The capital of the tycoonRutherford Alcock














i








THE
s
CAPITAL OF THE TYCOON
A NARRATIVE OF A
THREE YEARS' RESIDENCE IN JAPAN.
BY SIR RUTHERFORD ALCOCK, K.C.B.,
HER MAJESTY* B ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY AND MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY IN JAPAN.
WITH MAPS AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.
* Loot ye I master Traveler: unless ye note something worth the seeing, and come home
wiser than ye went, I wouldn't give a stag's horn for all your travels.'
Old Play.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
vol. n.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1863.


Library
DS
809


prgraduata
Library
CONTENTS TO VOL. II.
CHAPTER XXIII. Indications of hostile Spirit among the armed Classes. — A Servant of the
French Minister severely wounded while standing at the Gate of the Le-
gation.—Evil Auguries for the Future.—Traits of national Character from
Japanese Records.—Code of Honor.—How it operates to check the Vio-
lence of a turbulent Class of feudal Retainers.—Its non-application in the
protection of Foreigners.—Fire at the British Legation.—Proofs of Good-
will and friendly Inter^t.—First Visit of English Ladies to the Capital.
—Dangerous Ground not the less.—A British Subject in collision with
Japanese Police at Kanagawa.—A Yaconin severely wounded....Page 13
CHAPTER XXIV. New Year's Day, 1861.—The Greeting it brought in Yeddo.—Menace of a
General Massacre of Foreigners.—Prompt Departure of a British Squad-
ron.—Assassination in the Streets of Yeddo of Mr. Heuskin, Secretary to
the American Legation.—Renewed Menaces directed against the whole of
the Legations.—Public Funeral of the Murdered Officer.—Reported Sui-
cide of Hori Oribeno-no-Kami, one of the Governors of Foreign Affairs.—
Conference of the Foreign Representatives at Yeddo 36
CHAPTER XXV.
Second Phase of the Crisis.—Flags of four Treaty Powers struck.—Protest
against the inadequacy of Means taken to protect Life.—Negotiations for
Return of British and French Ministers to the Capital.—Conditions stipu-
lated on the part of Foreign Representatives.—Final Acceptance of these
on the part of the Japanese Government, and the Return of the former un-
der a Salute to the National Flags of Great Britain and France on their
Entrance 55
CHAPTER XXVI.
Journey overland from Nagasaki to Yeddo across the Island of Kyushu. —Ob-
servations on Japanese Life in Town and Country.—Social Condition.—
Manners and Customs of the Japanese.—Glimpses of Feudalism and the
political Organization of the Country 61 i
CHAPTER XXVn.
SimonoseTci.—The 'Inland Sea,' and Voyage to Hiogo 90
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Port and the City.—Hiogo and Osaka 102


vi
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Osaca to Yeddo Page 122
CHAPTER XXX m
Return to Yeddo.—Attack on the Legation in the Night, and desperate At-
tempt at a General Massacre 143
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Lull after the Storm.—Immediate Prospects and Policy 158
CHAPTER XXXII.
Mr. Oliphant, the Secretary of Legation, sent Home for the Cure of his
Wounds.—Bearer of the Tycoon's autograph Letter to the Queen, urging
the Non-opening of more Ports for a Term of Years.—Confidential Inter-
view with the President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs.—
Resume of Foreign Relations in Japan 170
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Review of Foreign Relations with Japan.—In the Japanese Territories the
Present is Heir to the Past in a peculiar Sense.—Influence on existing Re-
lations.—How they may be dealt with, and what the Alternatives offer-
ed 179
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Government of Japan and its Administrative Machinery.—Relations of
Life: of Rulers and Subjects.—Husband and Wife.—The Relation of the
Sexes.—The Position of Woman in the social Scale.—Influence of Art
and Culture.—Religious Systems 204
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Civilization of Japan.—Social and political Condition.—Durability of
their Institutions.—How secured hitherto, and on what depending.—
Dread of Innovation among the Ruling Classes a primary Cause of their
Hostility to Foreigners.—Their Progress in Art.— Illustrations of popular
Subjects.—Manners and Customs.—Their love of the Humorous and Gro-
tesque 226
r CHAPTER XXXVI.
Temples, Religion, and Amusements of Japanese.—Strange Combination of
the two.—Description of Asaxa under both Aspects.—Jugglers.—Story-
tellers.—Top-spinners.—Various Games.—Game of throwing the Ball on
Horseback.—Picnics in the Country much in vogue at Spring Festivals.—
Theatres.—Wrestlers —Matsuris and Feasts.—Japanese Cemeteries. 265
CHAPTER XXXVI. Western Diplomacy and Eastern Policy 28G
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Arrangements for the Departure of the Japanese Mission to the Courts of
the several Treaty Powers in Europe.—Embarkation on board H. M. S.
'Odin.'—Close of 1861.—Trade of the Year, and Commercial Prospects
for the incoming Year of 1862 322


CONTENTS.
vii
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Year 1862.—Progress of Events in Japan.—Attempt on the Life of the
Second Minister of Foreign Affairs.—My Departure for England.—Ar-
rival of the Japanese Mission in Europe.—Results.—The Monetary Sys-
tem of Japan and Questions of Currency.—Assassination of two of the
Guards at the British Legation.—Attack on a Party of British Subjects on
the High Road, with Loss of Life.—Summary of the Year, and Reflections
on the present Situation Page 335
APPENDICES.
A Trade of China 371
B. Minutes of a Meeting of British Residents at Yokohama 371
C. Letter from Mr. Medhurst 381
D. List of Daimios and their Revenues 384
E. Mr. Veitch's Notes on the Agriculture, Trees, and Flora of Japan... 397
F. Titles in Japan 406
G. A few Remarks on 'An open Letter to the Representatives of the
Western Nations at Yeddo' 409
Index 413





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II.
Map of Osaka, in the front . pagh
The Halt by the Wayside Frontispiece.
Duty under Difficulties 65
Wayside Inn near Nagasaki 67
How Pines grow 69
Sulphur Baths at Urisino 71
From our Inn at Omura 74
Odah 81
Preparing Cotton for spinning 83
Village Housewife reeling Cotton 84
Village Life in Japan 86
Roadside Shrine 87
Our Junk in the Inland Sea 90
Gala Dress by Law established 97
The Sea of Suonada 97
Helm of our Junk 98
Steersman and his Mate 99
Sailors eating their Rice 100
Pass out of the Suonada Sea 101
NearHiogo 102
Hiogo 103
View of Osaca 119
Castle of Osaca 123
Japanese Wandering Minstrels 125
A Rope of Stones 128
Female Servant 134
Japanese Post—an Express 135
Our Chief Yaconin 142
Belfry in Court-yard of Temple 242
Storks 244
Wild Goose 245
Specimen of Grotesque . 250
Japanese Physician 252
Barber 253
Clothes Merchant 254
Maker of Bows 254
Shaving the Ladies 256
A 2


x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Ladies at their Toilet :. 257
Going up Hill 257
Snow Coat 258
Japanese Wooing 258
Men Towing 259
Caught in the Rain 259
A Snow-storm 260
The Mistress and her Servant 261
Mother-in-law and Daughter 261
Blowing Bubbles 262
Gnomes 263
Lantern-maker 264
A Japanese Priest in his Robes 271
A Japanese Friar of the Mediaeval Type 271
Porter 272
The Wedding Party 273
The Christening 274
Playing at Ball 280
The Maternal Lesson 281
The Wrestlers 282
Japanese Game on Horseback 284


NARRATIVE OF A THREE YEARS' RESIDENCE IN JAPAN.
vol. n.





A NARRATIVE
OP
THREE YEARS' RESIDENCE IN JAPAN.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Indications of hostile Spirit among the armed Classes. — A Servant of the
French Minister severely wounded while standing at the Gate of the Le-
gation.—Evil Auguries for the Future.—Traits of national Character from
Japanese Kecords.—Code of Honor.—How it operates to check the Vio-
lence of a turbulent Class of feudal Retainers.—Its non-application in the
protection of Foreigners.—Fire at the British Legation.—Proofs of Good-
will and friendly Interest.—First Visit of English Ladies to the Caj^tal.
—Dangerous Ground not the less.—A British Subject in collision with
Japanese Police at Kanagawa.—A Yaconin severely wounded.
Nearly a month had elapsed after my return from the spas
of Atami, and little had occurred to break the daily routine
and monotony of life at Yeddo. Nothing, indeed, was ever
likely to occur of a nature that we should desire it, an earth-
quake, a fire, or a murder being the only events traveling out
of the beaten track! The first incident, accordingly, which
took place within this vicious circle was the sudden appear-
ance, as we were sitting down to dinner one evening, of the
Abbe Girard, pale and agitated, bringing with him, in a nori-
mon, Monsieur de Bellecourt's Italian servant, who had been
attacked, while standing quietly at the gate of the French Le-
gation, by two Samourai passing at the moment, and by one
of whom he had been severely wounded. He was brought in,
his clothes saturated with blood; and, on examination, it was
found he had received a sword-cut across the upper part of his
right arm while in the act of warding the blow intended for
his head. It was fortunately only a flesh wound, though sev-
eral inches in length, and penetrating deeply; and, being on
the outside of the limb, where there are no large vessels to be divided, it was comparatively a safe wound. It was large and
gaping, however, and quite sufficiently ugly-looking to turn the
good Abb6 very sick, and compel him to retire to another
room. The edges were soon brought together, and kept in


14
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIII.
place by a few stitches, while the bleeding from the smaller
arteries was stopped, and the dressing completed with such
materials as were at hand.
Where was this to end? Natal, an Italian by birth, unfor-
tunately, like my linguist Dankirche, had had many affairs with
the dangerous class, as had his master more than once; and
although he went about habitually with an arsenal of weapons
in his belt, revolvers, swords, and daggers, for self-defense, that
did not seem to have protected him any more than it did my
linguist from attack, though it probably enabled him, more for-
tunate in this than his predecessor, to save his life. It seems
to have been a deliberate and premeditated attack, either out
of pure bravado, or from long-nourished hostility. He was
standing on the flight of steps at the gate of the Legation just
before dusk, several of the Yaconins on service at the Lega-
tion being close to him, when a couple of evil-looking and swag-
gering Samourai in full costume • came past. One of them
mounted the steps, and immediately began to pick a quarrel
by violently kicking a little dog at his side into the street. On
the first word of remonstrance, he drew his short sword, and
aimed a furious blow at his intended victim's head. This was
partially parried by Natal, who raised his arm to protect his
head as he sprang aside, and, drawing his revolver, fired at his
assailant, who then turned on his heel and disappeared among
the crowd, the bloodstained sword still unsheathed in his hand,
without a finger being stirred, either by the officers on service
or the inhabitants in the street, to stop the ruffian! It is doubt-
ful whether he was wounded by the pistol-shot, though reports
to that effect afterward reached the Legation. Nothing could
be more disgraceful than the conduct of all the swarm of two-
sworded Yaconins and officials cumbering the court-yard of
the Legation with their presence. Several, indeed, were actual
spectators on the spot. At first they denied that any of them
were there, or saw what took place! And when the assevera-
tion of the wounded man was too persistent in pointing out
the particular men to be altogether discredited, the Ministers,
through their Governors of Foreign Affairs, still had the air
of treating as a very doubtful matter what took place, and
pretended to believe that the assailant only drew his sword
when menaced with the pistol. But the means and the end
were all in keeping, and the offender was never punished to
our knowledge. The men on duty, who so shamefully stood
by while a foreigner under their special guard was being cut
down, equally escaped, though nominally disgraced. There
was a rule of immunity in all such cases. Every one but the


Chap. XXIII.]
15
CODE OF HONOR.
Government officers knew the assailant was an officer of a cer-
tain Prince,* whose retainers enjoy a sort of notoriety as bold
and turbulent swashbucklers, making their boast of it and the
power of their master to protect them. This would seem to
be a state of things of no modern date, however. In the' Me-
moires et Anecdotes' of the reigning dynasty, collected from
native sources by Titsingh, already referred to, there are some
very curious illustrations of a state of lawless law in the code
of honor of these gentry, and the extreme measures taken by
their chiefs occasionally, either to restrain the violence of their
people, or at least avoid being dragged into feuds by their acts;
although cases were not rare, it seems, when they, like the
chiefs of the ancient Scottish clans, adopted the quarrel of their
retainers and avenged them.
Titsingh says,'When the subjects or vassals of one Prince
affront those of another, the latter would be dishonored if he
did not avenge it? It is related of this same Prince of Sat-
suma (to whom the Loochoo Islands belong as part of his he-
reditary dominions, and whose subjects traffic from Japan there
and through the principal cities of the Empire) that, in order
to avoid all quarrel with other princes, he made a law, that if
one of his people should at any time be insulted by the sub-
jects of another Daimio, he was permitted to avenge himself
by taking the life of his adversary, provided that he performed
the Hara-kiru on himself immediately after! The life of two
persons, who, by their bellicose and turbulent spirit, were the
cause of their own troubles, appeared to him of too little im-
portance to drag their masters into quarrels which might lead
to great bloodshed. And, in order to give greater effect to
this principle, and at the same time maintain a high spirit and
sense of honor among his people, it was also decreed that if
any of his people were insulted, and did not care, from cow-
ardice, to avenge themselves, and the captain or any of his men
belonging to one of his ships should come to know it, the cow-
ard was to be conducted on board, and, without delay or any
form of trial, to have his head struck off, and both head and
trunk to be thrown into the sea. Titsingh remarks ' that in
this manner peace is maintained, and the people generally treat
each other with the greatest politeness, endeavoring by every
possible means to avoid all that might create a dispute where
the consequences must necessarily be so fatal.' And, as a meas-
ure of policy, there is no doubt the certainty of death, as the
* The same Prince of Satsuma whose officers and retainers on the high
road recently fell upon a party of peaceable foreigners, among whom was a
lady, killing one on the spot, and dangerously wounding his companions.


16
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIII.
necessary effect to both parties in a quarrel, must go far to
check brawls and violence even among the most turbulent.
In other countries, if a man kills his enemy he may elude jus-
tice, and live to fight another day; but where there is no pos-
sible escape out of the country, and the offender is bound forth-
with to be his own executioner, and follow his victim, it must
greatly tend to simplify the administration of justice! Wheth-
er the Samourai in this case had an offense or an insult accord-
ing to his code to avenge, and whether he scrupulously immo-
lated himself afterward, will never be known. But I have
grave doubts as to the latter.
The following narrative, also given by Titsingh, may serve
to illustrate this aspect of national manners and customs, in
which we are more directly interested than may at first appear.
About the middle of last century, the retainers of the Prince
of Owari (one of the Gosankay, or 'Royal Brothers' of the
reigning dynasty) had made themselves general objects of fear
by the deeds of violence they committed in open day on who-
ever had the misfortune to displease them. In the eleventh
month of the fourth year Foreki (1754), a man in trowsers and
cloak* met eight of the retainers of Owari in Sinagawa (a sub-
urb at the entrance of Yeddo, near to the British Legation, and
of evil fame for its tea-houses and habitual brawlers), in the
street Sibagoutze-zogitscho. He had the misfortune, in passing,
to touch one of them, who immediately turned round and load-
ed him with abuse, which the unhappy man endeavored to
moderate by his excuses. But, not content with words, they
speedily fell upon him, and left him for dead. The victim of
their brutality with difficulty dragged himself to the nearest
guard-house, and there made himself known as being in the
service of Misou-no Yamassiro-no-kami. Being unable to
walk, he was put in a cango and carried to his master's house,
where he died shortly after arriving, saying that he had been
set upon by a band of ruffians in the streets of Sinagawa, to
whom belonging he did not know.
Misou-no Yamassiro-no-kami, indignant at the treatment his
servitor had met with, immediately set himself to discover the
offenders, and having been assured that they were people of
the Prince of Owari, he proceeded to the palace of the Prince,
* None but officers of a certain rank are allowed to wear trousers or two
swords. The 'cloak' referred to may be meant to describe the upper dress
Kamisima, having projecting wings at the shoulders, as in the illustration,
vol. i., p. 232. This is not peculiar to any rank, but may be worn by all when
paying a visit of ceremony. A cloak, properly speaking, is no part of Japan-
ese costume: a sort of overcoat or wrapper is thrown over the shoulders, or
worn as a coat, only in wet weather.


Chap. XXIII.] ILLUSORY PROTECTION
17
told him what had passed, and demanded the heads of the eight
offenders. The Prince admitted the justness of the indigna-
tion expressed, and promised him satisfaction, but declared that
he could never consent to take the lives of eight men to avenge
the death of one. Yamassiro-no-kami, more irritated by this
answer, insisted on his demand, declaring that if he did not ob-
tain full justice on the spot, he would eviscerate himself in the
Prince's presence, and that his death would not remain una-
venged! Owari, seeing him so determined, promised him the
satisfaction demanded; but Yamassiro, apparently having no
great faith in the sanctity of the promise, protested he would
not leave the house until execution had been done. Upon this
the eight men were brought, and their heads cut off in his pres-
ence. 'Cet exemplef observes the historian, 'rendit lew cama-
rades plus reserve.' And well it might P' Perhaps something in connection with these customs of
vengeance and protection may account for the seeming cow-
ardice or indifference to whatever may happen, so invariably
observed among the officers and guards placed at the Lega-
tions professedly for the protection of their European inmates,
and for that end made to accompany them on foot or on horse-
back whenever they leave the gates. They have never been
known to raise a hand to save a foreigner from insult or vio-
lence. They would have allowed this last victim to have been
brained at their side. I have watched my own escort repeat-
edly when these ruffling retainers have approached with an air
of menace, and possibly meaning mischief as well as insult, and
seen them either look another way, or resolutely refuse to see
any thing that might be wrong! It was quite obvious that for
* May not this example from their own history be read with advantage by
Foreign Powers, whose subjects are now exposed to the same treatment from
precisely the same classes, remembering, indeed, the principle established
among themselves, and accepted by the nobles of the land as a law, the pen-
alty of disregarding which among themselves would be dishonor 1 Can For-
eign Powers wisely or safely allow reiterated and murderous assaults on their
subjects without exacting adequate retribution? This law of honor, more
imperative probably than any mere statutory enactment, which declares a
Prince dishonored if he permits any subject or vassal of his own to be affronted,
and does not obtain satisfaction, can not be without influence on all who live
under it. If they apply the same rule to Foreign Powers (and who can
doubt that they do ?), there is no Treaty Power that can at the present time
be regarded otherwise than as dishonored and craven by the Japanese. We
and all other nations of the West may, in our turn, regard with contempt any
appreciation of our acts and policy by the Japanese; but the question to be
considered is whether foreigners can live at all in the country under such
conditions. My own impression is they can not, and will not be permitted by
those who commit the murders and violences, if they have no respect for the
nation, and no fear of the vengeance of the Governments they outrage.


18
[Chap. XXIII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
the life of no foreigner that ever stepped in Japan would they
incur the chance and peril of a rencounter, and a bloody feud
with one of these dangerous classes. Hence, all these officers,
guards, and spies inside the Legation gates, and escorts on
horseback when we went out, were manifestly no protection
whatever, though a great encumbrance. Protection was the
plea, and may to some extent have entered into the motives of
the Government in placing them about us, but beyond and
above this, I can not help thinking, was another object, namely,
that of cutting off the foreigners quartered in the capital by
the force of treaties from all free intercourse or communication
with the population, more especially with the educated and
higher classes, who might give information tending to expose
the double game the Government was playing with Foreign
Powers—enlighten us as to the real state of parties, and them-
selves imbibe ideas prejudicial to the existing system of gov-
ernment.
As to the absence of any real or effective protection, a more
'flagrant case could not have been furnished, and it was not sur-
prising, therefore, that a more than usual amount of mendacity
and tergiversation marked all the proceedings of the authori-
ties. It was impossible to avoid reflections far from reassur-
ing where such perfect impunity was known to exist, proved
by more than a dozen examples now, and to the very persons
from whom violence was to be anticipated. How long would
the lives of foreigners be respected? It was evident the mem-
bers of the several Foreign Legations, placed in the very focus
of all hostility, lived on from day to day by the sufferance only
of a horde of ill-disposed men, armed with deadly weapons,
and perfectly secure from punishment for any outrage they
might commit! Either the Government at Yeddo could not
command the services of men courageous enough to defend
Foreign Ministers and their suite from insult and murder, or,
foreseeing that this would entail a chance of conflict with their
great Feudatories, and dangers affecting their own stability,
preferred these half measures of protection for appearance sake,
in case any thing very disastrous should happen, and deliberate-
ly took the chance of every foreigner being massacred. De-
spite the many successive cases of violence and assassination
which had marked the two years past, there were some among
the Foreign Legations who turned away from the contempla-
tion of the only logical inferences to be drawn from the facts;
and in despair, perhaps, of finding any remedy, buoyed them-
selves with a hope that, after all, things might mend,' or, at
least, not produce the worst of those eventualities which it


Chap. XXIII.] UNCOMFORTABLE REFLECTIONS.
19
could not be denied were among the legitimate consequences
of inaction on the part of the Government on the one hand,
and those menaced with destruction on the other.
The whole of my published correspondence with the Japan-
ese Government proved that I had never deceived myself as
to the real conditions under which foreigners were placed. As
willing as any to hope for the best, I could not' make my judg-
ment blind,' or shut my eyes to the probable effects of causes
so clearly in operation, and so full of menace and danger. It
required such an event as the deliberate and resolute attempt
of an armed band to massacre a whole Legation in the dead of
night, though surrounded by these soi-disant guards and pro-
tectors, and an almost miraculous escape of the inmates from
destruction, to fully justify this prevision of the future; and
that also, as will be seen, was destined in due time to be added
to the chain of evidence.
I find, on turning to the brief record which I kept as a sort
of almanac for future reference, the following entry under this
date, after the wounded man had been sent away to his chief,
who was at Yokohama: 'If these guards are inefficient or dis-
loyal enough to let us be murdered at their feet, it is worthy
of serious consideration whether Yeddo is a place for Diplo-
matic Agents. If the Government of the country either have
not the services at their command of men capable of doing
their duty, or, having them, they prefer hazarding our lives to
incurring the trouble and risk of defending them (whether by
efficient protection, or by repressing with a strong hand the
enemies from whom such dangers come, might be immaterial),
it certainly is a question of grave importance what steps can
be taken before these individual murders and assassinations
shall culminate in a more general catastrophe, where all the
Legations maybe sacrificed to a set of fanatics and cutthroats,
and every individual foreigner in the country murdered in cold
blood, without means of defense or possibility of escape.'
The emotions and the reflections excited by this last in the
long succession of similar deeds became things of the past.
There was no remedy within reach. Practically, there was no
help for the evils that beset the working of a treaty forced upon
an unwilling nation, and a class of feudal nobles ready to pro-
ceed to any extremity, with apt and willing instruments always
under their hand. As Sydney Smith said of railroad casual-
ties, until a minister or a bishop was killed, nothing would, or,


20
[Chap. XXIII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
as it seemed, could be done; because there must be such a de-
monstrative proof of the lawlessness and sweeping destructive-
ness of the plans contemplated, that not even the most invet-
erate carpers and cavilers on the other side of the globe could,
in the consciousness of their own security, find a plea for cry-
ing with the Romans of Galgacus,' Peace, peace!' where there
was no peace, and the sword had made a desert.
We were already far into the next month of November with-
out farther calamity, when one came upon us which not to have
experienoed in Yeddo would have partaken of the character of
a miracle. A few minutes before the dinner-hour there was a
rushing and scuffling of many feet along the passages, the noise
of which reached me in my dressing-room at the extremity of
the building, and presently, high above all, came the ominous
cry of' Cadjbe!' (Fire.) One must have lived in Yeddo, I
think, daily and almost hourly accustomed to see and hear of
the wild havoc committed by the all-devouring element, to
thoroughly realize the sudden revulsion of feeling such a cry
creates, with the instant vision of the beams and rafters blazing,
and destruction swift and sure.
There was a rush to the spot, and then I saw that my serv-
ants, with the lack of discretion and prudence usual in Jap-
anese, whose constant familiarity with all the horrors of fire
seems to make them only more perfectly reckless and void of
ordinary care, had lit a monstrous fire in the dining-room stove,
for there are no fireplaces or chimneys existing or possible in
this earthquaky soil. The rafters had caught fire, and when I
got outside the glower of a smouldering fire began to show by
the side of the pipe where it pierced the roof. Our own serv-
ants, and the large class of Yaconins and police always on serv-
ice, fortunately supplied hands immediately, and, to do them
justice, if their discretion and judgment had only been equal
to their zeal, all cause of alarm would soon have been at an end.
The mayor of the district also came to our rescue at the first
clang of the great Temple bell calling for the fire brigades. At
first it seemed almost inevitable that the whole place must be
consumed. There was little order or method; ladders were de-
ficient, and, when obtained, those who mounted began by pitch-
ing off the tiles, in spite of my efforts to stop them, thus letting
air into the roof. Fortunately, a large pond was close at hand,
well filled with water, and by aid of a couple of little native
engines the fire was at last finally declared to be extinct, with
only a sad destruction of tiles, roof, and ceilings, and a few con-
tusions and bruises among the assistants. It is in such circum-
stances as these that the large staff of Japanese officials having


Chap. XXIII.] FIRE AT TOZENGEE.—A CANARD.
21
authority are really valuable. All the gates were instantly
closed to keep out the mob, amongst whom are always plun-
derers and some of the worst classes. Two or three Yaconins
were posted inside the house, with arms in their hands, and
guarded the passages leading to my own suite of rooms, where
the dinner-table was spread, with the silver, etc., upon it. For
once I felt they were a protection and a safeguard; and, in ef-
fect, nothing was touched or lost, though two or three hundred
men must have been through and about the house. A fat and
burly carpenter, who had often been employed in the Legation,
rushed down with his men the moment he heard the fire was
at Tozengee; and a Vice Governor, who had formerly been on
service with me, though nearly two miles off, jumped on a horse
and came to the spot at speed. One had need of some such
evidences of good feeling and loyalty to bear up against the
strong and adverse current of hostility and treachery. I felt
these instances of devotion and interest went far to compensate
for all the flurry and anxiety of such an event as a fire in the
house, the inconveniences of which were felt long after, for
many weeks elapsed before the damages were all made good.
About this time I met with an amusing instance of the kind
of information given to the British public in respect to Japan.
It was extracted from the columns of the 'Times,' derived ap-
parently from America, but still enjoying all the benefit of such
a circulation as only the 'Times' could give it: 'The commer-
cial and trading public, officials and the higher classes, encour-
age foreign intercourse, while the masses are more prejudiced
than ever, the latter complaining that the foreign trade en-
hances the price of food.'
The amusing part of this announcement consists in its not
only being essentially inaccurate, but the exact converse of the
truth. Although we hear a good deal from the Ministers of
increased prices, and that these are attributed to us, there is no
good evidence that the people hold this opinion; and certain
it is that the masses show no ill will, but, on the contrary, great
desire to trade, so far as we can come in contact with them.
All that appears of hostility or restriction comes from the offi-
cial and higher classes, held up for approval as sole encouragers
of foreign intercourse! The correspondents of our London pa-
pers are generally well-informed and trustworthy; but when
we are driven to some transatlantic sources, or even to our own
local papers in such distant regions for information, there seems
no limit to the absurdity or inaccuracy of the announcements
which our leading journals may be the means of circulating.
On one occasion a description of my landing at Yeddo was


22
[Chap. XXIII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
copied from some American print, and went the round of all
the English press, by which I was not only gratuitously gifted
with a wife and two children, but the lady was made to com-
port herself with such vigor, in tapping the heads of the prying
crowd with her parasol, that some of my friends in England
thought it beyond a joke; and at last, when it got transferred
to the more permanent pages of a book on 'Japan—Social,
Moral, etc.,' one of my relatives lost patience, and required a
formal contradiction to be inserted in a newspaper which had
quoted this veracious portion of the ' History of our Relations
with Japan,' stating that I did not happen to possess either
wife or children.
The year 1860 was now drawing toward its end. Early
in the month of December I had an unwonted pleasure in the
visit of two of my fair countrywomen, with their husbands—
one an old China friend—the first that had ever set their feet
in Yeddo; for the only lady previously in the capital was
French by birth, though an English Consul's wife. They were
well pleased with their short sojourn, not much heeding that
they were treading on the ashes of a smouldering volcano,
both literally and metaphorically. Yet the husband of one of
them had unpleasant evidence of the fact in returning from a
quiet ride through the city. A two-sworded retainer of a
Daimio, something the worse for liquor probably, planted him-
self in the middle of the road in front of the horse, and by
word and gesture refused to let him pass. One of my attaches
was of the party, and, better versed in these sort of incidents,
and what they might at any moment lead to, he turned round
to those of my escort of Yaconins who rode behind, to tell
them to remove the man, who looked mischievously inclined,
and was endeavoring rudely to obstruct the way; but they
sat pale on their horses, awaiting the issue! So is it ever.
We might be cut down and slaughtered any day in the public
thoroughfares without hope of aid or rescue from any number
of them; and it was difficult to avoid asking one's self some-
times was not this likely to be the end? Certainly it was im-
possible not to feel that the more boldly and resolutely any
Foreign Minister resisted bad faith and treachery in carrying
out the treaties, and opposed the obstructive and reactionary
policy of the ruling classes, the more likely was he to be mark-
ed out as an obstacle to be removed. Mr. Macdonald, who
was there, seemed to have been seriously alarmed at the atti-
tude of the bravo—drunk or sober. It seemed a moot point,
not altogether decided in his own mind, whether he would or
would not draw his sword and run 'a muck' on the foreigner.


Chap. XXIII.]
23
UNFORTUNATE COLLISION.
The defense of the Yaconins, when, on the return of the party,
they were taken to task for their supineness and inaction, was
a pretense that they saw he was too drunk to do any mischief,
an unmitigated falsehood, for Mr. Macdonald could not detect
that he was drunk at all, and he certainly was steady on his
legs. But what, if drunk, with two deadly weapons at his belt,
was he to be allowed to try his drunken strength on the limbs
and bodies of foreigners? And the Ministers thought the ex-
cuse a valid plea for immunity both to the ruffian and the of-
ficers!
But the anxieties and causes of trouble existing at this pe-
riod were not limited to the acts of Japanese subjects. For-
eigners themselves, from time to time, threw in their contribu-
tions to the combustible materials ready for a general explo-
sion, and wanting but a spark to fire the train. Toward the
end of November, one of those untoward events took place at
Kanagawa, which might well have proved a source of great
danger to the whole community, and did, for a time, threaten
them with indiscriminate acts of reprisal and vengeance. A
British subject was returning through JCanagawa from a shoot-
ing excursion, with his gun over his shoulder, and his servant
following, with the result of his sport in the shape of a wild
goose, when a body of police pounced upon the servant. His
master turned back to the rescue, when they proceeded to ar-
rest him also, upon which he brought his piece down, cocked
it, and threatened to shoot them if they advanced; and in the
scuffle the gun was fired, and an officer desperately wounded
— one arm being shattered above the elbow, and the charge
passing across or into his chest. The foreigner was instantly
pulled down, bound hand and foot, and carried off, by the po-
lice; nor was it until the middle of the night that the Consul
could ascertain where the prisoner was secured, and claim him
out of their hands.
Nothing could have been more unfortunate or ill timed for
the interests and safety of the community to which the pris-
oner belonged than this collision with the police. They had
simply been performing their duty. The foreigner was viola-
ting a law of Japan, which prohibits any one using fire-arms
within ten Re of the Tycoon's residence, and for which a Jap-
anese is punished with death. All foreigners had been warn-
ed that such was the law, and notice given to them to abstain
from going out shooting, but, as the result showed, with little
'effect.
Great excitement prevailed among the Japanese Yaconine-
rie on the spot. Threats were rife, and a report circulated,


24
True. XXIII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
that the brothers of the wounded man were determined to re-
venge him by taking the Englishman's life at least, if not that
of other foreigners. Blood for blood, and a life for a life—the
rule under the Mosaic dispensation, and the lex talionis of
Feudal days—is a law in full force in Japan. There could be
no doubt he would be compelled to leave Japan for his own
security, and it was not expected the wounded man could pos-
sibly recover. Although he did not die of his wounds ulti-
mately, and was only crippled for life, it might very truly be
said that this was more by good luck than good management.
Hundreds have died under the best surgeons' hands, and
with injuries far less severe. Part of the charge had severely
lacerated the chest, and he had not the best, but the worst
surgical aid, according to any European ideas of art. It was
instantly proposed by two American medical men attached to
the missionary establishment to amputate, as affording the
only chance of saving life. This could not be done, however,
without the consent of the Government, and that was never
given. Apparently it is not permitted in Japan to save lives
at the expense of limbs. Fortunately, it would seem that the blood of the Japanese is not inflammatory, whatever their pas-
sions may be. A demand for justice was made, and the party
accused was put upon his trial in a Consular court, before the
Consul and two assessors from the community called in by the
Consul to assist. Every facility was given to the Japanese to
satisfy themselves that it was the desire of the British author-
ities to do that justice when Japanese were concerned which
the former were always insisting upon for their own people.
The court declared the prisoner guilty on several counts, one
of which was maliciously wounding, etc., and a sentence of
deportation, with a fine of $1000, was recorded. The assessors
dissented, and the judgment was accordingly referred to the
Minister, to whom the Queen's order in council gives power
to 'confirm or vary, or remit altogether the punishment'
awarded by the Consular court. In this case the punishment
appeared to me inadequate, whether as regarded the evidence
of animus and the injury inflicted on the Japanese, or the mis-
chief and danger to the whole community which resulted, and
I added three months' imprisonment in addition, directing the
$1000 to be paid as an indemnity to the wounded man, who,
if he survived, would be rendered incapable of earning his liv-
ing by following his vocation. Neither the fine nor the de-
portation, it was very generally known, carried any punish-
ment, because the first (as was ostentatiously boasted) would
be subscribed for by the prisoner's friends and supporters in
the community, and the deportation would have taken place in


Chap. XXIII.] COLONIAL COURTS.
25
any case by a voluntary act of the accused, to escape the
threatened vengeance of the wounded man's relations. The
sentence was subsequently made the subject of an action
brought against me by the the party convicted, who escaped
his term of imprisonment in Hongkong by a series of blunders
and informalities on the part of every one concerned, from the
Consul at Kanagawa to the Magistrate at Hongkong, and was
properly liberated by the judge on a writ of habeas corpus,
after one hundred and twenty hours' durance. It appeared
on the subsequent hearing of the action that although the
Minister had power to vary or remit, he was still limited to
fine and deportation, or imprisonment. Had I remitted the
fine, or left out the deportation, neither of which really touch-
ed the prisoner in pocket or convenience, I might have legal-
ly awarded twelve months' imprisonment instead of three;
but this oversight on my part was fatal to the legality of the
award, and the case for damages went to a jury of the Su-
preme Court at Hongkong, which gave, as substantial dam-
ages for wrong and injury suffered by the prisoner in one
hundred and twenty hours' detention in the jail, $2000. To
which they added, at the judge's suggestion, an intimation
that if they had had full jurisdiction, they would have given
from $15,000 to $20,000 in addition!
Considering that the said jury had no evidence before them
whereon to found a judgment, except what the judge had him-
self ruled to be irrelevant, and. expressly excluded on that
ground as inadmissible, both the question and the answer can
only be considered as belonging to the curiosities of colonial
law—quite as unique in their kind as any thing ever seen in a
Consular court. The case is alluded to here, not to question
or discuss the justice of the Hongkong jury's award, but be-
cause the circumstances attending it, from beginning to end,
were calculated to exercise considerable influence on our inter-
ests and position in Japan; it furnishes, moreover, no bad il-
lustration of the evils and anomalies attending the administra-
tion of justice throughout these regions, where something very
like conflicting and antagonistic systems exist—in the jurisdic-
tions of the Consuls in China and Japan, and the Supreme
Court at Hongkong—the one administered necessarily by pub-
lic servants unfamiliar with legal forms and technicalities, but
bound to do justice on the merits of such cases as may be
brought before them; the other provided with all legal ma-
chinery—law, lawyers, fees, and juries—and a summary juris-
diction, in the hands of a single judge, against which there is
no appeal.
II.—B


26 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIII.
It is beyond doubt that, had the prisoner been triumphantly
acquitted on the spot of all blame, as many of the community
desired, and contended he should have been, such a verdict
would have been a source of imminent danger, not to the ac-
cused alone, who would probably have paid the penalty of his
life, unless he speedily disappeared and made his escape from
those who had vowed to take it, but to many of the best
known and least discreet of his supporters. Indeed, so gener-
al was the conviction of this, that several took their passage
by the first ship; and it was a common report that the chief
delinquent himself had arrived at the conviction that he ought
to lose no time in getting away. The judgment and nature
of the punishment awarded was in effect a shield of protection
to him and to the whole community, whatever else it might be
considered. This was no reason, of course, why the accused
should be either unjustly convicted or illegally sentenced, but
the mere fact that the life and security of many others besides
the prisoner's were jeopardied by his acts, formed a very good
reason for careful scrutiny of all the evidence brought forward
on the trial. It furnished the strongest motive, at the same
time, for rightly determining whether, in effect, he could justly
be held responsiblefor all the injury and mischief resulting.
I thoroughly satisfied myself that he could neither morally nor
legally be so considered, and that he had rendered himself sub-
ject to a much heavier penalty than was ultimately imposed.
The numerous Japanese witnesses present on the spot deposed
that they heard him threaten the officer to shoot them; that
he deliberately cocked and pointed his gun at them; and that
immediately subsequent to this he did actually fire and wound
the Japanese officer close to him, who, so far as he was con-
cerned, as I have said, was only acting in the performance of
his duty, and under the immediate orders of his superior.
Nothing but the clearest justification for taking a life could, in
the spirit of our laws, exempt any one in such circumstances as
this evidence set forth from penalties of some kind. And as
to the extent and nature of those imposed in this case, it is only
necessary to look through the calendar of any assize court, or
even the police courts of the metropolis with a summary juris-
diction for minor offenses, to see abundant proof that sentences
of much greater severity are continually recorded by the judges
and magistrates who occupy the bench at home, for offenses
and misdemeanors which neither in reality nor in popular esti-
mate could rank with shooting at any person with intent to
wound or do some bodily injury, and such was among the of-
fenses charged against the prisoner. 'To attempt in any man-


Chap. XXUI.J CONSULAR JURISDICTION.
21
ner to discharge loaded arms, or to wound any person with in-
tent to maim, or disable, or do some grievous bodily harm, or
with intent to prevent the apprehension of another party,' sub-
jects the person so offending against the law to' transportation
for life,' or 'not less than fifteen years,' or not' more than three
years' imprisonment? And for how many comparatively triv-
ial offenses are more severe penalties than those imposed on
the prisoner in this case provided by the statute law of Great
Britain, and without question inflicted?
That where there is illegality in the mode of assessing the
punishment or delivering judgment, or informalities in carry-
ing the same into execution, the defendant should have his
remedy, is only right and necessary for the protection of the
liberty of the subject. And that by regular process of law he
should be declared free of the penalties—though he may there-
by escape altogether, or in part, the legitimate consequences of
his misdeed, and such a result may defeat the ends of justice
—can not be contested. For the vindication of the law under
the assumed sanction of which judgment was given, it is right
and proper that it should be so, because it is a less evil that
many guilty should escape than that the law should be errone-
ously interpreted or misapplied, whether by design or error.
This, and the liability to an action for damages in any judge
who is convicted of error or misinterpretation, is the protec-
tion provided against such abuse. And that a jury should
mark their sense of the importance of surrounding the subject
in the East with every protection against negligence or illegal-
ity, even when altogether unintentional, which a liability to
heavy damages could supply, is also to be anticipated and de-
sired. If it may fall oppressively in some cases on an upright
officer, it has also the advantage of enforcing anxious attention
to the actual state of the law, and his powers under it, without
which a far worse evil might befall many under his jurisdic-
tion than mere pecuniary damages. It is well that Ministers,
Consuls, and all other public servants in the East should know
and feel, whenever they are called upon to exercise authority
or administer the laws, that no integrity of heart or desire to
do right, no peculiarity of position however anxious or per-
plexing, will ever weigh in the minds of those to whom a flaw
in an indictment or a technical illegality may give the power
to assess damages. At home a magistrate is equally liable to
an action for acts done in his judicial capacity, but he is under
the special protection of an Act of Parliament, commonly
known as Jervis's Act; and if there be reason to suspect any
local feelings or prejudices calculated to bias the judgment, he


28
[Chap. XXIII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
may move the venue to another court and locality, and thus in-
sure impartiality. No such protection exists for the official in
the East. He must be content to see the case tried in a local-
ity where it may be notorious hostility exists to the whole sys-
tem that gives judicial powers to his class, and where no op-
portunity is ever lost of marking the feeling, by those who con-
stitute the juries, out of court, before and after sitting in the
jury-box, having no hesitation in loudly proclaiming it.* Pub-
lic opinion in small colonies or communities—discussing and
prejudging all civil cases—so far from aiding justice, has a tend-
ency to thwart or pervert it.
This is a very undesirable state of things for both parties.
It tends to keep up a spirit of antagonism, which is in the true
interest of neither. It weakens the hand of the magistrate, on
whose firmness and courage to do what is right must often de-
pend the security and protection of whole communities. It
encourages those who are disposed to be lawless in such far
Eastern ports, and from whom the greatest danger arises to
the orderly and well-conducted. I believe a good deal of the
feeling of irritation and hostility so frequently manifested in
these regions by the more respectable classes, who have really
every thing to gain, and nothing to fear, from the rigorous
maintenance of law and order, arises from causes which might
easily be removed, to the great advantage of our interests in
the East, no less than to the benefit of Ministers and Consuls.
With this public object in view, a few remarks of a suggestive
. character may not be considered altogether irrelevant or im-
pertinent. There is perhaps something irritating in the cir-
cumstance that the person with whom they have daily social
intercourse, and it may be some degree of intimacy, should the
next day, or after the last friendly meeting, be suddenly trans-
formed into a judge, with power to dispose under the law of
their property, and sometimes their liberty. The proverbial
impossibility of pleasing a worsted suitor can hardly fail to re-
ceive a new application of peculiar force in such circumstances.
Whoever thinks his judge is right if the judgment is a con-
demnation? And yet in many cases this result must be inev-
itable. Of course, if the officer holding the scales of justice be -
young in years, not a lawyer by profession, not infallible either
* The great institution of trial by jury is somewhat shorn of its fair pro-
portions when the necessities of a tropical colony reduce the number of jurors
to five, and a simple majority is required—that is, three out of five; nor
does it tend to increase veneration or a sense of security when the leading
counsel for the plaintiff, after judgment, feels at liberty to censure and res
preach one of the jurors for not having given his client larger damages.



