Nor have we here a seemingly inert mass of humanity in a political structure blending democracy and imperialism, as in China, so great in age, area and numbers as to weary the imagination that strives to grasp the details.

On the contrary, in Dai Nippon, or Great Land of the Sun's Origin, we have a little country easy of study.

In geology it is one of the youngest of lands.

Its known history is comparatively modern.

Its area roughly reckoned as 150,000 square miles, is about that of our Dakotas or of Great Britain and Ireland.