The Chinese Drama also arose from the Hindoo developing itself as time rolled on from Pantomimes and ballets.  A very ancient Pantomime is said to have been symbolical of the conquest of China by Wou Wang.  Others were on subjects of the Harvest, War, and Peace; whilst many were only of an obscure nature.  With the rise and progress of the native drama about five hundred years before Christ Pantomimes fell into disrepute.

It is interesting to note that one of the penal codes of the Celestial Empire was, that those who wrote plays with vicious, or immoral tendencies, should stay in “purgatory” as long as their plays were performed.  This precept was all right in theory, but in practice it was more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as amongst the whole of the Celestial dramatic writers only one in about ten thousand seems to have conformed to this rule.

The dramatic writers of China duly observed the question of rank and priority, and just as much as the native Hindoo writers observed that of the various phases of caste.

Plays were divided into acts and scenes, and occasionally were prefixed by a prologue.  Performances took sometimes a single day, and favourite plays oftentimes longer.

The Japanese type of drama seems to have originally evolved itself from that of the Chinese, though its singing, dancing, historical, and Pantomimical displays are, of course, purely native.

A native of Japan, though of Chinese descent, Hadu Kawatsa, at the close of the 6th century (A.D.) gave dramatic entertainments in Japan.  The Japanese claim for the Pantomimical dance Sambaso as a preventative of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; and this dance, it is said, that within recent years, is used as a prelude to dramatic entertainments.

Isono Zenji is thought to have been the originator of the Japanese Drama, but her performances were more those of the Mima—­dancing and posturing.

In the seventeenth century Saruwaka Kanzaburo introduced the drama proper into Japan by the erection, in 1624, of a theatre, and nearly fifty years later than the first permanent theatre that was erected (1576) in England.

Popular historical subjects were chosen for the plays, though the names of the characters were transformed.  Fancy plays, operas, ballets, which in the latter women appeared, became also very popular.

Within sight of the closing years of the last century (the nineteenth), Japanese actors were more or less under a ban when the same was happily removed.

Siam was content with the Indian style of dramatic and Pantomimic entertainments.  Theatrical performances were also slightly known—­though no regular type of drama is known—­amongst the South Sea Islanders, the Peruvians, the Aztecs, the Zulus, and the Fijis, the two last named having a similar version of our popular Pantomime subject, “Jack and the Beanstalk.”