Chap. XXIII.] CONSULAR JURISDICTION.
29
in his law or his judgment—and who is?—the irritation and
bitterness will be intensified by every condition that can pos-
sibly be held to tell against him. Not all magistrates and
judges are either infallible or immaculate, even in the home of
law and liberty from whence we come, or half the lawsuits of
each year would never arise. Can we hope they will be so in
the far East, where the officers selected must often be suddenly
appointed to fill up an unforeseen gap made by death, or to
occupy a newly-created post, that can not be left unfilled, even
for a short interval, without the gravest prejudice to the mate-
rial interests of all who are seeking fortunes in the country.
Consuls in the East have administrative and political functions,
as well as judicial, imposed upon them, among which the latter
are only occasional, and, so to speak, incidental, while the first
two are constant and inseparable from the office. To remedy
the major part of these evils thus briefly sketched, it has been
proposed that to the bench of the Supreme Court at Hong-
kong should be added one puisne judge, or, if necessary, two,
to constitute a full Appellate Court, and that each of these, in
rotation, should visit the Chinese and Japanese open ports pe-
riodically, and, as visiting judges, try the graver cases, thus re-
lieving the Minister and Consul alike of all responsibility in re-
gard to them. By this plan the several communities would be
, relieved of one of the greatest of their alleged grievances, for
it is not likely such a judge would ever sin on the side of great
youth. A lawyer by profession, it is to be taken for granted
all suitors and misdemeanants would have law, and due observ-
ance of legal forms and technicalities, whatever else might be
lacking. Whether they would thus make sure of justice in a
more prompt or more satisfactory form, they might learn by
experience; and, at all events, if the value of a thing bear any
proportion to its cost, there is very little doubt they would'
have to pay for it at a sufficiently high rate compared with
consular justice (which to all its other sins has, I think, added
that of being nearly costless) to make them disposed to value
it highly, and to consider it a great improvement on the' cheap
justice' they have been compelled heretofore to accept, faute
tie mieux. It is not often possible to propose any scheme,
where passions run high and interests are large, that can have
a prospect of being equally pleasing and satisfactory to all par-
ties; but this, I think, may boast of that rare merit. The Brit-
ish communities would be liberated from the bondage to ' boy-
consuls' and 'lay justice,' with its contingent or possible ille-
galities and technical errors, of which much has been heard.
They might have law, profound and technical, to their hearts'


30
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIH.
content, with all the privilege of paying highly for it on some-
thing like the Hongkong tariff. The puisne judges, who would
be made for such a service, could not be otherwise than grati-
fied by their promotion; and if any one doubts that Her Maj-
esty's Ministers and Consuls would be the most rejoiced of the
three parties in question, at their release from irksome func-
tions and onerous responsibilities, I wish them the benefit of a
year's experience of the real cares and anxieties of office in
those Eastern lands. This, or a somewhat similar system, has
been adopted with success in the Levant; and a legal Vice-
Consul (Chancelier) has been attached to the Consul General
in addition at Alexandria. Although it may be attended with
greater practical difficulties, from the distance of the ports and
their comparative inaccessibility in winter, there are none
which need be insuperable; and, sooner or later, the necessity
for some provision of this nature will, I have no doubt, make
itself felt; and whenever this happens we shall hear no more
of the expense or other obstacles which, for the moment, may
be insurmountable.
Practically, British residents, I believe, have had little to
complain of in the administration of justice at the Consular
ports. They may, it is true, object to a liability to maladmin-
istration by inexperienced or unprofessional public servants,
called upon to act as administrators of the law, as a danger to
which they ought not to be exposed. And it is, perhaps, nat-
ural that they should show extreme jealousy and distrust if
they see power confided to what they deem incompetent hands.
I, for one, would very gladly see them relieved even of the spec-
ulative and contingent, rather than actual injury, and placed in
a happier frame of mind as to the guarantees for a perfect and
unimpeachable legality in all the processes by which the liberty
'or the property of the subject may be affected. But, at the
same time, I must declare my honest conviction that they have
had little reason to complain of any real injury, and that dur-
ing the twenty years which the Consular jurisdiction has ex-
isted east of the Ganges, such as it now is, they have suffered
no substantial wrong or injustice at the hands of those author-
ities. If any just ground of complaint existed, it would not,
in my opinion, be for excess of authoritative interference, but
rather that it had been short-handed in reaching delinquencies,
which, in the general interest, ought not to have escaped pun-
ishment. The administration of justice has been prompt and
satisfactory on the whole, as well as nearly costless. Techni-
cal errors and minor illegalities, or irregularities in the pro-
ceedings, may have been more or less common, and are per-


Chap. XXIII.]
31
CONSULAR JURISDICTION.
haps inevitable under the circumstances. Where there has
been neither legal training nor professional practice in the
courts it could not well be otherwise. But a decision on the
merits of a case, where the points at issue are generally free
from intricacies turning on points of law, and such are the
great majority of Consular cases, may meet all the require-
ments of justice if intelligence and honesty of purpose, are not
wanting in the presiding officer. If it be contended that a le-
gal education and proficiency in legal forms and technicalities
are both essential and necessary for the protection of the sub-
ject in his rights and liberties, I have nothing to object, or, at
all events, I have no wish to contest the point ; but I would
observe, in that case, the objection lies against the system, not
the individuals, who simply perform to the best of their ability
duties forced upon them by it; and it is scarcely fair, and cer-
tainly not generous, to make them bear the odium and the pen-
alties of what is, or may be considered, objectionable in the
first. Those who made the system, and appoint the officers un-
der it, know perfectly well that these have no legal education
or professional qualifications. It is also frequently alleged that
to give judicial powers to unprofessional and more or less in-
experienced officers is to expose the subject to great danger of
their arbitrary and oppressive exercise. But I would say, in op-
position to this theoretic objection, that, judging from a large
field*of observation and some personal experience, the tendency
is exactly the reverse. There is far greater danger of the young
and the inexperienced, or the unprofessional judge, shrinking
from the local clamor, and the liability of being ruined by vin-
dictive damages from a prejudiced jury in a supreme court of
appeal, failing to discharge his duty firmly and fearlessly, than
of either exceeding his powers or using them oppressively. I
believe the real danger to be guarded against under the existing
state of things, and in the interest of every community in the
East, is that of Consuls being intimidated and deterred from do-
ing their duty; and so far from those under his jurisdiction re-
quiring protection from wrong and injury at his hands and by
the law, it is. the public servant who stands most in need, ex-
posed as he is to penalties for mere error of judgment far more
grievous and irremediable than any he has the power, if ever
he had the desire, to inflict. Local papers find a popular theme
for declamation in what they are pleased to style the abuses of
authority, and the oppressive and arbitrary dealings of Eastern
officials. So far as my observation extends, and it has certain-
ly not been very limited in scope, there is no part of the world
where foreigners are freer from any vexatious restraints of law,


32
[Chap. XXIII. THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
and more constantly able to evade the legal consequences of
misdeeds and an abuse of liberty, than in China and Japan.
There is no country (where law is held to be enforced and re-
spected) in which manifest infractions are more leniently dealt
with, even when they are brought under its cognizance. In
nearly twenty years, during some fourteen of which I exercised
Consular jurisdiction, far removed from any superior, with all
the judicial powers attaching to the office in the East, I do not
remember on more than two occasions recording a sentence of
imprisonment against any of the resident community: the one
was for contumacy in refusing to pay a small fine, and lasted
twenty-four hours; and the other for an act of high-handed
violence and confessed illegality, the term not exceeding a
week. Nor did I ever levy a higher fine than $200, and that
only on one occasion. But it requires to have lived in the
East, and among the foreign communities there, to have any
power of realizing the spirit in which all exercise of judicial
power is regarded and canvassed. In London, or elsewhere
in England, a man in a respectable station, young or otherwise,
if he gets engaged in a broil, knocks another down, or com-
mits an assault of more or less aggravated character, is, with-
out special warrant other than a constable's staff, made a pris-
oner as a matter of course, and if he offer any resistance, is apt
to be handled exceedingly roughly. He is then, equally as a
matter of course, locked up in a nauseous cell, totally regard-
less of his respectability; and the next day he is put in the
dock before a magistrate, fined, or, as will occasionally happen,
sentenced to one or more weeks' or months' imprisonment, if
he has endangered life or otherwise committed aggravated in-
jury. But who ever hears of a hue and cry against the arbi-
trary tyranny and oppression of the magistrate? Let the same
thing take place in one of the Chinese or Japanese ports,
when the safety and material interests of a whole community
are at stake, and let a Consul presume to inflict a penalty of
fine or imprisonment upon a resident, and he may esteem him-
self very fortunate if the press does not teem for weeks and
months with declamation and abuse on the standard theme of
Consular tyranny, or he be not subjected to all the harass,
cost, and anxiety of an action in the Supreme Court of Hong-
kong, when, if any technical flaw can be detected, the risk of
vindictive and ruinous damages hangs over his head. Let any
one take a file of a local paper at random, and it will be odd if
he turns over many copies without an example which will fully
bear out the truth of this picture. This is an evil not of yes-
terday, but of twenty years' duration, and one that cries very


Chap. XXIII.]
83
DANGERS OF LICENSE.
loudly for remedy. I believe it may be found in the course
suggested, and already partially acted upon in the Levant with
happy effect—by the appointment of a visiting judge. It may
entail some additional machinery and expense, although, as re-
gards the latter point, the fees, if on any thing like the scale of
the Supreme Court of Hongkong, might meet, if not the whole,
a considerable part, and thus make litigation and violation of
law pay their own expenses. The communities will be relieved
of their standing grievance, but by far the greatest gainers
will be the consular servants of the State. For let it be spe-
cially borne in mind, that if there were a legislation of a more
stringent and summary character than, so far as I know, has
ever been contemplated as applicable to British subjects in the
Eastern half of Asia, it would only be in accordance with the
exigencies of the case. Nowhere is there a greater influx, un-
less it be at some gold-diggings, of the lawless and dissolute
from all countries, and nowhere is the danger and the mischief
they are calculated to inflict on whole Communities and on
National interests greater than in these regions. In Japan,
more especially, an offense or act of violence that could have
no other consequence in their own country, probably, than
some temporary injury or inconvenience to one or more indi-
viduals, may here, among a sensitive and vindictive race, in-
volve in massacre and ruin all the foreign residents, or set the
spark to a train that will light up a war between two nations.
Can these things, then, be lightly looked upon, even if the mis-
demeanants be, upon the whole, respectable and well-conduct-
ed? Are they not rightly, for the sake of so many others, if
not in their own interest, made amenable to the laws, and held
bound to be more careful not to infringe them than in their
own land? And if they take a contrary course, what more
imperative duty can be laid on those who are charged with the
maintenance of the peace, and held responsible for taking all
due care to insure not only the safety and weal of a communi-
ty, but good relations between two countries, than to repress
vigorously and firmly all excess and license? It is their
bounden duty to repress every act which they believe calcu-
lated to bring the nations they represent into disrepute or col-
lision with one another, and their countrymen on the spot into
peril; and to fail in this would be to endanger all under their
control. Whatever weakens a Consul's hand in the perform-
ance of such functions is an injury to all under his jurisdiction,
who must look to him in all emergencies for aid and protection.
And I am satisfied that many of those whose course has this
tendency would be the first to regret it, and admit the folly
B 2


84
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIII.
and mischief of persistence in it, if they would take the trouble,
or could ever be induced to look at the whole question, stripped
of local coloring and personal feelings. These are only too
natural, perhaps, to small and isolated communities, far re-
moved from the wholesome influence of a public opinion formed
under conditions of greater freedom from class interests and
petty rivalries or animosities, and representing the common
sense of a nation instead of the passions of a small clique. But
it is not the less important that there should be a remedy
against the possibility of such passions controlling and inter-'
fering with the free action of those in authority, to whom the
larger and more permanent interests of a nation are intrusted,
as well as the security and temporary interests of the few ac-
tually resident on the spot. Whoever occupies such places of
trust and responsibility in China or Japan has the strongest
claims to consideration and support on the part of those whose
interests he must, under all circumstances, defend. That he
often receives so little of either on occasions such as this is to
be attributed to many causes, some local and others general.
Perhaps, if the truth were known, there are none of the Anglo-
Saxon race who like the restraints which law imposes when
they themselves individually are concerned; and it is only in
far distant points, like the settlements in the East, the tempo-
rary home of so many mixed nationalities, that the chance ever
occurs to them of resisting or offering objection in any tangible
shape, without discredit and consequences too serious to be
lightly risked. Here the Foreign Representatives are isolated
from all counsel or support, and they have each, alone and un-
aided, to make head against all difficulties. They are sur-
rounded by hostile elements, native and foreign, and ever-recur-
ring perplexities, entailing heavy responsibilities and much
anxiety. With an Oriental Government and a treacherous and
vindictive race to deal with on the one side, and some lawless
elements among those who claim their protection on the other,
and often no means of compulsion save such as a respect for
the laws among their own people, and international obligations
on the part of the Japanese, can supply—neither of them much
to be trusted—it may well be conceived, even by those who
have never been so tried, that the position is at once anxious
and harassing. A post such as this brings with it too much
wear and tear not to leave, as time glides on, broad lines of
care to mark each year as it passes. And these sink all the
deeper where there is no other hope to lighten the task than
that which may spring from the prospect of a speedy release.
The old year was in its last hour, and as I sat musing on all


Chap. XXIV.] MENACE OF A GENERAL MASSACRE.
35
the incidents marking the struggle that had filled up its days
and months, I could not help feeling how uncertain was the
future. What the coming year might bring of weal or woe to
Japan, and the little band of foreigners scattered amidst its
millions, it was hard to divine. Christmas had been made
more home-like than any preceding by the visit of Sir Hope
and Lady Grant, and an influx of staff-officers fresh from their
Chinese campaign. All the Legations, including the Prussian,
had their representatives at table, either in the person of the
chief or some of their staff. We sat down twenty-three, and
within that number of days one of the guests, perhaps the most
light-hearted of the whole, lay wrapped in a bloody shroud.
CHAPTER XXIV.
New Year's Day, 1861.—The Greeting it brought in Yeddo.—Menace of n
General Massacre of Foreigners.—Prompt Departure of a British Squad-
ron.—Assassination in the Streets of Yeddo of Mr. Henskin, Secretary to
the American Legation.—Renewed Menaces directed against the whole of
the Legations.—Public Funeral of the Murdered Officer.—Reported Sui-
cide of Hon Oribeno-no-Kami, one of the Governors of Foreign Affairs.—
Conference of the Foreign Representatives at Yeddo.
Toward the close of 1860 the long-announced visit of a
British squadron in the Japanese waters took place, the first
since the establishment of the Legation; and Rear Admiral
Jones, in H. M. S.' Imperieuse,' with a couple of steam cor-
vettes, the ' Scout' and the ' Encounter,' arrived in the Bay of
Yeddo. The Admiral came on shore the morning after Christ-
mas day, and took up his residence with me for a few days.
Unpleasant rumors of danger to the several Legations were
afloat, but these were unfortunately too common to attract
much attention. I paid a visit to present the Admiral to the
Ministers of Foreign Affairs before the last day of the year.
Little took place worthy of note unless it were the great de-
sire expressed by the Ministers to purchase some of our largest
frigates 1 It is difficult to know with what object. They evi-
dently desired to found a military navy, and thought the first
step would be to obtain the ships and armaments, without re-
flecting that if the object were to contend with Western Mari-
time Powers, they would merely be providing prizes on the
first outbreak of hostilities, unless they were prepared with en-
gineers and sailors to work the ships, and efficient men to fight
them. Doubtless, with a large maritime population, they


36
[Chap. XXIV, THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
might in time hope to get up a navy to defend their own coasts
even against Europeans; but it would require something very
like a revolution in both their habits and institutions, as well
as a long apprenticeship, before any moderate success could
reasonably be looked for. Some few men have been trained
under the Dutch to work the three or four steam-ships they
already possess, tant Men que mal; but as for getting men
aloft in a gale of wind, or really navigating a ship in the prop-
er sense of the term, they have all to learn yet. With what
view were they so anxious to make costly augmentations of
ready armed and equipped ships? Did they expect to be at-
tacked by the aggressive action of some Foreign Power? Or
were they conscious that their policy would before long bring
one or more of the Treaty Powers upon them, in vindication
of outraged rights? It was difficult to say, and as we return-
ed from the interview I remarked to the Admiral that, what-
ever might be the real motive, or mixture of motives, I thought
such plans of evil augury for the permanence of peaceful rela-
tions.
On January 1 the Rear Admiral had already taken his de-
parture from Yeddo to Yokohama, proposing immediately aft-
er to sail for Shanghae. The visit was somewhat of the short-
est for any moral effect, but I raised no obstacle. I could not
say there was any definite or immediate danger, nor did I be-
lieve that the presence of his small force could materially avail
to avert it, if any were impending. Any show of force as a
means of intimidation, to be effective, must be imposing, and
any thing short of this was just as likely to irritate and pro-
duce an explosion as to defer it.
It was in this posture of affairs that the first of January,
1861, brought me greeting from my colleague, the American
Minister, who was on a visit to Kanagawa, to the effect that
one of the Governors of Foreign Affairs had been sent down
from Yeddo to warn him that the Gorogio (Council of State)
were advised of a band of Lonins to the number of several
hundred, and supposed to be disbanded retainers of the old
Prince of Mito, having combined with the intention of setting
fire to the Foreign settlement at Yokohama, and at the same
time of attacking each of the Foreign Legations in the capital,
and murdering their inmates. Mr. Harris had immediately dis-
patched Mr. Heuskin, his secretary, to give me this informa-
tion, together with that of a proposition made to him on the
part of the Japanese Government, that all the Foreign Consuls
should at once move over to Yokohama, where, it was stated,
they could be more easily protected; while he and the other


Case. XXIV.] ILLUSORY PROTECTION.
37
Foreign Representatives should also consent to abandon their
several Legations for a time, and take refuge under one roof
within the circle of the castle moats, until these disturbers of
the peace could be seized and the country reported in a quiet-
er state.
This was not an auspicious opening of the new year. What
I felt under such a notice, confirmed by a Governor of Foreign
Affairs the same night, sent to me direct from the Great Coun-
cil of State, and how painfully the utter uncertainty of all
knowledge as to the real state of the country, and the authen-
ticity of the facts reported by the Government itself, will be
better shown in the following extracts from a dispatch laid be-
fore both Houses by Her Majesty's command, than by any
thing I could write now, after so many events have intervened
to modify both feelings and opinions :*
'These alarms of a general massacre are, so to speak, period-
ical. Rumors of this kind have reached me, either through
the Government or from other sources, many times already,
even before the murder of the Regent in March last by a party
of these said Lonins (a name for disbanded soldiers and brig-
ands), or the late Prince of Mito's armed followers, as is more
generally asserted and believed. The Government then made
very similar proposals to the Foreign Representatives, and,
failing in convincing us either of the necessity or the expedi-
ency of the steps recommended, they sought to induce us for a
time not to stir outside our walls. Failing in this also, they
took the opportunity of grafting upon the establishment of
spies, watchmen, and police-officers at the several Legations, a
mounted escort of Yaconins (officials, soldiers, etc., of inde-
terminate rank and function, in the Tycoon's pay), to accom-
pany the members of the several Legations whenever they
stirred out. This arrangement has continued ever since, al-
though it has been repeatedly demonstrated, at our risk and
peril, that they are in reality no protection whatever, and look
with terror themselves upon any chance of collision with these
two-sworded bravos of the Daimios resident in the capital, who
keep many thousands of this dangerous class as armed retain-
ers in their service, and afford them sanctuary. The Govern-
ment can hardly believe, after all they have heard from us, that
any protection is, in effect, afforded; but they cling not the
less tenaciously to the appearance, by sending two or three of
these useless and poltroon officials with any member of the
Legations who may go out. If they really saw cause of alarm,
* See Correspondence respecting Affairs in Japan, in March and April,
1861, laid before both Houses of Parliament.


88
[Chap. XXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
would they not take some more effective means of securing our
safety?
'So at the time of the Regent's death there was great mani-
festation of alarm and anxiety on the part of the Government,
new palisades were erected round the Legations, drawing
within narrower limits the ground to be watched and guard-
ed, and the numbers of the guards were doubled at night.
Precisely the same series of demonstrations appear now. A
large addition has been made to-night to the officers and po-
lice on duty, and probably to-morrow an urgent request will
come from the Minister that I will not venture outside the
Legation until the danger be past, which I must disregard un-
der penalty of finding myself virtually a prisoner for the whole
remainder of my term of residence in the capital, be it long or
short.
'Under these circumstances your Lordship will readily un-
derstand how difficult it is to form a decided opinion upon the
actual amount of danger that may exist beneath these mani-
festations of alarm and anxiety on the part of the Government.
How much of this is real, or what may be feigned in further-
ance of a policy it is calculated to advance, must remain very
doubtful in a country like Japan, where it is difficult to obtain
same Government to keep from us all sources of exact or re-
liable information, and to mislead and deceive us as to the real
state of things, even going so far as to throw obstacles in the
way of learning their language.
'They have at present a great object to attain, and one
which it can not be doubted those who hold the executive
power in their hands have much at heart, namely, the defer-
ring of the opening of more ports, and the inauguration of a
still more restrictive system, both as to intercourse and trade,
than they have hitherto been able, or, perhaps, ventured upon
attempting to establish. I believe there are men among
those ruling powers capable, in furtherance of this policy, if
all less violent means should fail, of bringing about a simulated
popular movement, in which foreign lives would be sacrificed,
either those of the Legations, or of the merchants at the neigh-
boring ports, or both.
'I say simulated; for, although I know to my cost that the
general dearness of every article of consumption, the alleged
cause of popular discontent, exists, so far as we are concerned,
I have strong doubts whether it exists for the Japanese, and
if it does, I should be farther inclined to believe that it was
artificial in its source, and brought about by the direct action
even a modicum

efforts are spared by the


Chap. XXIV.] A JAPANESE POINT OF VIEW.
39
of the ruling classes with a view to make out their case. And
still I can see no sign of popular ill feeling or hostility toward
foreigners. If ever insult or menace is offered, it comes from
the bearers of two swords, and this class alone.
'I believe this the more strongly, because satisfied from my
own observation that there are among the body of Daimios
and chief officers of State some, at least, who look upon all for-
eign trade and intercourse as containing the seeds of revolu-
tion; and, rather than these should be allowed to take root
and germinate, they are ready to risk the chances of a rupture
with all the Western Powers put together. And the whole
course of the policy followed shows that these must be influ-
ential in the Great Council of State. In the first place, they
may argue that a revolutionary movement would be the worst
evil that could happen to them, if not to the country, as it
would be the knell of their existing regime, where the Da-
imios and officials are every thing, and the people only their
serfs, or voiceless. And, in the second place, that, after all,
great and powerful as those Western nations may be by fleets
and armaments, there is a limit to their ability to inflict mis-
chief in such a country as Japan. They might destroy Yed-
do and one or two other large cities, but the Daimios, the per-
sons chiefly concerned, and the real authors of the counter-
movement, could all retire to their territories and inland fast-
nesses, where they could hardly be followed, and there remain
in comparative security until the Foreign Powers would be
wearied out, their resources for war so far from home and
their patience alike exhausted.'' And, finally, they had better
risk this than see all the established institutions of the coun-
try overturned, themselves cast down from their hitherto ex-
alted position, and the whole land impoverished and ruined by
a foreign trade which brings an unlimited demand for articles
wanted for their own consumption, and gives in exchange only
silver, or things which are superfluities and better dispensed
* When the Japanese Mission was in this country, the Envoys were taken
to a review at Aldershot. The soldierlike appearance of the troops of all
arms, and the precision and rapidity of the movements, evidently made some
impression, and in the endeavor to ascertain with what feelings they witness-
ed the display, they were asked, incidentally, how they thought Japanese
soldiers and arms would come out of a battle with such troops. Their first
thought, as expressed in their reply, was a natural one, perhaps, namely,
that their own men were formidable adversaries as sword and spearmen;
but the next was more significant of the predominant feeling, viz., that it
was no easy matter to transport any large force of artillery, cavalry, and in-
fantry to the other side of the globe. In other words, they did not believe
in the possibility.


40
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIV.
with, to the enrichment, at best, of the few, and the serious in-
jury of the many. Nor are these arguments invented for
them by Europeans as a mode of accounting for effects by a
preconceived theory. They have, at different times and piece-
meal, been all brought forward by the Ministers, or by Gov-
ernors of Foreign Affairs, who are often their mouthpieces,
when discussing various measures with me for retarding or
avoiding execution of the Treaty.
'In so far as these views prevail, therefore, they who direct
the government of the country have every thing to gain and
nothing to lose by throwing down the gauntlet. If ever this
should be resolved on, there is little doubt that all foreigners
in and about the capital will be swept away as the first step.
I do not wish her Majesty's Government to understand that I
see with any certainty such an issue to the efforts now making
to establish friendly and permanent commercial relations in
the country. »But still, we are now actually threatened with a
catastrophe of the kind; and I think your Lordship should
know that we carry on our relations under a menace, which
may at any moment be carried into execution. Nor do I see
what prudence or courage can do to avert such a calamity, if
it were really determined upon. In all probability we should
either have no warning, or none distinguishable from those we
are now receiving at this moment, in time for us to escape, or
there would be no British ship of war (still less likely that of
any other nation) into which we could make our escape.
'Surrounded, therefore, by menace, doubt, and suspicion, by
dangers the extent of which we are utterly without means of
verifying, it is hard to determine on what course to steer, or
how disastrous results may most securely be averted. But,
taking all the circumstances into consideration, I have not felt
justified in allowing Admiral Jones to leave without taking
some steps to prevent my being left without a single ship of
war within reach at this time.'
I wrote officially, therefore, to the Rear Admiral: 'The Jap-
anese Government inform me they have certain information
that within a few miles or leagues from Yokohama, a band of
some 600 Lonins are collected, with intent to burn the Foreign
settlement at Yokohama, and destroy at one blow both the
trade and the merchants, and simultaneously or successively
to attack the Legations and murder their inmates. It is im-
possible to ascertain what amount of truth there may be in
this, or the foundation that actually exists for the superstruct-
ure raised; but I learn the rumor is general at Kanagawa of
something of the kind impending. Under these circumstances,


Chap. XXIV.J LETTER TO THE ADMIRAL.
41
it would hardly be prudent, I think, to remove the whole
squadron; I conceive that there should be one ship, at least,
left as a security for British subjects and property at Yokoha-
ma and Kanagawa, and another opposite to Yeddo, in commu-
nication with the Legation.'
And I received for answer an intimation that, having ' duly
weighed and considered the substance of the documents,' he had determined, instead of taking every ship away except the
little sloop 'Pioneer' (required to take a Consul to Hakodadi),
to leave the 'Encounter' at the anchorage of Yokohama for
the present.
Seeing that my first representation had so little effect, I
wrote again, and remarked, in a dispatch to the Foreign Office,
inclosing a copy of my letter to the Admiral, that for the ur-
gent terms in which I had written to the Senior officer I trust-
ed sufficient justification might be found in the urgency of the
circumstances; adding, 'The signs of danger and alarm in the
minds of the Government are too palpable to be mistaken, and
of too serious a character to leave me any longer in doubt as
to the reality of both. When the Regent of the kingdom was
slain in the streets of Yeddo, in the midst of his own armed
retainers, the manifestations of panic and distrust of their own
powers of protection were far less apparent. As regards my
own personal safety and that of those attached to me, your
Lordship knows that there is no protection to be looked for
from ships of war lying many miles off in the roadstead. Noth-
ing but the landing of a force to occupy the Legation could
avail, and that I have not asked.'
To the Admiral I wrote, 'Since my letter of the 1st, various
representations have reached me from official and other sources,
which leave no doubt in my mind that some serious danger
does exist of a very unusual character, threatening the lives
of every foreigner in the capital and the neighboring port, and
that the Japanese Government distrust their own power ef-
fectually to protect them. Not only is this the tenor of their
communications to me personally, and through the Governor
of Kanagawa to Her Majesty's Acting Consul, as I learn at
this moment by an express from that officer, but my own ob-
servation of the measures taken by the Government here un-
doubtedly proves a state of the greatest alarm. The whole
road from Yokohama to the Legation is kept by large patrols
of armed men. A Daimio has been given charge of this Le-
gation, and some two hundred of his followers are here, with
two field-pieces. Some crisis is plainly anticipated, and wheth-
er the blow is to be aimed at the foreigners alone, or the Gov-


42
[Chap. XXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
erament through the foreigners, there must be danger to both
of no light or ordinary character.
'Under these circumstances, I should utterly fail in my duty
as her Majesty's Minister and Representative if I allowed you
to depart, leaving only a single ship of your squadron as you
propose, without again calling your attention in the most ur-
gent terms to the present aspect of affairs.'
This had the effect of detaining the impatient squadron for a
few days. But, understanding the reluctance with which a
necessity for delay had been admitted, and that smallpox had
broken out on board the flag-ship to such an extent as to re-
quire her either to put to sea or land her men, I came to the
conclusion that they had better go, as this would make a new
complication and the last danger might be worse than the
first, I could learn nothing more definite as to the exact na-
ture of the danger announced by the Government, or their
grounds for alarm. This state of things might go on for weeks
without any attack or overt act. I therefore determined to
leave it to the Admiral's discretion when his departure should
take place, merely suggesting the expediency of leaving a sec-
ond ship. Within forty-eight hours afterward the Vice Ad-
miral's ship was out of sight, and the second vessel also, leav-
ing me the 'Encounter' as a re-enforcement to the sloop he
found on the station when he arrived.
Nothing changed in the position of foreigners for the week
following. The alarm spread by the Government of an im-
pending attack continued, though with the usual vagueness
and uncertainty as to the true source and degree of danger;
and in this unpleasant state of suspense the days passed on
until the night of the 14th, when, about ten o'clock,! received
a brief note from Mr. Harris asking me to send surgical aid to
Mr. Heuskin, who had been brought in wounded. At mid-
night Dr. Myburgh, a medical officer attached to the British
Legation in the capacity of Dutch Interpreter, went off imme-
diately, but soon returned with information that his patient
was dead. He had been waylaid on his return from the Prus-
sian Legation by a band of assassins, and mortally wounded.
On the fourth day after, all the Corps Diplomatique and
the Consular body from Kanagawa assembled by invitation
at the American Legation to render the last honors to the
murdered man, when the American Minister received a warn-
ing from the Government that if they persevered in their in-


Chap. XXIV.] CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS.
43
tention of following the body to the grave they were likely
to lose their own lives. No one hesitated; but the fact of
such a warning seemed to indicate either an odious policy of
intimidation on the part of the Government, or such deplora-
ble timidity and weakness as took from the Foreign Repre-
sentatives all security, or hope of vigorous measures for their
protection. Not only were none taken on this occasion—not
a soldier called out—but there was a total absence of any pre-
cautions to prevent a surprise or sudden attack along the line
of road, which lay for more than a mile by the banks of a riv-
er, and offered great facilities of attack from, cross-roads lead-
ing to it, and bridges which traversed it at short intervals.
The whole of the Foreign Ministers, strongly impressed
with the significance of these events, and the sinister rumors
which continually circulated of plots for a general massacre,
met, by common consent, the next day at the British Legation
to consider their position, and what course it behooved them
to take, not merely for their own safety, but for the honor and
dignity of their respective Sovereigns, and the interests and
lives of every foreigner in the country.
I thus briefly described the facts to H. M.'s Secretary of
State:
'The conference was attended by all, but an unfortunate di-
vergence of opinion on the part of the American Minister went
far to neutralize the good effect that might have resulted could
perfect unanimity have been attained. The French, Dutch,
■ and Prussian Representatives and myself were entirely in ac-
cord. Mr. Harris alone, of the five present, was willing to let
things take their course, and to confide in the good faith of
the Japanese Government. Neither the assassination of his
Secretary, nor the warning at the funeral, and all that followed,
seemed able to shake his faith in their honesty of purpose and
ability to afford protection. It was in vain, under these cir-
cumstances, that the rest of his colleagues, one after the other,
pointing to a long series of assassinations, the constant denial
of justice, and a continued system of menace and intimidation,
showed the impossibility of reconciling the views he entertain-
ed with the facts.
'A second conference two days later having been determ-
ined upon, no decision was taken, and when the day came,
Mr. Harris not being present, a compte rendu was drawn up
of both conferences, giving a full and detailed statement of
the views expressed by the several Representatives who had
taken part in either, with the grounds for a perfect unanimity
on the part of the four signing as to the most fitting course


44
[Chap. XXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
to be followed "to avert a great danger to Japan, no less than
to the foreigners then in the country."'
The position of the Foreign Representatives was sufficiently
embarrassing, without this untoward complication of diversity
of opinion on the part of one of the diplomatic body as to the
most fitting course to be followed at such a critical juncture,
when the life of every foreigner was at stake, and peace or war
might be the issue, according as a right judgment or the re-
verse prevailed.
Certainly it would be difficult to conceive any position more
trying for a Diplomatic Agent, isolated from all material means.
of protection, equally cut off from all reference to his Govern-
ment by five thousand leagues of sea, requiring some six
months for an interchange of letters, and pressed by the ne-
cessity of taking a decision upon more or less doubtful data.
For in statesmanship and diplomacy alike, it has been truly
said,' Not only opportunities must be seized as they occur, the
secret of success mainly depending upon this, but miscarriage
must be risked, miscarriages through the faults of others as
well as our own. Man has been left to shape his course in
this world not so much by sight as by faith; not with demon-
stration for his guide, but with probability only, in things tem-
poral as well as spiritual.
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought.
For what can he do more, even in the most critical step that
he is ever called upon to take, than plant his foot where there
seems most cause to think he can plant it safely?' So it is
even when life itself is involved, or the interests of nations; he
is compelled to decide upon the balance of probabilities, where
the wisest must often be sore perplexed. I remember meeting
with the above remarks about this time, and they seemed so
peculiarly apposite that they were strongly'impressed on my
memory. Perhaps I found encouragement in the reflection
they suggested, that, however trying my position, it only pre-
sented the same conditions of perplexity and anxious doubt
that must be the usual attendant of all action in critical circum-
stances where there is great responsibility upon a single head.
In this instance, I had at least the satisfaction of knowing that
all my colleagues, with a single exception, were perfectly of
one mind with myself. We had determined at the second
conference, with entire unanimity, to withdraw from Yeddo,
sending in, at the same time, a vigorous protest against the
whole system of intimidation and murder of which we were
made the victims, with the cognizance and seemingly tacit ac-


Chap. XXIV.]
45
A DETERMINED PROTEST.
quiescence of the Government to which we were accredited.
Count Eulenberg, the Prussian Minister, was on the point of
concluding a treaty on which he had been engaged for six
months, such had been the obstinate resistance he had encount-
ered; notwithstanding which, he did not hesitate to join in
this decisive step, merely deferring his departure until after
the day fixed, then close at hand, for its signature. Nothing
could have been more generous or loyal than this course, which
required no small amount of moral courage. I even endeavor-
ed to dissuade him, pointing out that as he was in Yeddo only
on an extraordinary mission, and not en permanence, he was
not really called upon to identify himself with those who were.
This decision taken, I immediately began my preparations
for carrying it into effect, by sending to hire any houses that
could be found for the Legation, packing and sending off a few
articles of furniture, etc.; and on the day of my departure, a
week later, I addressed a strong representation to the Minis-
ters of Foreign Affairs, to be laid before the great Council of
State, setting forth the grounds for our common accord, and
the motives of the step resolved upon. Among other things,
I pointed out that'the assassination of Mr. Heuskin, follow-
ing close upon menaces of a general massacre, communicated
to the Foreign Ministers by orders of your Excellencies, fol-
lowed up again by an intimation from the same quarter on the
morning of the funeral, when the Representatives of the Five
Powers were all assembled to render the last honors to the
murdered, that they themselves were in danger of being at-
tacked on the way to the cemetery if they ventured to pro-
ceed, were more than sufficient to remove the last trace of
doubt or hesitation in my mind, and I think in the minds of
most of my colleagues, as to the necessity of instant and de-
cided action on their part.
'But, lest they should not have been enough, it would seem
as if it had been determined to furnish one more conclusive
evidence how little the Government could be relied upon for
our defense and protection, by leaving the whole line of road,
more than a mile in length to the cemetery, open to attack.
There were no guards on the ground, or extraordinary meas-
ures of precaution and protection—I do not say to resist the
attack it had sent warning was to be feared, but to prevent
the possibility of the most desperate men daring to attempt it.
Here were the lives of all the Foreign Ministers in Yeddo, to-
gether with the whole of their respective Legations, and the
Consuls from Kanagawa, declared by the Government to be in
immediate danger. They were all at one spot assembled, and


46
[Chap. XXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
yet it was not deemed worth while, apparently, to adopt a sin-
gle measure for their defense and protection! This, indeed,
was conclusive: that the Government should allow a member
of one of the Legations to be murdered, while the whole Corps
Diplomatique was under menace of a similar fate, and yet con-
sider it unnecessary, even in courtesy, to make any communi-
cation to Her Majesty's Minister at this Court, whose own
safety and that of the members of his Legation were in ques-
tion, could no longer be subject of surprise. The two courses
were perfectly consistent with each other.
'Moved by these considerations, and perfectly convinced by
all the experience of the past of the hopelessness of any far-
ther effort, by mere remonstrance on the spot, to effect the
changes which it was too plain could not be deferred without
risk of the gravest complications, and, it might be, national ca-
lamity, if, unfortunately, farther lives should be lost, I took im-
mediate steps, after the funeral, to communicate with my col-
leagues, and announce my resolution to avert, if possible, the
dangers I foresaw in the continued supineness of the Govern-
ment.
'I determined, with this view, to withdraw temporarily from
the Legation at Yeddo, and I now write to acquaint you that
I have carried this resolution into effect. I shall take up my
residence, for the present, at Kanagawa or Yokohama, where I
can not only command means of protection, if required, from
Her Majesty's ships, but also take such steps as may be need-
ful for the security of my countrymen. There I shall wait
with calmness the result of farther communication with the
Government of the Tycoon, free, for the first time for eighteen
months, if not from the menace of assassination, at least from
any anxiety as to such threats being immediately carried into
execution, to the peril and disgrace of Japan.'
That it was a momentous step we all felt, and I can say for
myself that it was taken with the greatest reluctance, and only
on the strongest conviction that it was the one most likely to
produce a salutary influence on the councils of the Japanese
Government; while indecision, or waiting upon Providence
with folded hands, trusting to a Government that had shown
nothing but ineptitude or apathy when efficient protection was
required, could only lead to a repetition of similar acts of blood-
shed, and, in all probability, the massacre so often menaced.
The main question was by what means this could be best and
most surely prevented. I and my colleagues believed this
could only be done by holding the Government responsible for
the security of life, not only as regarded the Legations, but


Chai\ XXIV.]
47
THE BURIAL.
foreigners generally, living in the country under the safeguard
of solemn treaties—a responsibility the Government had shown
every disposition to ignore on a plea of inability. In the mean
time, that those in Japan among the Daimios and their adher-
ents, with or without the connivance of the Government, who
had, from the beginning, been inimical to the commercial and
political relations initiated by Mr. Harris's treaty of 1858,
should, by one means or other, be deterred from the adoption
of violent schemes of murder and intimidation directed against
foreigners, was an obvious necessity, whatever else might be
done or left undone. And that this could best be effected by
sitting still and doing nothing, not even the American Minis-
ter, I fancy, could have deliberately believed, although he had
nothing to propose but remonstrances, the futility of which,
unsupported by other steps, the painful experience of eighteen
months had sufficiently demonstrated.
As the funereal cortege wound its way from the American
Legation to the burial-place, many harassing and anxious
thoughts must have filled the breasts of the chief actors. It
was the middle of January, but the sun shined brightly, and
not a fleck or a cloud was in the sky to dim its lustre. The
place of interment was the same I had selected just one year
before, when my linguist was slain at the gate of the Legation.
Fine trees, consisting entirely of evergreens, and covered with
foliage rich in color, cast a pleasant shade over the well-kept
grounds of the Buddhist temple to which the cemetery is at-
tached. Here, lying back on some rising ground, not far from
the banks of a little river, which winds its tortuous way to the
city—only too symbolic of the rulers of the land—a picturesque
site as could well be chosen had been marked off for the dead.
There was something very sad and impressive in the gathering
which now brought so many nationalities together at the spot.
A large circle of Europeans formed the principal group, while
in the background the shaven crowns of some of the fraternity
whose temple grounds were thus invaded might be distin-
guished. In the centre of the group is a Roman Catholic
priest in his white robes, and on a terrace above the heads of
all stand five Japanese dignitaries, Governors of Foreign Af-
fairs, whose attendance is any thing but voluntary on their part.
These, dressed in their Haka-ma of ceremony, look coldly down
upon the scene at their feet. The flags of four Treaty Powers
are there, to which those of Prussia, not yet in the number, is
joined, and to the right the Representatives of those Powers
are all present, surrounded by a strong guard of Prussian ma-
rines, no ship of war of any other nation being at the anchor-


48
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIV.
age. In the centre is the newly-dug grave, into which the sun
pours a flood of light, as if to rob it of half its terrors. The
bier is covered by the American flag, for, though Dutch by
birth, the murdered official was a servant of the United States;
and, as the service proceeded, notes of sadness filled the air
from the band of the Prussian frigate—a wail of sorrow and
complaint. Farewell to the dead—ashes to ashes, dust to dust!
The flags are lowered, while with uncovered heads the Minis-
ters each cast in a handful of earth. In mute sorrow it is done;
in sorrow and humiliation too, for a murdered brother lies in
that grave over which the flags of five European Powers are
drooped in honor, yet were they all powerless to protect from
the hand of the assassin him now laid so low, and equally pow-
erless are they to secure future safety to those now standing
by the grave.
Redress for the past and Safety for the future, these were
the two things it most behooved every Foreign Representative
there to obtain; and they were precisely those which the most
sanguine could hardly hope to succeed in securing. The beau-
ty of the site and clearness of the sky only contrasted the more
painfully with the moral features of the scene. A foreigner in
his prime, the only son of a widowed mother, cut down in his
strength, and murdered by a band of political assassins in the
streets of a great Eastern capital, where all but the few mem-
bers of the Legations are still jealously excluded, lay in the
grave, round which the Representatives of the greatest Pow-
ers in the West stood, mourning a wrong they were indeed
helpless to redress. Surrounded by a hostile class of Feudal
chiefs and their armed retainers, living under a Government
either incapable or treacherous, they were themselves under
menace of being slain in the same ruthless fashion, even while
rendering the last duties to the dead. And under this oft-re-
newed menace of massacre or assassination, the Representatives
of all the great Maritime Powers had lived for eighteen months
past, isolated and unprotected. Singly pitted, as it were,
against the millions which surged around their dwellings, cut
off from all friendly intercourse by the jealousy of Eastern rul-
ers, watched, hemmed in, and yet undefended, it must be con-
fessed the position of a Diplomatic Agent in this farthest East-
ern station was any thing but enviable. It can hardly be real-
ized in these modern days in any European land what it is—
not for days or weeks, but month after month, and not occa-
sionally, but constantly, year after year — to live under a per-
petual menace of assassination, with apt instruments for its ex-
ecution ever at hand. Never to put foot in stirrup without a
consciousness of impending danger; never to sleep without


Chap. XXIV.] ABYSSINIAN MODE OF COMPROMISE.
49
feeling, as your eyes close, that your next waking hour may be
your last, with the vengeful steel at your throat, and the wild
slogan of murderers in your ear, is not a pleasant state of ex-
istence, and neither conduces to happiness nor health. To any
one who can not realize this I should seek in vain to convey the
character, at once solemn and exciting, with which the whole
scene of the burial in that pagan cemetery was invested, in all
its accessories and associations. By the side of the newly-
closed grave was a plain tablet, distinguished from all the rest
by its Roman characters,'Dankirche, Japanese linguist to the
British Legation, murdered by Japanese assassins on January
21,1860;' and this was January 18,1861, when another Lega-
tion had furnished its annual victim—a sacrifice apparently to
the rage of unknown enemies, who might be thousands, or per-
haps could be counted by tens and hundreds, if the Govern-
ment were willing and true. As it was, all remained shrouded
in dark and impenetrable mystery. Whence came the blows
of the assassin, in such a long and seemingly endless series of
murders and butcheries? The only answer to be got from
the Government was, 'Lonins, men of the Prince of Mito.'
It is somewhere related by Bruce that a custom once exist-
ed in Abyssinia, when factions were violent, and ready to tear
each other in pieces for mutual wrongs, to compromise the
quarrel by means of a camel. It was agreed that nobody in
Abyssinia had been to blame on either side, only the camel,
and the whole mischief, be it what it might, was the work of
the camel. The luckless animal it was that had threatened to
attack the Aga's castles, to burn his mother, destroy the cattle,
or fire the town; he it was who had cursed the sheriff of Mec-
ca, and destroyed the wheat!
The Prince of Mito in Japan seems to have played the part
of the Abyssinian camel for the last two years; and now that
even he, in strict accordance with Abyssinian precept, has been
slain, his ghost still haunts the country in the shape of the
prince's men, and Lonins of Mito are made responsible for all
the mischief threatened or done.
If only we could trust the Government of the country—trust
their energy and their good faith—we might find patience to
meet the evils which may be inseparable from the effervescence
of a sudden contact between two compounds so differently
constituted as European and Japanese civilization. But it is
impossible to have much intercourse with the ruling classes and
their subordinates without being perpetually reminded of the
treachery and cruelty of the Venetian rulers, themselves Asi-
atic in origin and temperament.
II.-C 8 1


50
[Chap. XXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
To this day may be seen in one of the cells in the Inquisition
at Venice, traced in an unsteady hand, as in the dark, lines
which speak of deepest perfidy:
Da chi mi fido, mi guardami Dio;
Da chi non mi fido, mi guardaro io.
And the same profound conviction of betrayal and faithlessness
to all engagements in the end becomes too thoroughly estab-
lished to be shaken by any lip-professions, or outward demon-
strations of good-will and anxiety for the safety of those whom
they allow to be cut to pieces in the streets without raising a
hand in their defense, or stirring a finger to bring punishment
down upon the assassins. From whencesoever these successive
blows proceed, there comes also, and always, a voice through
the organs of the Government (not ashamed to be the medium
of communication), which cries aloud,'So are you all doomed;
begone, or perish.' And so one after the other, by twos or
by threes, and sometimes singly, the decimation goes on with-
out let or hinderance. How long? Whose turn shall it be
next? and when will the measure of this iniquity be full?
Where is it to stop, or must it be allowed to run its fatal course
until all the lives are exhausted? These questions must have
been present to many, who, on this bright day of January, un-
der a sky which might have been that of Italy, stood round the
grave of the last, and remained unanswered. From the grave
came only the warning voice,' Beware!'
All appeals to the Government of the country had hitherto
been vain. It is said that the wolf, when learning to read,
could make nothing out of the letters of thealphabet, howev-
ever they were put before it, but 'lambf and so it was with
the rulers of Japan. To all remonstrances they had but one
answer, more guards, spies, and Yaconins; more restrictions
on individual liberty; more devices to reduce the Ministers
of the greatest Powers in Europe to a state of degrading
thraldom, in no way different save in the name to that of state
prisoners. Any assertion of diplomatic privileges and rights,
to freedom of action and real independence, was met by the
ever-recurring announcement of danger. It came, then, to this
at last; either Foreign Representatives and the whole Corps
Diplomatique must accept the humiliating and derogatory po-
sition so persistently forced upon them, while the Government
to which they were accredited made a cool disclaimer of re-
sponsibility for any evil that might befall, or vigorously resist
such efforts. So far as I was personally concerned, I never
felt a moment's hesitation as to which of the courses ought
and must be adopted, whatever the individual risk or peril to


Chap. XXIV.] STATE PRISONERS.—A CRISIS.
51
life. I believe there were none among our number, unless it
were the American Minister, who conceived safety could be
purchased, consistently with the honor and dignity of the na-
tional flag, at such a price as the Japanese Government at-
tached, namely, the negation of'all freedom of locomotion or
action, making the Legations so many prisons in all but the
name.
A crisis had come, and upon the manner in which it should
be met by the Foreign Representatives would greatly depend
our future relations with the country. A greeting had come
to the assembled Ministers of the Five Powers, when met to-
gether at the American Legation to follow the last victim of
this Machiavellian policy, spoken by the Government through
their own organs—'A great danger menaces all your lives,from
which we can not secure you if you persevere in your inten-
tion of following the body to the grave.' And then, as if to
prove to demonstration the utter absence of good faith or con-
cern for what might happen, the whole route was left un-
guarded and open to attack. Now either they had good rea-
son to know there was danger, and in that case they were
bound by every motive of national good faith and honor to
strain the utmost powers of the Government to avert it and
afford protection, or no such danger existed, and the announce-
ment was an infamy and an outrage. The Japanese Govern-
ment, by its own acts, placed itself between the two horns of
this dilemma, from which there was no escape. Even our
American colleague on the day of the funeral seemed to have
this conviction; unfortunately, it did not last, and the next
day his confidence in the Government that had thus pilloried
itself appeared to have returned stronger than ever. I and
my colleagues saw in this last proceeding an unfounded alarm,
invented to intimidate all the Legations, and carry out a policy
designed more thoroughly to isolate and place them under re-
strictions than had hitherto been found possible. There might
certainly have been some foundation, some real danger to be
guarded against, only designedly exaggerated in its propor-
tions. But in that case why were there no precautions, no
preparations whatever to meet it, and avert a catastrophe
which might plunge the country into all the horrors of a for-
eign war, in which every Treaty Power would be their ene-
my? Was it a simple exaggeration, springing from the timid-
ity and mendacity combined of a Government given to large
words, but very small deeds; conscious, perhaps, of some hid-
den, but internal source of weakness and fountain of evil? In
either hypothesis, it was in the interest of all that this state
of things should cease.


