Yoshitsune, To Whom The Real
Honour Of These Victories Belonged, Became The Object Of The
Jealousy And Hatred Of His
Brother, and was hunted from province to
province, till, according to popular belief, he committed hara-
kiri, after killing his
Wife and children, and his head, preserved
in sake, was sent to his brother at Kamakura. Scholars, however,
are not agreed as to the manner, period, or scene of his death.
Many believe that he escaped to Yezo and lived among the Ainos for
many years, dying among them at the close of the twelfth century.
None believe this more firmly than the Ainos themselves, who assert
that he taught their fathers the arts of civilisation, with letters
and numbers, and gave them righteous laws, and he is worshipped by
many of them under a name which signifies Master of the Law. I
have been told by old men in Biratori, Usu, and Lebunge, that a
later Japanese conqueror carried away the books in which the arts
were written, and that since his time the arts themselves have been
lost, and the Ainos have fallen into their present condition! On
asking why the Ainos do not make vessels of iron and clay as well
as knives and spears, the invariable answer is, "The Japanese took
away the books."
{22} The duty paid by junks is 4s. for each twenty-five tons, by
foreign ships of foreign shape and rig 2 pounds for each 100 tons,
and by steamers 3 pounds for each 100 tons.
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