious inventions of some early voyagers stick, or who still believe in hara kiri and the existence of a shadowy Mikado at Kiyôto, and a solid Shôgun at Tôkiyô, are requested to read it.

If an eminent writer found that “educated Britons” required more than one re-statement of the fact that the coco palm and the cacao bush are not ene and the same thing, it is not surprising that such facts as that the “Spiritual” and “Temporal” Emperors are fictions of the past, and that the most northern part of Japan with its Siberian winter is south of the most southern point of England, are not always fresh in the memory. Were it so, such questions and remarks as the following could not be uttered by highly educated, and, in some respects, well-informed people. By a general officer's wife, “Is Sir Harry Parkes Governor of Japan?” By a borough M.P., “Is there any hope of the abolition of slavery in Japan?” By a county M.P., “Is the Viceroy of Japan appointed for life?” By one gentleman holding an official appointment in India to another, both having been crammed for Civil Service examinations within the last two years, “Japan belongs to Russia now, doesn't it?”