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Turkey in Asia: European

HISTORY.-Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, who visited China about 1275, was the first European who wrote of Japan, which he spoke of as "Zipangu," a corruption of the Chinese name. It was with a view to reach Cathay (China) and its outlying island of Zipangu that Columbus sailed westward, and when he sighted San Salvador he believed that he had discovered the famous land of the East. The first Europeans to land in Japan were Portuguese sailors, and about the middle of the 16th century Fernam Mendez Pinto visited one of the smaller islands. He was followed shortly afterwards by St. Francis Xavier, "the Apostle of the Indies," and from this time merchants and missionaries alike crowded into the new country. The Dutch and Portuguese improved their advantages, and Japanese ambassadors visited Europe. But the native government soon became alarmed at the intractability of the Christian converts, and repressive measures of a most arbitrary character were adopted, resulting in the total crushing-out of the new religion and the banishment of all foreigners, except some Dutch merchants. The exclusion of European nations was maintained for two centuries in spite of all protests, and it was not until 1854 that the negotiations of Commodore M. C. Perry, U. S. N., resulted in the ratification of a commercial treaty which opened the ports of Japan to the American mercantile navy. European governments rapidly followed up the advantage thus presented, and notwithstanding the opposition of the old court party, liberal ideas made rapid progress, and reforms of a most striking character were effected. The Mikado, or spiritual ruler of the country, resumed the powers of which he and his predecessors had been for hundreds of years deprived, and inaugurated a policy diametrically opposed to that which had been carried out by the successive Shoguns, or secular rulers who had usurped the throne, and the Daimios or nobles.