THE NIGHT OF ASIA
forty years; and though, thanks to our insular position and the prowess of our warriors, we were able successfully to repel their attacks, remembrance of their aggression was not to be effaced, and even led to retaliatory steps on our part. The memory of our ancient friendship with the courts of the Tang and Sung dynasties was lost. One of the latent causes of our late war with the Celestial Empire may be found in the mutual suspicion with which the two nations have now regarded each other for many centuries. By the Mongol conquest of Asia, Buddhaland was rent asunder, never again to be reunited. How little do the Asiatic nations now know of each other! They have grown callous to the doom that befalls their neighbors.
One cannot but be struck by the con-
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