1841.
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years. It is regulated by the pleasure of the reigning mikado, according to any remarkable or accidental occurrence that he thinks worthy of such commemo- ration; he may, for instance, appoint a new nengo to begin from the building of a temple, from an earthquake, or the like; and he gives it a name descriptive of its origin, either simply, or, in the oriental style, metaphorically, allegorically, and enigmatically. Thus, a mikado ordered a new nengo to begin on his abdication, and named it the nengo genrokf; literally, 'the nengo of the happiness of nature and art;' implying that he, in his retirement, should have leisure to enjoy both. The new nengo lasts till some new event induces the same mikado, or his succes- sor, immediate or remote, to terminate it and commence another.
The other simple mode of computation is by the reign or dat of every suc cessive mikado. This, as the most straightforward, is the one in common use. The only difficulty to which it seems liable, mamely, the interruption of a reign in the middle of a year, is obviated by the provision, that the whole year in which a mikado abdicates or vanishes is reckoned to him who begun it, and the dat of the successor calculated only from the next newyear's day.*
The third, the astronomical cycle of sixty years, is far other, and a very com. plex affair, being constructed by calculation out of the signs of the Zodiac and the elements. The former are reckoned in Japan, as perhaps wherever astronomy has been studied, twelve, and differ from ours only in their names. They are col- lectively called ziyuni no shi, or the 'twelve branches,' and run thus:
1. Ne,
2. Ushi
the rat, answers to Arics.
the cow, answers to Taurus.
3. Tora,the tiger, answers to Gemini.
4. U,
外
5. Tats,
6. Mi,
7. 'Mma,
8. HiteuziTM
9. Saru,
10. Tori,
-
11. Iñu,
12. I,
the rabbit, answers to Cancer.
the dragon, answers to Leo.
the snake, answers to Virgo.
.
the horse, answers to Libra.
the goat, answers to Scorpio.
the ape, answers to Sagittarius.
the cock, answers to Capricorn.
the dog, answers to Aquarius.
the wild boar, answers to Pisces.
The + elements of the Japanese are more original. They are held to be five in number, excluding air, and including wood and metal as elementary substances. But these five are whimsically doubled, by taking each in a twofold character; separately as one in its natural state, and another as adapted to the use of man yet in each an element. This is so strange as to be worth giving at length, and in the proper order.
* [The year of the siogoun's reign is also employed as a mode of computing time, for the dates of all the Japanese books we have seen are reckoned by the number of years he has sat on the throne.]
+ Meylan.
VOL. X. NO. IV.
28