52
[Chap. XXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
An event occurred at this time calculated to give greater
significance to the numerous sinister rumors afloat. Hori Ori-
beno-no-Kami, the most intelligent, experienced, and respected
of the Governors of Foreign Affairs, the one the best versed in
European business, and the most reasonable and conciliatory of
his class in all his intercourse with the Legations, disappeared
from the scene. He died suddenly, and a certain mystery as
to the mode and time of death gave rise to a suspicion that it
was not unconnected with the murder which had just taken
place, and had been the result of a discussion with the Gorogio,
or his own chiefs the Foreign Ministers, on the subject of their
foreign policy. In effect, it was shortly known that he had
committed the Hara-kiru. After a few days' delay, an official
communication was received by the Foreign Representatives
in Yeddo, stating that he had ceased to hold office,'having
died without the effects of medicine.' A strange announce-
ment to us, but the popular voice had no difficulty in its inter-
pretation. It was the expression for an act of self-immolation.
But what could have made one of the highest and most valua-
ble of their officers, subordinate only to the Ministers them-
selves, and their right hand apparently, destroy himself? Into
what disgrace had he fallen? He was engaged as one of the
plenipotentiaries in negotiating the Prussian treaty on the
point of being concluded—was it this? Had he been expected
to succeed, under pretext of framing a treaty, in deferring its
conclusion indefinitely, and failed? He was, as I have said,
one of the most esteemed of the Governors, corresponding in
rank and functions to an Under Secretary of State, and was
universally regretted by the Legations. This event immedi-
ately following Mr. Heuskin's murder seemed to throw some
light on the causes of Oribeno's death. Some of the circum-
stances immediately preceding this deed of violence I have not
yet related. On January 15 there was a gathering of pleni-
potentiaries and officials, Japanese and Prussian, at the tempo-
rary residence of Count Eulenberg, the Prussian Envoy. The
clauses of the treaty with Prussia had all been agreed upon,
after five months of refusals and delay, and in a few days it
was to be signed. The presents to the Tycoon and some of
his high officers were to be delivered—works of art (sadly
thrown away); costly and choice volumes from the royal print-
ing-press on Egyptian antiquities and scenery; specimens of
superb binding; a portable magnetic telegraph, by which the
Tycoon might communicate his orders the circuit of his
palace; a fine series of photographic views; equestrian statueettes, mounted on richly-moulded pedestals of bronze, etc.


Chap. XXIV.]
53
MURDER OF MR. HEUSKIN.
Among the busiest of the party was Hr. Heuskin, who was
rendering the same important service to Count Eulenberg
which he had afforded to Lord Elgin, by acting as his inter-
preter. After dinner he mounted his horse to return, as was
his daily habit, to the American Legation, where he resided,
preceded by a mounted Yaconin with a paper lantern suspend-
ed to his waist by a flexible bamboo, as is their habit. The
Tycoon's arms are emblazoned on the transparency, and he was
followed by two others, the ordinary escort of members of the
several Legations, and especially insisted upon by the Japan-
ese Government as a necessary protection. How little protec-
tion such an escort was really calculated to afford had often
been observed before when insult or minor outrages were in
question. But still, where life was concerned, the Ministers in-
sisted on the efficacy of the guard, and some were willing to
believe it might not prove to be a mere sham, so far as defense
was in question, and a reality only as part of a machinery de-
signed to hamper the movements and insure the isolation of
every member of the Legations by a locomotory and ubiquitous
surveillance. This was soon to be brought to the proof. When
Mr. Heuskin had proceeded a few hundred yards along the
banks of the river where we had just buried him, his road lay
through some narrow streets in a densely populated quarter,
in which the American Legation was situated. Shortly after
entering these, where two or three intersected, a wild yell rose
in the stillness of the night, and a band of some six or seven men, lying in ambush for their victim, rushed from their covert
with drawn swords. Dividing their numbers, while the main
body fell upon the European, the others dismissed the leading
Yaconin with a blow of the flat of the sabre on his horse, ac-
companied by an injunction, little needed, to take himself off.
The two behind disappeared in another direction with equal
celerity, while their charge, thus deserted, clapped spurs to his
horse and endeavored to dash through his assailants, who were
striking furiously at him from both sides. He was only armed
with a hunting-whip; but, had he been better prepared for such
a deadly onslaught, it is doubtful, from its suddenness and the
darkness of the night, whether he could have used a revolver.
He succeeded, to all appearance, in breaking through the band,
unconscious at the moment of being severely wounded, and
was able to ride on a hundred paces, when he felt that he
was grievously injured, and calling to his horse-boy, still in
sight, though some distance ahead, he endeavored to dismount,
and fell to the ground in the attempt. He had received a
frightful gash across the abdomen, from which the bowels pro-


54
[Chap. XXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
traded, besides several other thrusts and cuts of less moment.
There he lay, wholly deserted and weltering in his blood, it is
not known»exactly how long. It appears his assassins felt sat-
isfied they had effectually done their work, for they did not
follow him up; and as for his brave defenders bearing the Ty-
coon's arms, they only returned with assistance after a long in-
terval. He survived but an hour or two after his arrival at
the Legation—long enough, however, to tell the dismal tale,
and state distinctly all that had occurred; fortunately, for the
Yaconins had a version of the attack which rivaled Falstaff's.
They had been set upon by at least thirty men, and, notwith-
standing such terrible odds, kept by their charge to the last—
one only, when Mr. Heuskin fell from his horse, being sent on
to get assistance to carry him home. But the dying man's
testimony was too strong and clear. Even the Government
this time, wonderful to say, hesitated to accept the Yaconins'
report. Of course two Governors of Foreign Affairs were dis-
patched immediately with condolences, expressions of sympa-
thy, and assurances of justice, precisely as had been done when
my linguist was assassinated in broad daylight under the flag-
staff of the British Legation a twelvemonth before, since which
nothing had been heard of the assassins except that they could
not be discovered. So had it been with eight successive vic-
tims—so it followed with this last! Such assured immunity
is perhaps the worst feature of the whole, as obviously fatal to
all security. And where was the remedy to be sought? This
was a question which could not any longer remain without an
answer, and the four Representatives of Great Britain, France,
Prussia, and Holland resolved a solution should be sought in a
determined protest, backed by the striking of their flags and
their temporary retirement to Yokohama. Many days were
consumed in the necessary preparations for the lodging of the
Legations in the dearth of house-room at the settlement of
Yokohama, and it was not until the end of the month that
either the French Minister or myself could embark, the ' En-
counter' and 'Pioneer' fortunately giving us both the means.
The Dutch Diplomatic Agent had preceded us, and Count Eu-
lenberg, having obtained the signature of his treaty, prepared
to follow in a day or two. Mr. Harris, the American Minister,
alone remained, disapproving entirely of the course thus unan-
imously followed by all his colleagues. He indeed predicted
that those who withdrew from the capital would never be able
to return; but I had, as the event proved, a tolerably well-
founded conviction to the contrary, while I felt certain that to
remain was to invite the very dangers it was the desire of all


Chap. XXV.] SECOND PHASE OF THE CRISIS.
55
to avert. It was a question of means to the end, and with
opinions so diametrically opposed, it only remained for each to
follow his own course.
CHAPTER XXV.
Second Phase of the Crisis.—Flags of four Treaty Powers struck.—Protest
against the Inadequacy of Means taken to protect Life.—Negotiations for
Return of British and French Ministers to the Capital.—Conditions stipu-
lated on the part of Foreign Representatives.—Final Acceptance of these
on the part of the Japanese Government, and the Return of the former un-
der a Salute to the National Flags of Great Britain and France on their
Entrance.
We had now entered upon a second phase of the crisis.
The flags of four of the Treaty Powers had been struck, and
their respective Representatives had each forwarded a strong
protest to the Japanese Government against a total denial of
justice, and the absence of all efficient protection or security
to life, with what result remained to be seen. It had been
made clear to the Japanese Government that, in withdrawing
from the capital and striking our flags, we had no intention
of breaking off relations with it, and without implying any
menace of hostilities if our reasonable demands were not com-
plied with, they must have seen that there was a determina-
tion on the part of my colleagues and myself to effect some
change for the better in our relations. In a circular to the
British Consuls I fully explained our actual position and the
objects we contemplated. They were told to explain to the
Governors of their respective ports that our object was not to
create a rupture, but, if possible, to avert any such calamity
(while relieving the Government of Japan from a great dan-
ger), and to induce them, without farther delay, to take what
steps might be necessary to place their relations with Foreign
Powers on a better and safer footing; and,' above all, to give
that security to life and property which had been greatly in
default from the beginning, and latterly wholly wanting.'
To the Ministers of Foreign Affairs I wrote in the following
unequivocal but conciliatory terms, saying I had to urge upon
the Government the importance 'of putting a speedy end to
the present exceptional state of affairs. I am anxious for a
peaceable and satisfactory termination, and am ready to return
to the Legation, and resume my duties in Yeddo, whenever I
can see such material guarantee for redress in respect to past


5(5
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXV.
grievances, and security for the future, as may warrant this
step. I have, in the mean time, left all my property undis-
turbed, under the charge of the officers in my house, and for
the safety of which the Government will, of course, be respons-
ible. Whether my return be prompt or tardy, therefore, de-
pends entirely upon the Japanese Government. It is certain,
sooner or later, that the representative of Great Britain will
return to Yeddo, the place of residence assigned by treaty; but
if speedily, there will be the less time for new complications to
arise, and affairs may be more easily arranged with mutual
benefit (and on a better footing than hitherto, to my regret,
has been found possible), if no time be lost.'
Having adopted this decisive step, and taken up a temporary
residence at Yokohama, I had leisure to review the position,
and meditate on what farther might be necessary to bring this
species of interregnum to a speedy conclusion. While it would
probably be the policy of the Japanese Government to leave
the protesting Ministers self-exiled from the capital by refusing
their terms, and thus giving them a kind of stale-mate quite
equivalent in the circumstances to a defeat — the tactics evi-
dently contemplated by our American colleague when he pre-
dicted that we should never return—it was my business, and
that of the only colleague remaining after the fourth week,
Monsieur de Bellecourt, the French Minister, to force them to
come to terms, and offer us those guarantees for greater secur-
ity in the future which we were so fully entitled to demand.
It was a struggle, however, in which they had all the advantage
of a chance of winning by simply doing nothing, whereas it
behooved us to make such moves on the political chess-board
as should compel them to act. I speak only of the future, for,
as regarded the past, to insist upon any redress for things al-
ready done would have been to enter upon a large field of com-
plaints, and debates that might be endless. It was the future
position of Foreign nations and their Representatives in Japan
which it was most important to regulate and improve. I re-
solved, therefore, from the beginning, that I would welcome
any fair guarantee for this, and trust, after my return to Yeddo,
to convert what might be merely promises of improvement
into material results. Mr. Harris himself, as I wrote to the
Foreign Office at the time, could not be more impressed than I
was with the consciousness that if satisfactory relations were
ever to be established with the Government and people, we
must needs be content with improvement by slow degrees, and
put up in the mean time with many shortcomings and not a
few wrongs. Nothing, indeed, could be more opposed to the


Chap. XXV.] JAPANESE TACTICS.—RESOURCES. 57
whole tenor and spirit of my instructions, or less in harmony
with my own sentiments and convictions, than a policy founded
on coercion and carried out by menaces. I knew, moreover,
that any rupture of the relations established by treaty would
be regarded by Her Majesty's Government, and by the whole
nation, with equal anxiety and regret, as a calamity which no
effort should have been spared to prevent, and no future ad-
vantage could well compensate. And no one will envy the
position of anxious responsibility in which my French colleague
and myself were placed during the month following our with-
drawal from Yeddo, in which time the question at issue was
brought to a final solution in the only sense we desired.
The Japanese Government, exactly as I had anticipated, al-
though manifesting considerable uneasiness and anxiety as to
what might be the full import of our withdrawal and its con-
sequences, very soon seemed to accept the status quo without
making any effort to change our relations, once assured — as
they soon were, and it is needless now to inquire how—that it
did not mean war, or the commission of any act of coercion or
hostility, present or prospective.
Against such tactics as these I had two resources, which
had not entered into their calculation; the one was the possi-
ble arrival of Admiral Hope with a squadron on hearing of
the critical state of affairs—rather a doubtful one, I confess,
and the other a measure strictly within the conditions contem-
plated by treaties, but which, I could not doubt, would be su-
premely distasteful to the Government at Yeddo, so much so,
indeed, that I could confidently look forward to their making
great efforts and almost any sacrifice rather than see it car-
ried out. Strong in this double reserve, one of which was en-
tirely in my own hands fortunately, should the first one fail
me, as was but too probable, I sat down in patient expectation,
merely suggesting to the Governor at Kanagawa indirectly
that if the Government at Yeddo wished to treat, they must
send properly authorized agents, mentioning one of whom I
had reason to think favorably, Sakai Wookionoske, a member
of the Second Council of State, who had frequently taken part
in my conferences with the Ministers.
I was not at all surprised to learn that this was considered
impossible; and a vain attempt was made to get into commu-
nication with us by means of two Governors of Foreign Af-
fairs sent down for that purpose. They were informed, both
by my colleague and myself, that we could enter into no com-
munication until a written answer had been received from the
Ministers. It was farther intimated through the Japanese Sec-


58
[Chap. XXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
retary of the British Legation, speaking in our joint names,
that the present exceptional state of affairs was not without
its dangers, and that the first step toward putting an end to it
would be the Ministers placing before us distinct propositions
as to the measures they were prepared to adopt for the better
security of life, and, at the same time, to put an end to the sys-
tem of alternate assassination and intimidation, which could
no longer be tolerated. An official letter from the Ministers
only arrived after a week had elapsed, couched in vague and
unsatisfactory terms.
In the mean time, during my constrained residence in this
infant settlement, I tried to turn it to some good account in
the interest of the foreign residents and their location. And,
in order to ascertain in the most satisfactory manner in what
direction my efforts could most avail, I requested the Consul
to call a public meeting of his countrymen, and ask them to
furnish a statement of their principal grievances and subjects
of complaint in precise terms, more especially as regarded the
principal of them, such as the currency, the free exchange of
produce, and the occupation of land, with reference to the arbi-
trary restrictions and official interference on the part of the
Japanese authorities, of which many complaints had reached
me. These, together with better security of life and property,
a better custom-house administration, and certain local im-
provements in respect to roads, bridges, etc., seemed to ex-
haust the list of practical grievances in reference to treaty
rights or privileges, and the interests of commerce.
And I may state here, that although many practical results
were not possible within the month of my residence on the
spot, the basis of an agreement with the Japanese authorities
were established, from which, in the course of the year, many
material changes for the better were finally derived, though
not without reiterated efforts, after my return to the capital.
What our actual position at the trading port was at this pe-
riod may be seen by reference to the proceedings of the pub-
lic meeting to be found in the Appendix.'' The letter of the Ministers bore date February 9, in which
they assured me that the neglectful conduct of the Yaconins
in Mr. Heuskin's case excited in them impatient sorrow; that
it was indispensable measures should be adopted, but this
could only be done properly after repeated deliberation, which
would require time.
It was now for us to move, since it was obviously the inten-
tion of the Japanese Government to leave us fixed in the
* See Appendix B.
v


Chap. XXV.] NEGOTIATIONS CONCLUDED.
59
swamps of Yokohama until we were tired of our position.
Accordingly, in concert with my colleague, Monsieur de Belle-
court, I answered immediately that I was glad to learn they
fully acknowledged the existence of grievous causes of com-
plaint, and the necessity of adopting effective measures for
their removal. I added that I could not feel surprised that
the Government should deem the subject of such grave impor-
tance as to require repeated deliberations, or complain that
these might necessarily occasion some delay in arriving at a
satisfactory conclusion; but, as their Excellencies could fix no
term for their deliberations, which might, therefore, be pro-
longed indefinitely, it was my purpose to employ this interval
by traveling through the country, visiting all the ports, and
more especially those on the east and west coasts, the opening
of which, according to treaty, the Japanese Government de-
sired to defer. After personal observation, I should then be
better enabled to decide what advice should be tendered to
Her Majesty's Government on this question, and when their
Excellencies had concluded their deliberations, and were pre-
pared tcrbring all pending questions to a satisfactory termina-
tion, they could let me know by courier, should I not already
have returned.
A very few days sufficed to prove that I had made no mis-
calculation as to the effectiveness of the new weapon brought
to bear. In less than a week Sakai Wookionoske was in Yo-
kohama, with plenipotentiary powers to treat with Monsieur
de Bellecourt and myself, and to enter into such arrangements
as might be necessary to insure our return to the capital.
Three conferences followed, on February 21, 22, and 27, at
which it was finally arranged that a formal invitation, in the
name of the Tycoon, should be sent to us, requesting our re-
turn to the capital, under the conditions set forth in the min-
ute of the first conference.
The formal acceptance of these conditions, and the invita-
tion in the name of the Tycoon, were received within two
days; and on March 2, exactly four weeks from our depart-
ure, we embarked on board H. M. S. 'Encounter' and 'Pioneer,'
and returned to Yeddo. But we returned not as we went; for
one of the conditions was, that we should be received at the
landing-place by two of the Governors of Foreign Affairs, and
conducted to our respective Legations, and when our flags
were hoisted, that the batteries should salute each with twen-
ty-one guns.
Thus ended the grave crisis ostensibly to the satisfaction
of all parties; and there can be no doubt several important


60
[Chap. XXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
results had been attained. The conditions of our return were
briefly a formal pledge from the Tycoon, by and with his
Council of State, to provide effectually hereafter for the safety
of the Legations, and their exemption from violence and men-
ace—thus recognizing without reservation their responsibility
—the official invitation to resume their posts, and, finally, the
public reception of the Foreign Representatives, who had left
under menace of violence, with marks of respect to the national
flags, by a hitherto unused distinction of a royal salute at the
moment they were hoisted. The last public homage and mark
of respect I had rightly anticipated was that which cost the
most to obtain; but, finding it impossible to secure our return
without this concession, it also was agreed to in the end.
Under these circumstances, it appeared to me, as to my col-
league, that the objects for which we had accepted so many
sacrifices and such grave responsibility would be fairly attain-
ed by our return. The false position in which Foreign Repre-
sentatives had been placed by the Japanese Government per-
petually warning them, and, through them, all their country- men, of danger and threats of massacre, under a practical dis-
claimer of responsibility, or, at all events, of their power to
prevent either the one or the other, would cease. Their posi-
tion would not, on the face of it, be one utterly derogatory to
the nations they represented. Life, either their own or that
of their countrymen at the ports, might not, in effect, be per-
fectly secured; this, in the present state of the country and its
government, might be unattainable, but there could be little
doubt that a great step toward that end would have been
made. Lastly, various manoeuvres and devices, designed ap-
parently to lower the Foreign Representatives in the eyes of
the people, and to restrict them from all free communication,
were formally repudiated; and the maintenance of those ex-
isting, or the creation of new expedients to the same end, if
not rendered impossible, were certainly made more difficult.


Chap. XXVI.] VALUE OF A LONG JOURNEY.
61
✓
CHAPTER XXVI.
Journey overland from Nagasaki to Yeddo across the Island of Kinsin.—Ob-
servations on Japanese Life in Town and Country.—Social Condition.—
Manners and Customs of the Japanese.—Glimpses of Feudalism and the
Political Organization of the Country.
Hating already given a detailed account of a journey
through the interior of Japan, while describing the pilgrimage
to Fusiyama, in which the casual incidents and subjects of ob-
servation occurring by the wayside, the mode of traveling, ac-
commodation, etc., were all noticed as they occurred, I do not
propose giving any thing like an itinerary or daily journal of
this second and longer expedition. A recurrence to subjects
already touched upon, however interesting in themselves, or
worthy of farther study on the spot, could only weary readers
at a distance. My attention was moreover directed mainly, on
this second journey, to such facts and incidents as might help
me to form a judgment of the relations actually existing be-
tween the ruling classes and the masses; of the development
of intelligence in the middle and lower ranks, and the influ-
ence which feudalism, in its Oriental phase, exercised upon the
population, rural and urban. For this purpose, it was needful
to carry my observations not only among the tillers of the
soil, but into the cities and those great centres of life and ac-
tivity where commerce and large intercourse might be expect-
ed to give a fuller, if not a more distinctive expression and
form to national life. Of the political and social status of the
Japanese, it must for many years to come be very difficult to
form a decided opinion. But such opportunities for observa-
tion and study as a long journey through the country affords
are peculiarly valuable for their rarity, and the jealousy with
which, at Yeddo, all the avenues to any knowledge of the peo-
ple and their true state are watched, and more or less effectu-
ally closed by the authorities.
But once in the country, far away from the Capital, and
moving through different scenes every day, with only one set
of officials to hamper your progress, or surround you with a
network of designed impediments, their control may be to a
great degree escaped. The work is too much for the number
employed. They are weary every night, not only with the fa-
tigue of continuous traveling, but the vain attempt to keep


62
[Chap. XXVI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
pace with the foreigners' restless and ever active pursuit after
objects they but imperfectly apprehend. And at last, finding
any meshes of a net which they can weave perpetually broken
through by the strong will of those committed to their charge,
they have frequent periods of utter discouragement, and for a
time fairly give up the attempt. Their despair at the hopeless
nature of the task assigned them was sometimes legibly writ-
ten in the puzzled and vexed expression of their countenances,
and in a way so serio-comic that it was difficult to avoid smil-
ing. There are so many more things in heaven and earth than
enter into their philosophy, especially in the erratic habits and
unceasing activity of Europeans. These are all so utterly op-
posed to their notions of what is natural, pleasant, and fitting
in this sublunary scene, that I am satisfied they would just as
soon have been given charge over so many lunatics, and felt
quite as likely to fathom their motives, or divine what would
be the next thing they would ask, seek, or do in any given cir-
cumstances. I think they must often sigh after the good old
time when Mynheer (never a very mercurial personage) was
kept safe locked up in the farthest corner of the kingdom, and
even when sent to Yeddo was duly caged, and much too well
trained in the way he should go to want or to do any thing
which was not selon les regies, as set down in Japanese laws
and customs for the use of foreigners.
It so happened that the head of the Dutch Mission, Mr. de
Wit, whose society could not fail to be a pleasure, as his com-
panionship was a great advantage in all other respects, had ar-
ranged to travel the road on this occasion with me. And cer-
tainly no one could be less disposed than was my colleague to
be put through the old series of Japanese ways and devices,
either as regarded personal freedom or antiquated tariffs of ex-
penses established 200 years ago, for the special benefit of the
Japanese officials, by which some £3000 of Dutch money must
have remained in their hands, after payment of the actual ex-
penses of the journey. About £4000 was always charged, and
the whole cost in this instance, though we were by no means
exempt from extortion, did not amount to £500 for Mr. de
Wit and myself, with three gentlemen attached to the British
Legation. But this result was not achieved without effort and
many battles, the two Ministers cordially joining in a determ-
ined resistance to all unblushing exactions on the one side, and
the whole array of Yaconinerie as steadfastly bent on main-
taining time-honored customs, and strong in their resolution
stare super antiquas vias. But progress and innovation car-
ried the day.


Chap. XXVI.] PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS.
63
I think they only made one serious attempt to put us in the
old harness, and as that was at the beginning and signally fail-
ed, they probably gave it up as hopeless in the end. It came
in the form of a proposal that we would pledge ourselves ' nev-
er to go before the escort, and always to stop at the places
they should designate for meals or sleeping.' When it was
objected that this would be to make them our keepers or mas-
ters rather than attendants, it was observed, with a Japanese
genuflexion, that it was only a form; if we would sign the en-
gagement, when once out of town we could then do as we
pleased. When informed that we preferred doing as we might
judge best, without the previous formality of signing a bond
to do only as others might please, they evidently concluded it
was a bad case, and resigned themselves to their fate, only
wishing us very probably in the lowest depths of the bay, in-
stead of preparing for a thirty days'journey in their company.
It may be thought this was not a propitious beginning, but
it did not rest with us to make it other than it was. It fol-
lowed inevitably from our relative positions and antecedents.
We could no more change it than the season of the year,
which was still less promising. Toward the end of May the
rains generally set in, and if they do not come the sun does.
On consulting the meteorological records kept at Decima dur-
ing the last ten years, I had the satisfaction of learning that
the average of wet days in the month of June was twenty.
Twenty wet and ten hot days did not offer a pleasant prospect
for a month's journey on horseback, at the rate of three or
four miles an hour; involving, therefore, six or seven hours
every day in the saddle, either under a hot sun or a drenching
rain. But here again force was put upon us by a sort of ne-
cessity. It was already the end of May when I returned from
China, where public business had carried me as far as Hong-
kong—nearly a thousand miles homeward, if I could only have
held my course onward! Both I and my colleague must either
undertake the journey then, under the aforesaid conditions, or
renounce it altogether, and proceed to the capital by sea, with
the probability of no second opportunity again presenting it-
self—certainly not as regarded myself. I had not the slight-
est intention of foregoing so interesting an expedition as the
journey by land, or the important objects I had in view, even
though I could not command all the most pleasant and desira-
ble conditions. My colleague felt just as little disposed to
take ship in preference; so, immediately after my arrival, prep-
arations for our departure began. These, as before in the
first expedition, involved no small forethought and care for the


04
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVI.
commissariat. Our party, originally intended to be three, was
swelled to five by the addition of the British Consul, very anx-
ious to join the expedition, and requiring change of air and
scene for his health, and an artist, for whom it was an oppor-
tunity never likely to return. As he was connected with the
'Illustrated News,' I thought it the best possible means of
making Japan better known to the British public, a very de-
sirable object in itself, and did not hesitate to add him to my
suite. I would very gladly have attached a botanist also, but,
unfortunately, although three arrived in the country within a
week or two, none were within reach at the time.
Our departure was fixed for the 1st of June. The two or
three preceding days were wet and stormy, apparently usher-
ing in the southwest monsoon. The die was cast, however,
and although the morning was any thing but smiling, about
ten o'clock the caravan got under way—some on horseback,
some in norimons, filling the whole street of the usually silent
Decima, where the hospitable house of the Dutch Consul Gen-
eral stands. Our Japanese escort, Yaconins, ometskys, and in-
terpreters, ' officers' officers,' and the ' servants of servants,' in
number untold. These, with our followers, and the baggage
of the whole party as we left the town, stretched in a line
which seemed interminable.
For an hour before starting a large space in front of the
house had been filled with kicking horses and screaming own-
ers, with a very mob of officials and their attendants, norimons,
cangos, and their bearers. There were Yaconins of all kinds
and degrees, looking very much like my friend here, his sword-
hilt covered up with his long mitten to preserve the weapon
from the rain, which was pelting pitilessly on his umbrella of a
hat—for it answers both purposes admirably—but accepting
his destiny with a stoical philosophy and resignation which
strips the worst lot of half its bitterness. The sketch on the
following page is one for which the materials were seldom
wanting during the journey, although we were much better
treated by the weather, after all, than we had any right to ex-
pect.
I have omitted to mention that, as soon after the Governor
of Nagasaki had been officially informed of my arrival and pro-
posed departure by the overland route, he took an opportunity
of urging upon me the danger of the journey, and general in-
security of the roads from the unsettled state of the country.
I confess I gave very little heed to his warnings, taking them
very much as matters of course, and a repetition of the play
acted by the Ministers themselves, when my journey to Fusi-


Chap. XXVI.] OBJECTIONS OF THE GOVERNOR.
65
yama was announced. Nor should I have thought it worth
mentioning now, but that after-events seemed to prove he had

DUTY UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
some good and tangible reasons for his proceeding, and that
he knew a special danger menaced us on the way, which was
only too likely to cost us our lives. But this is one of the
evils inseparable from their system of pretexts and mendacity,
and a reticence which will never let them speak out and tell
the whole truth. It is impossible to know when they are
merely giving warning of danger, as a pretext for objecting to
a diplomatic agent's giving effect to the treaties, or exercising
any privilege which might enlighten him as to the true state
of affairs; and when it is given in good faith, because they
know danger of a specific kind does actually exist which it be-
hooves him and them to guard against.
The Governor having in vain sought to turn us seaward by
the general warnings of danger, sent his good wishes; and al-
though we set off under a lowering sky, the clouds lifted for a


06
[Chap. XXVI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
short space and let us mount our horses, with a faint promise
of fair weather. But we were hardly well out of town before
the sluice-gates above us were opened, spoiling to the eye
what would otherwise have been beautiful scenery. Our way
led through several villages picturesquely grouped on the hill-
sides, and along the edge of the road. One of the first, just
out of Nagasaki, Mr. Wergman sketched, with a tea-house for
the foreground, and such habitues as may most frequently be
seen in such localities.
The corn harvest was in progress, and, by-the-by, it has al-
ways been a mystery to me how the good people in Japan get
in their corn, for it seems destined to be in the wet season that
it must be gathered, as they cut their wheat in June. The
rice harvest does not come until November, but last year, the
autumn being also exceptionably wet, much of the crop was
left to rot in the fields, a serious calamity to a rice-eating pop-
ulation like the Japanese. At this time of the year green
plots of the brightest hue indicate where the seed-rice is thick-
ly sown, for the purpose of being transplanted out during the
month, after the ground has been well watered, plowed, and
harrowed, and finally made into a sea of mud!
Of all agricultural employments, rice-planting seems to be
the least enviable I have yet seen, and we had ample opportu-
nities throughout the journey of learning all its details. Men
and women, with their backs bent, and nearly up to their
knees in a malodorous mud-field, take each their basket of
young plants, and, separating them into small bundles, fix them
at a space of about six inches apart, into the less fluid soil be-
low, with no other implement than their hands. The aram, a
sort of lotus, the root of which is eaten, the sweet potato,
and the bearded wheat, appeared every where. The latter
was often planted in terraces raised with incredible labor along
the face of the hills, supported by walls from six to nine feet
high. Trees, chiefly pines, are planted higher up, and these,
with other evergreens scattered over the country, keep the
country from looking bare, despite the oceans of mud and fal-
low fields in the lower levels. In the hedges, the honeysuckle
and the thistle reminded us of home, while the azaleas—pink,
blue, and white, in all their delicacy of hue and texture—min-
gling with the camellia and cape jasmine, which grew wild by
the hedge-side, spoke of other climes than our own. The rich
tints of the evergreens, of which nearly all the hedges in Ja-
pan are chiefly formed, gave quite a peculiar feature also.
bamboo and cryptomeria. A few palms here and there gave

abundance, as were the








Chap. XXVI.]
69
HOW PINE-TREES GROW. farther variety, and a whole family of conifene clothed the
hill-sides with a dark mantle. In some places the nakedness
and poverty of the sandy soil could not be entirely concealed,
and pure sandstone cropped up so divested of soil that it
seemed a marvel how trees of any kind could find sustenance
in their vicinity. Often, however, along the roadside, what
little earth had ever sustained them had been completely
washed away, and the roots, striking downward, and stretch-
ing enormous distances horizontally, made a perfect network
of gnarled and twisted timber, bare of all earth, sometimes
embracing a huge boulder or rock, until they seemed to grow
out of it, as though, in the hungry search for something to
cling to, even the sapless stone had been clutched with a lov-
ing embrace. One has seen something not unlike this in the
world, where men and women both, with natures as hard as
the nether millstone, and with as little feeling as any granite

HOW PINES GROW.


70
[Chap. XXVI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
boulder, have had loving arms thrown round them, seeking
stay and support from the least congenial elements, when
more kindly soil was denied them by a hard fate.
And thus we journeyed through the island of Kyushu,one
of the three largest of the group of islands which constitute
Japan. The road lay chiefly along the coast, now and then
stretching across a hilly promontory, wild and beautiful. The
valleys were fertile, and covered with various crops ripening
to the harvest; the lower grounds alone fallow, preparing for
the rice under the most favorable circumstances, the close vi-
cinity of mountain and hill giving abundance of water for ir-
rigation, and the lower level of the sea affording ready means
for drainage. Sometimes, when the sun was high, and the bag-
gage far in the rear, we would call a halt, and sit down beneath
the shade of some fine tree, never far to seek in Japan, and
there rest long enough for an artist's sketch, as in a scene de-
picted in the frontispiece to this volume.
During this nine days' journey there was a combination of
every kind of scenery. Well-cultivated valleys, winding among
the hills, were graced with terraces stretching far up toward
their summits, whenever a scanty soil could be found or car-
ried, with a favorable aspect for the crops. We traversed
some wild-looking passes, too, where hill and rock seemed tum-
bled in chaotic confusion from their volcanic beds. Frequent
glimpses were caught of the sea-coast and bays, from which
the road seldom strays very far inland. Pretty hamlets and
clumps of fine trees were rarely wanting; and if the villages
looked poor, and the peasant's home (bare of furniture at all
times) more than usually void of comfort, yet all the people
looked as if they had not only a roof to cover them, but rice
to eat, which is more than can always be said of our popula-
tions in Europe. As groups of women and children crowded
round the doors of the cottages, the whole interior of which
the eye could easily take in at a glance, it would sometimes
appear a problem how so many living beings could find sleep-
ing-room, or what provision there could be for the common-
est requirements of decency, much less comfort. They must,
of necessity, herd together very much like cattle; but neither
is that peculiar to Japan, unfortunately.
At Urisino in the morning, and Takeiwa in the evening of
the third day we found some hot sulphur baths. The first we
visited was open to the street, with merely a shed roof to shel-
ter the bathers from the sun. As we approached, an elderly
matron stepped out on to the margin, leaving half a dozen of
the other sex behind her to continue their soaking process.














Chap. XXVI.] ABSENCE OF SHAME IN FEMALES. 75
The freedom of the lady from all self-consciousness or embar-
rassment was so perfect of its kind, that one could not help
recalling the charitable exclamation of John Huss when he saw
a pious old woman bringing a fagot to his stake,' 0 sancta
simplicitasP O holy simplicity, which has no fears of a cen-
sorious world, is vexed by no arbitrary code of conventional
proprieties, and feels no shame in the absence of covering.
She had washed, and was clean; and with the consciousness
alone that she had accomplished a duty, evidently saw no rea-
son why all the world should not know, and see it too, if they
chanced to come that way. There were great crowds of men
and women luxuriating in them; and I suppose it is the force
of habit, but they certainly bear parboiling, both men and
women, better than any people I ever met with.
A photographic view and a sketch were obtained of the
busy scene, although a midday sun made the first very trying
work. The springs are close to the banks of a river, shaded
by some noble trees; and the scene is both lively and pic-
turesque, with groups of votaries, nude and draped, crowding
round the various reservoirs, and enjoying alternately the me-
dicinal virtues of the waters and the cool shade of the trees.
During this first part of the journey, the extreme richness
and fertility of the soil were in striking contrast with the ap-
parent poverty of those who lived on it. Even in the large
towns, though there were, of course, better houses to be seen
than in the villages and hamlets, there was no sign of activity
or prosperity. A sketch of the road leading through the first
village as we left Nagasaki, where the houses still partake of
the character and something of the prosperity of a sea-port
and a place of trade, has already been given.'' Some of the
towns were both large and populous, with a much superior
style of architecture. The view on the opposite page was
taken in the principal street of Omura, a provincial capital of
one of the Daimios, where we passed a night. A crowd col-
lected to catch a glimpse of such novel visitors, and a few
matchlock-men were passing at the moment the artist was
sketching. But these are both specimens which show the
best, not the worst aspect of town and country. Whether
the poverty among the people is more apparent than real
(their wants are so few), or the share allowed to the mere
cultivation is really too small, I could not very satisfactorily
ascertain. Nothing is so difficult, indeed, as to get any kind
of information, either political, statistical, or scientific, in Ja-
pan; partly, I believe, in consequence of the dense ignorance
* See page 66.


16
[Chap. XXVI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
of every one on any subject not immediately concerning his
own life and business; partly also due to our imperfect knowl-
edge of the language, but chiefly to their inveterate propensi-
ty to deceive and mislead the foreigner. It is enough that he
should desire information on any subject, no matter how triv-
ial or apparently unimportant, to make it their business or
their pleasure either to deny all knowledge, or tell him a false-
hood, no matter how palpable. When Mr. Veitch was at
Yeddo, on a visit to the Legation in quest of botanical speci-
mens, he saw a pine-tree from which he desired a few seeds.
'Oh,' said the inevitable Yaconins,' those trees have no seedy 'But there they are,' replied the unreasonable botanist, point-
ing to some. 'Ah! yes, true; but they will not grow? On
another occasion, I wanted some seeds of the Tlvujopsis dola-
brata, the fine pine discovered by Thunberg, and a Govern-
or of Foreign Affairs promised they should be got, but, aft-
er three weeks' time, and when it was too late to take other
steps, he sent me a withered branch, saying that was the
seed!
I heard that by the tenure of land in the Tycoon's territory,
six tenths of the produce goes to the cultivator, and in the
territories of the Daimios only four tenths. But I have no
certainty of the truth or accuracy of the statement; for I have
also been told that only one fifth is retained, the other four
fifths going to the owner—rather a wide discrepancy this. It
is said also that 100 tsuboo (or 600 square feet) of land will
produce, on an average, two piculs of rice each crop, a picul
being 133 lbs. The whole subject of the tenure of land in Ja-
pan is involved in obscurity. Nor do I believe any foreigner
at present can obtain trustworthy information. Another pe-
culiarity in the physical character of the country has already
been noticed in the great prevalence of sand. The mountains
were sandstone, and the rivers were sand more than water.
It could be traced every where in the soil, so much so that
nothing but centuries of manuring of the most fertilizing kind,
and an unlimited supply of water, with all the patient toil of a
Japanese population, could ever have brought it into the crop-
bearing state. But they seem to grow every thing, corn and
rice in large quantities, buckwheat, millet, beans, especially a
kind called Daiko, with a white flower, from which they make
soy. This plant covered large tracts. A few patches of pop-
py here and there appeared, grown no doubt for the opium,
but, I fancy, to be used only as a medicine; for, except as re-
gards a few in immediate contact with the Chinese colony at
Nagasaki, I have not heard the Japanese are addicted to it


Chap. XXVI.] SANDBANKS.— COAL MINES.
11
as a narcotic stimulant. They prefer their Saki, made by dis-
tillation from rice, which is of every degree ef strength, from
weak wine to ardent spirits.
As another consequence of this geological feature, all the
rivers are sand-choked. And this condition is not limited to
Kiusiu alone; for all the rivers on the road, and we must
have passed more than a hundred on our way to Yeddo, are
obstructed by sand-banks, and the water is scarcely four feet
deep any where. Often a wide margin of sand and pebble
alone marks where a river has once flowed, and in the centre
is a shallow rippling stream, in the midst of which sand-banks
innumerable appear above the Surface and obstruct its course.
During the wet season, no doubt from the close proximity of
the hills and mountain ranges, the country below is subject to
great freshets, and a large volume of water is poured down
the ravines, flooding the plains, and carrying the detritus of
the soft sandstone, and gravel, and boulders in vast quantities
on to the banks, and down even to the mouths, which are all
obstructed with bars.
On the third day, when near Takeiwa, we came upon a coal
mine of the Prince of Fizen. It lay within a hundred yards
of the main road, and a cross-road led directly to it, but I found
the way stopped by a newly-erected and temporary barrier of
bamboo of a very fragile kind, behind which squatted a couple
of armed retainers. The treaty very explicitly states that
'the Diplomatic Agent shall have the right to travel freely to
any part of the empire of Japan;' and the better to prevent all
doubts as to the meaning of the words 'travel freely,' it is
stipulated that the diplomatic Representative of Japan shall
have the same 'right to travel freely to any part of Great
Britain.' It was not a bad opportunity, therefore, of ascer-
taining how far this right to 'travel freely' extended, in the
conception of the Dairnios. I turned round the temporary
barrier accordingly, and had already advanced several steps
along the road before the guards had suificiently recovered
their surprise at the unexpected audacity of the proceeding
to vociferate orders to stop and come back. This was not at
all my intention; and, followed at some distance by Mr. de Wit
and the rest of my party, I held on my way, while the two
guardians, joined by some more of the retainers, tried to pass
before us and block up the passage. Under the guise of an
escort, some armed retainers always accompanied us through
each Daimio's territories, but in reality, as became abundantly
evident on this and other occasions, to see we kept the high
road, and neither deviated to the right nor the left. Amidst


18
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVI.
much vociferation and excitement, finding they could not stop
me without proceeding to actual violence, and despite their
indignation, hesitating and fearing to resort to such extreme
measures, I gained the coal-heaps and the mouth of the pit,
which seemed to be only the opening of a horizontal adit or
gallery into the side of the hill. I saw no sunken shaft, but a
large quantity of coal was heaped up in the open air, exposed
to rapid deterioration. Some of the coal itself appeared of
tolerable quality, but small.
It is from this Prince of Fizen's territories chiefly that Na-
gasaki is supplied with coal for our ships, and great complaints
are made of its quality. It isigenerally considered mere sur-
face coal, and badly worked. I learn, however, from those
practically acquainted with coal mines at home, that this is
really the most economical way of working. Either this Da-
imio, or another in the same island, ordered, through the
Dutch, a steam-engine to aid in the better working of his
mines; but after it arrived, and was conveyed to the spot, he
appeared to have changed his mind, declaring that it would
take the bread out of his workmen's mouths — the old argu-
ments against all machinery and improvements. So the en-
gine lies useless and spoiling, a sacrifice to the political econo-
my of the rulers. Whether this was his own suggestion, or
came from Yeddo, however, may be a question. Notwith-
standing the sort of semi-independence in which these Daimio
princes live in their own territories, evidence every now and
then appears that something of real subjection exists. For
instance, in this very article of coal, in which we are so much
interested, there is great danger of the supply failing the port
of Nagasaki altogether, not from any unwillingness on the
part of the Prince of Fizen as the proprietor to work his mines,
and make money by the sale of the produce, but from the dis-
honest and oppressive interposition of the Tycoon's officials.
Nagasaki was made a portion of the Imperial territories when
the port was first assigned as a place of trade for foreigners,
and since then not even the prince can sell his own produce,
except to the Government. And the Government officials,
taking advantage of this condition, not only fix the lowest
price consistent with a bare remuneration of labor, in order
that they may make the larger profit by reselling to the for-
eigner, but they leave such long arrears of payment, that the
prince, wearied out, had declared he would employ his peo-
ple no more in getting coal, for which not even the amount
of wages could be obtained. It was understood, at the same
time, that he demanded permission to send his own agents to


Chat. XXVI.] SUBJECTION OF THE PRINCES.
19
Nagasaki to sell the coal, without any interposition of the
Government officials—a permission not very likely to be con-
ceded, seeing the profit made by these gentry. But the dif-
ficulty will probably be temporarily got over, as in similar
cases in Japan, by a kind of compromise. Some, if not all, of
the arrears will be paid up, and liberal promises given of bet-
ter payment in future. Another instance of the sort of real
subjection in some things, in strange contradiction to the pre-
tensions of independence in others, seemingly of greater im-
portance was related to me by Mr. de Wit at Nagasaki. The
Prince of Itzen, whose territories are also in Kiusiu, had young
men instructed in the medical science of Europe by Dr. Pom-
pas, a Dutch medical man, who is stationed at Nagasaki by
the Dutch Government, and is farther salaried by the Japan-
ese Government to give instruction in medicine, and constitute
a sort of college. In order to get over some of the difficulty
occasioned by the repugnance to dissection, manifested in the
beginning, but gradually disappearing, anatomical figures in
papier machd had been sent for to Europe. One was com-
manded by the prince to keep up the knowledge of those who
had returned to his territory after they had finished their
course. When this arrived by the good offices of the Dutch
commissioner, he was unable to receive it, because one ordered
for the Tycoon's Government had not arrived, and it was un-
fitting that he should be supplied before the Tycoon. Was
this a mere act of overstrained courtesy on the part of the
prince, or compulsory? The Government officials said he
could not receive it; and the prince, although he had desired
very much to have the figure, did not in effect receive it, and
I believe it was made over to the Government.
Thus, although the Prince of Fizen was unable to assert a
right to dispose of the produce of his own mines, except to the
Imperial Government under onerous conditions, he yet felt suf-
ficiently strong and independent to close every avenue, except
the main road, to the British Minister, traveling through his
territories under escort furnished by the Tycoon, and in virtue
of an express stipulation of the treaties with Foreign Powers.
And not only to coal mines did his prohibition extend, for a
few miles farther on, seeing a high embankment, apparently to
a great reservoir or lake, at the foot of some hills close to the
road, I turned off to see the nature and extent of the work, and
all the way up the steps leading to the higher level, and while
there, the prince's retainers attached to us as an escort thought
it their duty to vociferate and protest against this most inno-
cent deviation from the high road. On my arrival at our first


80
[Cuap.XXVL
T11REE YEARS IN JAPAN.
halting-place, as soon as I could find the chief officer of the
Tycoon sent with me by the Governor of Nagasaki for my
proper escort, I remonstrated against the unwarranted inter-
ference and incivility of the prince's officers. He and his col-
leagues professed to be extremely sorry, alleging it was because
they were not there. True to their principles, and never fail-
ing to take advantage of any danger or disagreement to short-
en the life that binds the foreigner to the side of his jailer,
they admitted a treaty right secured my freedom from such
obstructions, etc.; but the admission had no practical influ-
ence, and did not prevent every pathway and side street for
the rest of the journey through his territories being carefully
guarded by detachments of armed men from all renewal of
attempts which were evidently regarded as unauthorized in-
trusion. Of course it might be said they were placed there to
honor the passage of the two Foreign Agents, but the real ob-
ject was much too apparent.
So that it was clear the right of the Chiefs of Diplomatic
Missions lto travel freely throughout the Empire^ was limited
by the Daimios, in their own territories, to a right to travel
along the high road, which is held to be under Imperial con-
trol; and they disputed my right, derived either from the Ty-
coon or the treaties made by him with Foreign Powers, to turn
a single step to one side or the other. In every town where
we halted or slept, barriers, covered with curtains bearing the
Daimio's arms, were raised, not only preventing any passage,
but shutting out the view of the streets branching off. When
our officers were spoken to on the subject, they maintained 'it
was for our better protection.' It might be so, certainly, but
in that case the country must be in a more alarming state of
insecurity than even the Ministers have ever represented. It
is much more likely that the Government and the Daimios,
perfectly agreeing in their jealousy of foreign intrusion, are ac-
complices in making all travel as irksome and unattractive as
possible. Other and more important matters occupied my
whole attention immediately after my return; but, later, I did
not fail to bring the matter before the Ministers, with a pro-
test against a mode of interpreting treaties which completely
perverted their sense, and neutralized all that was really valu-
able in their stipulations.
During the first five days the roads, without being as bad
as cross-roads in many European countries are to this day,
were nevertheless in striking contrast to the fine broad ave-
nues which constitute the Tocado of Nipon. They were all
practicable for artillery, but never was there a country less








Chap XXVI.] VEGETABLE WAX.—COTTON.
83
adapted to cavalry. Paddy-fields, nearly always in a state of
swamp, ever liable to be flooded and cut up in all directions
with drains and water-courses, alternate with inaccessible hills.
It was not until the sixth day, on the way between JTansaki
and Tatsiro, that we came upon an improved line. On each
side were beautiful valleys waving with ripe corn, skirted by
hills covered with scrub, while farther in the distance blue
mountains formed the background. The vegetable wax-tree
abounded always, and I heard when at Nagasaki that 20,000
of these had been planted in the district soon after the Euro-
pean demand for this article arose, although the Dutch resi-
dents had never been able to find out the place; plainly prov-
ing that the Japanese were by no means slow to feel the stimu-
lus of a new demand and increase the supply, while desiring to
keep their proceedings a secret from the merchants. There
did not seem to be much cotton grown in these districts; here
and there we saw a field, and occasionally in the villages saw
the women at work rolling the cotton for the spinning-wheel
or distaff, as in the following illustration; and a thrifty house-

PREPARING THE COTTON FOR SPINNING.
wife might also, at intervals, be seen reeling off her thread on
a large wheel. We passed through several small towns with
houses presenting a better appearance, while hamlets, half con-
cealed in clumps of trees with luxuriant foliage, every where
met the eye. The dogrose, honeysuckle, and buttercup, with


84
[Chap. XXVI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.

VILLAGE HOUSEWIFE REELING COTTON.
the homely thistle, continued, as we went, to fill up the hedge-
rows. While riding on alone, it would be easy to fancy the
scene was in some picturesque English county. We came
upon a very beautiful moss-rose growing by the side of a cot-
tage, a variety of the English species apparently, and with some
of the fragrance. It was bought and packed with great care,
but in a few days it withered and died, as little disposed as its
owners, it appears, to be thus suddenly appropriated by the
foreigners. We also found a peculiar kind of thistle, with
bright red and yellow petals, which appears to be cultivated
for the sake of the dye it yields, a coarser kind of red used to
stain the lips of the women. Hollyhocks were also growing
in patches for a similar use, and the flowers spread on a mat
were in many of the cottages.
On our way to Uzino, on the seventh day, we passed through
many scenes worthy of the artist's pencil; indeed the number
of tempting pictures was truly tantalizing, since it was clearly
impossible to take even the slightest sketch of all. A little
wayside shrine, embosomed in trees, was approached over a
ravine, across which nature or art had flung a great boulder
of granite. The scene, with a group of Japanese seated in the
foreground, proved altogether irresistible. Again, as we de-
scended through a rocky pass into the valley below, and
caught the first glimpse of the cultivated fields and terraced


I





Chap. XXVI.] ROADSIDE SHRINE.—COAL.
87

EOADSIDE SHRINE.
hills, with another range of mountains towering beyond, pic-
turesque Japanese figures filling up the foreground, it was dif-
ficult to pass and take no note. A very slight sketch was all
I could attempt, and as for 'the artist,' I despaired of seeing
him along such a road before dark. Once fairly descended
into the valley, the scenery changed in character, but was still
equally rich in artistic effects. I endeavored to fix the outlines
with a few strokes of the pencil; but the afternoon was far ad-
vanced, and there were men and horses both in the party, with
little feeling for the beautiful, but a great desire for rest and
the evening meal! So I closed my book with a pang of re-
gret, only consoled by the reflection that it was far beyond my
powers to have done any justice to such scenes, or carry away
more than the merest indications of all I admired.
On the eighth day, our way to Eoyonoski lay chiefly along
the banks of a river, on a high causeway raised some twenty
feet above the level of the water. We passed several deposits of coal, evidently placed there for embarkation in some large
flat-bottomed boats, a novel sight on the sand-choked rivers
of Japan—certainly in Kiusiu, where boats are to be seen only


S8
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVI.
as exceptions, or at some ferry where the water is a little
deeper than usual. We had heavy rain all day, and the miser-
able horseflesh provided by the country under the Yaconins'
superintendence induced both Mr. de Wit and myself to get
into our norimons, only one degree less intolerable than a
broken-down baggage-horse, which will only go when its own-
er leads, at his pace, and, when it is not either kicking or biting,
is sure to be stumbling. I had been persuaded against my
better judgment to trust to the resources of the country for
post-horses, and only repented it once—but that was the whole
way.
Jfokura, the fortified capital of Bouzen, and one of the keys
to the Straits between Kiusiu and Nipon, we reached early in
the morning fortunately, for the sun beat hot on our heads and
shoulders long before ten o'clock. The roads were sheets of
mud, and in places all but impassable with the heavy rains that
had recently fallen; and though the scenery was beautiful as
ever, it was difficult, under such conditions, to enjoy it. Our
spirits rose, however, as we approached the end of this first
and most trying stage of our long journey, and enabled us
better to appreciate the beauty of the approach. Pleasant
country houses, each surrounded by their garden and clumps
of trees or orchards, line the road which leads to the provin-
cial capital for more than a mile. It was holiday time; and
all the inhabitants were at their windows dressed in their
best, or grouped on the door-steps to watch the cortege pass.
Amnog the younger and fairer portion of the spectators were
many pretty faces, pretty in spite of red paint and rice pow-
der, where a modest shyness might be read, struggling with
intense curiosity to see the stranger—a conflict in which the
latter, I am bound to say, was not always the victor. The en-
trance of Kokura is by a gateway, guarded by a considerable
force of armed retainers. The walls were high, and seemed
well capable of defense against any thing but artillery. After
a short halt, we embarked on board a junk, in the state cabin
of which we had only the choice of squatting, or lying down
between the ceiling and the floor. At the opposite side of the
Straits, after a two hours' pull, we found H. M. S. 'Ringdove'
waiting our arrival; and we left the shores of Kiusiu, not sor-
ry to have ended this much of our journey; for, despite all the
attractions novelty and great beauty of scenery could lend, it
was both fatiguing and tedious. Some seven or eight leagues
a day on miserable ponies, led at a snail's pace over indifferent
roads when at their best, and at this season often little better
than a series of pitfalls, was rather trying to the patience, even


Chap. XXVI.] CHEAPNESS OF LIVING. 89
had this slow mode of progression not been under one of two
inevitable conditions, a hot sun or heavy rain. We had trav-
ersed the territories of several Daimios; of the Princes of Omu-
ra, Fizen, Secousin, and Izen; and, from all I had seen, I drew
the conclusion that, although the fertility of the soil is great,
and turned to the best account by a plentiful supply of the
cheapest labor, yet little superfluity is left to those who have
to live by the cultivation of the land. Whatever surplus there
may be in the produce must be absorbed by the Daimios and
their thousands of hungry and idle retainers, who form the
unproductive classes in Japan, and whose lords are, I believe,
owners of nine tenths of the land. Rent is usually paid in
kind, and, whatever the exact proportion, the general poverty
of the people, in the midst of surpassing fertility, goes far to
prove it must be high. The probability is, as I have heard,
that the rates vary in different districts, and according to the
productiveness of the soil. They are, as a race, so frugal and
penurious, however, that, judging by the general aspect of pov-
erty, nothing but a bare sustenance of rice and vegetables can
be left to the cultivators, with just enough over to buy the
very homely and scanty vestments they habitually wear, which
in summer, the reader knows, are reduced to the narrowest
limits compatible with the use of any clothing at all. The
prices of every thing in ordinary consumption are evidently
very low, and a metal currency must be very scarce, for we
found bank-notes of a tolerably indestructible paper, well
thumbed, for every fractional sum—from thirty cash, or a frac-
tion over a farthing, to 500 cash and more.
Political economists have laid it down as a rule that the
cheapness or dearness of living in a country may be very well
estimated by the minuteness of divisions in the coinage, as a
liard in France, far below a farthing in England, indicated a
corresponding difference once in the cost of articles of daily
and common use. If so, then living in Kiusiu must be very
cheap, since a cash can scarcely be estimated at more than
of a farthing, and is not, like the liard of France or the mar-
avedis of Spain, a nominal, but a real coinage of copper, about
the size of a farthing, only much thinner.
We did not arrive at Simonoseki, the town on the opposite
side of the inland sea, at its entrance, where it separates Nipon
from Kiusiu, until the ninth day after our departure from Na-
gasaki. From this port we had to take ship for Hiogo, at the
farther end of the sea, and the beginning of the second land
route. We could have gone on by land, skirting along the
sea-coast, but it would have added greatly to the fatigue, and


90 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVII.
prolonged the journey nearly three weeks, without any corre-
sponding advantage.

OUR JUNK IN THE INLAND SEA.
CHAPTER XXVII.
SimonoseTd—The ' Inland Sea,' and Voyage to Hiogo.
The Suonada Sea, on which we embarked to cross over to
the opposite shore, separates the two islands of Kiusiu and Si-
kopf from the larger island of Nipon, which latter is to the
Japanese the main land—the largest of all the group of isl-
ands—forming the England and Wales of Dai Nipon, or Great
Nipon as they occasionally write it, for Japan is a name of our
own invention.'' * The word Nipon in a Japanese mouth means the whole empire. It is
composed of two words, written in Chinese character Jih Pun, meaning the
place or rising of the sun. The Japanese, in conformity with the character
of their own language, softened it into Ni-pun—the Dutch spelling it Jeh-pun
—their j corresponding to our y, we took their spelling and gave our harsher
English pronunciation, and thus called it Japan. So Yeddo for some time
after the treaty was spelled after the Dutch Jeddo, but pronounced after our
our own way, making a word perfectly unrecognizable by a Japanese, as the


Chap. XXVII.] THE INLAND SEA.
91
This inland sea, as it is commonly though not very correct-
ly termed, is about 250 miles in length, extending to the Bay
of Osaca, and is studded with a few rocks and innumerable
islands. It is probably some fifty miles wide at its broadest
part. This was not my first voyage through it, having pro-
ceeded to Nagasaki by the same route; and although every
one must have been struck with the change which scenery un-
dergoes by merely reversing the order of progression, in go-
ing to a place instead of coming from it, or ascending instead
of descending, still the charm of absolute novelty, and a first
impression, can not be thus obtained. The few Europeans
who had hitherto taken this inner passage had generally given
very glowing descriptions of the surpassing beauty of the
scenery. I can not say I felt disposed to fall into ecstasies of
admiration on either occasion. But ecstasies are comparative-
ly rare after the 'forties and fifties,' as the Germans would
say, have been fairly entered in a man's life. And even those
who are not on the shady side of the great turning-post in the
race often feel on such occasions the force of Napoleon's some-
what cynical remark, that 'ZSenthousiasme des autres nous re-
froidit? It is still more generally true that our impressions
of scenery at all times are greatly modified by the frame of
mind we may be in. The state of bodily health, companion-
ship, and associations, pleasurable or otherwise, all tend to
make an atmosphere of the moment, through which every thing
is viewed. Somebody has said, apropos to the mer de glace,
'What is the picturesque when one is struggling for dear life?'
What, indeed? Or what is beauty of scenery when there is
nothing dear in life? In either of these circumstances, one is
much more inclined to agree with the Frenchman Lever de-
scribes somewhere, who, having been dragged over all the
highest mountains of Europe in search of the picturesque, at
last found courage to relieve his mind by an emphatic protest
against any more sight-seeing. '■Aimez-vous les belles vues f
he exclaimed, on meeting an Englishman enveloped in mist,
during some laborious ascent, and looking, no doubt, as bored
as the interrogator—'Aimez-vous les belles vues? Moi,je les
abhorreP We all know the weariness of listening to other
people's raptures in the description of scenery, but we are not
all so ready to admit our insensibility to any such emotions
when the scenes themselves are before us. There is a conven-
name of their city. One disadvantage of this was, that I more than once re-
ceived letters intended for our Consul at Jeddah in the Red Sea. Whether
our letters ever went to him—en revanche—I can not say, but I think it is very
likely.


02
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVII.
tionality even in our feelings which often seems to compel us
to adopt phrases and expressions as we adopt our costume, not
because it is appropriate or to our taste, but because it is the
fashion or ready made to our hands; and it is less trouble to
use it than devise another which, though it might be better
adopted to our individual wants, would bring us in antagonism
with the rest of the world. Some years ago I was wandering
a solitary traveler, though not absolutely alone in a literal
sense (in steam-boats and railroads no one ever is), on the
shores of the Lago Maggiore, and I could not help seeing how
radiant in beauty this queen of the Italian lakes lay basking in
sunlight and shade, and how like an enchanted island Isola Bel-
la stood out from the liquid mirror in which its hanging gar-
dens were reflected. But I remember turning away with only
an aching sense of weariness, a consciousness of the absence
of pleasure, which is very near akin to pain in many circum-
stances. Young was not far wrong when he wrote,
Nature in zeal for human amity
Denies or damps an undivided joy.
And they who travel in pursuit of pleasure or health would do
well to take with them some of the first elements of both. If
not a mind at ease—not always attainable—at least some com-
panionship that is itself a source of pleasure, independent of all
external conditions. But it seems wisely ordained that pleas-
ure is never so hard to win as when it is made a primary ob-
ject of pursuit, or its own end. When we are employed in
the performance of active duties, it is rare, however adverse
the circumstances, that we do not find some pleasure or inter-
est in our path, to compensate what there may be of actual
toil. And having this advantage in the present instance, the
voyage through the Suonada Sea formed an agreeable change,
and I was consequently in the best frame of mind to do full
justice to the scenery and its picturesque character. It was,
indeed, any thing but a solitary voyage, for our party filled to
overflowing the little 'Ringdove,' and she had to fold her
wings and tug away with all her steam power at three huge
junks, into which the remainder had been transferred with the
baggage and commissariat.
Before we took our departure a day was devoted to Simon-
oseki itself, and to the exploration of its shops and temples.
It was evidently well situated for trade, and enjoyed some
traffic, but of what nature was the question. Mr. Boyle, an
'English merchant, had received a passage in the 'Ringdove,'
and to him I consigned the task of taking especial note of any
foreign goods, and of such produce as might be adapted to for-


Chap. XXVII.]
93
SIMONOSEKI.
eign markets. The result was not, upon the whole, very en-
couraging, as the following brief report will show.
tSimonoseki.—A town at the entrance of the Supnada Sea,
situated at the southwest point of the island of Nipon, in lat.
33° 56' N., and long. 131° E. The town straggles along the
shore about a mile and a half in length, consisting of one main
street, containing about 10,000 inhabitants. The dwellings are
mostly built of wood, but the principal buildings are godowns
or warehouses, constructed of mud and wood, coated with
white cement or stucco, and said to be " fire-proof," in which
is deposited the produce arriving there from other ports in the
sea, chiefly from Osaka. The town is surrounded by high hills,
giving little indication of yielding those articles which are ex-
ported in junks, such as sugar, rice, iron, and oil. It is evi-
dently a depot receiving the European imports from Naga-
saki for transmission into the interior, as well as the produce
from Osaca, pending its reshipment to Nagasaki or elsewhere,
where required, the business being conducted by agents of
merchants residing at Osaca. In the shops were to be seen
several articles of Dutch import, such as medicines, glass, bot-
tles, and taffacelas, all of a retail nature; but in much greater
quantity were exhibited for sale some of the principal staples
of British manufactures, such as gray shirtings, camlets, prints,
and long ells. The prices quoted for these varied from 50 to
100 per cent.above Nagasaki prices; but, as little reliance could
be placed on these quotations when given through a Yaconin
interpreter, it is sufficient to know that British manufactures
are gradually working their way into the interior for consump-
tion.' I must add that, as regards the prices and Mr. Boyle's
conclusion, in which I entirely agree, he was not content with
trying to extort a true confession of selling prices, but he
wanted to know what had been paid for the chief articles of
import, which was rather more, in most countries, than mer-
chants like to tell.
There were other things to be seen at Simonoseki, according
to the immemorial custom of the Dutch factory, whose chiefs
always took boat here on their way to the capital, in their tri-
ennial visits as bearers of presents to the Tycoon. My col-
league, Mr. de Wit, had the journal of the last Commissioner
who had passed through, and with that sense of obligation so
well known to all travelers, by which they are driven to see
every thing written down for them, often in utter ignorance
whether the objects will repay the trouble, we proceeded, as a
matter of duty, to exhaust the catalogue and test our sight-see-
ing capabilities. There was a certain ancient temple, where a


94
[Chap. XXVII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
cartoon, some three centuries old, of a great sea-fight illustri-
ous in Japanese history, was to be seen; and also two swords,
and other relics of the great soldier Taiko-sama, who, about
the year 1582, founded a shortlived dynasty of Tycoons.
Thither we proceeded at once, and without difficulty saw the
cartoon, that is, as much as time and dirt had spared of it. A
very wonderful fight it appeared to have been, in which the
most remarkable feature was the utter inadequacy of the ves-
sels to carry a tithe of the warriors represented as most val-
iantly fighting on their decks.
But the swords and other relics were not so easily to be
seen; and as an instance of Yaconinerie, and, to all human com-
prehension, unmeaning and motiveless lying, with an exercise
of obstructive powers for the sole object of obstructing, I have
seldom seen a happier example. Having exhausted the attrac-
tions of the cartoon, the temple, and the view of the bay—the
last by far the best thing to be seen—my Dutch colleague rec-
ollected that his predecessor, Mr. Donker Curtius, spoke in his
journal of the swords. 'Where are the swords? We must,
of course, see the illustrious hero's weapons.' To which head
Yaconin replies,' Oh, the swords! what swords?' gravely add-
ing, 'There are no swords; this is a temple.'
'True,' observed Mr. de Wit, 'but here nevertheless are
kept the swords and other relics of Taiko-sama.' Yaconin
must inquire; had never heard of such things. After a few
minutes he returns, and we are informed there were no swords
to be seen. 'What had become of them, theny 'There never
were any!' This was refuted by a reference to the journal in
question, with a full and particular description. 1 But there is
no priest to show them.' 'Where is the priest, then? Let him
be sent for; we intend to see the swords' 'The priest? the
priest was dead!' 'His successor, then.' 'Oh! he had gone
over to Kokura.' We seemed fast coming to a dead lock. In
such circumstances, experience has shown that a determination
not to be foiled is often the best policy; and when our Yaco-
nins slowly gained the conviction that in no other way would
their tour of duty for the day be ended, the priest appeared;
and, without any farther ceremony or hesitation,. some dusty
cases were produced, and a couple of old rusty swords exhib-
ited, with less reverence than could have been conceived. We
were allowed to inspect and handle them, and I verily believe
might have carried them away with us—'for a consideration,'
to be in part expended, no doubt, in purchasing substitutes. I
felt some curiosity to discover, if possible, a rational motive for
all the difficulty made by our Yaconins, but in this, as in a thon-


Chap. XXVII.] LYING MADE EASY.—THE SOCIAL EVIL. 95
sand other similar cases, I wholly failed. When pressed into
a corner and some explanation was insisted upon, the chief of-
fender declared it was a mistake, he thought there were no
swords. 'Then why affirm there were none without inquiry,
when you knew nothing about it?' 'I do not belong to the
place; I knew nothing about it.' 'And the priest that first
you killed, and then sent to KokuraP 'Somebody told me he.
was gone,' and so on to the end of the chapter! To attempt
to convict a Japanese of prevarication in a way to touch his
conscience is to endeavor to seize an eel by the tail in his own
slime; he is sure to wriggle himself out of your hand, and
swim at large again, in a very sea of falsehood as his natural
element; and your attempt to land him on the dry shore of
Truth, no doubt, is to him, as to his prototype, a most unnatu-
ral and monstrous proceeding.
But the strangest of all the sights, which, it seems, formed
part of the programme to which our predecessors, the Dutch,
had been invited from time immemorial, was reserved to the
last. It appears Simonoseki, among other titles to fame, en-
joys the questionable distinction of originating the 'Social
Evil,' one of the institutions of Japan, as it exists in the pres-
ent day. The same hero and founder of a dynasty -whose
swords we had seen, being sore pressed by the difficulty of
keeping his soldiers together while engaged in the long strug-
gle of an internecine war, and finding them anxious to return
home to their wives, originated the institution in question for
the solace of his followers. In nearly all the books that have
been written on Japan by Europeans, more or less space has
been devoted to this subject; but, so far as I can ascertain,
there is nothing very peculiar, or sufficiently distinctive in the
form the evil takes, or even the action of the Government in
licensing establishments, to make it worthy of such particular
notice. The law recognizes the establishments maintained (as
it does in some Christian countries), and protects both parties
to the contract; while public opinion so entirely recognizes
the absence of any free will in the unfortunate victims, gener-
ally brought up from infancy to their vocation, that when free-
dom comes, as it does by law after a certain period of servi-
tude, no indelible stain appears to attach to them, and they
may consequently, and, it would seem, often do in effect, find
husbands, who prefer them as being better educated and more
accomplished than those of their sex who are otherwise brought
up. -They thus merge the exceptional state in which they pass
the first years of their life into the ordinary marital relations.
What influence this absence of any impassable line between





98
[Chap. XXVII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
During the three following days we pursued our way very
leisurely through the quiet waters of what seemed rather a
great lake than a sea. We always anchored before nightfall;
for, even if we had not had such impedimenta as the junks,
until accurate surveys are made it would be unsafe to proceed
by night, although there are probably not many sunken rocks
or shoals, and all that we observed near the surface of the wa-
ter have been very carefully marked by a stone buttress or
pyramid carried several feet above high-water mark.
Those of our party in the junks seemed to enjoy their quar-
ters and their society, although it must be confessed the first
were of the roughest, and not water-tight, while the second
was more original than refined. To the artist it was, of course,
a mine of riches; and whoever wishes to gain a correct notion
of the quarter-deck or poop of a Japanese junk, rising to an

HELM OF OUR JUNK.


Chap. XXVII.] JAPANESE SAILOKS.—A DESCENT.
99
abrupt angle of fifty degrees from the main deck to the stern,
will find it here most faithfully portrayed, with the steersman
standing at the helm, which very much resembles the probos-
cis of a colossal elephant. How even sailors keep their feet
on such an inclined plane when knocking about at sea and the
deck is slippery with rain, I" do not pretend to understand.
One of my servants, rather notable for his stupidity, found it
altogether beyond his capacity, and made a descent off the poop

STEERSMAN AND HIS MATE.
into the lower regions, which broke his ribs, and deprived me
of his valuable services for the rest of the journey. Cahie
took such a dislike to a ship in any shape after this, that he
would fain have been carried in a cargo twenty days overland
(at my expense) rather than embark again in the 'Ringdove'


100
[Chap. XXVII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
for a two days' voyage. The Japanese landsman, although of
a sea-going race, has the greatest possible horror of the wa-
ter, and never willingly trusts himself on the fickle element.
When the Ambassadors were chosen for England, their first
and most anxious inquiry was for a remedy against sea-sick-
ness. For a type of the Japanese sailor, nothing can be more
graphic or true to the life than the preceding sketch from na-
ture of two of the crew on the deck after the morning meal,
smoking the pipe of idleness, and the one following, of Japan-
ese sailors at their dinner, is in no degree inferior.

SAILORS BATING THEIR RICJE.
Of the general character of the scenery I have already
spoken. In many parts, no doubt, it is exceedingly pictur-
esque, and if never grand, neither is it ever altogether tame or
devoid of beauty. The marvelous richness and fertility which
characterize the Japanese territory generally is wanting; but
even in this respect there are other portions which leave noth-
ing to be desired. The passage between Hirado and Kiusiu,
by which a steamer may enter when coming from Nagasaki,
or pass out from within, is very beautiful, beyond question.
Although not really dangerous to a well-handled steamer, it


Chap. XXVII.] THE SUONADA SEA.—NO FISH. 101
has quite sufficient of the appearance of danger to lend addi-
tional interest to the scene, as the waters rush, foaming and

PASS OUT OF THE SUONADA SEA
whirling, in treacherous-looking eddies, past the naked rock
lying in mid-channel, and but little above the surface, leaving
a bare passage for a large ship. Some of the coast presents
undoubted evidences of volcanic origin. Mountains rise high
to an apex from their base, and sometimes form a perfect cone,
as may be observed in a preceding sketch.
When approaching near Hiogo a very singular view pre-
sents itself in a hill some twelve hundred feet high, which forms
a flat table abruptly ending on all sides.
We landed at one or two places in the evening when we an-
chored, but nothing could well be poorer or more miserable-
looking than the few fishing hamlets we saw, and not even fish
was to be had, though fishing-tackle and boats abound every
where. The country near the coast seems, for the most part,
poor and barren, with patches of cultivation only in the shel-
tered nooks and valleys. There is a large traffic undoubtedly
through this Strait. When Admiral Hope came through, a
little later in the year, some 1500 junks were met in the pas-
sage. It was not until the noon of the fourth day that we ar-
rived before Hiogo, the termination of the voyage, so serious
had been the drag of three lumbering junks. There was a
sort of chuckle and expression of undisguised satisfaction on
the face of the boatswain when he loosened the hawser and


102
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVII I.

KEAR HIOGO.
cast adrift the nearest junk, thus severing all farther connec-
tion with such undesirable mates.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Port and the City.—Hiogo and Osaka. Hiogo is the shipping port of Osaka,the great centre of
trade in Japan, lying some thirty miles distant on the banks of
a river, the mouth of which is about five miles higher up in the
bay. Hiogo is itself a town of some extent, containing per-
haps 20,000 inhabitants, and pleasantly situated along the edge
of a sandy shore, with a range of wooded hills and mountains
rising with gentle slope from 1000 to 2000 feet behind. Sev-
eral fresh-water streams open into the bay, and offer facilities
the Japanese have well known how to avail themselves of for
docks and inner harbors. The Bay of Osaka stretches about
twenty-five miles across, and affords excellent anchorage, well
protected from all winds except perhaps from between north-
east and south; and I imagine a very heavy sea can not set
in from without. The bottom appears to be stiff mud, and
affords excellent holding-ground; so good, indeed, that the
'Ringdove' could only weigh her anchor with great difficulty.


Chap. XXVIII.] PORT AND TOWN OF HIOGO.
103

HIOGO.
There is a general depth of about five fathoms, with four close
to the beach, and no dangers are known to exist. I am in-
debted to Mr. Watts, the master of H. M. S.'Ringdove,' for
these particulars, showing the great eligibility of Hiogo as a
port of trade, with easy access and secure anchorage. Accord-
ing to existing treaties, this was one of the ports yet to be
opened to foreign trade, with free access to Osaka, January,
1863, was the period fixed, but the Japanese Government had
long manifested the most urgent desire to have the period de-
ferred, and even intimated, not very obscurely, that our insist-
ing upon a treaty right in this direction could only lead to dis-
astrous consequences to them and to us. I had a special ob-
ject, therefore, in visiting both places, desiring to form a judg-
ment from personal observation of the value and eligibility of
that which we were so earnestly required to give up under
menace of some hostile outbreak, and also of the state of pop-
ular feeling so constantly referred to as the great obstacle to
all progress.
Two pieces of intelligence greeted me on landing, of rather
contradictory tendencies; the one that the JSettos, as the horse-
boys and grooms are called, with my own horses, had arrived
from Yeddo to facilitate my journey; the other, that a Gov-
ernor of Foreign Affairs, Takimoto Dzoosiono Kami, had been
sent express by the Gorogio to meet us, and, as I immediately
divined, to make another effort to turn us from our route, and
especially from Miaco. Accordingly, we were scarcely landed


104
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVIII.
before a message was received from Takimoto, with a request
to know when we could see him. As it was nearly dark and
too late to explore, it was arranged that he should come at
once while dinner was preparing, and in a few minutes the
principal envoy, with his attendant satellites, ometskys, and
scribes, appeared. 'The Great Council were full of anxiety
and alarm for our safety. The country was in a disturbed
state; information had been obtained of divers Lonins being
abroad; two had actually been seized;' and, in a word, they
begged us to defer our journey and return by ship. What I
have told in a few lines occupied Takimoto more than an hour,
especially as it was his business to press for our acquiescence,
and neither I nor my colleague felt in the least disposed to
yield, attaching little faith to the declarations of danger from
attacks of' Lonins' and ' the disturbed state of the country.'
This was such a stereotyped formula from the beginning, that,
had any attention been paid to it, no Diplomatic Agent could
have taken up his residence in Yeddo in the first instance, or,
being there; have ever left the court-yard of his residence.
That there was some special ground for alarm on this occasion,
and a real and specific danger to be encountered, we had rea-
son to know only when it was too late. Beyond the usual
vague talk of the Lonins as a dangerous class, Takimoto had
nothing to tell us apparently. Nevertheless, he showed the
greatest unwillingness to take a refusal; and when at last, as
it was getting late and dinner had long been ready, we induced
him to take his leave, it was only with the promise that he
should again pay us a visit in the morning. The next morn-
ing he came alone, and told us he did so because he had some-
thing important to communicate of a confidential nature, which
he had not been able to enter upon the preceding evening
when so many were present. The information had reference
to some negotiations going on for the marriage of the Tycoon
with a daughter of the Mikado, and the healing of some differ-
ences which had disturbed the councils of the empire; for
something of rivalry and antagonism still exists, it would ap-
pear, between the Sovereign dejure and the Tycoon who gov-
erns de facto. It was difficult to avoid some suspicion that
the whole thing was merely got up, seeing the impossibility
of turning us back by menace of personal risk, in the hope
that serious danger to the Government and political consider-
ations would furnish an argument of greater cogency. Nor,
if these were their tactics, were they far wrong, as, under all
the circumstances, neither Mr. de Wit nor I felt justified in
taking it for granted that the whole history of the relations of


106
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVIII.
the officer accompanying me divined what was passing through
my mind, or really contemplated the opening of the port at the
time fixed by treaty, and wished to throw out a feeler, I know
not, but, to my surprise, he asked me what I thought of the site
for a foreign location, and I had no hesitation in telling him
that I thought it excellent. As we pursued our route I found
all the shops shut, and the population either hid away in their
houses or confined to the streets which lay out of our road.
It required a very vigorous remonstrance to put a stop to this
singular mode of showing a town. First it was for our pro-
tection; then it was a mistake which would not occur in fu-
ture; and at last, driven from all their positions, the orders
were rescinded, the shops opened, and the people were allowed
to attend to their business. Hiogo seems chiefly devoted to
the making of Saki—large distilleries and warehouses line the
sea-shore, all dedicated to this object. One of the former we
visited, but found nothing save the machinery of empty bar-
rels, etc. Nor did we succeed in getting any reliable informa-
tion as to the process, but all the means and appliances were
of the simplest kind for its wholesale manufacture. We passed
through the town skirting the bay, on the shores of which
were many slips for building large-class junks and boats, and
a considerable number of both were on the stocks. Having
traversed the town in its length, we turned by the banks of
what was once a wide river, but chiefly remarkable now for
the abundance of sand and gravel which filled its channel high
above the level of the town, and the absence of water. We
returned home through the main street, but without seeing
any thing in the shops of much interest or novelty. I observed
on our way back a new kind of passion-flower, and a colossal
nettle growing by the banks of the river, which seemed to fol-
low the usual merciful law giving giants a harmless disposition.
Certainly its stinging power was in no proportion to its size;
for concentrated venom we must go to the smaller species,
both in the animal and the vegetable kingdoms.
The distance from Hiogo to Osaka by land occupied eight
hours, being called ten Re, but something over thirty miles.
Nearly the whole way lay through the slopes and valleys inter-
vening between the sea and the mountain range trending in-
land. We had to cross a succession of rivers, some over plank
bridges almost too fragile for horses. One my favorite hack
positively declined (evidently remembering a former experi-
ence, when he lost his footing and fell backward with me into
the stream below), and, after a couple of steps, deliberately
leaped off, preferring to take the bed of the stream, which ran


Chap. XXVIII.] IRRIGATION.—VEGETATION —OSACA. lof
in shallows, interspersed with sand-banks, over a width of some
two hundred yards. Others had to be crossed in boats, and
several were forded; all were more or less filled with sand.
Only one, the main stream on which Osaca is built, some miles
higher up, had boats of any burden upon it, and appeared fairly
navigable. We were now in the middle of June; the wheat
was still standing; the rice was being planted out from the
seed-beds. The soil was of the same sandy character as in
Kiusiu. We noticed here for the first time a novel expedient
for insuring means of irrigation, in a well sunk at the corner of
each field, with the primitive beam and stone for a lever. A
couple of hours before reaching Osaca we entered on a wide
plain, the sea on one side and the mountains on the other.
Here much of the corn had been carried, and some was still on
the ground in sheaves curiously stacked on pegs standing hor-
izontally out from a stout stake driven into the ground. The
cotton, planted on each side of the rows of corn as an alterna-
ting crop, was just appearing; while on the raised borders
along the road and round each field, little heaps of rice-bran
appeared at regular distances, and for some time greatly puz-
zled us. We learned at last that beneath each a bean was
planted, thus turning to profit every inch of soil. What part
the bran played I could not satisfactorily ascertain. There
were fields of broad beans also, the crop nearly over, and of
brinjalls or egg fruit, a vegetable in great request in Japan,
and common also in China and elsewhere in the East, of a deep
purple color and pear shape. Azaleas in flower abounded on
the sides of the banks and roads, growing wild. About an
hour and a half's journey from Misinomia, near Amaga Saki,
we passed a castle of great dimensions, with a crenelated wall,
and surrounded by moats into which a river had been turned.
It stood in the midst of a large park enclosed within a wall.
Osaca
we caught a first glimpse of when about a league distant, with
the Tycoon's castle on a wooded eminence commanding a view
of the river. This is said to be the best of the five which he
possesses, and is celebrated in Japanese history as the place of
refuge of the infant son of the renowned Taiko-sama, who, al-
though he successfully imposed himself as Tycoon on the reign-
ing Mikado, and long held in subjection the Feudatories of the
realm, was unable to transmit his dynasty even to his son. So
short-lived and transitory often are the triumphs and the dy-
nasties of the greatest conquerors. Alexander the Great and
Napoleon were not more fortunate; and in the West as in the


108
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXV111.
East, it seems easier to conquer than to keep; that which is
won by violence or craft is so often lost by the same means.
We were nearly an hour in traversing the suburbs of this
vast city before we seemed to gain the great thoroughfare,
filled to overflowing with an immense but very orderly crowd.
There was pushing and squeezing, and, from time to time, a
desperate descent was made by the police on some luckless
wights in the front rank pushed out of line. Blows on the
bare head were dealt furiously on all; but the weapon was a
fan, and, although in their hands a very effective one, it could
hardly do much mischief. We came at last to the main riv-
er, spanned by a bridge of three hundred yards, well and sol-
idly built, immediately below which there is an island covered
with houses in the midst of the stream, something like the isl-
and of St.Louis in the Seine. Not a trace of hostile feeling
was to be seen any where, though the* curiosity was great to
see the Foreign Ministers. As they had never before known
any but natives of Holland pass through their city, I often had
the honor of being taken for a Dutchman, the word passing
from one to another,' Hollanda Minister,' and as there were
two of us riding in front, they no doubt thought we were du-
plicates. Here, indeed, as might be seen at a glance, was a
vast population, with whom trade was the chief occupation,
and at every step evidences of the greatest activity were vis-
ible. Piled up near the bridge I noticed glazed tiles for drains,
and large earthen jars for coffins—the Japanese being buried
as he lives, with his heels tucked under him in a sitting posture,
an arrangement which has, at least, the advantage of saving
space in the cemeteries, still farther economized by burning
the bodies of the poorer classes, and merely burying their ash-
es in a jar of small dimensions. The Japanese have some
strange superstitions about either sleeping or being buried
with the head to the north. In every sleeping-room at the
resting-places, we found the points of the compass marked on
the ceiling; and my Japanese servant would on no account let
my bed be made up in any but the right direction.
Osaca, its people, temples, and theatres, its trade and manu-
factures, were all objects of interest, but scarcely to be exam-
ined in detail during a flying visit. Nevertheless, as all vet-
eran sight-seeing people know by experience, much may be
crowded into a short space of time when there is urgent mo-
tive, and not altogether without profit. The city itself is ad-
mirably placed on the banks of a large river, which, as it takes
its tortuous course through the valley, divides into many
branches, farther multiplied by canals, and these and the town


110
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVIII.
most of the articles for sale, but lacker-ware especially. Either
the Yaconins accompanying us had, as is their custom, exercised
a sinister influence, whether to keep up the delusion the Gov-
ernment would fain make us accept as reality, that Japan is a
very dear country, and that our dollar ought not to be taken
for more than a third of its weight in their silver coinage, or
in a smaller way to make their own percentage out of the ex-
tortionate prices. Attempts were made to purchase some lit-
tle dogs also, for which every body seemed to have unlimited
commissions; but no one felt disposed to give thirty or forty
kobangs (from forty to fifty dollars) for a little pug-nosed, gog-
gle-eyed monster, which has no merit, so far as I know, unless
it be its extreme ugliness. Ten guineas for such specimens
seemed dear to the most determined dog-fancier in the party.
We were more fortunate in our search after porcelain and pot-
tery, aided a little by chance. In passing through one of the
streets, a quaint, grotesque-looking piece of earthenware at-
tracted my eye, and long before my Yaconins could wheel from
the front, or come up from the rear embarrassed by the crowd,
I had both priced and appropriated it, and was already deep
in the farther recesses of the store, with a perfect wealth of
'palissy' pottery, with raised fishes and fruit, gathered about
me, and for the most part priced, when the obstructives arrived.
I think they felt that for once they had been outflanked, and
that any attempt to retrieve lost time might expose them to a
worse defeat, and so abstained altogether, in disgust and de-
spair. Certainly this was the only harvest I was enabled to
secure. Many of the objects were unique in kind, and nothing
like them could be found either in Yeddo or Nagasaki. Some
very perfect egg-shell china also was picked up here; and, when
we left, there must have been a great vacuum on the shelves.
They afterward took us to a porcelain shop of their own selec-
tion, where we could find nothing worth bringing away, and
the prices were some fifty per cent, higher.
By this time we had perambulated half the city, and, having
worked our way to the vicinity of the theatre, we were not
sorry to exchange our walk for a seat, and our own perform-
ances as actors for the less fatiguing part of spectators. We
had inquired at what hour we could go, and the answer was,
'They commence at ten in the morning, and finish at six in the
evening.' And thus, it seems, they continue day after day for
a week together. Their repertory must be as inexhaustible as
the patience of the play-goers; for it is not one piece the whole
day, but often a succession. We arrived between ten and
eleven, and staid about an hour and a half, during which time


Chap. XXVIll.]
Ill
THE THEATRE.
a piece something like the ' Miller and his Men' or the ' Forty
Thieves,' with a little coarse love-making, and a great deal of
murder and fighting, were got through, apparently to the en-
tire satisfaction of a numerous, if not a very nicely discrimina-
ting audience.
The play-house is a building of considerable area, and cov-
ered over by a matting, on a scaffold at a much greater height
than they could venture, with the fear of earthquakes, to raise
any roof of more solid materials or permanent character. The
pit consists of a number of little square compartments, into
which a party of six may find squatting or kneeling room. At
the sides, a little raised, are what may be considered a series
of boxes, separated from the pit by a raised platform extending
the whole length of the building, from the entrance to the
stage, along which the principal characters of the piece make
their entrees, at the end opposite the stage. Some twenty feet
above the heads of the lower tier of boxes is a ' shilling gal-
lery,' and along each side a tier of boxes on the same level,
which are reserved for those who pay a higher price. We
could not learn exactly what was the usual price for the vari-
ous places, but, doubtless, exceedingly low, although for our
party twenty itziboos were charged, with the observation that
'such was the price paid by the Dutch.' Although we had
broken the force of such arguments, yet, in this particular in-
stance, as it was due to the precedent that we were allowed to
appear in such a place of entertainment, we were not disposed
to question the cost. In Yeddo I had never been able to grati-
fy my desire to see this illustration of national manners, be-
cause no person of rank can be seen in such places, and it
would have been a breach of all rules of propriety for a Min-
ister to visit a theatre. So, at least, we were assured by the
officials about us; and as it was tolerably certain the usual au-
dience at all places of amusement was any thing but select, the
attempt to judge for ourselves had never been made. But
here it was the established custom for the Dutch Commission-
er, on his way through, to go to the theatre; and, accordingly,
profiting by the license, to the theatre we went.
The piece, as I have said, was of a melodramatic character,
except that there was very little melody. The female parts,
as in China, are all performed by boys or young men, but the
mise en scene was very much less rude than I had expected to
find it. There was a drop-curtain, a revolving platform gener-
ally representing the interiors, with side slides to complete the
scenery, and at each act all these changed. To me the au-
dience was the best part of the play, I confess. They consist-


112
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVIII.
ed entirely of the middle and lower classes, and had evidently
come together in families or groups to spend the day, bring-
ing with them their luncheon in lacker cases, with all the in-
gredients for a midday meal. Some of the more well-to-do
parties either had it brought to them while the play was go-
ing on by their own servants, or probably sent from some eat-
ing-house in the vicinity. One immediately beneath us had a
whole fish of large dimensions served; and all seemed to en-
joy themselves sans gene, but also, it must be admitted, in a
quiet and orderly way. There were all ages and both sexes
mingled together, as well as many gradations of class evident-
ly. I remarked a Bonze with his shaven head, accompanied by
his wife or concubine. These were soon joined by another
party, and they formed one of the merriest groups. Many of
the compartments were obviously filled by a family each. Fa-
ther, mother, grown-up daughters, young brothers and sisters;
and when the piece proceeded, and a scene of indescribable
grossness was going on, it was marvelous to see with what en-
tire unconcern man and woman, young and old, looked on, ei-
ther with amusement or indifference, but perfectly unembar-
rassed, and with no sense of indecency or indecorum. Really
these people, in some of their aspects, are altogether bewilder-
ing when we try to judge them by our canons of morality or
taste. The plot of the piece was not difficult to follow. The
first scene opens at an inn by the roadside where the master
of the house is absent, and his wife and the rest of his feminine
establishment appear discussing his expected arrival, which im-
mediately takes place, but he comes with a jaded and preoccu-
pied air; and his spouse, like a true wife, naturally seeks to
learn what he has on his mind. All her blandishments fail,
however, and he dismisses them, with orders to get the rooms
ready for some travelers that will speedily arrive.
The scene changes to a secluded spot close on to the high
road, where two men, one young and evidently the master, and
the other a confidential attendant, lead in a baggage-horse, with
a valuable pack; the horse being composed of a skin thrown
over two men's shoulders, which, with the thermometer at 90°,
must have been any thing but cool. A certain want of har-
mony in the movements of the fore and hind legs was a source
of great amusement. There is a tomb and a tablet some little
way back, and this was evidently the object of their journey.
He was paying homage to the manes of his mother, who had
been murdered on that very spot, and taking a vow to avenge
her death. While thus engaged, they hear persons approach-
ing, and retire behind a clump of trees to observe the new


Chap. XXVIII.]
113
THE PLAY.
comers, who are two men of evil mien; and the chief of the
two, turning round, sees the perpendicular wooden tablet on
which it is usual to inscribe the name and virtues of the dead.
He no sooner looks at this than, reading the characters, he
tears the tablet from the ground, and, breaking it, scatters the
pieces on the road, revealing that he himself was the murderer.
While this is proceeding a great deal of by-play is going on
between the youth and his attendant, the impulse of the for-
mer being to rush upon the murderer and perpetrator of this
second outrage; but he is restrained by his faithful servant.
As the last comers pursue their journey, the youth and his at-
tendant come forward. By this desecration of his mother's
grave he has discovered her murderer, before unknown, and
learns that he is the chief of a powerful band of Lonins. He
immediately renews his oath to exact retribution; and the next
scene shows the entrance of the same inn, and the arrival of
the travelers with their baggage. Two of the boxes appear
to be treasure, which attracts the attention of the host to a sus-
picious degree. He is very officious in having it brought in,
assuring the guests there are many Lonins about, and that the
roads are very insecure. (Very much what my hosts, the Min-
isters, had been telling me.) And, it appears, he had the best
reason for knowing the fact! Something about him arouses
the suspicions of the ever-watchful servant, and he warns his
young master to be on his guard, for, as night is coming on, it
is too late to think of moving, but he will himself keep sentry
at his door all night. Left alone, the attendant is revolving in
his mind how best to secure himself against the treachery he
anticipates, when one of the waiting-maids peeps in, evidently
seized with great admiration for the comely stranger; and,
after a time, seeing him alone, she ventures softly in, and be-
gins to make advances. At first he is rather amused with the
naiveté of the whole proceeding, and the unhesitating avowal
of love that follows; but, having far other thoughts in his head,
he gets at last importuned, and endeavors, with a present, to
get rid of her. The parts of Tarquin and Lucretia seem in a
fair way to be reversed, and the curtain drops a great deal too
late, if a Japanese audience were susceptible of being outraged
by any thing gross or obscene. Their standard, whatever that
may be, is evidently not ours, or husbands would not bring
their wives, or mothers their daughters, to such plays. With
every disposition to be charitable, and making large allowances
for differences in national character and manners, and the wid-
est scope for the undefined margin of things conventional, mak-
ing that innocent in one country which is held indecent or im-


Chap. XXVIII]
115
THE PLAY.
their entertainment. Returning stealthily behind, he seizes
each by the neck, and either strangles them or dislocates their
spines in the most expeditious and effective manner, flinging
their bodies to one side just as his wile returns to^assure him
that all is right.
The stage revolves, and brings round the sleeping apartment
of the young master, his faithful attendant evidently on the
alert. He draws his long, formidable-looking sword, poises it
in his hands, feels its edge, and then lays it across his knee
ready for action, while his master sleeps within. Another rev-
olution of the stage, and we have again the outside, and from
the platform at the end of the pit a grand entree is made by
the chief of the brigands in a complete suit of brilliant armor,
rolling his eyes in the most alarming manner, and making fu-
rious grimaces at the audience as he takes a stage step with a
flourish of an enormous spear, all to the great delight of pit
and galleries, who cheer him enthusiastically. Arrived on the
stage, he meets the innkeeper (now seen to be one of the band),
who begins by showing his night's work in the dead bodies of
the two travelers, and then reports that he has a rich young
lodger in the house, with his servant and two boxes of treasure.
Of course it is immediately resolved that the band shall be
mustered, the house apparently broken into, and the travelers
robbed and murdered. Then follow the scenes of mustering—
a great number of pompously-declaimed speeches from every
one of some twenty Lonins, swearing fealty to their chief, which
stretch to such intolerable length that Mr. de Wit gets evi-
dently uneasy, thinks it is breakfast time, and is bent on sum-
marily finishing his part of the play. But our escort look so
unhappy at the bare idea of going away at such a critical time,
that we succeed, with some difficulty, in detaining him. The
stage is darkened, and now a man appears over the edge of
the wall surrounding the courtyard, who rapidly descends,
and is followed by several others, when they rush to the house
to force their way in.
As I write, I can not help being struck with the strange fact
that I .sat there in the theatre at Osaca, studying the manners
and customs of the people I had to live among, and was actu-
ally seeing rehearsed a scene precisely similar to one in which
I was destined very soon to be a chief actor myself, with some
of its tragic results. But I interrupt the play.
As the Lonins approached, the sliding screens of the room
were suddenly thrown back, and the servant appeared, sword
in hand, on the raised veranda which surrounds all Japanese
houses, and fought valiantly, finally retreating in the direction


116 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVIII.
of his master's room. There is a change of scene, and the
master himself appears, not in his plain undress, in which it
seems he had been traveling incognito, but brilliantly arrayed
for battle, with a surcoat of shirt mail, plumed helmet, and
flashing sword, with which he did instant execution, cleaving
down the assailants right and left; then leaping from his van-
tage-ground, he flung himself among them, and engaged the
whole band by twos and threes in succession, with extraordi-
nary grimaces and antics, evidently in the most approved pop-
ular style. He was already surrounded by heaps of slain, when
the dreaded chief himself at last appears, and after giving vent
to some expressions of strong disgust at the slaughter among
his followers, he deliberately prepares himself for a desperate
conflict, and certainly Astley's never saw any thing half so
grand or so absurd. For a moment he retreats, after a long
struggle, to draw breath, swearing as he goes that it is the
devil and no man he is fighting with; and in the interval the
landlord appears, and is laid on his back in a moment. Final-
ly, in a renewed struggle, the chief himself falls, and just as
both are about to be finished, the wife rushes in, and, falling at
the feet of the victorious youth, implores for mercy.
Will it be believed that at this intensely interesting crisis
my colleague resolutely got up, and, without any regard to
our feelings, declared it was long past breakfast time, and he
could not wait a moment longer! It was very hard, and I
doubt whether Tarasaki, our chief officer, and still more Horu,
the interpreter, ever quite forgave him. I confess I was my-
self anxious to know, as a matter of national morality, how the
whole would wind up—whether, notwithstanding the atrocity
of the villains and the dire provocation offered the brilliant
young hero, it would be more consistent with their code that
he should exercise generosity, and, in pity to the wife, spare the
husband, or, with Rhadamanthine sternness, execute justice.
And I am willing to think my readers will also thank me for
some notice of the denouement; and if not it will be very un-
grateful, for it cost me an infinity of trouble to arrive at it, hav-
ing them partly in view as an inducement to persevere. < Well,
then, it appears justice, not generosity, was the ideal of the illus-
trious author, and in a last speech the young prince declared
to the weeping wife that, although he was very sorry for her,
the crimes of both the delinquents were of too deep a dye to
be pardoned, the first having murdered his mother and then
defiled her grave, and her husband having plotted the murder
of his own guests; and so they were either killed on the spot
or handed over to justice, for that part of the story I could


Chap. XXVIII.] THE VENICE OF JAPAN.
never learn, and gave it up at last in despair. They are, like
the Chinese, a theatre-loving people there is no doubt, and par-
ties often remain and spend a whole day seeing either a suc-
cession of plays, or one interminable piece of ancient history,
and wars and battles innumerable. Many of the fair sex, too,
notwithstanding the absence of all refined or elaborate scenic
appliances, listen with breathless attention to heart-rending
passages of love and murder, weeping bitterly. When at Na-
gasaki, one of the Dutch residents gave me an instance within
his own personal knowledge of the simple and childlike faith
with which they allow a conviction of the reality to take pos-
session of them. A friend of his met one of the young females
in his establishment coming in one day, in a state of the great-
est trouble and grief, sobbing as though her heart would break.
'Why, what is the matter, Sana (flower, a common female ap-
dellation)? what has befallen you?' 'Oh, I am so miserabley sobbed out the desolate one. 'They have killed him, they have
killed him! that poor lover—the husband caught him, and ran
his sword through and through his body.' 'Who did? where
was it? and what had you to do with it?' he asked, conceiving
it was some domestic tragedy which had taken place in the
neighborhood, any lack of chastity of their wives being, accord-
ing to Japanese law and custom, punishable by instant death.
'O—oh! at the play!' 'Why, you little fool, it is all sham;
he has not been killed at all, the fine gallant, and is most likely
very busy eating his rice.' 'Oh no, he is killed indeed, in-
deed! I saw the sword go into his body as he fell.'
Refreshed by our breakfast at midday, we again returned
in the afternoon to our exploratory shopping, but this time
on horseback, and consequently much less successfully. The
next day we devoted to the navigation of the thirteen rivers
and canals which run through the city in all directions. Cer-
tainly this is the Venice of Japan. At least a hundred bridges
span these various streams in every direction, many of them
of enormous width and costly structure. The banks of the
main river are lined for two or three miles with the residences
of Daimios, with broad flights of granite steps descending to
the water's edge. And although they will bear not the faint-
est comparison with the noble palaces of Venice, and are mere-
ly long lines of wall, pierced at intervals with rather imposing
gateways, yet their number and extent alone give an impres-
sion of wealth and importance. Thousands of boats, filled with
merchandise or passengers, cover the broad surface of the wa-
ters, and every bridge was crowded to an alarming extent by
the population, eager to see the foreigners. In truth, the Jap-


118
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXVIII.
anese in general seem to take life and its labors very easily,
and are never too busy to collect in vast crowds to see any
thing novel. I took a sketch of one of the guard-houses on
the banks of the river while 'our special artist' was engaged
on a much more telling view of a bridge and the adjoining-
houses looking up one of the branches of a river opposite. In
picturesque features it scarcely yielded to a river scene in Italy.
The same glorious sun was over all, and the quaint projecting
roofs and irregularly grouped balconies and verandas lent
something of grace and originality to supply the place of arch-
itectural beauty.
Later in the day we made an attempt to reach some cele-
brated temple, and, in a moment of misplaced confidence in
our treacherous escort, were induced to abandon our boats at
the hottest hour of the day, believing the distance was short.
It proved a long hour's hot and dusty journey, and when we
got there, beyond a pile of buildings round a large court-yard,
and a rather ruinous-looking square pagoda in the centre, there
seemed to be nothing to see which we had not seen a hundred
times before in exactly the same forms. I had, indeed, long
given up looking at temples in Japan; for, after seeing one or
two, it is like looking at successive negroes—nothing but a fa-
miliarity of acquaintance, which you do not desire, can enable
you to distinguish any difference between them. It struck
some one, however, after we had rested a little and vented our
wrathful feelings on our guides for having beguiled us into
such an unconscionable and bootless journey, that from the top
of the pagoda we might get a good view of Osaka and the sur-
rounding country, which in some degree would repay us our
fatigue. But we reckoned without our host—that is, our offi-
cers—as a very short colloquy satisfied us.
'What have you brought us all this way to see?' 'This
outside of the walls?' 'There is nothing else.' 'What, have
they no insides?' 'Oh no! the priests live there.' 'Well,
but that pagoda; the Minister wants to see the view from the
top.' 'Oh, it is very unsafe; the stairs are broken.' 'Unsafe
is it? well, I dare say you have never seen it; let us judge for
ourselves.' 'We have not got the key.' 'But I suppose you
can get it?' 'No, we can not without an order.' • An order
from whom?' 'The Governor of Osaka.' 'Why don't you
say the Governor of Yeddo? it would be just as true, and
more out of reach!' Cosas cf Espdna I a little piece of Ya-
coninetrie. Not that there could be any rational motive for
making a difficulty any more than at Simonoscki in the case
fine temple.'








Chap. XXVIII.] SMELTING WORKS FOR COPPER.
121
of Taiko-sama's old rusty swords; but there must be some-
thing in the nature of Japanese officials which makes them find
a certain pleasure in creating obstacles, besides the opportuni-
ty it gives of exercising their inventive faculty in alleging rea-
sons which have no existence; and, lastly, carrying out the
general policy of their Government, no doubt carefully incul-
cated, ' In all things be obstructive; the less the foreigners can
do, or see, or know, the better!' a rule which has the great ad-
vantage of being at once comprehensive and simple.
By the time we returned, if we had not exhausted the ob-
jects of interest in Osaka, we had very nearly exhausted our
own powers. One gets wearied, too, with the never-ending
struggle against the systematic obstruction and deception prac-
ticed by those ostensibly placed under our orders for a totally
different purpose. We did indeed visit the smelting toprks
for copper, the produce of the Government copper mines, where it is a contractor's business to extract all the gold and
silver; but with lame interpretation, and no one either willing
or able to give an intelligible explanation of the processes, or
the usual percentage of gold and silver, or indeed any thing
else, little of useful information could be gleaned. As usual in
Japan, all the implements and appliances seemed very rude,
though they might be effective.
We had seen Osaca, and enough to be satisfied that, as re-
garded the population, there was no reason why access should
be denied to foreigners; indeed, to us Yeddites the unwonted
absence of two-sworded retainers lowering at us from every
street and corner made it appear a most desirable place of res-
idence. And, on the other hand, as regarded the development
of a large and flourishing trade, this great centre, with its port
of Hiogo, must be worth more to foreign commerce than all
the other ports put together. Of course these were all so
many good and excellent reasons for the Japanese Govern-
ment, or any dominant party of the retrograde Daimios, to op-
pose all access; and the menace of civil war and revolution
would be the most natural argument for them to use as a
means of deterring foreign Governments from insisting upon a
measure which would certainly go far to produce a social rev-
olution in a sense adverse to all feudal privileges and govern-
ment.
Capt. Craigie took leave of me at Osaca to return to his ship,
and I asked him to make such observations as he could in his
passage down the river, as to the facility it might afford for
trade. He found it, below the town, clear of bridges, and for
the first mile and a half sea-going junks were moored, two and
II.—F


122
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIX, three deep, on both banks as close as they could lie, leaving a
clear passage in the centre stream, which he estimated at about
120 yards wide. He had no means of sounding, but the junks
lying in the river he thought must have drawn at least eleven
feet of water. The river meets the sea at about five miles' dis-
tance from the city, and has no difficult turns. The current
was running at the time he went down about one and a half
knots. He saw no indications of a bar, although, judging by
all analogy in Japan, one probably exists. This he imagined
to be the entrance having the deepest water, although, no
doubt, from the flatness of the surrounding country there are
many other smaller ones.
We had proposed making an effort to see the palace of the
Tycoon, it having the repute of being the finest of the five he
possesses, though, so far as I can hear, it has never been inhab-
ited by any of the present dynasty. But our Vice Governor
and his Yaconins probably saw some grave objections to so
daring a project, and therefore devised such a walk to the tem-
ple—we were not permitted to see either—as would effectual-
ly satisfy even our sight-seeing appetite for that day at least.
probably by way of amends that, the next morning, they led
us by a circuitous route out of the city, from which we had an
excellent view of the outer walls; this being very generally
what they consider showing a place. The sketch, made on
the spot, perfectly conveys its general aspect and situation
from the road.
We were now fairly on our way to Yeddo, the last division
of the journey; and as we had consented to abandon our visit
to Miaco, we had to take a circuit to avoid it, which led us
through a part of the country where probably no European
had ever set his foot—certainly not since the days of the Por-
tuguese and Spaniards. It took us fifty minutes on horseback,
at a walking pace, to get clear of the city. We emerged on
to a wide plain covered with rice, wheat, and cotton, the cot-
ton and the wheat often sown on the same fields, the wheat
being ready to cut as the alternate row of cotton is coming
up. The ground for both, requiring to be drier than for rice,
CHAPTER XXIX.
Osaca to Yeddo.

succeeded perfectly. It was


Chap. XXIX.] CASTLE OF OSACA.—" TO JIN.
123

CASTLE OP OSACA.
is always raised from a few inches to a foot above the level
of the paddy-fields. The wheat was here nearly all carried (it
was June 19), and the rice, for the most part,had been planted
out from the seed-beds to the fields. We passed innumerable
hamlets and a large peasant population—noisy enough in the
villages—and, having gone on in advance of all our escort, we
found them, for the first time, disposed to be troublesome, vo-
ciferating after us lTojin, BabaJ Chinese trafficker or mer-
chant, their only idea of a foreigner being that of a Chinese
and a merchant. Tojin is their name for a Chinese, and Baba
for a huckster or trafficker, also for an old woman. Boys and
even men followed us from village to village to keep up the
annoyance. Some of the party wheeled round once or twice,
and a very sudden scamper to the rear relieved us for a time,
but only until they recovered breath and courage again to pur-
sue. I confess I was not without suspicion that they had been
set on by our own people—that is, the officers of our escort—
who, for some reason of their own, had desired to delay our
departure another day, and were very sulky at being compel-
led to resume their journey at our time instead of theirs; for
it was altogether unusual, to that extent at least, and never
occurred either before or after.


124
[Chap. XXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
At the other side of the plain we came upon a mountain
range finely wooded, and rising some four thousand feet. The
road, which was most picturesque as it wound circuitously over
the summit, made the ride in the early morning (for we had
started at five o'clock) very enjoyable. From the summit there
was a fine view across the whole breadth of the plain, and a
valley on the other side lay before us, bounded by another
range of mountains. As we toiled slowly up, leading our
horses, we heard some very sweet notes of the unguissu, not
unlike the notes of a nightingale, and I think nearly the only
bird in Japan that sings. It had one or two very sweet notes.
They say the Japanese teach them to sing beautifully, which
is the more extraordinary, if true, as they certainly do not teach
themselves; and, if I had not lived among the Chinese, I should
have said they had the least conception of either harmony or
melody of any race yet discovered. The discord they both
make, when they set themselves to produce what they call mu-
sic, is something that baffles all description. Marrow-bones
and cleavers are melodious in comparison, and the notes they
bring out of a sort of lute or guitar is something too excruci-
ating for endurance. And yet they make it a study, and there
are professional singers and teachers who as sedulously culti-
vate their art as any in Europe. The professors are often
blind; to judge by their performance, I should have guessed
them to be deaf also—certainly the audience should be. I
have a native artist's drawing of one of these blind professors
teaching a female pupil to play a stringed instrument, called
the samiseng, in great favor, apparently, with the Japanese.
At Okasaki, where we passed a night, some specimens of
porcelain were bought; this place having a special celebrity
for all such ware, so much so, indeed, that it has given a ge-
neric name, and mono-saki means in Japan' porcelain-ware,'
just as 'china' does with us. Some of the white porcelain
seemed very fine, and was surprisingly cheap, compared with
prices at Yeddo or Nagasaki. For eleven itziboos, or about
fifteen shillings,I had for my share a large basketful; some
of the contents both good and pretty.
As we advanced to Goicu the next day, the country began
to be closed in with hills on each side the Tocaido, a river
winding through the valley. We met a cortege, with some
Daimio of unusual importance, apparently; for a train of little
sand-heaps marked the road for several miles, in testimony of
respect, signifying that the road was freshly swept and sand-
ed for him especially. So, even with ourselves, there general-
ly ran before us a couple of little ragged urchins, dragging


Chap. XXIX.] WANDERING MINSTRELS.
125
their brooms after them, and shouting as they went, for an ad-
vertisement to all whom they might meet, the magic word
which brings every Japanese to his knees,' Shltanirio P or,
rather, this was the word which should have been articulated;
but, in their mouths, it was transmuted into a sort of monoto-
nous cry or howl, which we often took occasion to leave far
behind us by pushing our horses on. So, at the entrance of
every hongen or hostelry, when any one of rank is expected, a
heap of sand on each side of the door is the accustomed mark
of respect.

JAPANESE WANDERING MINSTRELS.
As we passed along the road, we often noticed at this part of
our course a boy or man with a stall for the sale of small arti-
cles of refreshment, and occasionally by his side a sort of frame-
work or gibbet, from which a row of tortoises were suspended
by the middle in the air. The poor little animals, wanting the
fulcrum Archimedis desiderated to move the earth, were vig-
orously 'beating the air with vain endeavor,' and plying their
limbs in the most futile but persevering efforts to make some
progress, and escape from such an unnatural position. The
torment devised for Ixion by the implacable gods, of perpetual
motion without progress, was never more effectually realized.
I confess I looked on these unhappy prisoners, exiled from


120
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIX.
their native element, and condemned to a life of endless effort
» without result, with a strong fellow-feeling of sympathy, struck
with the analogy of my own position as a Diplomatic Agent in
Japan, doomed, like them, to unceasing effort without any very
sensible progress, with the added consciousness of the inutility
of all attempts to make way against the crafty policy of those
who, affecting to observe the treaties, found means of always
evading execution, and in their weakness finding an element of
strength. Do they not keep the Representatives of Foreign
Powers suspended in an atmosphere of delusive promises and
vain expectations, without the only fulcrum that could avail to
insure execution and progress—Force, with Fear for a lever?
This is the only true basis of all power, perhaps, where love is
not, but especially it is so in the East, where the obligations
of good faith, irrespective of either fear or affection, has no ex-
istence when conditions have been imposed upon them which
they consider injurious, or find otherwise distasteful. The ob-
servance of treaties with Eastern nations, so long as these are
the results, in the first instance, not of their own free will and
desire, but the fear of a superior Power, can never be other-
wise than a matter of compulsion, however the thing itself
may be veiled by euphuisms of moral pressure; and to com-
pel where there is no effective force exercised or compulsion
used is not more a contradiction in terms than the attempt to
obtain the end, without appropriate and effective means, is an
absurdity in action. The Japanese, seeing only conciliation,
and forbearance, and long-suffering on the part of the Foreign
Representatives accredited to them, acting under the orders
of their respective Governments, treat very lightly all remon-
strance. Great Britain is habitually, though not very consist-
ently, perhaps, after forcing political and commercial relations
upon them, most reluctant to resort to coercive means for the
enforcement of treaties, while other Powers are naturally not
less reluctant, in the absence of material interests. And thus
the Japanese, it is to be feared, have begun to imagine that
nothing will induce any Foreign Power (unless it be Russia,
which they really fear) to go to war, and involve themselves in
all the trouble and cost of hostile operations at such an im-
mense distance. Thus fortified, they play out their game of
cross questions and crooked answers with imperturbable sang
froid and untiring vigor. Under such circumstances, are not
Foreign Ministers at Yeddo much in the case of the unhappy tor-
toises, and suspended, like Mohammed's coffin, between heaven
and earth, do they not give themselves an infinity of trouble,
to exceedingly little purpose, beyond that of a sense of unutter-


Chap. XXIX.] NARRA.—WILD COUNTRY.
127
able weariness at the end of each day? Poor tortoises! I
would gladly have purchased the whole stock in hand and
given them their liberty, but I reflected that if even those indi-
vidual units were released, they would immediately be suc-
ceeded by others under precisely similar conditions, and it
would, therefore, merely be to shift the burden on other shoul-
ders, without any diminution of the sum of misery; and so I
passed on my way, moralizing how little good one can certainly
effect in this world, even with the best intentions.
After descending the mountain, and traversing a wide val-
ley, with the same crops growing as in the one we had left, we
reached Narra, our sleeping-place. The day following, we
started again, soon after daybreak, for Kasangi, the next stage,
which was said to be only three Re (or about eight miles),
but it proved a good fifteen; by which we acquired the expe-
rience that, long as the Japanese have been striving after a per-
fect uniformity, they are as far from success as Charles V. in
the regulation of his watches, and have not even succeeded in
preventing a very considerable diversity in the length of their
Re in different parts of the country. As they have two kinds
of mat, one for the temples and the other for the laity, and
fans and mats are the units of all their measurement, if these
vary there is an end of unity! A fan in Japan is little more
than a foot English, and a mat is usually calculated at six in
length. It is to be presumed there are two standards of meas-
urement in these, at least. If this was temple measurement,
all I can say is that it was a very liberal one. Fortunately I
had now my own saddle-horses, making that a pleasure which
previously was an intolerable fatigue. Nothing could exceed
the picturesque character of the country through which our
way lay this morning. We rode through defiles of mountains,
amidst a very chaos of hills and ravines, the former tumbled
wildly together, looking like a troubled sea of billows suddenly
petrified. It must have been the theatre of some long extinct
volcanic action, and for miles half filled-up craters seemed the
leading feature. The same sandstone formation so constantly
observed in Kiusiu reappeared, and as the sun poured a flood
of light upon the whole amphitheatre, it only seemed to make
the desolation more clear. This was the circuitous route
adopted in order to leave Miaco to the left, which compelled us
to take a cross-road, only some five or six feet in width, wind-
ing round the base of the hills to a river of the same name as
the town we were approaching. Here, for the first time, in
little sheltered nooks and valleys where cultivation could go
on, tea-bushes were observed forming a border or hedge to the


128
[Chap. XXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
wheat and cotton fields. We came upon a patch or two of
tobacco, also, before reaching the river which ran through the
valley, broad, rapid, and shallow. We crossed, with our horses,
in boats, and on the opposite banks, a little farther on, we found
our halting-place for the noon meal. A chateau of the Prince
of Itzi was nestled into the face of the hill opposite us, which
Mr. Gower succeeded in photographing, but is scarcely worth
reproducing, for the Daimios' houses are something like them-
selves—there is little to be learned from the exterior.
Here, too, for the first time, we observed, not a 'rope of
sand,'' but a rope of boulders or paving-stones, which was wor-
thy of all admiration for the simplicity of the contrivance, its
cheapness and efficiency. It consists of a cylinder of variable
length, some two feet in diameter, made of split bamboo woven
in wide meshes, only just too small to allow the escape of a
good-sized pebble, such as the streams roll down from the hills.
And with these filled to any length required, they build up
dams, and bank up rivers to resist the force of the stream.
The only cost is that of the split bamboo, the cheapest of all
their products, and the labor, the next cheapest article, required
to make it into this sort of net and fill it with stones; the last
cost nothing but the trouble of picking them up. Here is an
illustration, which I begged the artist would give me, of a de-

A HOPE OF STONES.
vice so ingenious that I could not help thinking, had the scene
of the great wizard's exploit been Japan instead of Scotland,
he might not have had such an easy victory over the devil,


Chap. XXIX.] NO SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
129
when he fairly baffled satanic ingenuity by setting him to weave
a rope of sand.
Our baggage and commissariat were long in coming up, and
a four hours' ride made some refreshment desirable, so we had
a Japanese breakfast served. It consisted of a series of little
dishes, some very nice, and others much the reverse, to my
taste. But it was very daintily served. Each of us had our
own tray, raised about a foot from the ground, and three dish-
es, one of bamboo-root sliced, a delicacy when stewed tender,
salt fish, a bowl of rice with soy and divers lesser condiments,
with a flask of saki to aid digestion, all for the extravagant
sum of three tempos, or, as nearly as may be, threepence. As
I looked across the river at this country house of the Daimio,
I found myself speculating on the kind of life men of that class
led. What were their occupations and amusements? How did
they bear the ' burden and mystery of this life' without weari-
ness, or being a prey to mortal ennui in the absence of any ab-
sorbing interest or undergrowth of small pleasures? This
speculation has often recurred to my mind. They are not per-
mitted any social intercourse with their own class. None but
blood relations may visit each other—so at least the Ministers
have assured me when taxed with an offensive and hostile at-
titude in excluding the Foreign Representatives from all so-
cial intercourse with the Daimios. One can well understand
such a law having been made by Taiko-sama, after he had
broken the spirit and reduced the power of all those banded in
arms against him, as a safeguard against future plots and con-
spiracies, and that the dynasty which superseded his own
should, from motives of policy, have continued to uphold the
same jealous system. But its effect on the social and intellect-
ual life must be withering. It is cunningly strengthened by
a purely conventional creed, which attributes inferiority to
whichever of two Daimios or officers pay the other a visit. It
is easy to conceive how powerfully this comes in aid to pre-
vent all social intercourse among a class of punctilious and
proud nobles, all claiming equality of birth and privileges.
But this only makes it more difficult to understand how their
time is passed. Some plotting and attempts at combination
do go on notwithstanding, as we have had tolerably clear evi-
dence in the political troubles which have taken place since the
treaties with Foreign Powers were first entered into. A little
treasonable plotting between factions, some in communication
with the Mikado (not quite so entirely shut out from objects
of sublunary interest as has been represented), to weaken, con-
trol, or depose the reigning Tycoon, must be a precious re-


130
True. XXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
source against a tedium vitas which otherwise would make
mere existence a grievous burden! Then the compulsory resi-
dence six months every year, or each year alternately, at Yed-
do, under more active surveillance, and the long journey there
and back, must come in aid to kill time, for the existence of a
grievance may even help to save them from utter stagnation.
Some among the more able, restless, and powerful may doubt-
less exercise direct influence over the councils of the Tycoon,
and the policy or action of his Government; and now that the
whole country has been moved to its centre, and the elements
of change and disorder let loose by the new relations with
Foreign Powers, they may find a sufficiently exciting occupa-
tion in politics. But with all this, as they are several hund-
reds, there must be many wholly excluded from this redeem-
ing excitement and field of exertion. The question, therefore,
still recurs, What do they do with themselves and their time?
They have a wife, and are unlimited in the number of concu-
bines within doors. They have large or small territories and
estates which must be managed, and subjects which must also
be taxed and governed. No doubt that must afford some in-
teresting occupation, but I can not learn that they hunt or en-
ter into outdoor or active occupation, or recreation of any
kind; and to pass day after day, and month after month, in
side their own houses and parks, we know, in England and
elsewhere, requires no ordinary amount of philosophy, and a
very unusual frame of mind to bear for a continuance, even
with the sweetest wife and the liveliest children man can be
blessed with. And I do not suppose multiplying the number
of either would materially improve the conditions. Altogeth-
er it has always been to me a very puzzling question, which
nothing but a month's residence in the interior of one of these
country houses could ever satisfactorily solve.
On the third day after we left Osaca, a deviation was made
from the settled programme for our halting-places for the
night, at the earnest desire of the Vice Governor and his broth-
er officers. The grounds given for the change were as frivo-
lous and unsatisfactory as are usually any reasons given by
Japanese officials. But as one never expects they will tell
their true motives, one learns to regard those actually pro-
duced as mere forms, and to decide on other grounds. They
said Saki, the place proposed, was more convenient; that it
was nearer, which was undeniable; that all the houses fit for
our reception at Nieno, the place originally named for the
night's halt, were under repair, etc. We took it for granted
they had some good reason of their own, since they gave them-
V


132
[Chap. XXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
Without the Mikado's imprimatur they were binding and ob-
ligatory upon no one out of the Tycoon's territories—the ports
opened to foreigners and the capital of Yeddo—and not upon
the Daimios and their subjects even at Yeddo! For when
these came within the limits of districts wholly under the sway
of the Tycoon, they made no scruple in offering insult, or
wounding and slaying the treaty-guaranteed foreigner. The
Western Powers had not made treaties with the Empire or its
Sovereign, but with the Tycoon only reigning in five imperial
ports, with their adjoining districts. Later, when I returned
to Yeddo, and startling events brought the whole question of
the Tycoon's powers under discussion, I found full confirma-
tion of the correctness of this view of the basis of treacherous
quicksands on which our actual relations with Japan rest.
Notwithstanding the affirmation of the Minister of Foreign
Affairs that the Mikado had ratified the treaties, I think there
can be little doubt that, to this day, they want the sanction of
the only recognized Sovereign of the Empire; and this sup-
plies a key to much of the vacillation and weakness of the ex-
ecutive under the Tycoon's authority. They are paralyzed by
the want of legality in the treaties, which they are neverthe-
less constrained to make a show at least of executing in good
faith. Hence their confessions of compulsory regard to ' pub-
lic opinion,' of the impossibility of efficient action contrary to
it, and their last petitio ad periculum as well as ad misericor-
diam, to be released from the clauses which stipulated for the
opening of Yeddo on January 1, 1862, and three more ports,
Neagata, Hiogo, and Osaca. The riddle thus read leaves little
farther to explain in regard to the jealous obstruction encount-
ered through all the Daimios' territories. Of the sort of levee
which, despite all these jealous precautions, attended us in all
the larger towns where we halted, Mr. Wergman, in the sketch
on page 81, has given a very graphic picture. Not only the
people, but the architecture of the streets, the costumes and
characters of the population, are all equally faithfully render-
ed. This was taken at Odah, and shortly after leaving it he
took an equally faithful view of village life (given on page 86)
and architecture on the roadside, with the women beating out
their corn, wielding vigorously the most simple of flails. In
passing through these primitive habitations the traveler is oft-
en reminded of the scriptural warning of two women at the
mill, precisely the same scene occurring which must have been
present to the mind of the speaker when the prophecy and
the warning were uttered —two women standing at the same
primitive stone mill, grinding the rice by alternating action in


Chap. XXTX.] INTERIOR OF COTTAGES.—BOXWOOD. 133
each. These villages, as I have observed, are rather poverty-
stricken even in Nipon, and the interiors of the thatched cot-
tages do. not really promise much beyond mere shelter for man
and beast, and not much better for the one than the other.
Except a raised platform or matted room, where all the family,
no matter how many in number, or of how many generations
composed, must be huddled together at night, there is no pro-
vision for comfort, placing that at the lowest standard, and
nearly as little for decency. The back yards are cumbered and
dirty. The entrances, and even the mud floors by the side of
the raised matted room, seem habitually resorted to, where
there are young children, for purposes one would have thought
the least refined or cleanly people might have objected to as
unsightly and filthy. This is the more extraordinary, as it is in
striking contrast to a great love of order and cleanliness in
some other respects. In the larger establishments there is a
separate kitchen, by far the most picturesque part of the build-
ing. Here I used generally to seek the artist, when I failed to
find him in the front, making one of his wonderful street
sketches. It is vast and gloomy, with rafters blackened in the
smoke, not cribbed and cabined in chimneys, but allowed free
circulation. Here all that are not' gentle' in blood or preten-
sion generally congregate, men and women, and every variety
of occupation goes on harmoniously together, from cooking,
eating, and chattering, to washing, bathing, and sleeping. A
sketch of one of these interiors has already been given, but
on the following page will be found a very good type of the
best-looking of the daughters of the house, in such an estab-
lishment generally sold to servitude for a term of years—a
course, perhaps, less essentially differing from our apprentice-
ship than we might at first suppose.
Our way lay for many days through mountain scenery and
fertile valleys, the hills generally clothed to the very summit
with trees, chiefly of the pine family. The same sandy char-
acter of the soil, and the formation of the hills already noticed,
continued until we approached within sight of Fusiyama, when
it was exchanged for the dark rich mould which alone is to be
seen within a hundred miles of Yeddo. Among the trees, the
box of tolerable growth seems abundant: my attention was
drawn to the fact by hearing that for artistic purposes the
supply hitherto received chiefly from Turkey was beginning
to fail. There might be a resource here against any dearth;
but whether the Japanese Government would not look with
alarm upon any attempt to export their woods, and take effi-
cient means to prevent it, is more than I can undertake to say!


134
[Chap. XXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.

I think it is very probable; for in proposing to the Govern-
ment that they should furnish me with samples of all their
woods to send to the Great Exhibition, I said that, if they
chose, as they were rich in woods, they might find in their ex-
port a source of national wealth. They did send some twenty-
six specimens, but I observed that any attempt to get at the
prices was steadily evaded by the officers, who were careful to
observe that they were generally very scarce and dear. In
truth, there can be no free development of trade in Japan
while the Government regards commerce with foreign coun-
tries as a detriment and a source of national impoverishment,
instead of bringing prosperity and increased wealth. Their
political economy and their policy must both change; and the
one must precede the other, I fear, before foreign trade can be
placed on any assured or permanent basis; but nations and
governments are difficult subjects for education, and usually
uncommonly slow at learning a new lesson, especially the for-
mer, when the object is to build up and not to pull down.
As we were approaching Kamogawa we passed a castle
with moats and a crenelated wall, both apparently of great ex-
tent. I had ordered an express to be sent from Yeddo, to
meet me at Miaco, if a mail arrived, and, although a courier had
been sent to that city with orders to forward any dispatches
by the route I was now taking, I did not feel quite sure that


Chap. XXIX.] A JAPANESE POSTMAN. 135
there might not be some mistake. While meditating on the
chances of their being detained at Miaco, or otherwise missing
me, I saw two men stripped to their loin-cloths approaching
at a quick trot, one of them carrying over his shoulder a care-
fully-secured packet, and every one instantly getting out of
their way. I immediately recognized by these signs an ex-
press with Government dispatches, and for a moment hoped
they might be mine; but, without deigning to look at us, they
sped swiftly on, and I had the greatest difficulty, by sending

JAPANESE POST—AN EXPRESS.
a mounted officer after them, to get an answer that they were
an 'Imperial express carrying dispatches to the Government
at Miaco.' Even this was not altogether satisfactory; for, as
the express courier who would have my own would be sent to
Miaco by Government officials, and suppose he was carrying
Government dispatches, they might still be my unfortunate
letters that I had- seen speed past me. It was not until many


136
[Chap. XXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
days later, when a mail actually reached me from Yeddo, that
I could assure myself on the subject. These couriers will trav-
el in this way—being relieved at short stages and always go-
ing in couples, to provide against one meeting with any acci-
dent—at a very swift rate. From Yeddo to Nagasaki or Ha-
kodadi, if not stopped by stormy weather in crossing rivers or
bays, they will go in nine days a distance of some 350 Re or
850 miles, and may generally be depended upon both for punc-
tuality and trustworthiness. I only know of one case where
a courier of my own between Kanagawa and Yeddo mysteri-
ously disappeared with an English mail, and I never was able
to obtain either satisfaction or information from the Govern-
ment. For such a journey as that to Nagasaki, the expense is
usually twenty kobangs, or six pounds sterling, when express.
On the fourth day we had struck into the ordinary route,
and had the advantage of the fine sanded roads and park-like
avenues of the Tocaido. And now each day we met one or
more corteges of Daimios coming from the capital. As a gen-
eral rule we had nothing to complain of; if some of the prin-
cipal officers and armed retainers scowled at us, and seemed to
think our presence on the high roads an offense, the greater
number passed on their way, as we did ours, without any ex-
pression of feeling or opinion. In one case only, I was amused
by a somewhat characteristic trait. Mr. de Wit and I were
riding abreast and without any escort, having left them far be-
hind, when, seeing rather a large cortege filling up the road as
we turned an angle, we drew to one side of the road and went
in single file. No sooner did the leading officer observe the
movement than he instantly began to swagger, and motioned
all the train to spread themselves over the whole road, so that
all we gained by our consideration and courtesy was to run
the risk of being pushed into the ditch by an insolent subor-
dinate.* Thus it ever is in the East. , To yield the wall is a
sign of weakness; to yield in any thing spontaneously is to
provoke oppression; and they who, from courtesy, step aside,
are fortunate if they do not get trampled down for cowards
or fools. This is why the East is a bad school for teaching
moderation. There are but two classes clearly marked, the
oppressors and the oppressed, and the only choice too often
seems to lie between them.
As we advanced through the country, men and women both
were all busily employed in planting out their rice. This was
* The late savage and murderous attack on the high road by Prince Sat-
suma's people is a sinister commentary on the chances we ran on the road,
the circumstances were so closely parallel.


Chap. XXIX.] AGRICULTURAL LABORS.
137
the first time I had seen any but isolated cases of women being
engaged in field labors in Japan; for the Japanese appear to
me to be honorably distinguished among nations of a higher
civilization, in that they leave their women to the lighter work
of the house, and perform themselves the harder out-door la-
bor. Indeed at first I was in some doubt here, for it was by
no means easy to distinguish the women from the men at a lit-
tle distance, with the heads of both covered, as the former
were travestied. To guard the legs probably from leeches, as
they paddled in the mud, they all wore gaiters up to the knees,
and short cotton trowsers. When the neck was covered, there
was no very distinguishing difference between the sexes, as
the men never have any hair about the face. Some of the
ground was still under the plow; a light wooden frame, with
an iron-pointed plowshare, drawn by a small pony, turned over
the soil with ease, though not very deeply, nor is deep plow-
ing required, probably. In some fields they were plowing in
weeds and vegetables, apparently as manure. Some of the
ground had been put up in ridges, and many were engaged,
after it had been flooded, in leveling them into the water. The
wheat in Japan never appears to be sown broadcast. All that
I have seen has been drilled and planted in rows, much as the
rice is, a few stalks together. Labor is cheap, and it is to be
presumed they find this the more profitable way. The cape
jasmine, one of the few flowers that has any scent in this coun-
try, was every where in blossom in the hedges and about the
cottages, and so was the privet. As we moved through town
after town, and village after village, in our daily journeys, I ob-
served a good deal of ophthalmia—blind people not unfrequent-
ly also; and among the children, scaldhead is very common:
a disease generally held by the faculty to have some associa-
tion with dirt. And the children do look dirty, despite the
many washings they must undergo. But the truth is, people
of the lower classes in Japan herd, and sleep, and bathe so pro-
miscuously huddled together, that if there be any disease com-
municable by contact, they can not fail to spread it. They
seem to have a very inveterate form of itch, which Dr. Pompas,
in Nagasaki, assured me was not to be cured by the ordinary
treatment in Europe—yellow soap and sulphur it defies; and
it is disgustingly prevalent, so much so that it is difficult to
get domestic servants free from it.
As we approached Mia, on the Bay of Owari, we passed an-
other great castle. And yet this phraseology is very likely, I
fear, to mislead any reader. What constitutes a Daimio's
chateau or castle, then, in Japan, is first a moat surrounded by


138
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIX.
a wall, generally built of mud intersected with layers of tiles
and plastered over, sometimes with parapets and loopholed for
musketry. A large gateway, with massive overhanging roof;
a straggling group of ignoble-looking lath and plaster houses
inside, rarely more than one story high; and sometimes, if the
owner is a Daimio of very great pretensions, his walls will be
flanked with turrets; and in his grounds, something like a two
or three storied square pagoda will rise above the dead level
of the other roofs, and look picturesque through the clumps of
fine timber, with which the grounds of the owners are always
graced, whatever else be wanting. Kawana is a place of some
consequence, and might, in the event of hostilities, become an
important position as a base of operations. It lies at the head
of the gulf forming the Bay of Owari, which we had to cross
over to reach Mia on the opposite side, where the Tocaido re-
commences. We were six hours in performing the transit;
but a violent thunder-storm, with rain, drove all our boatmen
under cover, and, as is their habit under similar circumstances,
they cast out their anchor, and took to their rice and pipes for
a couple of hours. The distance across is seven Re—say twen-
ty miles. The castle at Kawana is the property of Matzudaira
Etchinno Kami, in the province of Sesein, and, to judge by the
circuit of the walls, must be of unusual importance and magni-
tude. They are washed for nearly two miles by the waters of
the bay, and could easily be assailed from the water face. They
somewhat later objected to our surveying vessels going near
this bay on some plea that it was Mikado's territory, and he
had objected. I believe it was a mere pretext to prevent our
gaining information they did not think it desirable we should
have.
And here, or at Mia, I should probably have ended my jour-
ney overland by giving rendezvous to the ' Ringdove' to take
me up in the bay, for, notwithstanding many objects of interest
on the road from day to day, the mode of traveling, especially
in a party with a large attendance of servants and Japanese of-
ficials, is so wearisome, the rate of progression so slow, and the
sort of camp fashion of living, with noise, and clamor, and con-
fusion reaching from the court-yard and servants' offices to the
sleeping rooms late into the night, and beginning long before
daybreak each morning, becomes, by constant repetition and
iteration, irksome enough to make a fixed habitation, and some-
thing like peace and tranquillity, seem very desirable. But my
colleague was very unwilling to abridge his journey. I think
he deemed it a duty to do as all his predecessors had done be-
fore him; and as all the arrangements, even to the cooks and


Chap. XXIX.] NANGOYA.—ARIMATZ.—ARAI.
139
batterie de cuisine, had been made in view of the whole party
continuing together to the end, I was compelled, somewhat
reluctantly I confess, to continue as I had begun, and abandon
all idea of cutting a long journey short.
The capital of Nagoya,in the province of Owari, lies only
three Re from Mia. It is said to possess the highest palace
in Japan; but as it lay that distance off the Tocaido and our
direct route, any proposal to visit it, without previous negotia-
tion with the Tycoon's Government and the consent of the
Prince in whose dominions it was, we had now sufficient expe-
rience to know, was out of the question, and we wasted no
time, therefore, in vain efforts.
Between Mia and Ocasaki, we passed through a clean, flour-
ishing, well-to-do little town called Arimatz, celebrated in Ja-
pan for the manufacture of a peculiar stuff for ladies' dresses.
It was certainly the most comfortable looking town we had
seen, and we stopped to buy several specimens, which, on the
principle already intimated of doubt as to my own capacity for
choosing what might be deemed wearable by my fair country-
women, were duly dispatched after the silks and tapestry to
the Exhibition, to take their place in the class of' textile fab-
rics' from Japan.
The whole road to Ocasaki is a beautiful sanded avenue
through an open country, though always with hills or mount-
ains in the horizon. All level ground in Japan would seem,
indeed, but circumscribed plains or valleys of variable dimen-
sions, in great contrast to the dead level and all but boundless
plains of the great river-courses of China. Villages and towns
follow in quick succession, and rarely at a greater interval than
one or two leagues at farthest, along the whole route from Na-
gasaki to Yeddo. It is not always safe to judge of the extent
of population in a country from what we see along the great
trunk lines of communication and traffic, whether by water or
land; but so far as a judgment may be formed of the rest of
the country which we did not see by what actually was seen,
the population must be quite as dense as it has been represent-
ed by Kcempfer and the Dutch writers. At Arai we had to
take boat again, and the Prince of the place graciously gave us
his own lackered boat for our passage across. This is a fron-
tier station, like those in the passes of Hakoni, where a vigilant
watch is kept on all who pass to and from Yeddo; and the
better to enforce this, there is some rule that no one may pass
the guard to the strand except on foot, from which, as Foreign
Representatives attended by an escort of the Tycoon's, we
were entitled to be exempt. And, although this was admitted,


140
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIX.
our head officer had very nearly succeeded in getting our horses
embarked, while we rested to let the boats be got ready. Of
course, it would have been ' the mistake' of some irresponsible
menial, for which our really responsible officer would have been
'profoundly sorry,' with an inward chuckle that we had been
outwitted, and compelled to pass through their caudine forks!
We crossed the Bay of Maisaca, a distance of one Re, rather
less than a league, but the whole way nearly in a sort of canal,
most ingeniously engineered between two breakwaters, stretch-
ing right across the middle of the bay, advantage, apparently,
having been taken of some sand-banks or islands, on which
pine-trees are growing. As we neared Maisaca, a great line
of breakers out to seaward marked a reef which would seem
to close the bay.
The next day we breakfasted at JTamamatz. The road was
still a well-sanded avenue, only interrupted at intervals by
pretty, rural-looking villages, with fine clipped hedges, made
of a species of pine-tree. The only thing which marred the
Arcadian effect of the whole, strange to say, was the female
population; and their faces, despite black teeth and red paint,
were by no means the ugliest or most repulsive features about
them. Really, considering what absolute and arbitrary power
is exercised by Tycoon and Daimios, one is inclined to regret,
if not to wonder, that there has never been an edict making it
a high crime and misdemeanor for the fairer part of the popu-
lation to appear without a vest after sixteen years have passed
over their heads. It is hard to say which would gain most,
the men or the women; but, very assuredly, there would be
great gain and benefit to all parties! I noted Hamamatz in
my diary of the journey especially, with red chalk, '. half way?
Happy day! Decidedly, the journey was getting tedious; and
that my narrative of it may not incur the same condemnation,
I shall very briefly touch upon what yet remained to be seen.
Immediately after leaving Hamamatz we had to make our
way across a plain traversed in all directions by rivers and
flooded water-courses, swelled by the rains, and these had
broken the bridges and dilapidated all the roads. One of the
villages we passed through was entirely devoted to straw shoe-
plaiting; and, notwithstanding the enormous consumption
there must be, it evidently was not a trade on which people
could grow rich. It was, in truth, the most wretched and pov-
erty-stricken village I have ever seen in the country. They all
looked like beggars' hovels. The following day our route lay
over a range of mountains, with scenery finer in character, and
more massive and wild than any we had seen for many days.


Chap. XXIX.]
141
RIVER OIGAWA.
At Cakengawa they are celebrated for weaving a kind of lin-
en from the bark of a creeper. I brought away some speci-
mens, both of the fabric and the raw material. Rain-coats are
made of the same bark unwoven, and only slightly plaited, and
these are highly esteemed as both light and impervious. In
descending the hill, our attention was called to a great boul-
der in the middle of the road, which is said to mark the spot
where the murder of a woman was committed in revenge;
and every night, I was gravely assured, the stone weeps!
Arrived at the banks of the river lying between Kanaya and
Okabe, it was found impassable by our chief Yaconin. The
next morning, however, its passage presented no difficulty, and
we descended into a valley almost entirely filled up with the
pebbly bed of the stream, nearly a league across. The stream
itself, rushing over this wilderness of stone, was not, in the
largest branch, above 200 yards wide, but unusually deep, for
our bearers were sometimes up to the shoulder; and as a false
step would have precipitated norimon and passenger into the
troubled stream, without a possibility of deliverance, since the
norimon would have acted as a trap to drown one in, it was
rather a nervous operation. However, as our Yaconius trust-
ed themselves in such ready-made coffins, it was scarcely fit-
ting that we should show less hardihood; and so, trusting in
Providence and the sturdy porters, we did as the rest, and
were safely landed, while our horses breasted the current and
swam across. It was an admirable subject for a sketch, and
even a photograph was taken. This river, Oigawa, an abbre-
viation for OJci gawa, or great river, affords endless material
for native artists and illustrations. The women of the poorer
classes are carried across on the men's shoulders, and as the
men are themselves nearly immersed in the water, it follows
that their burden below the waist can not be very dry; but, in
Japan, such difficulties are easily met. The lady tucks up her
clothes as she gets astride her steed, and he, on arriving at the
other side, sets her gently down, and, before he is on his feet,
or can turn round to receive her payment, the costume is all
perfectly in order, and the lady escapes wet clothes for the
rest of the journey, and probably a rheumatism for life. Real-
ly, it is impossible to deny that a certain Spartan simplicity of
costume and manners has its advantages in such a primitive
country as Japan, at least.
As we descended to the banks of the river, we obtained a
first view of Fusiyama, and a glorious sight it was; he never
looked grander. The first rays of an Eastern sun just lit up
the peak, while a fleecy mantle of clouds clung to the descend-


142
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXIX.
ing slopes. It was like the old familiar face of a friend, and I
doffed my cap in greeting and salutation, to the great delight
of the Japanese, who felt, no doubt, it was only a proper mark
of respect to the majesty of their sacred mountain.
I felt now the journey was really drawing to a close. Three
days more would bring us into the old road traversed the year
before in my first pilgrimage. The Hakoni range only lay be-
tween us and the sea-shore, by which the high road to Yeddo
took its course on to Foogisawa. From thence a sharp morn-
ing ride of five leagues would take us into Kanagawa.
So, on the thirty-second day after we started from Nagasaki,
I arrived at the British Consulate in Kanagawa, without acci-
dent or serious contretemps, right glad to have performed the
journey; thankful too, though less so, perhaps, than, as com-
ing events soon proved, we ought all to have been, for our
preservation from serious peril by the way.

9
OUR CHIEF TACON1N.


Chap. XXX.] RETURN TO YEDDO.
143
CHAPTER XXX.
Return to Yeddo.—Attack on the Legation in the Night, and desperate At-
tempt at a General Massacre.
On my arrival at Kanagawa some public business detained
me a couple of days, and it was not until July 4 that I rode
up to Yeddo. The day was fine, and I mounted with a pleas-
urable feeling that at last the journey was over, and I was
about to return to my home in the East. Is there any land
or place of exile where an Englishman does not turn toward
the residence where he has been domiciled more or less per-
manently, however uninviting it may be in many respects,
without something of a home-like feeling gathering round his
heart as he approaches the familiar roof? God knows, our
residence in Yeddo had few of the many blessings which in
our native land is associated with a home. No wife or chil-
dren were there to greet us, no grace of womanhood cast its
spell upon the hearth. There was, indeed, no hearth for either
light or shadow to rest upon in that Pagan temple of a hea-
then and hostile city. Yet, as I crossed the boundary river
half way, and saw on the opposite bank old familiar faces I
had left behind, and some new ones arrived in my absence, all
waiting eager to give me a cordial welcome back, I clasped
their hands with a glad feeling to be among them, and at my
post once more, despite its manifold anxieties and troubles; all
the more cheerfully, it may be—why should I deny it ?—that
in one of those who had come to meet me I saw Mr. Oliphant,
the newly-appointed Secretary of Legation, a relief which
would enable me to turn my steps homeward in a few months.
We all mounted gayly. My escort, the same that had ac-
companied me all the way from Nagasaki, appeared to have
felt it a point of duty to see me safely into Yeddo, and, although
it seemed to me a superfluous exhibition of zeal, I could not,
without something of ungraciousness, decline their company;
so that, with the whole strength of the Legation in Euro-
peans, and my escort of Japanese, had there been any danger
to apprehend on the road, we made rather a formidable look-
ing party to attack. I confess, nothing was farther from my
thoughts than such a possibility. It was only by the kind of
reflected light of after events that I remembered having no-


144
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. xxx. ticed the whole way, as we passed through the various ham-
lets on the roadside, an appearance of interest, a stir and ex-
citement in the population, which at any other time would cer-
tainly have struck me as very extraordinary. We were so
accustomed to pass to and fro on this road between Yeddo and
the port of Kanagawa, that our appearance had long ceased
to have any novelty. I simply thought that, as I was return-
ing after a long absence, and with a larger escort than usual,
the chief officer had sent on before, determined to keep up the
usages of the journey on to the end, and had thus been the cause
of a turn-out of the whole population. As I entered Sinaga-
wa I did notice, however, with some surprise, that all the side
streets were shut off by rope-barriers, and that the tea-shops
and houses of entertainment where the soldiers and retainers
of the Daimios go for dissipation were all shut up, and I had
intended to make some inquiry as to the reason for such un-
usual proceedings; but, arrived at the Legation, I thought no
more about it. Dispatches and letters, with newspapers of
two mails, were all waiting my arrival, and I devoted myself
to them without farther concern as to the incidents of the
road.
The next day was a very fatiguing one. Numerous pack-
ing-cases full of things from England and from China had ac-
cumulated in my absence. Trunks had to be unpacked, and
many other matters required immediate attention; so that
when the dinner-hour came round at seven o'clock, I was more
tired than I had been in the longest day's journey. I accord-
ingly took leave of the other members of the Legation early
after dinner, and before eleven o'clock I was in bed and asleep.
In the summer time, with a view to coolness and the better to
insure a current of air, it was the custom at the Legation to
sleep with the whole front of the house looking toward the
gardens open; the sliding screens, shutting in the lower part,
merely closed to keep out the pariah dogs, which sometimes
found their way into the grounds; but they had no fastening,
and merely consisted of a light framework of wood, covered
with thin paper, so as not to exclude the light.
It is necessary to give some preliminary description of the
building and locality, to enable the reader to realize the events
of this night. The Legation was temporarily located in the
reception-rooms of one of the largest temples of Yeddo, sur-
rounded by extensive and beautifully wooded grounds. The
temple itself, with all its contiguous buildings, is a vast scram-
bling place, situated in the bottom of a valley, surrounded by
a great screen of evergreen oaks, maples, and shrubs, forming


Chap. XXX.]
145
MEASURES FOR PROTECTION.
for a quarter of a mile a sort of shrubbery or jungle. A
cross-road leading into the Tocaido ran over the hill at the
back, where there was a private entrance opening directly
upon a fine avenue, from whence a flight of steps led directly
to my own apartments, which were at this angle of the build-
ing. The other side of the house was approached from the
Tocaido, or main street leading into the city, by an avenue
three hundred paces in length, and through a succession of
court-yards, one of which, that leading directly to the entrance
of the Legation, was stockaded all round and closed by a gate.
Along the whole of this avenue and in the courts were not
only porters at the outer and inner gates, always closed at
night, but a Japanese guard of Tycoons' and Daimios' soldiers
to the number of one hundred and fifty, who had been placed
there on service by the Japanese Government ever since the
menaces of attack which had preceded the murder, in the
streets, of the American Secretary of Legation in January of
this year. Two watchmen of the Legation, and in our pay,
were also on duty every night, whose business it was to go
the rounds from sunset to sunrise.
The reader may now be enabled to form some sort of idea
of the British Legation in Yeddo, and its situation, and under-
stand, what I had always felt, that if any attack should ever
take place by determined men, such as made the onslaught on
the Regent in open day, a more insecure or indefensible posi-
tion could not well have fallen to our lot. From the road at
the back any number of men might have penetrated through
the slight fence at night, without being detected by droning
watchmen, and patrols who only went round every hour, and
not with much certainty. And if they knew the locality, they
might have entered the house along the whole front at twenty
different points, beginning with my own apartments, and walk-
ed right up to my bed. Perhaps it will be thought unac-
countable imprudence or foolhardiness, with such a possibility,
and the often-renewed menace of an onslaught, that greater
precautions were not taken, at least so far as to close in this
more exposed face of the house with shutters. But it was
difficult to believe in the existence of the danger, or that, what-
ever isolated attempts might be made on my life or that of
others, a deliberately planned attack on the Legation, sur-
rounded by a hundred and fifty guards, would be ever re-
solved upon, unless something like a general rising should take
place. Moreover, had it not been already insinuated in more
than one quarter that I, in common with the Representatives
of France, Prussia, and Holland, had a few months before with-
II.—G


146
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Ciiap. XXX.
drawn to Yokohama without any sufficient cause, though di-
rectly menaced with precisely such an attack? Had not Col-
onel Sykes, in the House of Commons, thought it necessary
to ask what induced me to leave Yeddo, since I had a Japan-
ese guard of one hundred and fifty men, and 'there could be
no danger to my safety?'
But the plain truth is, we hear of danger ever near and im-
pending until, as day after day passes and no danger assails
us, we grow hardened and indifferent; the constant strain of
suspense, and hourly expectation of an impending danger, is so
intolerable, that the majority of mankind get rid of it at any
cost—the timorous by flight or suicide, the hardier by a sort
of callousness, partly made up of incredulity as to the reality
or extent of the evil threatened, and partly of a conviction that
it had better be met when it comes, if come it must, with all
the chances and contingencies attaching to it, than be made
the burden and misery of a life in anticipation. Truly has
Shakspeare said,
Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once.
And so it happened that on my return to Yeddo, as soon as
the Japanese Government had been made to acknowledge
their responsibility for the security of the Legations (which
they had previously been disposed to question or evade), I
made up my mind to accept whatever risk there might be,
without allowing it to dwell in my thoughts. I did not be-
lieve that any amount of prudence or precaution could really
secure my life, if one of the more powerful Daimios resolved
on setting their emissaries to take it; whereas the constant
dwelling on such a contingency would in the end unnerve me
for my work, and make life not worth having.
But, despite all threats and alarms, as I have already stated,
I felt more than half incredulous of any Daimios, or band of
men, attempting so desperate an expedient as an attack in
force on the Legation—desperate, not so much in view of the
large body of guards, or the danger and difficulty of the deed,
as in the political consequences likely to follow their success.
It could hardly be imagined that Great Britain would allow
her Representative and a whole Legation to be massacred in
the capital without exacting retribution. And something of
the 'divinity which hedges in a king,' I felt might also, per-
haps, shield a sovereign's Representative.
I certainly lay down that night without a thought of dan-
ger; so much so, indeed, that my two cases of revolvers,
placed on my dressing-table by the servants according to cus-


Chap. XXX.] THE ONSLAUGHT.
147
torn, remained unopened, and one still locked, although it had
long been my habit, in the possibility of a surprise, to sleep
with revolvers under my pillow. I slept the sleep of the wea-
ry, when one of the young student interpreters, to whom the
duty had been assigned of going through the premises the last
thing, to see that the servants were in bed and the lights out,
chiefly as a protection against fire, stood by my bedside with
his dark lantern, and awoke me with the report that the Lega-
tion was attacked, and men were breaking in at the gate. I
got up, incredulous, believing it was some gambling or drunk-
en quarrel either among the guards or the 'bettos' in charge
of the stables; but, taking a revolver out of its case, I was pro-
ceeding to the spot, and had scarcely advanced five steps to-
ward the entrance, when Mr. Oliphant suddenly appeared cov-
ered with blood, which was streaming from a great gash in his
arm and a wound in his neck, and the next instant Mr. Morri-
son, the Consul of Nagasaki, appeared also, exclaiming he was
wounded, and with blood flowing from a sword-cut on his
forehead. I of course looked for the rush of their assailants
pursuing, and stood for a second ready to fire and check
their advance, while the wounded passed on to my bedroom
behind. I was the only one armed at this moment; for, al-
though Mr. Morrison had still three barrels, he was blinded
and stunned with his wound.
To my astonishment, no pursuers followed. One of the par-
ty now grouped around me broke open my other pistol-case
and armed himself, but two others had no sort of weapon.
Mr. Oliphant had encountered his assailants in the passage
leading from his room with only a heavy hunting-whip, hastily
snatched from his table on the first alarm. We had, in fact,
been taken by surprise—the guards first, and ourselves later,
and no sign of any one coming to our rescue appeared, of all
the hundred and fifty surrounding the house.
Mr. Oliphant was bleeding so profusely that I had to lay
down my pistol and bind up the wound in his arm with my
handkerchief; and while so engaged, there was a sudden crash
and the noise of a succession of blows in the adjoining apart-
ment. Some of the band were evidently breaking through
the glazed doors opening into the court with a frightful fra-
cas, still no Yaconins or guards seemed attracted by the noise!
A double-barreled rifle had by this time been loaded; but
still there we were, five Europeans only, including a servant,
imperfectly armed, and with two more disabled, whom we were
afraid to leave for an instant exposed to the fury of a band of
assassins of whose number we could form no guess, neither


148
[Chap. XXX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
could we tell from what quarter they might come upon us.
Whether many or few, they were left in entire possession of
the house for full ten minutes. It may well be conceived that
suspense and anxiety made the time seem still longer. While
they were" engaged breaking their way into the room, or out
of it, for this we could not tell, and uncertain at what moment
they might either come pouring through the suite of rooms in
which we stood by the open passage adjoining the very room
they were in, or through some windows close to the ground
within a yard of the point they were breaking down, I had a
moment's hesitation whether, from the window immediately
facing, we should not fire a volley into them at point-blank
range. But we were so few, and they might be numerous
enough to rush in and overpower any resistance. On the oth-
er hand, they evidently had missed their way to my apartments,
and every minute lost to them was a priceless gain to us, since
it could not be that the guard to whom our lives were intrust-
ed would abandon us altogether, unless there was treachery.
The unwillingness to leave Mr. Oliphant lying helpless on the
floor, even for a short space, in the terrible uncertainty as to
what point an attack might come from, turned the balance, and
determined me to stand and wait the issue. The noise sub-
sided; there was reason to hope rescue had come, or at least
a diversion from without, and that the assailants had turned in
some other direction, or perhaps had made their retreat. Then
only I ventured, with two of the party, to leave the wounded,
and go to look for one of our number at a farther wing of the
building who had never appeared, and might have been less
fortunate. While advancing, I put one of the students, Mr.
Lowder, as a sentry at an angle commanding a long passage
leading from the entrance and the approach from two other
directions, and had scarcely advanced ten steps when a shot
from his pistol suddenly recalled me. A group of armed men
had appeared at the farther end, and, not answering his chal-
lenge, he had very properly fired into them; and as it was
down a passage, he could scarcely have missed his aim—at all
events, they suddenly retreated. And this was the last we saw
of our assailants! A minute or two later, the civilian officers
in charge of the place appeared, with congratulations on our
safety; how little due to them I could not but remark! Mr.
Macdonald, the missing one of my party, came in with them, to
my great relief, his apartment being partially detached on the
other side of the grounds. It appears he had rushed out on
hearing, as he thought, some one break into his bath-room in
the rear, and after vain attempting to induce a guard imme-


Chap. XXX.]
149
CONSPIRATORS' BOND.
diately above him to come down, made his way through a side
gate to the front, where he found a wild scene of tumult and
conflict. In the court-yard of the temple itself, and in front of
that leading into the part assigned to the Legation, there were
groups fighting—men with lanterns rushing to and fro, and
gathering from all sides. He himself, being described by the
Yaconins attached to the Legations (men of the pen and not
of the sword), was drawn aside; and as he was a conspicuous
object in his white sleeping costume of jacket and pyjamas,
they enveloped him in one of their own Japanese dresses. It
was easy to understand that many minutes elapsed before he
could obtain any attention to his demand that some of the
guard should go into the house to our rescue. Nor Was it, in
effect, until all the assailants outside had been beaten off, or
made good their retreat, that there was any thought of the
Minister and those with him inside, or of the necessity of see-
ing that those for whom they were fighting outside were not,
in the mean while, being cut in pieces and deliberately assas-
sinated within. The whole guard had evidently been sur-
prised; every one had been asleep, and turned into their
guard-houses, and not a single one of the hundred and fifty
could have been on the alert!
When it was possible to compare the evidence of confused
actors in this midnight tragedy, and gather the facts from all
sources, the whole plot and execution came out tolerably clear-
ly. On the body of one of the assailants killed on the spot,
and also on the person of a second of their number badly
wounded and made prisoner, a paper was found, declaring the
object of the attack, and signed by fourteen names. One of
these was taken from the wounded man all stained with his
blood, in the presence of a member of the Legation; so, as
far as regards its authenticity as having been actually on his
person, there is no doubt whatever; whether it be equally
certain that each of the band were not thus provided, by or-
der of their employers, with a document to make the whole
attack, in the event of failure, appear to be the act of a party
of lawless Lonins animated with a feeling of mingled patriotism
and hatred of the foreigner, for whom nobody could be held
responsible, is another question.
Here, at all events, was the document written, it appeared,
in a sort of mountain patois by no means easy to decipher by
educated Japanese. After receiving the Government transla-
tion, I had others made by three different persons, all uncon-
nected with each other, and although there were in one or
two phrases considerable variation in the rendering, compared


150
[Chap. XXX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
with the official translation, there was not sufficient between
each of the three to leave any doubt that we had arrived at
the true sense. The following translation seemed, on com-
parison of all three, the best:
'I, though I am a person of low standing, have not patience
to stand by and see the sacred empire denied by the foreigner.
This time, I have determined in my heart to undertake to fol-
low out my master's will. Though being altogether humble
myself, I can not make the might of the country to shine in
foreign nations, yet, with a little faith and a little warrior's
power, I wish in my heart separately (by myself), though I
am a person of low degree, to bestow upon my country one
out of a great many benefits. If this thing, from time to time,
may cause the foreigner to retire, and partly tranquillize both
the minds'' of the Mikado and of the Government (Tycoon), I
shall take to myself the highest praise. Regardless of my own
life, I am determined to set out.'
Here follow the fourteen signatures It appeared the band of conspirators thus bound by an oath
to attack the Legation and massacre all its inmates gathered
together by previous concert in a house of resort to men of
their class in the suburb of Sinagawa already referred to, not
half a mile from the Legation. It is quite possible they may
have been in their lair actually watching me pass the previous
day. Had the Government any information or suspicion of
this, and hence their extraordinary precautions? Or when
they sent orders to the Governor of Nagasaki to seek to dis-
suade me,'on account of the dangers of the route,1 from pro-
ceeding overland; and afterward, when they dispatched a high
officer, in the person of Takimoto, one of the Governors of
Foreign Affairs, all the way from Yeddo to meet me at Hiogo,
and again make strenuous efforts to turn me aside—if not from
the continuance of the journey altogether, at least from Miaco,
was this step motived by some knowledge of a specific danger
dogging my steps? Evidence later obtained seemed .to con-
firm such a supposition. Long after the event, I heard from
Mr. Eusden, then officiating as her Majesty's Consul at Hako-
dadi, that for some days before any intelligence of the event
could possibly have arrived, even by express, from Yeddo, the
Governor, on more than one occasion, showed a restless sort
of anxiety to know if any tidings of my return had reached
the Consulate? When the intelligence actually arrived of my
return and the attack—received twelve days after the event
by express—Mr. Eusden was immediately struck by the inter-
* Or 'the manes of departed Mikados and Tycoon's' 


Chap. XXX.] POPULAR RUMORS.
151
pretation the tidings gave to all these inquiries, and the mark-
ed interest shown previously for my safe return. It led to the
conviction in his mind that it was perfectly known at Hako-
dadi some great danger was apprehended and impending at
Yeddo. In effect, it became, immediately after the event, a
subject of common conversation among the people at Yeddo,
as I heard from various sources, that the attack emanated, not
from a band of lawless Lonins, following their own evil courses,
but from a Prince of Tsm-sima, who, after a collision with
the Russians, and his humiliation by an interview forced upon
him by the commander of the Russian corvette, Captain Biri-
liff, hearing a 'great foreign chief was at Nagasaki, in his im-
mediate vicinity, and about to proceed overland to the capital,
he had immediately dispatched some of his own people to fol-
low and avenge the outrage he had suffered at the hands of
the Russians, by murdering me on the road, and bringing him
the head. This was carrying out the principle of solidarity
among European nations with a vengeance. The popular
voice attributed the non-execution of this mandate on the
road (where, considering how unguardedly we traveled, noth-
ing could have been easier) to the circumstance that I had al-
ready left before they reached Nagasaki, and advanced so far
that they were unable to overtake our party before we left
Osaca, after which we were traversing the territories of Da-
imios; and to have committed the deed within any of their
dominions might bring those chiefs into trouble with the Im-
perial Government, or produce a blood-feud between them
and their own master. Finally, it was generally asserted that
their design had been, as they followed my steps the whole
way, to set upon my party on the road from Kanagawa to
Yeddo; but my unexpected detention at the former place a
couple of days, and the uncertainty of their information as to
the period of my departure, which was, in effect, left unde-
cided until within a few hours of our starting, had disarranged
their plans. This would account for the unusual excitement
of the population by the wayside, which, made them turn out
to watch my passage — assuming that some rumor of an in- •
tended attack had got abroad—and, also, for the vigorous steps
taken by the authorities to close up all the approaches, and
especially the whole of the houses of resort in Sinagawa.
Whatever might be the information possessed by the Gov-
ernment authorities, it seems but charitable to suppose that it
amounted to little more than vague rumors that some design
was on foot; for, assuredly, they gave me no special warning
of a specific danger either at Nagasaki or Hiogo, and, on my


152
[Chap. XXX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
return, merely sent to congratulate me on my safety, without
the slightest hint that they had reason to believe some farther
danger was still impending.* And it is equally certain, as the
event proved, that within the gates of the Legation they took
no extra precautions whatever to guard against a possible at-
tack. To assume, therefore, that they were in possession of
any positive and precise information at the time would, under
the circumstances, be to charge them with direct complicity,
and to suppose that the surprise of the guard, so ostentatiously
kept up for our defense, was a premeditated act of treachery.
For a moment after an escape which in every way seemed so
providential, with a laxness and tardiness of the guard which
ought to have insured the success of such determined assail-
ants, I may have felt disposed to charge them with a piece of
Oriental Machiavelism worthy of an Eastern Feudalism or a
'Moyen Age.' Upon more careful consideration of all the
facts, I satisfied myself, however, that it was nothing more than
their habitual ineptitude in all matters requiring prompt action,
energy, and prevision. The Japanese can be lynx-eyed for a
time, but the whole power of the Government does not seem
able to insure in any of their employees a systematic, persistent,
and unsleeping vigilance. The official classes are all, from the
highest to the lowest, too lazy and apathetic. Theirs is a lip
and eye service always, in which they do as much as may be
needful to keep them out of scrapes that would entail serious
personal inconvenience, and prevent the loss of their places,
and nothing more. The standard of duty is placed as low,
under such circumstances, as is compatible with the perform-
ance of any. Throughout the capital there are guard-houses
at short intervals, generally occupied by boys or superannuated
old men, who spend their whole time (supposed to be devoted
to the vigilant maintenance of order) squatted on their knees
* The local press of China disseminated, as usual, some altogether errone-
ous statements as to the real facts. I met several months afterward an ex-
tract from the 'Overland China Mail,'of July 12, copied into the 'Times,'
and of course widely circulated, which formed an excellent illustration of the
malice and recklessness with which facts are perverted, in order to tell against
those who may be invested with authority, and which not even such peril as
I had escaped could soften or neutralize for a moment. 'It is believed that
the Government sanctions these proceedings.' It is also reported that the
Governor ofKanagawa had informed Mr. Alcock 'that such was the ill will of
the people toward him, that he could not give him assurance of being unmo-
lested in his contemplated journey from Nagasaki to Yeddo.' The reader
knows that, even .assuming the Governor of Nagasaki, not Kanagawa, was
meant, how entirely devoid of truth such a statement is, and will see how in-
geniously the warnings Mr. de Wit and I both received in common, and of a
general danger, is made to turn upon personal ill will toward me alone.


Chap. XXX.]
153
THE ATTACK.
and heels, and either dozing at their posts or smoking the pipe
of apathetic idleness. Thus it was quite consistent with their
whole system that Ikomono-no-kami, the unfortunate Regent,
should be massacred by a band of Mito's men immediately in
front of the guard placed at the entrance of the moat bridge
which leads to the Tycoon's palace. There would have been
a want of fitness and congruity if he had been murdered any
where else! So I do not know that I could reasonably com-
plain if my own fate so narrowly escaped being the same, and
I had been slain in the midst of a large force of the Tycoon^
body-guard, and the armed contingents of two Daimios charged
with my safety. The leopard will not change his spots, nor
the Japanese his nature, because it pleases the Tycoon to enter
into treaties with Foreign Powers, and throw upon them a con-
tinued strain of vigilance and energy, to which they are wholly
unused and unequal.
The conspirators, or the Prince of Tsus - sima's emissaries,
whichever be the most proper designation, having missed their
prey on the road, met, it appears, at their rendezvous in Sina-
gawa the second night after my arrival, and there caroused and
talked of the onslaught they were about to make. The Gov-
ernment wished me to believe the number actually engaged
was only fourteen—those whose names were attached to the
documents. Of course there would, in that case, be the fewer
to seize after their escape, and they were willing rather to ac-
cept the awkward dilemma of admitting that one hundred and
fifty of their guards allowed less than a tenth of their number
of assailants to penetrate and take possession of the Legation,
and hold it, too, for ten minutes, than the additional responsi-
bility of having to account for a larger number of assailants.
The number must, however, obviously have been greater, or
nothing but treachery, and the certainty that they would not
be attacked on their way, could account for what, without such
aid, would have been an act of stupidity or madness on their
part, in attacking by the front instead of at the back, where
the road was perfectly clear, and the house entirely open.
They came, on the contrary, before midnight to the front gate,
lying but a few steps back from the great high road, and, find-
ing it closed, they escaladed the fence at the side. The gate-
keeper, awakened by the noise, seems to have come out, and
was instantly cut down, and killed on the spot. They then
proceeded up the long avenue to the first court-yard, a distance
of three hundred yards, passing all the guard-houses, and on
their way killing a dog, which no doubt was barking his alarm
— the only sentinel awake! A little farther on they met a


154
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXX.
horse-keeper of one of the Yaconins, who seems, unhappily for
himself, to have been outside the stables, and to have crossed
their path — him they killed also. A little farther on still, a
cook in my service was met, and severely wounded. Finally,
a watchman, who happened to be close to the gate of my court-
yard, was seized as a guide, and, under threat of instant death,
was told to show them' where the accursed foreigners slept.'
One would have thought four men successively and a dog
could not at intervals, and separated from each other at differ-
ent points along the line, have been cut to pieces- without noise
enough to waken any guard. Not so, however. They crossed
the upper court beyond the great porch or open gateway lead-
ing alike to the front entrance of the Temple and the Legation
more to the right, and here it was they met one of our watch-
men. Terror-struck at finding himself in the hands of such
ruffians, he seems to have given only a feigned consent, and tried
to make his escape. Being pursued, he was slashed frightfully
across the body before he found temporary refuge in a lotus-
pond. He survived, however, to tell his own tale, and indeed
ultimately recovered. They then appear to have told off three
parties: one proceeded round to the back of the stables through
a passage leading directly into the house; another forced the
gate of the court in which the main entrance was, and broke
in the panels of the front door; a third made their way into
the Temple adjoining the entrance hall of the Legation and
the back of the premises. From thence, after wounding a
priest in their path, some thrust aside the screens which alone
formed the partition, and entered there, while others, proceed-
ing on, broke into a court-yard. A Chinese servant of Mr.
Morrison happened to be sleeping in the hall, and while listen-
ing in breathless alarm to the furious blows at the front door,
a man in chain armor, and masked, suddenly made his appear-
ance from the Temple, forcing his way through a sliding panel.
On this, with the instinct of his race, he glided stealthily and
silently away, and apparently unseen, to his master's room.
Fortunately, it was one of the nearest in that part of the house,
and awoke him in time to put a sword and revolver in his
hands, which were lying by his side. Mr. Oliphant, sleeping
farther off, had by this time been awakened by the increasing
tumult of the assault and the barking of a dog. Believing it
was some fight among the servants, he seized a hunting-whip—
the first thing to his hand—and ran down the passage, on which
both Mr. Morrison's room and Mr. Russell's opened. To rouse
the latter and ask if he had any arms was the work of a mo-
ment; but finding none, he turned back, and at this moment


Chap. XXX.]
155
FATE OF THE ASSASSINS.
encountered either two or three men advancing. One, imme-
diately in front, he saw by the imperfect light of the stars in
the act of aiming a blow with a two-handed sword at his head,
and an unequal struggle began in the dark. Mr. Oliphant par-
ried as he best could the blows, seeking to disable his assailant
with the heavy end of the riding-whip, while retreating or
borne back toward the room where he had just left Mr. Russell.
Fortunately, this gave Mr. Morrison time to throw back his
screen opening on the scene, and to fire a couple of shots in the
direction of the assassins. At the same moment, Mr. Oliphant
received two serious wounds, and Mr. Morrison himself a cut
on the forehead. The pistol shots, whether they took effect or
not—and it seemed probable that one, at least, of the attacking
party was wounded—had the effect of checking the advance,
during which pause they both retreated and gained my room,
meeting me, as I have stated, on my way out.
When the melee was at an end, some minutes later, and we
went over the premises, we found an entrance had been effect-
ed from the Temple at another point, through some thin plank-
ing into a little court, on which the room of Mr. Lowder, one
of the student interpreters, opened. The mark of a bloody
hand was found on the sloping roof of the bath-room, over
which apparently some wounded man had made his escape;
and by the broken planking I picked up a sword and a leather
purse, with a few cash and a seal in it, which had been dropped.
From the various marks, it was plain that an entrance had
been effected at four points, and the assailants had come upon
us in three separate directions. Whatever their number, and
it is unlikely that they should not have been more than three
or four at each point, a portion of the band must have remain-
ed on the outside long enough , to give employment to the
guard when fairly roused from their slumbers, and that for
several minutes. It is inconceivable, therefore, that the origi-
nal number did not exceed fourteen.
The danger did not seem wholly over when the first attack
was repulsed. Frequent alarms, from different parts of the
grounds, of the approach of an enemy, continued during the
next two hours, originating, no doubt, in the individual mem-
bers of the scattered band making their way through the cov-
er of the surrounding woods to escape. And all did escape,
except two who were killed on the spot, nearly hacked to
pieces, and a third who was badly wounded. The next day
three more were tracked to their lair, in Sinagawa, but when
the police arrived, two had committed the Hara-kiru and were
dead, while the third had done his work ineffectually and was
r


156
True. XXX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
made prisoner. Later, the Governor gave me information that
four more had been heard of in a village some miles from Kan-
agawa, where they had presented themselves, travel-soiled and
wounded, demanding of the priest food and money. If they
did not boast of their feat of arms, at least they seemed to
have made no mystery of it; but the priest, alarmed, under
pretense of borrowing the money, went to give information,
and they, naturally suspecting treachery, made off before he re-
turned with the police. Two since then have been reported
as also having been pursued, and, to avoid capture, killing them-
selves. Of those first traced, and who had committed the
Hara-kiru, there was a popular rumor that on their arrival at
Sinagawa they had been bitterly reproached for cowardice by
their chief—they especially, as the only part of the band that
had been in actual conflict with the foreigners. To which
they replied that they had found us too well armed and ready
to defend our lives; but not the less, being commanded to kill
themselves, they did so on the spot. One of these, it was said,
had a pistol-shot wound; and if so, he must either have been
in the foremost party at which Mr. Morrison fired two shots,
or the last fired at by Mr. Lowder.
The next morning, when day broke, the Legation presented
all the appearance of a place which had been carried by as-
sault and sacked. The front panels of the entrance had been
broken through, the screen partition between the Temple and
the hall thrown down. The floors and walls of the passages
were spattered with blood, the sliding panels crushed and
broken, the furniture in many of the rooms was thrown down,
and had been cut and hacked in their blind fury, or in baffled
rage at finding all empty. The musquito curtains were slash-
ed, and the bedpost of Lowder's bed cut through, as well as
a stout book on his table, as if they had sought to leave behind
them tangible evidence of the strength of their arms and the
keenness of their swords. They had careered through all the
rooms in the house but those outlying chalets which Oliphant
and Macdonald occupied, and the suite of rooms forming my
own apartments at the opposite extremity. And that they
should have missed these of all others, the main object of their
search, although the marks of their sabres were on the panels
at the entrance, and one at least of their number must have ac-
tually been on the threshold, is altogether inexplicable. Cer-
tainly a more providential escape from what, humanly speak-
ing, seemed inevitable destruction, it is difficult to conceive.
The fact of their having chosen the front avenue and entrance
for their line of attack instead of the unguarded back, where


Chap. XXX.]
151
KILLED AND WOUNDED.
all was open, and, as they found at last, so thickly covered
with wood that concealment and escape were alike easy, is dif-
ficult to explain. Had they come in that direction my death
must indeed have been inevitable; mine the first, if not all in
succession, for the winding path down the hill led directly to
my bedroom.
Early the next morning, after a brief rest of an hour or two,
I proceeded to visit the wounded among my tardy defenders
and followers. On the way I saw the wounded prisoner, a
young man of two or three and twenty, ill favored enough, and
with a settled scowl on his face. Two of the juniors had seen
him before, and, though bound and wounded, he expressed his
rage that they had escaped alive. I saw that same head again
months after, and its lines must have been strongly imprinted
on my memory, for the likeness suddenly flashed upon me.
At intervals along the avenue, I found three corpses stretched
on the ground, two of them the bodies of the assailants, who,
as I have said, had been frightfully hewn about. I have seen
many a battle-field, but of sabre wounds I never saw any so
horrible. One man had his skull shorn clean through from the
back, and half the head sliced off to the spine, while his limbs
only hung together by shreds. The other was equally savage-
ly maimed and hacked. If they had counted on the total in-
ertness of the guards, they certainly must have discovered
their mistake long before the last of them left the grounds.
As I looked on these mangled and hideous remains, and
thought such as they were then it had been intended we
should be, and such might still be the fate reserved for me
from their confraternity, I confess to a shudder of mingled
horror and disgust, quickly followed, however, by a deep feel-
ing of gratitude to Him who saved us all from such a fate. I
had need of trust in that same Providence to guard my steps
in the way that lay before me, for vain seemed the help of
man. Certainly the position was not exactly diplomatic, ac-
cording to the ordinary acceptation of the term—a Minister
under perpetual menace of assassination, and called upon to
maintain his post, and defend the treaty-rights of a nation,
not exactly by the sword, but by a bold front, in face of far
more trying danger than such as ordinarily besets the soldier
in the field. The wounded had all been dressed, but I ascer-
tained that many of the injuries were comparatively slight, and
clean cuts with the sabre, gun-shot wounds and thrusts, even
with the sword, not haying yet entered into the Lonins' tactics
or means of attack. Some few were severe, and one of the
Tycoon's guard died before evening. The following is an offi-


158
[Chap. XXXI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
cial return of killed, wounded, and prisoners the Government
sent me, to which should be added two of my own servants,
a cook and a watchman, both severely wounded, and two of
the inmates of the Legation, one so severely as to be partially
maimed for life, the sinews of the left wrist having been sev-
ered to the bone. There is probably not in all the annals of
our diplomacy an example of such a bloodthirsty and deliber-
ate plot to massacre a whole Legation, and certainly none so
boldly and recklessly carried into partial execution.
Killed.
One of the Tycoon's body-guard and one groom 2
Two of the assailants 2
Severely Wounded.
Two soldiers, one of the Tycoon's, one of the Daimio's. Two
porters, one at the outer and the other at the inner gate (one
died the same day) 4
One of the assailants made prisoner 1
One member of the Legation 1
Two servants of the Legation 2
Slightly Wounded.
Seven of the Tycoon's guard 7
Two of the Daimio's guard 2
One priest in the Temple 1
One member of the Legation • 1
Total killed and wounded on the spot 28
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Lull after the Storm.—Immediate Prospects and Policy.
The position of the British minister at Yeddo, after this as-
sault on the Legation by armed men, undeterred and unchecked
by the presence of a large guard of the Tycoon's, was full of
embarrassment. One thing alone was evident and certain, that
he could no longer trust to the Japanese Government to secure
his safety in the capital. Yet to abandon it a second time, and
after such an attempt to carry out the long-suspended menace
to drive all the Foreign Representatives out, would be to give
a triumph to violence, and to render a residence ever after im-
possible, without a war, or some act of vigor on the part of one
or more Foreign Powers, that should strike terror into the
hearts of those who plotted such atrocious deeds. It was,
above all, essential that the position of Foreign Ministers, as
established by treaty, should be maintained, if possible, without


Chap. XXXI.] THE LULL AFTER THE STORM.
159
essential change until their respective Governments could be
informed of what had taken place, and their instructions re-
ceived. How this was to be effected without great risk of re-
newed and more successful attacks of the same nature by those
now baffled and defeated in their object, and consequently still
graver complications, was the question; or, rather, whether I
had any means at my command by which the risk could be so
far reduced as to make it consistent with prudence and a sound
policy, in reference to the ulterior object, to remain. The utter
untrustworthiness of any Japanese guard as a means of secu-
rity had been abundantly demonstrated. And although, the
morning after the attack, the Council of State sent one of the
Governors of Foreign Affairs to congratulate me on my safety,
with an offering of some ducks and a jar of sugar to express
their joy, I felt in no way disposed to accept either their assur-
ances of increased vigilance or their presents, for I held both
to be of about equal value. I merely replied that I declined
the last, and as to the first I also would adopt some means to
secure myself in future from being surprised in the midst of a
Japanese guard. 'Prave words!' as Fluellen says in the play.
But what means had I at my disposal? Notwithstanding re-
peated commands and instructions sent out from home for ef-
ficient protection and some show of force in the Japanese wa-
ters, there was at this moment but one dispatch-boat, the little
* Ringdove,' within call at Yokohama for the protection of the
Legation at Yeddo and the Consulate and British settlement
at Yokohama, or any other interests in Japan. Considering
how little we had been favored since the first opening of Japan
under treaty, I ought, perhaps, to have considered myself for-
tunate that I had any thing in the shape of a man-of-war with-
in reach. The same emergency might have happened twenty
times over in the first two years, without a British ship being
on the spot, or in Japanese waters. This, no doubt, was in
part to be attributed to the greater magnitude and absorbing
interest of China, which, even after the war was over, gave
ample occupation to the reduced fleet. The reiterated asser-
tions of writers in the local press of Hongkong, not themselves
exposed to any danger, of the unmeaningness of the constantly
renewed threats of attack and extermination, may, unconscious-
ly to the Admiral himself, have had some influence. Some-
thing confirmatory of such views might even be found in the
action of the American Minister, though he alone among the
Representatives of all the Treaty Powers professed to believe
devoutly, not only in the good faith of the Japanese Govern-
ment, from whom these intimations of danger were perpetually


160
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXI.
received, but in the absolute security of the Legations. I could
feel little surprise, therefore, if those at a distance were often
misled. Visitors, moreover, came in shoals by every steamer
from China. All were naturally anxious to say they had seen
the capital, and the Legation offering the only accommodation,
or conditions indeed, under which British subjects could visit
it, I was very rarely without guests, who came, staid their few
days, and went away delighted to be able, on their return, to
say they had been to Yeddo. Of course, as visitors, the desire
of every one about me was to spare them references to danger
tending to disturb their short period of enjoyment. Much that
they saw was novel and amusing, and, pleased with their visit,
they left Yeddo to speak of it as a charming place. As trav-
elers will describe places they are not required to live in, and
where they may have spent some pleasant days in the excite-
ment of visiting new scenes, they naturally told the world what
a beautiful country they had found, with a good-natured peo-
ple, freedom to ride about, an outward show of guards and
guarantees for security—all very true in some respects, but ut-
terly misleading as to the real amount of security, or the true
nature of our position in the capital. Probably, the very same
delighted visitors, if they had been compelled to take up their
residence, would have very quickly qualified their praises in
the sense ascribed to Moore in speaking of his beloved coun-
try, Ireland,'A beautiful country, sir, to live out of!' We have
lately had many accounts of Iceland, than which it is difficult
to conceive a more barren or wretched place of residence to
those who are doomed by the accident of birth to live and die
there, unless it be Aden, over the black scoriae of which a
burning sun from above sheds a scorching and withering blight.
Some of these books reached me at Yeddo, and I could not
help being amused with the jaunty way in which all the ac-
cumulated horrors of' geysers and volcanoes,' wide districts
of ' extinct craters and fields of lava' (the homesteads of the
poor Icelanders), are described as, upon the whole, very agree-
able and charming features of the landscape I It would be
pleasant to set them down there for five years of their lives,
and require them to write a book after a more mature acquaint-
ance with these charming friends had qualified them to give a
true picture. So it was with our unfailing stream of visitors
to Japan; for even while the bloodstains were still on the
sliding-panels and matting of the rooms, a new shoal arrived
at Kanagawa, and, I have no doubt, thought it very absurd and
very arbitrary in the Minister that he declined the responsibil-
ity of any more of his countrymen at that moment in such ' a


Chap. XXXI.]
JAPAN AND ITS VISITORS.
charming place;' and ladies still reminded me that they had an
invitation to come with their husbands and be put up at the
Legation. Indeed, it is to the fact of ladies on one or two oc-
casions having been guests at the Legation, I believe, that was
mainly due Admiral Hope's indisposition to believe there was
any broad foundation for the rumors of danger that reached
him on the Chinese coast. It was not until he came to the
spot himself, and that after an attempt at wholesale massacre—
calculated to carry conviction to the minds of the most skep-
tical—that he could see the necessity for any anxiety or means
of material protection. This was rather hard upon the mem-
bers of the Legation, to whom the fair face of a countrywoman,
and the very rustle of a silk dress, was what the flowers and
the one tree in the garden of the governor of Iceland must
have been to the Icelanders! But if any one argued from such
premisses that there could be no real danger in Yeddo, I should
say it implied some ignorance of the fair sex. Without being
altogether fire-eaters, in whom
Danger and death a dread delight inspire,
the seemingly most timid often find nerve for expeditions which
many a masculine companion would willingly avoid, if it could
be escaped with any decent excuse. I think they like coquet-
ting with danger, as they sometimes do with lovers, when.it
does not come in such a questionable shape as to threaten a too
close intimacy with immediately disagreeable consequences.
Just as dilettanti explorers of the geysers are said to enjoy the
idea of' rousing Strokr,' and can not resist a propensity 'to
throw him into a violent passion' for their especial amusement;
always hoping, after they have flung in their stones and sods
to such a degree that he collects all his strength and shoots
them back into the air ' in a hissing torrent,' that they won't
fall upon their own heads! One can understand that the
'temptation to tease the geyser,' and to spend a week in Yed-
do, with just a possibility of some 'horrid adventure,' or, what
is better, the narrow escape from one, after running the chances,
to visitors generally, and to fair ones especially, is about equal,
and consequently bad ground for any inference as to the ab-
sence of all danger. I could not help being struck with the
striking analogy between the physical features in Iceland, so
graphically described by recent travelers, and the moral char-
acteristics and political state of Japan in the present day. For,
although we had there, too, a good sprinkling of live and ex-
tinct volcanoes, and no dearth of real earthquakes, the analogy
goes much farther. If, as Buckle and other writers hold, the


162
[Chap. XXXI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
civilization of a people depends very much upon its climate,
are we not at liberty to assume there may be some subtle af-
finity between the physical condition of the earth and her chil-
dren—between the soil and those who live upon it? Certain
it is that the incidents of travel, as described by these explor-
ers of nature and students of physical phenomena, will admi-
rably serve, mutatis mutandis, for a description of the moral
conditions of this favored land.
For instance, one traveler tells us that the ground in Ice-
land is pierced in all directions, and puffs of steam, jets of wa-
ter, and pools of seething fluid tell the visitor that he is stand-
ing on a great caldron, the crust of which might be torn to
fragments in a moment, were the riotous vapors denied the
means of escape. He feels that hundreds of safety-valves are
at work around him, and naturally wonders whether Iceland
would not burst like a boiler if these should happen to be
clogged or destroyed.
This is precisely our position in respect to the moral ele-
ments around us; and nothing could more perfectly describe
the situation of the Foreign Legations in Yeddo than the fol-
lowing account of the capriciously savage proceedings of the
central boilers of the region:
'The larger fountains generally give notice of their inten-
tion to play. This is only reasonable, for otherwise a curious
traveler venturing too near the basin might be drenched with
scalding water by a sudden eruption, or, worse still, whilst
peering down a tube, might receive the jet in his face, and re-
coil parboiled at a blow. The New Geyser, however, declines
to give any intimation of his movements, and, therefore, as Sir
George Mackenzie remarks, it is necessary to deal cautiously
with him, unless assured from a recent outbreak that his hour
is not yet come. The notice served upon the public, in cases
where due warning is given, consists of a series of detonations,
which break on the ear like a report of distant artillery. The
Head Geyser makes the ground quiver under your feet, as if
an infant earthquake were gamboling below. Gun after gun
is thus fired at varying intervals, as much as to say that a
grand performance is just about to commence, and then the
water begins to bubble in the pipe or to heave in the basin.
Very frequently, however, the visitor, who rushes up panting
and agitated on hearing the subterranean signals, is doomed
to disappointment, for, after rising a few feet in a column, the
liquid retires into the well, and leaves the spectator to ascer-
tain (if the point is not already settled) whether patience is one
of the virtues he really enjoys.'


Chap. XXXI.] CONDITIONS CHANGED.
163
'In the other respects, too, as well as in the hours of display,
these thermal fountains are somewhat capricious in their pro-
ceedings. The quantity of water ejected, the height to which
it is propelled, the mode of evacuation adopted, differ accord-
ing to circumstances which can not be accurately explained.'
Philosophers tell us that the same law prevails in mechanics
and pneumatics which obtains in morals and politics, and after
reading such a perfect exposition of our great moral Geysers
in this volcanic region of the antipodes, I can not doubt that
the laws of action and development in both are identical!
What the New Geyser is to travelers in Iceland, Yeddo is to
the foreign residents in Japan—less fortunate than those, in be-
ing obliged to stand permanently on the brink of this infernal
caldron long after its capricious phenomena have ceased to
afford either pleasure or amusement, and condemned to wait
for ' something to turn up,' without the support Micawber de-
rived from the hope that it' might be to his advantage.'
However, under existing circumstances, there was no retreat
possible. Even supposing this last demonstration had carried
conviction to the mind of my American colleague, the only oth-
er Foreign Minister then in Yeddo, and led him to revise his
opinion that we were 'as safe in our Legations as in Windsor
Castle'—a favorite declaration ofLbis—I, for one, should have
been as averse as ever he was to abandon the position. There
was no longer any thing to gain, and every -thing to lose by
retiring. The conditions were all changed. The reasons
which furnished the strongest grounds for a temporary retire-
ment from the capital then no longer existed. The Govern-
ment of the country, at that time, made an ostentatious parade
of their inability to secure the Representatives of the Treaty
Powers from outrage and murder, and fenced with their re-
sponsibilities in regard to such grave obligations. They had
subsequently, as a consequence of that step, very fully and for-
mally acknowledged their responsibility, and recognized the
force of their international obligations. True, it was now ob-
vious the means they had adopted, as I believe in good faith,
had proved miserably inadequate, and all but utterly failed in
the end. If the British Minister and the rest of Her Majesty's
Legation were alive, this was manifestly due to a merciful dis-
pensation of Providence, under which a band of ruffians failed
to reach my apartment, notwithstanding they had surprised
the guards and poured through the house sword in hand, hold-
ing possession undisturbed, save by such resistance as we our-
selves were enabled to make, for a space of full ten minutes.
They got lost in the labyrinths of passages, courts, and rooms,


164
[Chap. XXXI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
and, missing their way in the darkness, never succeeded in find-
ing my rooms, where, after the first melee, all the members of
the Legation were collected for a last stand. But, on the sup-
position that the Government had done their best, taking into
account their habitual incapacity in such matters, were we to
make it a casus belli? If not, then the only motive for such a
step as striking the flag, and returning to Yokohama or on
board ship, would be the personal safety of the members of the
Legation. The risk of another and more successful attack of
the same kind, despite an increased number of Japanese guards,
was great, even in the opinion of the Japanese Government,
who expressly declared that they could not guarantee me
against a renewed and more desperate attempt. Yet to re-
treat before danger and violence, where there is a chance of ef-
fective resistance, whatever may be the personal risk, is too
repugnant to our habits and feelings to be accepted lightly as
an alternative. I felt the responsibility of any decision, and
during these hours of the night determined upon my course
of action, till some more efficient means of defense could be se-
cured. While the tocsin and alarm-bells were yet ringing
through all the neighborhood, I sat down to write a dispatch
to the Commander of the 'Ringdove,' requesting him to come
up to the anchorage off Y&Mo, and land me as strong a guard
of marines and blue-jackets as Le could spare out of his small
crew; and at daybreak, when all farik^r danger for that
night was over, I forwarded it by two mounted Yaconins.
JEarly the same day I cleared the house of my visitors—all, in
fact, whose duty did not keep them in the Legation. About
one o'clock Captain Craigie himself landed, with a guard of
twenty of his best men, well armed, and, to my surprise, ac-
companied by my French colleague, Monsieur de Bellecourt.
He had been staying at Yokohama, but the moment he heard
of the night's work, he generously put himself on board the
'Ringdove,' with a party of his own countrymen, drawn from
the 'Dordogne,' a French transport-ship, and determined to
share the anxieties and perils of the position with me. I ac-
quainted the Government with the steps I had taken to
strengthen their hands, leaving the outer circuit of the grounds
to their own forces, suddenly increased by them to 500 men,
and reserving the defense of the house and grounds immedi-
ately adjoining to our own people. During the afternoon a
survey was taken of the scrambling buildings forming the
whole of the premises to be defended, and we all returned with
the conviction that a more indefensible position, against any
determined attack by a large body of men, or even against the


Chap. XXXI.]
165
MEANS OF PROTECTION.
more stealthy approach of mere assassins at night, could hard-
ly have fallen to our lot. Sentries were placed when night
drew near, so as at least to guard against our being surprised,
or murdered in our sleep.
Foiled and baffled in their first desperate attempt, would
they return with recruited forces and in larger numbers?
This was an anxious question, which, as in the case of the gey-
sers, it was impossible to answer in any satisfactory manner.
The movements and ebullitions of the hostile elements in Ja-
pan seemed to the full as capricious and beyond the reach of
certain calculation, now ' breaking out with unspeakable fury,'
and again subsiding into mildness and tranquillity. We could
but hope an interval of rest might succeed this unusually vio-
lent explosion. If we held our ground for even a week or two,
while our enemies were chewing the cud of their disappoint-
ment, and ruminating on farther violence, the Admiral might
arrive. He had himself fixed the 15th of the month as the
probable date of his arrival; and although I could not count
upon any certainty or rapidity of movement where Japan was
in question, yet I knew he had received the Queen's commands
to come in person with a portion of his squadron, and, there-
fore, sooner or later he must come; for, although I had no
faith in the power of a squadron or of ships of war generally
being able to prevent such an attack as this, and still less to
extend any real protection if actually made, it had been de-
cided at home that there should be such evidence of watchful-
ness and force at command as the presence of a squadron and
the Admiral in person would afford. It is, indeed, hard to say
what would or could give protection, if any one of the hostile
Daimios chose to give the word for a massacre. Ships of war
are only a protection in so far as they may deter the violent
and factious from attempts, and to do this they must be in
such number, and assembled with such previous declaration of
determined action in a given eventuality as might overawe the
hostile party in the country. On the other hand, the menacing
presence of ships might just as likely prove a cause of excite-
ment and political fanaticism, prompting the more violent to
acts of defiance. The first of the long and dismal series of
these political murders began with Russians for the victims,
and when a much larger Russian fleet was on the spot than we
are ever likely to have in Japanese waters, unless hostile meas-
ures should be resolved upon. Nevertheless, it must also be
said that the policy of Russia, which seems to consist in keep-
ing no Diplomatic Agent at Teddo, making no trouble about
commercial rights, but always keeping a powerful naval force


166
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXI.
hovering about the Japanese seas, with commanders of a de-
termined stamp, who, at the northern and other ports, are apt
to take the law into their own hands and vigorously enforce
it, has apparently had the effect of making them more respect-
ed and feared than any other Western Power—respected be-
cause they made themselves feared, one can not well doubt.
It was well worth an effort, and any reasonable risk, to hold
our position until the Admiral should come. When he arrived,
I could determine in a more definite manner my future course
of action, with a knowledge of what amount of support and
co-operation I could count upon in carrying out a given line
of policy. The 15th came and passed, however, and even the
30th, and still no tidings of the Admiral. In the mean while,
a surveying squadron, consisting of H. M. S. 'Actaeon,' with
three gunboats, came to our rescue. The news of the attack
had reached Nagasaki ten days after the event by an express
sent. from Yokohama, and Mr. Annesley, the officer in charge
of the Consulate at the time, very zealously sent a messenger
overland to a bay where the ships were known to be. Cap-
tain Ward, the senior officer, instantly set sail for Yeddo with
his little fleet, doubly welcome from the ready zeal with which
he had come to our aid, in what he rightly judged to be a po-
sition of some anxiety, if not peril. The evidence it seemed to
furnish, that when imminent dangers threatened, resources,
even when least expected, were never far to seek, made his ar-
rival still more opportune. It must have seemed to the Jap-
anese something weird, as if ships could be evoked out of the
sea when wanted. This relieved me of all anxiety for the se-
curity of the Consulate at Kanagawa, and also of the British
community at Yokohama, which had been left to the guardian-
ship of the Dutch brig, the 'Camelot,' in attendance on my
colleague, Mr. de Wit, at that anchorage. Immediately on
hearing of what had taken place, Mr. de Wit, who was on his
way to Yeddo, wrote to the Japanese Government, saying he
saw their promises of protection could not be safely trusted,
and therefore declined to take up his residence in Yeddo until
he had received farther instructions from his Government.
Thus a month passed wearily and anxiously enough, as will
be readily conceived, checkered only by two reported gather-
ings for an attack on the American Minister's residence, who
had no European guards. But the one came to nothing be-
yond a reported reconnoitring of the defenses by a body of
armed men to the number of fifty or more, and another night
by the firing of two shots, a general turn-out of his guards, and
alarm in all the quarter, with the fire-bells sounding the tocsin.


Chap. XXXI.] RUMORS AND REPORTS.
167
How, indeed, this month was passed may best be realized by
a glance at the divers reports that reached me from day to day
of farther machinations, and the arrest of one or two of the
assailants. Most of these came from my indefatigable French
colleague, as we always interchanged our secret reports, glean-
ed with so much labor and difficulty. Surrounded as we were
by Government officials, whose chief business was to prevent
any information reaching us but such as they thought fit to
give—and that was exceeding little, and bad of its kind—we
were driven to means we should not otherwise have sought,
perhaps, in order to supplement their spare allowance of truth.
Here are a few extracts from the bulletins as they arrived:
'Le 1" d'Août.—On dit que le premier Ministre des Affaires
étrangères, un des Princes à forteresse, ne ferait plus partie de
Gorogio—Koudze Yamata no Kami aurait été obligé de re-
tourner dans son domaine, situé en Simosa (forteresse de Saki-
jado). Selon les bruits qui courent, "Les malveillants de la
province de Istals en Djousin (la province de Mito) auraient
brisé les portes de son château," etc. Si ces données étaient
exactes, elles sentiraient bien la guerre civile, ou un commence-
ment de guerre civile.'
'2"" d'Août.—Je viens d'avoir avec ... un entretien dont
je vous parlerai à l'occasion, parceque j'ai été frappé du peu
d'intérêt que ces messieurs semblent apporter sur questions les
plus majeures, tout en protestant du bon vouloir du Gouverne-
ment. Vraiment, je ne sais si je vois mal, mais il me semble
que tous ces gens-là n'éprouvent guère de souci pour dire à
demi-mot, Ah, mon Dieu! laissez-nous done tranquilles avec
toutes vos grandes phrases! C'est compris! Il n'en sera ni
plus ni moins! Il semble qu'ils soient à bout de patience, et
qu'ils supportent tout comme des gens ou condamnés ou dé-
cidés (je vois plutôt décidés que condamnés)?
'8m* d'Août.—Je ne vous confirme pas encore l'exactitude
de mon bruit de ce matin sur l'attaque des Ministres. Mais je
vais vous donner, sous toutes réserves bien entendu, les ren-
seignements qui viennent de me parvenir, et qui sont d'une na-
ture trop sérieuse pour ne pas necessiter d'autres contrôles.
'Voici ce qui vient de m'être dit par un Japonais. Est-ce
un émissaire? Est-ce homme franc? C'est ce que nous sau-
rons bientôt. . Je rapporte seulement.
'Il y a encore à Yedo des Mito Lonines; avant hier les
membres du Gorogio, Naito Kino Kami et Matsdaura Bon-
zen no Kami, sortant du palais, où ils avaient été visiter le Tai-
coon, ont été attaqués par des Lonines, qui se sont jetés, le sa-
bre à la main, sur leurs norimons. Leur garde ont fait bonne


168
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXI.
contenance, et pendant qu'ils combattaient, leurs maîtres pou-
vaient sortir et rentrer chez eux sans blessures.' .... 'Les
deux attaques auraient été successives, c'est à dire, que les
deux membres du Gorogio, sortant à peu près ensemble (mais
cependant séparément) du palais, auraient été attaqués par la
même bande.' . . . . 'Les gardes de l'un des deux Ministres
auraient réussi à faire deux prisonnièrs. Les assaillants de
l'autre Ministre auraient prit la fuite.'
'Y a-t-il eu attaque? Ou toute cette histoire n'est-elle
qu'une broderie? Il est important de la savoir, afin que j'é-
loigne de moi ces porteurs de fausses nouvelles. Et encore
avec tout ce que nous savons, voyons et supposons, ne peut-on
pas se demander (car vraiment l'esprit se déprave en contact
de tant de mystères et de subterfuges), en cas où il y aurait
eu réellement attaque, si cette attaque était sérieuse ou seule-
ment théâtrale?'
'11°" d'Août.—Ce matin vous aurez reçu comme moi l'avis
d l'inquiétude du Gouvernement au sujet d'un fameux Lonine
de Mito, qui vient de s'échapper—on le tenait de surveillance
et il a disparu.'
'14me d'Août.—Je vous félicite bien de ce succès (a secret
and confidential conference with the Ministers), au moins ils
finiront peut-être par ouvrir les yeux!'
'17m* d'Août. — Les grandes affaires Japonaises seraient
annoncées, c'est à dire, celles qui concernent les relations du
Taicoon avec le Mikado au sujet de mariage—le mariage au-
rait lieu. La future Imperatrice ou Taikonesse (mia en Jap-
onais) arriverait de Miako dans le neuvième mois de cette an-
née—c'est à dire, vers le mois d'Octobre.
'Le Taicoon irait lui-même l'année prochaine à Miako sur
une escadre Japonaise, et non par terre.'
Then followed, on the 17th, a menacing placard on Ando
Tsusimano KamVs door, followed, on the 18th, by an at-
tack, real or simulated, on the American Legation. M. de
Bellecourt might well say 'l'esprit se déprave' in such an at-
mosphere of assassinations, menaces, and rumors, each day
bringing its contingent. I will complete this page of our his-
tory in Japan by a copy of a memorandum made at the time
for the Foreign Office, of ' rumors and reports' in circulation
from day to day in Yeddo and Kanagawa, which reached me
from other sources.
'The Governor of Yeddo, a few days after the attack on
the Legation, was said to have been murdered in his house by
a band of Lonins in league with those who attacked the Le-
gation, and in revenge for the vigor with which these were


Chap. XXXI.] RUMORS AND REPORTS.
169
being pursued. Next day he was said only to be sick, and
suspended for the moment in his office. Finally it appeared
that he had committed the Hara-kiru, having offended by in-
truding his opinion at a grand council of Daimios (he not be-
ing a Daimio). The council was said to have been convoked
to determine whether the Tycoon should obey a mandate to
go to Miaco to pay homage to the Mikado, as a preliminary
to a marriage with the daughter of the latter, and the compo-
sition of certain differences for some time existing. The Gov-
ernor sent in a very strong but ably drawn-up opinion against
it. This opinion was adopted, but a rival and former Govern-
or took advantage of the opportunity to ruin him by charging
him with a violation of the laws in offering it. Upon this had
been grafted a report of a duel between two Daimios. It was
a "duel d mort" it seems, but not a hand-to-hand fight.
'Three Lonins were reported to have been watching the
new stockades and fences putting up at the Legation, and to
have said with bitterness they were too strong to be broken
through.' (A great mistake on their part, if they ever arrived
at the conclusion; for I demonstrated to the chief officials on
service some time after this that the separate bamboos could
all be slid upward, and any number of Lonins might enter
without the least noise or difficulty.)
'The Governor of Kanagawa urged the danger of an attack
on the British Consulate, and wished Captain Vyse to go over
to Yokohama, where he would be more easily protected, and
in the Wean time to admit a party of Yaconins inside his
house. The Ministers urged the same thing when the inter-
view took place. Three nights before, all the gates of the
streets about Kanagawa were closed, and the servants spread
an alarm that the Lonins were at hand, and already engaged
with the Daimio's guard on the hill. Four were actually
seized in a tea-house, which was surrounded, and but one es-
caped. There did not seem to have been any fight, but a
body of them were about, giving countenance to rumors of an
intended attack on the Consulate. Captain Vyse had a guard
of seven men from the "Ringdove," and a Dutch brig of war
and a French armed transport were close in at Yokohama, in
the absence of any British ship, for the protection of the For-
eign settlement.'
Yesterday a report came in that two men had presented
themselves at the Prince of Satsuma's KamiyasM (or Palace)
demanding refuge, and on being refused instantly killed them-
selves.
Afterward modified into a report that'fifty men demanded
II. IT


170
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXII.
entrance and sanctuary, and on being refused killed the gate-
keeper and dispersed. Again, that one only presented him-
self, asked asylum for fifty, and on being refused killed himself,
sure of being denounced!'
I may as well add here, though the account reached me
somewhat later, the translation of a letter said to have been
left in their house by four officers of the Prince of Mito, who
have made themselves Lonins.
'19th of 8th month.
'We become Lonins now, since the foreigner gains more
and more influence in the country, unable tranquilly to see the
ancient law (of Gongen Sama) violated; we become all four
Lonins with the intention of compelling the foreigner to de-
part.' 'Akiyama Tetsondjibo.
'Tatemi Tomegobo.
'Atsoumi Goro.
'MlTSOUNGI SAUDA.'
't
Such were the conditions under which the Legations in
Yeddo had to be maintained during the month succeeding the
attack of the 5th July.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Mr. Oliphant, the Secretary of Legation, sent Home for the Care of his
Wounds.—Bearer of the Tycoon's autograph Letter to the Queen, urging
the Non-opening of more Ports for a Term of Years.—Confidential Inter-
view with the President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs.—
Resume of Foreign Relations in Japan.
The rumors and reports in general circulation, given in the
last chapter, will have sufficiently shown the harassing and
* It is very interesting to note the curious similarity that exists between
the Feudal laws and institutions of Japan now, and those which marked our
own national life in the Anglo-Saxon era. In England every freeman was
bound to find a lord, a burgh, or a guild to become security for him, and if
he could not do this he became 'afriendless man.' Now a friendless man
was synonymous with a stranger or an 'outlaw.' Every man who met him
had a right to kill him. This is precisely what exists now in Japan. As a
noble or the head of a house is responsible for all who are of his family or
claim his protection, when any of his people are resolved upon a desperate
enterprise, they formally renounce the protection and declare themselves
Lonins—in other words, 'outlaws' and 'friendless men'—after which no one
is responsible for their acts, and this is considered highly honorable and a
proper thing to do.


Chap. XXXII.] CONFIDENTIAL INTERVIEWS.
171
critical position of the Foreign Representatives in Yeddo. I
had resolved on sending home Mr. Oliphant, disabled for the
time by his wounds, and to make him the bearer of the Ty-
coon's letter to the Queen, together with my own dispatches, set-
ting forth as fully and accurately as I could the state of affairs.
It was natural to expect that the Government would be mainly
guided by such information as it might be in my power to af-
ford on the spot, and there was a great deal that Mr. Oliphant
could personally supplement from his own observation, having
both seen and suffered much in the short period of his second
sojourn in the capital. The better to prepare him for this re-
sponsible duty, I took him with me on several occasions in my
conferences with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and more es-
pecially the two last, which were both confidential and secret,
none of the usual officers and attendants being allowed to hear
what passed. This was an opportunity I had long desired for
speaking out openly and freely to the Ministers as to their gen-
eral policy and the dangers incident to it; but the difficulties
in the way of so great an innovation on the established mode
of intercourse, where all interviews with the Foreign Repre-
sentatives were public, and every thing that passed took place
in the presence of the Governors of Foreign Affairs and a large
retinue of subordinate officials and attendants, were so serious
that I had hitherto sought in vain for an occasion when I could,
with fair prospect of success, make the proposition to send
them all away. The circumstances were peculiarly favorable
now, and I therefore determined to make the effort. I calcu-
lated that I held in my hand means which, properly used, would
not fail to convince them it was their interest to yield, and the
result proved I was not mistaken. I went to present Admiral
Hope, who had landed the day before, together with Sir Her-
cules Robinson, the Governor of Hongkong. I knew the Jap-
anese Government was most anxious for the success of their
own proposition to defer the opening of the ports, and were
satisfied this could not be attained unless with my support.
They were not quite at their ease, either, about the view that
might be taken by Her Majesty's Government of the late at-
tempted massacre, and Mr. Oliphant was just about to take his
departure for England with the Tycoon's letter and my dis-
patches on both these subjects. Lastly, I had reason to know
they were much disquieted and anxious about the proceedings
of the Russians who had located themselves in the island of
Tsus-sima. Profiting, then, by this rare combination of favor-
able circumstances, after a few minutes' conversation on gen-
eral matters, I told them that the present aspect of affairs in


172
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXII.
Japan, and the state of its foreign relations, were very critical;
that the proposition of the Government that we should aban-
don important treaty rights, at the same time that an attempt
had been made, in the heart of the capital, to massacre every
one in the Legation, would naturally demand some resolution
on the part of Her Majesty's Government of a decisive char-
acter; and, that they might have the latest and best informa-
tion, I was about to send Mr. Oliphant, crippled as he was by
his wounds, to give in person more full details than I could
possibly write. In this view, also, I had brought him with me,
notwithstanding the state of his health, that he might hear what
the Ministers should desire to say, after hearing some things I
also wished to say to them of very grave importance, but which
I could not communicate otherwise than confidentially, and to
no one but themselves. I added Iwas of course aware it was
contrary to their custom, but now they had entered into new
relations with Foreign Powers, they must see the necessity,
from time to time, of adapting their modes of intercourse to
the exigencies of a new situation, and that it was not in their
interest that what I had to communicate should, in the first in-
stance, reach any ears but theirs. They were evidently strong-
ly impressed with the novelty and importance of my proposi-
tion, and a conviction of the expediency of hearing what I had
to communicate; for, after a feeble resistance, and more for
appearances possibly than from any strong wish to succeed,
they consented, first, to the withdrawal of all the Governors
of Foreign Affairs except three; then these also; and, lastly,
the Ometsky, or chief spy, with all the subordinates and attend-
ants of every description. I, on my side, had previously ar-
ranged the withdrawal at the same time of Sir Hercules Rob-
inson and the naval officers, which prevented the appearance of
any thing derogatory or invidious, as a concession on their side
only. I then drew my chair nearer to the Ministers, made Mr.
Myburgh, acting as my secretary and Dutch interpreter, come
between us, with only room for the Japanese interpreter of the
Ministers, Moriyama, on the mats, and with the Admiral and
Mr. Oliphant drawn close on my left also. The conversation
was carried on in a tone so low that, had any one been behind
the screens in the vicinity, the Ministers must have felt it would
have been impossible to overhear what was passing.
After three hours thus spent it was getting late, but so slow
is the process of a double translation that neither the Ministers
nor I had concluded what we each wished to say. It was ac-
cordingly agreed that the conference should be renewed the
next morning at eight o'clock, as the Admiral was to embark


Gage. XXXII.]
113
A NEW EPOCH.
in the afternoon. It was most satisfactory, in this beginning
of better things, that the second Minister, when we were really
done, declared that he had often desired such an opportunity
of speaking without reserve, and certain it is that he evinced
the deepest interest in the communication I made, and the ut-
most anxiety that the conference should not be unduly cur-
tailed, while he, on his side, entered spontaneously upon very
delicate revelations for a Japanese. I consider this 14th of
August saw a new phase commenced, and it will, I think, be
seen hereafter that this striking innovation marks an epoch in
the history of our relations.'' The want of such opportunity
for confidential exchange of opinions and information I had al-
ways felt to be an insuperable obstacle to any steady or sure
progress with Japanese rulers. This was the first commence-
ment of really confidential relations, and was not only a pres-
ent benefit, but might prove the pivot on which all future in-
tercourse between foreigners and Japanese would turn. To
penetrate them with views which I could only hope to recom-
mend to their acceptance if I could secure the means of speak-
ing to them confidentially, and without a crowd of officials and
witnesses of all classes, was an advantage of the utmost im-
portance to the maintenance of that good understanding it had
been my unceasing effort to establish, and one the more to be
rejoiced in that it was calculated to be equally beneficial to
both countries.
I can not, of course, make any statement here of what passed
in these two important interviews, but the past, the present,
and the future were all discussed in the most earnest- and am-
icable spirit on both sides. And I can not help hoping that
much information was given and received, which placed, the
relative position and interests of the two countries, and, indeed,
of Foreign Powers generally, with Japan in a much clearer
light than they had ever appeared before to the Japanese Min-
isters, and by so much, at least, on a more satisfactory and in-
telligible basis than had previously been found possible.
My persistence in remaining at the Legation after the at-
tack, merely gathering round it some better and additional
means of defense in a guard from H. M. S.' Ringdove,' and tak-
ing my usual rides with no better defense than a number of
* Innovation of any kind in such a country, however expedient and neces-
sary, is, unfortunately, always a source of danger to those who take the initi-
ative. I was not surprised, therefore, to find later, that in a document said
to have emanated from a body of malcontents assembled round Miaco, under
covert protection of some of the leading Daimios hostile to foreigners and to
the Tycoon, this departure from established custom, among others, was enu-
merated as one of the crimes for which his Government was denounced.


174
[Chap. XXXII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
useless Yaconins, had borne good fruit. It was not without
some risk, certainly; but nothing is to be obtained in the pres-
ent state of Japan without risk, and danger too, and the stake
was sufficiently important to justify the step. Our position in
the capital I am persuaded had been more firmly established
in consequence, and at the very time it seemed most endan-
gered and shaken. The attitude taken by M. de Bellecourt
and myself tended, I think, to hold those in check, whoever
they might be, who thought the Foreign Representatives were
to be finally driven from the capital by menace and violence,
and so far must have discouraged renewed attempts. These,
taken in conjunction with the new relations just established
with the Government, were important results of what I may,
almost without metaphor, term our six weeks' campaign in the
capital—held against all enemies in what might, in a military
point of view, certainly be deemed a most indefensible position
—even against Lonins (if such were our enemies), with no bet-
ter arms than swords, but of untold number and under power-
ful protection.
These two results went far even to modify my opinion of
our position in Japan in reference to the future. And if a
two years' experience in the country would not allow me to
write in a very sanguine spirit, yet I could not help taking a
more hopeful view of possible improvement than I should have
felt justified in but a few weeks earlier.
The position of the Foreign Representatives in Japan was
indeed without precedent, certainly, in modern times. For
any parallel we must go back to the Middle Ages in Europe,
and to our early relations with the Sublime Porte, when Con-
stantinople represented 'the East,' and ambassadors did not
always escape personal indignities, and performed their duties
in danger of the Seven Towers if they gave offense to the
Grand Turk. It is not surprising, therefore, if this conflict be-
tween actualities and diplomatic canons of a later and more
civilized era, founded on existing international law and usages,
should carry something of perplexity with it, and prove a
source of harassing anxiety to those who were compelled by
their position to try and reconcile the two. To maintain
treaty rights without resort to the only arguments carrying
weight; to preserve peaceful relations, and yet neither com-
promise the true interests nor the dignity ot his country, con-
stitute only a few of the more trying condit ons attached to a
Diplomatic Mission in Japan. Diversity of opinion as to how
such seeming impossibilities may best be compassed is inevita-
ble, where many minds and interests are concerned. This was


Chap. XXXII.] DUBIOUS POLICY.
175
well illustrated by the communications I received from my sev-
eral colleagues at the time as to the conclusions to be drawn
from passing events, and the course of action which might
most fitly be adopted under the circumstances. But these di-
versities of opinion were rather the natural fruit of the atmos-
phere of doubt in which we were placed by the absence of any
positive information or thoroughly reliable data as to passing
events, the real state of parties, or the action of the Govern-
ment, and never caused any real divergence of action or disac-
cord among the members of the Corps Diplomatique, with the
one lamentable exception already referred to in the case of the
American Legation. Indeed, in the midst of all the troubles
and anxieties inseparable from the position of a Foreign Min-
ister in Yeddo, the uninterrupted harmony and cordiality of
my relations with all my colleagues was one of the few condi-
tions of our exile on which I can look back with unmingled
satisfaction.
As to the actual state of our relations, there was, indeed,
much room for improvement. Life was insecure, trade was
beipg daily restricted, and no remonstrance, protest, or argu-
ment within the scope of diplomatic means had hitherto much
availed to turn the authorities from a policy the manifest tend-
ency of which was to nullify the treaties, restrict all inter-
course, and ultimately revert to the former state of isolation
by the expulsion of foreigners. To make trade unprofitable
by restrictions, extortions, and prohibitions imposed on their
own people, with whom their power is absolute, and render
life not only so insecure, "but intolerable in the conditions of
residence, that no foreigner would long submit or find such an
existence endurable, seemed really to have been the chief ob-
ject kept in view during nearly two years. This was the
summary of their policy; and if these milder measures failed,
the bravo's sword, for assassination, was always in reserve, and
held in terrorem over the heads of the intruders on their soil,
to be resorted to as occasion might serve, without ruth or
scruple.
Who were the authors of this truly Oriental system, in
which bad faith and assassination were the most prominent
features? The Tycoon, by the mouth of his Ministers, speak-
ing as a Government, denied all parentage and repudiated all
responsibility. As to the systematic obstructions and restric-
tions of every kind, in which governmentagents were the act-
ive instruments, they were either denied, or defended as being
no other than legitimate measures to insure regularity and
prevent smuggling. So of obstructions to all intercourse with


THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
[Chap. XXXII.
the people, or freedom of action on the part of foreigners, those
which could not be proved against them were denied; and
what could not be denied, even by Japanese, was defended as
evidence of good faith, and necessary to our protection from
the evil-disposed,' who at the present moment abound, and are
very dangerous even to the Government, though all outcasts,
and men of low degree P
Such had been the continuous and unchanging course of
events since the first hour of the opening of the ports. The
situation of all the Western Powers at this moment might be
summed up in a few words. The treaties had, in all their
more important stipulations, been systematically and persist-
ently inoperative; and they now proposed, as a political ne-
cessity imposed upon them by the nature of the case and the
exasperation of the public mind, the suspension of all farther
execution, by deferring the opening of other ports for a term
of years. Having thus provided against any development of
trade, and avowed the necessity of preventing its extension for
the present, under plea of which they were doing much to de-
stroy it, they also allowed the lives of the Foreign Represent-
atives, and all other foreigners, to be so demonstrably inse-
cure, that the authors of such a system might be pardoned if
they counted with some certainty upon their not being long
molested by the presence of such hated intruders into the
country. Trade hampered and manacled, life menaced, nation-
al rights violated, with outrage to the flags, and without a hope
of redress or amelioration—all with impunity. This, in resu-
me, depicts the situation.
Yet even among Europeans, and the Representatives of
Foreign Powers, there were not wanting some who were dis-
posed to give a much more favorable interpretation of the
facts. Several possible, if not plausible explanations of the ap-
parent inconsistency and half measures of the Japanese execu-
tive, consistent with the absence of any really hostile animus
on their part, were suggested. First, the necessity of prevent-
ing the shock of a too abrupt transition from an old to a new
state of things—in trade as in political relations. Secondly,
the necessity of avoiding a revolution in the country, with
which the Government said they were threatened, by parties
opposed to them profiting by the excitement and confusion in-
cident to such radical changes in the policy of the nation, pow-
erfully assisted as these might be by a large class affected in
their interests by a rise of prices entirely attributed to a new
order of things, contrary to old laws and customs.
Thirdly, pressed by these and other causes of dissatisfaction


Chap. XXXII.] POLITICAL NECESSITIES.
177
and trouble incident to all sudden and great changes, it was
farther suggested that the Government probably saw itself
compelled by its critical position to keep up with any hostile
party the appearance of making nothing but unwilling and
compulsory concessions to prevent their rushing into open re-
bellion, in which foreigners and the native Government alike
would become objects of attack. Equally might they have
been compelled to be the proposers of an agreement to suspend
execution of some clauses of the treaties, and from the same
circumstances. Nor can it be denied that in this line of argu-
ment there is much appearance of reason and truth. Of de-
cided bad faith as regards protection to foreigners for their
lives I did not think there was any sufficient evidence. No
doubt there was a total failure of justice in the punishment of
those who took life, and nearly equal fatuity was shown in the
measures ostensibly taken for their protection. But much of
this may be inherent in their system of administration and spe-
cial circumstances, not perhaps very fully known to us. The
first may have been due to a political necessity in regard to
powerful and hostile Daimios who protected their instruments;
and as to the insufficient and inappropriate means they suc-
cessively took to prevent life being taken, all that could be said
is that they seemed a good deal in accordance with their ha-
bitual modes of proceeding, and a nation's habits can not be
exchanged in a year, even in matters of police. I acquitted
them of deliberate bad faith in the latter particulars, and be-
lieved that they really desired to afford the protection they
professed, because, had they ever willed or consented to a gen-
eral massacre, there was nothing whatever to have prevented
a St. Bartholomew or a Sicilian Vespers on a small scale. We
were but a handful of foreigners, all counted, not two hundred
I think, scattered in four different ports, incapable of any ef-
fective resistance, and generally deprived of means of escape;
in Yeddo always—for on those rare occasions when a ship of
war happened to be at the anchorage, it lay of necessity some
outlaws, and outcasts could always be secured to attack a Le-
gation or assassinate a foreigner, and if one attack failed an-
other and another might follow, and in the end make success
certain. I think this is conclusive. That their protection was
ineffective, and always would be so unless close imprisonment
within four walls in the midst of a guard of jailors were ac-
cepted, was, in my opinion, however, equally certain. Even
Mr. Harris's faith in his own safety had this important reserva-
tion, ' so long as he observed the precautions recommended by

shores.

H 2


178
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXII.
the Japanese Government, and used by the Japanese them-
selves.' What those precautions were had been sufficiently
shown. Their inability, by any other and less objectionable or
inadmissible means, to protect the Legations in Yeddo effect-
ually, either from insult or murder, while there was undoubted
evidence of an actively hostile party seeking their destruction,
was so clear that I am convinced no British Minister, so long
as this state of things should last, could be fitly resident in
Yeddo without means of defense drawn from our own forces.
This involved a guard permanently for the Legation, and a
mounted escort of European or Indian troopers. The footing,
in a word, would be somewhat like that of a Resident in India
exposed to a similar danger, though it might and would, of
course, be on a much less expensive scale. A guard of from twenty to thirty men at the Legation, and a mounted escort
of a dozen troopers in addition, and, finally, a residence built
with some reference to attack and in a defensible position,
would, I conceived, meet the requirements of the case. With-
out some such provision, loss of life, fresh complications, and
treatment so injurious that it could not long be tolerated with
any regard to our national credit, could not be otherwise than
inevitable. We can only look for a cessation of danger, and
the necessity for such measures from some political change in
the country—either increased strength of the executive, or di-
minished vigor and daring in the party or parties now appar-
ently fighting their own battle with the Government of the
Tycoon over our bodies.
In these conclusions I was glad to find Admiral Hope, when
once on the spot, and able to judge as to what the actual con-
ditions of a residence in Yeddo were, entirely concurred. I
am, indeed, bound to say, when he last arrived nothing could
be more cordial than the desire he manifested to give Her
Majesty's Representative the most effective support. And it
was quite evident, from the interest he evinced in all the meas-
ures calculated to insure the Legation against any farther out-
rage, that had he ever realized, when at a distance, the actual
danger menacing us, there would have been no room for com-
plaint at apparent unconcern. It was mainly through Sir
James Hope's effective and prompt assistance that I obtained
for our troops on the coast of China, within three months from
this time, a well-mounted escort, commanded by an efficient of-
ficer; and although their adoption was made a subject of re-
monstrance by the Japanese Government, and was not unat-
tended with anxiety, I feel now that only such means could
have given the necessary safety, and that they have, in more


Chap. XXXIII.] PROTECTIVE MEANS.—REVIEW.
179
ways than one, had a most salutary moral effect both on the
population and the Government.
All that remained for me to do had now been effected, to
maintain our ground, and give time for the arrival of final in-
structions from Her Majesty's Government. The site for the
five Legations was marked out on a commanding table-land,
having a tolerably direct communication with the water. The
Government undertook of their own accord to make it defens-
ible by a deep moat and double palisade, and I consented, in
the interval while it was building, occasionally to vary my res-
idence, and relieve them at intervals of the large expense at-
tending the guarding of Tozengee with a force of 500 men,
which they insisted upon as necessary in addition to our own
small guard of marines, and also of the anxiety they felt, or
professed to feel, for the safety of the Legation, even after such
measures of precaution. Nothing farther was left but to wait
patiently the lapse of months that must take place before Mr.
Oliphant could arrive at home and any dispatches or instruc-
tions reach me.
Part of this time was employed in putting together the ma-
terials that lay to my hand for the narrative which may now
be very soon concluded. I had leisure to consider very delib-
erately both the actual state of foreign relations and the fu-
ture prospects of these, as well as their bearing on the destiny
of Japan; and some of the reflections suggested at this period
will be found in the following chapters.
CHAPTER XXXIII. Review of Foreign Relations with Japan.—In the Japanese Territories the
Present is Heir to the Past in a peculiar Sense.—Influence on existing Re-
lations.—How they may be dealt with, and what the Alternatives offered.
Such was the aspect of affairs soon after the end of the sec-
ond year following the opening of the Ports. An attempt to
kill Her Majesty's Representative, and all the other members
of the Legation at one blow, placed though they were under
the protection of the Tycoon's body-guards and the armed re-
tainers of two of his Daimios, opened a fresh page in the his-
tory of our relations. Prior to this the outrages had been lim-
ited to menaces of massacre, and isolated acts of butchery or
assassination in the streets. But this last deed was a conclu-
sive demonstration of the existence of a hostile party which


180
[Ciiap. XXXIII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
would stop at nothing—not even the murder of the Foreign
Representatives within the gates of their Legations. True, the
Japanese Government had often warned them of the existence
of such dangers, and of plottings and designs for the murder
of all Europeans, as a means of ridding the country of their
presence forever, and effecting a total rupture of relations with
Foreign Powers; but it was hard to believe in designs as
short-sighted as they were atrocious upon any evidence less
conclusive than the events of this July night.
We had apparently arrived at a period when parties in the
State hostile to foreign intercourse had resolved on keeping no
measure henceforth with us, and were determined to force on
a rupture of relations; and, whosoever the active agents might
be, it seemed the ostensible Government (the Tycoon and his
Council of State) exercised no controlling power to prevent
any deed of atrocity, for the attempted massacre of the British
Legation was but the culminating point of a long series of out-
rages and assassinations, attended with perfect impunity to the
perpetrators.
Assuming, in this aspect of affairs, that Great Britain, from
a love of peace and a horror of new complications in the East,
with contingencies of war in the distance, would rather con-
template the abandonment of all her treaty rights in Japan
than incur the risk of a contest to enforce or maintain them,
and, consequently, would be willing to adopt the views set
forth by the Japanese Ministers in their letter to the Foreign
Representatives—attribute any failure or obstructions to trade
to natural causes beyond the control of Governments, and the
insecurity of life to popular discontent and hatred, for which
the Tycoon could just as little be held responsible—what would
be the immediate result of such entire acquiescence? If whol-
ly unconditional and unlimited, it hardly could be doubted that
trade would gradually cease. Its growth had been checked
from the beginning by the action of the authorities with the
native dealers. Although this was questioned by some few of
our own merchants, there was really no doubt about it. We
must, at all events, renounce the opening of more ports; and
if we still maintained a Diplomatic Agent in the capital, and
Consuls at the ports, we must also be resigned to see them re-
duced to a state closely analogous to the Dutch of old in De cima—free in name only, and prisoners in effect, shut out from
all intercourse with the people of Japan, whom it is our inter-
est, by free communication, to conciliate and enlighten. To
what useful end, then, would all this expense, trouble, and hu-
miliation have been accepted? If it should be expedient to


Chap. XXXIII.] THE PRESENT IS HEIR TO THE PAST.
181
maintain political relations independent of any commerce with
this country, and for reasons connected with other and larger
interests in the East, it would still be a question whether it
might not be worth some serious effort to maintain our Diplo-
matic and Consular Agents in a position less humiliating and
derogatory than that which the Japanese, of their own free ac-
cord, were ever likely to concede.
But, before entering into any question of this nature, or pass-
ing on to the future and a description of the means available
for the improvement of our position or affairs in this country,
a few remarks of a retrospective character are required, if we
would either understand the present or be prepared to deal in-
telligently with the future. Nowhere is the present more com-
pletely interwoven with the past, or the impress of a nation's
history and traditions more indelibly and plainly stamped in
the lineaments of an existing generation than in Japan. The
present is heir to the past always and every where, in the life
of nations no less than of individuals; but the present is linked
to the past in Japan in a sense so peculiar that it is worthy of
special attention.
This study of the past can alone furnish a key to the char-
acter and policy of the nation, in the possession of which lies
our best hope of the future, and of turning what it may have
in store to good account. We must, indeed, read both the
present and future of Japan by the light of the past, for by
such reflected light alone can either be rightly understood.
The rapid growth and progress of modern nations in Europe
has left Asia so far behind that the older race has become as a
child in the grasp of the younger, and incapable of any effect-
ive resistance in actual conflict. There is a dull consciousness
of the fact in the Asiatic mind, and of the giant power wielded
by the younger and still despised branches of the great human
family; and only thus is the collateral fact to be accounted for,
that no people or nation of Asiatic blood ever yield to the su-
perior strength of the European without a dogged and determ-
ined resistance, and a struggle often continued long after all
hope of final success must have died out of their hearts. Like
the Greeks of the Byzantine empire, and, later, the polished
but effeminate Italians of the Middle Ages, the Chinese and
Japanese are brought in contact with races surging in upon
them from unknown lands beyond the outer limits of their civ-
ilization—barbarians, in a word, far superior to themselves in
bone, and thew, and sinew, in prowess and military tactics,
but still barbarians, and thus inferiors in all that constitutes
superiority in their estimation: in knowledge of their language,


182
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIII.
literature, religion, and philosophy—the only religion or phi-
losophy they recognize as having a real existence or value. As
Goths and Vandals could trample down and sweep before them
any array the effeminate Byzantine Court could marshal in the
field, so can we the hosts of China or Japan, though the latter
makes pretensions to be considered warlike. But the result is
still the same. The triumph over their weaker frames and
their ignorance of arms does not command any respect, or men-
tal recognition of superiority. They bend their necks to su-
perior force, but harden their hearts and console themselves
under defeat by hoarding in secret a cumulative and rankling
contempt for their conquerors.
And thus, when beaten in the field, they fall back on fraud
and cunning, the traditional arms of the weak, and, it must be
added, the only ones, much relied upon by the Asiatic. Resist-
ance does not cease, but only takes another form. The pow-
er of passive resistance possessed by a whole race, with habits
and institutions antagonistic to the foreigner and to all change,
is a tower of strength to the rulers, and a barrier to the stran-
ger's progress which may prove long impassable. But, besides
the obstacle created by the inert mass and bulk of the oppos-
ing body, rulers like the Daimios in Japan can always draw
from this great arsenal of ignorance, and passions easily roused
into activity, the weapons of treachery and violence, which
leave the stranger, fixed on the soil, exposed to a vendetta, and
compels him to stand in defense of his life.'' Such exactly is the position of the foreigner in Japan at the
present moment. And against this kind of instinctive resist-
ance, stirred up in the mass by designing rulers, no Western
Power can hope to come out completely victor in a single gen-
eration, for it has arrayed against it the most baffling and ex-
hausting of hostile elements. Russia has had some evidence
of this in Poland. Prior to any real advance, such as shall be
beyond the power of a privileged class to arrest, there is re-
quired a change of convictions among the people as to their
true interests, which, for the most part, must be allowed to
break in slowly, and advance by steady degrees. Like a New
* Here, again, the strange analogy of institutions and national habits with
the Anglo-Saxon era can not be overlooked. 'In the Saxon-Danish era, the
hundred in which a criminal lived was bound either to make good his of-
fenses or to deliver him up.' 'It is probable,' the same writer remarks,'that
when both parties belonged to the same district, this duty was fairly per-
formed; but when the murdered man was a detested Dane, or a still more
hateful Norman, nobody ever chose to know how he came by his death.'
Nothing could better or more accurately describe the existing state of things
in Japan, and the position of the foreigner.


Chap. XXXIII.] A POLICY OF ISOLATION.
183
Zealander's pah, it is to be carried by the sap, and the superi-
or skill of the engineer, and not by assault, which only leads
to an idle sacrifice of life, and the danger of a defeat.
But it is clear that, for such a gradual process to make way,
there must be a beginning—the trenches must be opened and
the sap laid—and here precisely lies the difficulty. Our great-
est grievance in Japan is not their present spirit of resistance,
their antagonism and dislike to innovation, but the systematic
and determined way in which the Rulers set themselves to
work, with all the means at their command, to make a beginning impossible, by cutting off all communication with the
people, and especially the educated, and with all persons ex-
ercising any influence in the country.
They seem to have intuitively seen where their real danger
lay; and, warned and enlightened by past experience, and some
gleanings of history as to European progress in the East, they
have resolved to meet us on the threshold. Determined that
we shall not plant the first germs of any thing that can bear
fruit hereafter, they exhaust their ingenuity in effecting that
end. They seem to see, as clearly as we do, the importance of
access to the minds and hearts of the people, and so have taken
their measures accordingly to close up all the avenues. This
they have chosen as their field of battle, and the strong-hold
of their power against the inroads of the foreigner, confident
that, so long as they can maintain this ground intact, all the
European nations together must recoil, baffled and defeated,
as often as they come to the attack.
Hence all the jealous watchings, the restrictions, and limita-
tions encountered in every direction; the army of spies and
two-sworded Yaconins, true' sbirri,' who know only their mas-
ter's will. Hence, too, outrages, insults, and assassinations,
with a remittent character of febrile violence—now striking a
blow, and then dying off into mere mutterings of menace or
insult, to recur again inevitably in the same order, and with
persistent regularity. We have forced ourselves upon them;
but it is their business to see that neither present profit nor
hope of future advantage shall come of it; and this is the pol-
icy they have devised to that end, and perseveringly carry out,
with all the subtlety and utter disregard for life which might
be anticipated in Asiatic rulers, plotting against a formidable
adversary.
If, on the contrary, the Japanese as a people could be brought
in contact with us, even at a few points, and within the sphere
of new influences of thought and feeling, Europe might take
patience. Ten or twenty years are so little in the life of a na-


184
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. Trust. XXXHI.
tion! But the misfortune is, these Rulers will not allow the
Treaty Powers to take patience for an ally—listen exclusively
to its counsels, and sow and plant in faith, that in due time
the seed will bear fruit. The Daimios will not leave them
any ground of such trust for the Future, and are ever stirring
up violence in the hope of intimidating, and ultimately, by
menace and assassination combined, of driving every foreigner
out of the country.
To check this tendency to resort to violence and a system
of terrorism, and to secure such points of contact and means
of communication with the people as shall sooner or later en-
able us to leaven the mass with sentiments and feelings less
favorable to the absolute power of the Daimios, and less indif-
ferent to the prospective advantages of foreign trade and in-
tercourse, appears, therefore, to furnish the very key we are
seeking to a policy of the Future.
But we must still turn our regards backward to the Past
for additional light, and abundant evidence will be found to
prove that, although forced into renewed relations after an in-
terim of two hundred years, they have never for an instant
changed their policy, or entertained the design of making any
effective or permanent change.
On the contrary, it would seem to be the Alpha and Omega
of their policy to secure the means of returning to their isola-
tion. They would have new guarantees, if possible, for its un-
questioned enjoyment hereafter, in the conviction European
Powers would acquire, by experience, of the hopelessness of
farther effort to keep up friendly relations, and the uselessness
of entering into hostilities for the costly and veryprofitless
privilege. This good result they hope to draw from the evil
days on which they have fallen, and then their patriotic efforts
will be amply compensated.
There is a characteristic speciality in this tenacity of pur-
pose which bates no jot of hope, even when all their outer de-
fenses seemed beaten down by a force majeure which they did
not deem it prudent or possible to resist by arms; for, in oth-
er respects; they only shared a common fate in yielding a re-
luctant consent to proposals for treaties they would never vol-
untarily have entered into. All treaties that have ever been
made with Eastern Governments, from Constantinople to Yed-
do, have been extorted either by force or its equivalent. No
Eastern potentate has willingly accepted the proffered friend-
ship and alliance of Western States, unless the King of Siam
may be considered an exception. The Japanese, however, un-
like all other nations or tribes of the East, are not content


Chap. XXXIII.] SPECIAL HOSTILITY.
185
with a sullen and passive resistance, but regard these compul-
sory treaties as a means of more completely insuring their
emancipation from a foreign thrall, and an undisturbed isola-
tion ever after!
Doubtless some portion of this intensified antagonism and
hostility may partly be traced to their insular position, but
greatly, also, to their antecedent history. Three centuries ago
they voluntarily and trustfully made treaties with the princi-
pal Maritime Powers of Europe, and the relations thus estab-
lished all ended disastrously in a forcible disruption, after years
of civil and religious war convulsing the country. The Dutch
alone were then excepted from a decree of extermination and
expulsion directed against all of foreign race, and professing a
Christian creed; and the natives of Holland were excepted
only on condition that they would submit to be imprisoned in
a sea-girt quarantine at Nagasaki, and under the most jealous
guard.
Thus it happens that Europeans of this generation appear
in Japan as the heirs and representatives of the past, in a way
peculiarly fatal to any friendly settlement on its shores. On
them indiscriminately weighs heavily not only the antagonism
of race common to all Asia, but an inheritance purely Japan-
ese, which has been carefully hoarded by the ruling classes—
one of mingled hatred and fear, of religious and political fanati-
cism, only too faithfully transmitted from father to son through
many successive generations, not merely without diminution,
but with an accumulation of interest which, now the opportu-
nity presents itself, they seem eager should be paid off in ad-
dition to the original capital.
From the day that men of Western lineage first set foot on
the coast, when Commodore Perry made his Treaty in 1853,
there is abundant and conclusive evidence to show they were
looked upon as the legitimate heirs, if not the lineal descend-
ants, of the Mendez Pintos and Xaviers, adventurers and pros-
elytizers, merchants and missionaries, who followed fast in the
wake of Vasco da Gama, in search of new fields, where gold
was to be gathered and souls to be saved. The Americans
flattered themselves (as they confess) that the plea, ostenta-
tiously put forward, of being wholly disconnected with any na-
tions whose antecedent relations had given ground of com-
plaint or distrust, would be received as exceptional ground for
favor. Never was hope more vain, as they now know by ex-
perience. The Japanese allow no distinction of nationalities
q to stand between them and their one object, which is the ex-
pulsion of the foreigner and a return to their isolation. Their


186
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIII.
distrust of Foreign Powers is indiscriminate, and their hatred
perfectly impartial. They slay the secretary of the United
States Legation, and attempt the massacre of the inmates of
the British Legation with equal readiness and satisfaction. If
the Russians attack them at Tsus-sima, the English, at Yeddo,
may pay the penalty!
In a word, we are all descendants of Ishmael, and have no
claim to the promised land. Descendants of those who, within
the first century of their appearance in the country where they
were received with a friendly welcome, drained it of its gold,
convulsed it with civil and religious wars, and spread fierce
dissensions where they had found only peace and union, we re-
turn, after a lapse of two centuries, to claim the inheritance of
men who were either crucified as the worst of criminals, or
expelled, with execration, as disturbers of the peace and revil-
ers of their gods, at once the reproach and curse of the coun-
try—of those against whom a law of the empire was made, de-
claring that 'so long as the sun should shine,' no foreigner
should touch the soil of Japan and live. From that date it
became an act of loyalty and patriotism, worthy of all praise in
a Japanese, to aid in rooting out and exterminating the hated
race. This time-honored law of Gongen Sama, the founder of
the present dynasty of Tycoons, or, as the Ministers affirm, of
older date, has never been abrogated. It could only be re-
scinded by the Mikado, or, at least, with his sanction; and,
practically, it certainly never has been repealed, for if the nec-
essary sanction was obtained, the Tycoon's Government have
never dared to make it public. There is no doubt that the
spirit of this hostile and intolerant legislation still survives in
the hearts of a large and influential number of the governing
class, and is quoted as justifying all Japanese in proceeding to
any extremity against the stranger. It would have been of
just as little avail to introduce a clause of toleration for the
Christian religion in the treaties, because the Japanese Govern-
ment still maintain their right to make it death to a Japanese
to listen to the missionary, or take his books. It could only
have made the other clauses for the establishment of trade and
free intercourse objects of greater dislike, without in the slight-
est degree advancing the cause of religion. They remembered
the past, and still, apparently, hold a conviction, founded on
some experience of the practical working of the Romanist sys-
tem, that an ecclesiastical power which exercises complete do-
minion over the souls of men leaves very little for the tempo-
ral sovereign. •
The long and doubtful struggle and devastating wars which


Chap. XXXIII.] UNCOMPROMISING HOSTILITY.
187
preceded the casting forth of the foreigner, and the extermina-
tion of all converts to his religion in the 17th century, and
which ended, as we know, with the fall of Simabara, beneath
the ruins of which lay buried 37,000 of its defenders and Chris-
tian converts, has left an indelible impression on the national
mind, identifying tis with trouble, dissension, and calamity.
Here we have both cause and effect plainly traced. We can
understand the enmity we experience from the educated and
privileged classes, and measure its depth and strength. There
are men among the ruling class ready to put into force as san-
guinary decrees as those of Gongen Sama, and to enact over
again all the tragic scenes of that time of blood and torture.
The intervening period of two centuries has been little more to
them than a long sleep, from which they awake to find the for-
eigner once more seeking to effect a lodgment on their soil,
and plant the seeds of more religious wars and civil feuds,
with their consequences of revolution and national impoverish-
ment.
If it be asked,' What data exist for such sweeping conclu-
sions?' it may be answered, too many for citation here in de-
tail; but, first and principally, the authority of the Daimios
and the Government of the Tycoon, both speaking by the
mouths of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs. These, as mem-
bers of the Great Council of State, represent a Cabinet, which,
as the Tycoon is merely a youth, must be held to exercise the
power in his name, under the influence and control of those
strong enough to uphold a Government, whether these be the
more influential of the Daimios or a large number of the lesser
nobility. This declaration of irradicable and uncompromising
hostility was the burden of nearly every official interview, and
a vast number of written communications. The letter of the
Ministers, accompanying the autograph letter of the Tycoon
to the respective Treaty Powers, requesting no more ports
might be opened, was only one among many; but the latest
written expression of this political programme—as the attack
on the Legation was the last in action—is to be found in a com-
munication sent by the Ministers to M. de Bellecourt, which
admirably sums up and confirms the narrative as it has here
been given, and it has the advantage, also, of being authentic.
Under date 27th July, 1861, the two Ministers of Foreign Af-
fairs forwarded an official note, containing the following pas-
sage referring to the declarations of two of the Lonins who
were wounded in the attack on the Legation and made prison-
ers, adopting the French translation. It ran as follows:
'Suivant leurs déclarations il paraltrait que tous ceux qui


188
[Chap. XXXin.
THESE YEAKS IN JAPAN.
sont impliqués dans cette affaire sont des vagabonds de la
province de Dziosiou, que des prêtres et des gens de basse
classe se sont joints à eux, et qu'ils persévèrent avec obstina-
tion dans leur opinion qui a pour but de rétablir Vancien sys-
tème gouvernemental,parcequ,Us considèrent la conclusion des
Traités avec les Puissances étrangères comme contraires à Pam.cien état de VEmpire; enfin qu'ils avaient tramé cette conju-
ration par la raison que les officiers et les bourgeois sont dans
l'indigence depuis l' overture des ports, à cause du renchérisse-
ment des marchandises, et parceque le sentiment national de-
vient inquiet. Il est à présumer qu'indépendamment des qua-
torze conjurés connus, il y en a encore beaucoup du même
genre.'
'Il y a quelque temps on a arrêté un individu s'efforçant
d'exciter l'inimitié contre les étrangers. H disait, que si par
suite du meurtre des étrangers, les relations entre notre Em-
pire et les Puissances étrangères étaient rompues, l'ancien sys-
tème gouvernemental qui excluait les étrangers du pays serait
rétabli, que l'Empire deviendrait alors considéré et puissant, et
qu'il pensait prouver ainsi son patriotisme, bien qu'il pût y
perdre la vie. La crainte de la mort ne semble pas modifier la
persistance de son opinion erronée.'
There is, indeed, one notable difference between the state-
ment endorsed by Ministers and that which has been made in
the preceding pages. According to the Ministers, the hostil-
ity is all to be found in the lower and unprivileged classes and
among the priests, without complicity or participation on the
part of Daimios, or their relations and retainers; whereas there
can be no doubt, as I have already pointed out in a preceding
danger to life, restrictions and vexations to which merchants
and Ministers in different forms are subjected, may, with more
or less certainty, be traced as coming from above and not from
below. The Tycoonat, to borrow a convenient name coined
by the French, including the whole hierarchy and system of
government, Tycoon, Daimios, and Councils of State, are the
true sources, and furnish the only active power in operation. It
is more convenient, and safer to the ruling powers, to place
the hostility which creates insuperable obstacles to any exten-
sion of trade, free intercourse with the people, or even security
to life, in the mass of the population. It is safer to refer to
popular excitement and public opinion as the source of the
evil, than to the opinions or machinations of any number of
Daimios,* who could be held responsible both for their acts
* See Tables I. and II. of the official list of Daimios in Appendix.

Obstacles to trade ani


Chap. XXXIII.] POLICY OF THE JAPANESE RULERS.
189
and opinions, and 143 of whom have castles and capitals ac-
cessible to attack.* They have wit enough, apparently, to re-
alize the truth of Sydney Smith's saying, without having heard
it: that responsibility is in an inverse ratio to the numbers in-
volved. And the policy attributed to the Bourbons and petty
sovereigns of Italy, of seeking to discourage locomotion, inter-
nal and external trade, and almost every branch of industry
except the ordinary operations of agriculture, exactly repre-
sents the policy of the Japanese rulers. In trade, especially
foreign trade, they see the elements of wealth and the growth
of a middle class, which could not long be retained in a state
of serfdom. What took place in Europe by the same develop-
ment of wealth and intelligence among the mercantile classes,
enabling these to break the chains of a feudal tenure, and cre-
ate free cities as centres of resistance, would follow here. For-
eign trade and intercourse do carry with them inevitably the
germs of a social revolution to these Eastern states; and
whether by instinct, or by a higher exercise of reason, aided by
some fragments of historical knowledge, they know and feel
the danger to existing institutions, and all their class privileges
by which the Daimios are sole lords of the soil, and the whole
of the population but laborers to till it, with shopkeepers to
distribute the produce, neither having voice in the government,
nor any pretensions to take part in the administration.
Why these same dominant powers, Tycoon, Councils of
State, and Daimios combined, entered into treaties with For-
eign Powers in recent times, if such were their principles and
ruling motives, may well be asked; and no question more fre-
quently recurred in the beginning of our relations, or seemed
less susceptible of satisfactory answer. But the difficulty has
gradually disappeared under the light thrown upon the affairs
of Japan by recent events, and with fuller information on many
points. This has already been touched upon in a previous
chapter,f when describing how the second American treaty
was made.
When Commodore Perry first appeared in 1852, to try the
effect of' moral pressure,' backed by a considerable squadron,
much dissension ensued among the magnates; not, however,
as the Americans represented, and were probably led to believe
by the Japanese themselves in order to mislead—not because
any were friendly and desired such relations. There may be
some, like the late American Resident Minister, who still cling
to this idea as part and parcel of that which constituted his
* See map of the provinces, with the capitals of 143 Daimios marked, vide
Appendix. t Vol. i., Chap. ix.


Chap. XXXIII.] ANALYSIS OF POSITION.
191
and the Foreign Representatives with outward professions of
amity and good faith, but secretly under a pledge steadily to
pursue a system which should render virtually inoperative all
the more important clauses of treaties in respect to trade, loco-
motion, and freedom of intercourse; and, more especially, to
instill a feeling of insecurity and danger into the minds of all
foreigners, beginning with the Representatives themselves, as
the effect of a strongly excited state of public feeling, increas-
ing and fast becoming uncontrollable. In support of which,
various outrages and assassinations would not be wanting, un-
til one of two things must result—either the Foreign Repre-
sentatives would be reduced to the state of prisoners in the
capital, or they would be driven to abandon the position as
wholly untenable. It would not matter very much which; the
desired end would be clearly in view in either case.
If this were not really the policy and preconcerted line of
action among all who exercise a controlling power in the Gov-
ernment of Japan, it would be something marvelous that the
whole chain of effects should so perfectly and exactly corre-
spond to the attributed causes. If those comprising the Coun-
cil of State had no foreknowledge of the various murders and
acts of violence perpetrated in one continued sequence against
foreigners, and culminating in an attack on the British Lega-
tion, it was not a little remarkable that the Ministers should be
so ready and anxious instantly to turn to profit such deeds, in
manifest furtherance of the very policy here suggested. Is a
linguist murdered under the British flag at the gates of the
Legation ?—reason for exercising more jealous control over all
access to the Minister. Is the Regent murdered ?—reason for
surrounding the Legation with more police and guards, and
never allowing the Minister to stir out without an escort;
reason for urging all the Representatives to go within the cir-
cle of the castle moats, and under one roof, to be under safe-
guard, and constitute themselves state prisoners. Is the secre-
tary of the United States Legation slain in the streets ?—rea-
son for the same panacea, more guards and gates, more restric-
tions on the liberty of the Minister; reason for deferring the
opening of the ports, for appeasing the public mind, in a state
of such wrathful excitation at the prospect of more trade and
more ports accessible, that the Government could not be re-
sponsible for the consequences if refused. It is not easy to be-
lieve in the perfect good faith of a Government under such cir-
cumstances. And how can we trust to their professions of a
sincere desire to observe the obligations imposed by treaties
with the reservation,' So far as the state of public opinion will


192 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIII.
permit] which, by their own showing, is not at all? At the
same time that we see great contradiction between the profes-
sions and the acts of the Government, giving evidence of in-
sincerity in the dealings of Ministers with Foreign Represent-
atives, wholly inconsistent with their often expressed desire to
carry out the treaties in good faith, we are bound in justice
not to forget that, whatever be the state of parties in Japan,
the reopening of foreign relations has proved a bone of conten-
tion, threatening once more to excite a civil war, and has actu-
ally led to a whole series of tragic events. Such a series of
tragedies might well seem to justify the forebodings of those
who denounced the initiation of this policy of concession, even
though only provisional, as calamitous to the nation, and are
not calculated to soften their feelings of animosity toward the
foreigner. Nor is there any assurance that we are near the
end of this dismal chapter in their history. The lives of the
members of the Great Council were menaced, the Ministers de-
clared f' and a Governor of Foreign Affairs was sent recently
to inform the British Envoy of an attempt at assassination on
one of the Gorogio by a single man—other accounts say by
two.
So much of the past it is obviously necessary to have in
mind, as inseparably connected with the present situation, and
the success of any measures which may be devised with a view
to improvement in the future. Great efforts have been made
during the past two years to reconcile the Japanese to the es-
tablishment of trade, and the peaceable residence of political
agents at the capital; but, it must be confessed, many of the
foreigners in whose hands the trade lies at the ports have ill
seconded those efforts by their conduct and proceedings; and
it is the less surprising, therefore, if the efforts of diplomacy,
however patiently and perseveringly continued, should have
met with very indifferent success; too little, indeed, under
such untoward conditions, on the European and the Japanese
side alike, to authorize any very sanguine hope in relation to
the future.
There is so much that is natural in the fears, the hostile
spirit, and the general distrust of Foreign Powers manifested
by the Japanese rulers, that, however deplorable the result, no
one can be surprised, or even condemn, without reference to
extenuating circumstances, which are so many pleas of justifi-
cation. It has even been contended, by a friend of the Japan-
* Subsequent to this date, the Foreign Minister, Ando Tsusimano Kami,
was attacked and severely wounded by a band of eight while on his way to
the palace.


Chap. XXXIII.] QUESTIONS PRESSING FOR SOLUTION.
193
ese among the Europeans, who has been longest resident in
the country, under the old prescriptive rule of Decima and
Dutch policy, that,' after all, the Foreign Powers were wrong
to have asked for more ports than Nagasaki.'
If we persisted in the undertaking, despite all these formi-
dable obstacles to success, in seeking to establish trade and
friendly relations with a semi-civilized Eastern race, who de-
sire neither, and are in danger of being plunged into civil wars
and dissensions, if they escape foreign war as the first conse-
quence, it was clear we must accept the task with these unto-
ward conditions attaching to it.
Other wards there may be in the lock to be turned before
the secret of all our difficulties, and of Japanese policy, can be
laid-open; but there are valid reasons for stopping here, and
not pursuing the subject farther at present. Enough has been
said to show how many and serious are the obstacles created
by the traditions of the past. Foreigners are under the ban
of a law which dates back more than two centuries, and justi-
fies all who seek either to kill or expel them—a law unfor-
tunately associated in the mind of every Japanese with civil
and religious war, with a long and bloody struggle, in which
the Foreigner and his Religion were alike held up to execra-
tion as the immediate cause of all the evils under which the
whole nation groaned and suffered. We can not wonder,
then, that our reappearance on the scene, after such antece-
dents, should be regarded by the ruling classes, if not the whole
nation, with a mingled feeling of fear and hostility.
After this retrospect and careful analysis of our present po-
sition in connection with the past, there were several questions
pressing for solution. The object of our treaty is no doubt
trade, this first and chiefly; but no trade, present or prospect-
ive in Japan, it might be thought, would justify our going to
war for its advancement. And yet it seemed doubtful, unless
we were prepared to enforce in some way the stipulations of
treaties granting free exchange of produce and intercourse,
with immunity from outrage and violence, if any effort would
be made by the Government to keep good faith with us.
Treaties extorted by force or pressure can only, as a general
rule, be maintained by the same means. All our experience in
the East points to this conclusion, and the history of treaties
between European States even is not very different. If we
scruple to enforce engagements not spontaneously entered
into by one party, and neither for the extension of trade nor
religion think such a course expedient or justifiable, all that
can be said is, it might have been better never to have made
II.—I


194
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIII.
the treaty. But neither nations nor individuals are always
logical, and although it is not unusual to appeal to the 'inex-
orable logic of facts,' even facts get sometimes grouped togeth-
er in any thing but a logical order of sequence.
Western Powers, and we more especially, have great inter-
ests in the East, of which Japan is an outpost. We have pres-
tige and an empire to maintain, as well as a commerce so vast
that nothing which Japan could ever contribute to swell its
amount would perhaps be worthy of much consideration.
Whether, having once entered into treaty with Japan, we can
cease all farther relations and retire—retire, too, before vio-
lence and menace, is a question, unfortunately, which can not
be decided with exclusive reference to that country. Japan-
ese trade we could very well dispense with. The tea and silk
they supply can be procured elsewhere. Their coals are use-
ful, but may be paid too dearly for in national dignity. They
are rich in metals, but these they hoard and will not freely
give, and they also may be had elsewhere, and nearer home.
Finally, any trade we might create with Japan would not be
so much in addition to that possessed with other countries, as
in lieuof an equal portion somewhere else, while the profits on
any of our manufactures they may take will probably never
pay the cost of a small squadron to protect it.
But, putting trade with Japan aside, our prestige in the East
is a power which supplies without cost the place of fleets and
armies. We can not afford, therefore, by any ill-considered,
backward steps, to damage or jeopardize this, seeing it is the
great economizer of our national resources. So far from being
a measure in the interest of economy, it might prove the very
reverse; and any act or course of policy which may serve to
indicate either fear or weakness, is calculated to affect the pow-
er and the integrity of the whole empire. In this chain not a
link can be broken or damaged, even in such an outlying and
distant region of the East as Japan, without some danger and
prejudice to the whole.
In these latitudes we are confronted with Russia and her
fast increasing establishments on the Manchurian coast.
From the extension and prosperity of her commerce we have
nothing to fear, but rather cause for rejoicing. Seas covered
with a commercial navy are .pledges of peace, and riot incite-
ments to hostile aggression on the part of the nation possessing
it; but predominance of a military kind, by ships of war and
fortified harbors, becomes a source of danger to any commerce
less efficiently protected. Something of this latter predomi-
nance Russia appears to be seeking now in all the seas be-


Chap. XXXIII.]
195
TRADE NOT ALONE.
tween the coast of China and Manchuria on the one side, with
the Japanese Isles as a fringe and the eastern coasts of Amer-
ica on the other, between which lie all the treasures of a yet
undeveloped but certainly increasing trade in the Pacific. The
possession of Corea and Japan, or portions of them, would
give to any aggressive Maritime Power almost inexhaustible
resources in coal, the precious metals, in iron, lead, and sul-
phur, in harbors of refuge and fortified depots, in timber and
labor for ship-building, and even in hardy seamen. The means
of attack these would supply to Russia, in the event of any de-
signs against the commerce of Great Britain, both in the China
seas and the Pacific, from the shores of Australia to those of
America, gives us a pressing and momentous interest in any
question of annexation or conquest in the Japanese seas, the
only link wanted to complete her chain of empire round the
world.
While we have treaty rights ostensibly in Japan, conquest
or annexation without our concurrence would be difficult.
Looking to the recent acquisitions of Russia in China, and oth-
er evidences of a fixed policy of advance in this eastern ex-
tremity of Asia toward unfrozen seas and ports denied her in
the West, and a lion's share in the spolid optime of the trade
in the seas between the coast of America and China across
the Pacific, there can be little doubt Japan would become a
portion of the Russian empire at no distant date, if other Eu-
ropean Powers retired.
But assuming, on this view of the consequences of any com-
plete abandonment on our part of Japan, a decision to main-
tain our relations in some form, as imperatively required by
major interests, having little reference to the value or extent
of any commerce with Japan, or the farther difficulty arising
from invested interests in trade (which has already taken a
larger development than could have been anticipated, and with
which those most directly interested declare themselves well
satisfied), it has to be determined how the exigencies of such
a position are best to be met, with the least danger of collis-
ion, and at the smallest cost, whether of life or national dig-
nity?
If the actual trade of Japan be a secondary object in com-
parison with the interest involved in the larger political and
commercial field, and these could best be advanced by relin-
quishing the former as an object of immediate effort, it might
be sound policy to do so. This may, at all events, deserve
consideration, for there is some reason to believe that a mere
political connection without trade (alleged to be so ruinous


196
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIII.
and productive of discontent and trouble) would be much
more likely to be acquiesced in by the Japanese Government
than the present state of forced commercial activity. Possibly
the vendetta against foreigners might cease under such alter-
ed relations. If even a residence at the capital of a Diplomat-
ic Agent should still be insisted upon as the head of a Mis-
sion, a Legation might be little else for a time than a col-
lege for students, such as the Russians so long and patiently
maintained at Pekin. The same result might probably be ob-
tained, and with like good fruit. If this, with one or two
Consular Agents at the ports now opened, but no importunate
demands for execution of treaties, removal of limitations, or
covert restrictions on trade, etc., were all we desired, the hos-
tility now manifested might cease, or at least greatly diminish.
This seems very much the policy of the Russians, who even
avoid locating a Diplomatic Agent in the capital, and keep
their Consul General at Hakodadi, visiting Yeddo from time
to time, only as occasion may require, while they are especial-
ly careful to keep a powerful squadron always in the Japanese
seas. This, be it observed, is the very reverse of our policy,
or practice rather, which has been to keep an effective Lega-
tion in the capital, battling for all our treaty rights, and no
force at all in the Japanese waters. And the result has cer-
tainly not been encouraging. Much would depend, probably,
upon the degree of suspicion with which they might look at
the Legation, and its quiescent attitude of study and retire-
ment. And much judgment and tact would be required not
to rouse this in the first instance by any indiscreet display of
eagerness, even in acquiring the language. The Americans,
on the other hand, took effective means, through their Minis-
ter, not to give umbrage by any too great display of restless-
ness or activity. The single attache, poor Heuskin, it is true;
did rather sin against the system and the wish of his chief by
an active prosecution of the study of Japanese and much loco-
motion, and he paid the penalty of his life for it.
Between these two courses, firstly of a total withdrawal,
and secondly of acquiescence in the deferred opening of the
ports, with the possible diminution of profitable trade at those
now open—a result partially aimed at by the efforts of the
Japanese even while we are insisting on our rights—it only re-
mains to be determined whether any other alternative offers
save the one to which of all others Her Majesty's Govern-
ment and the people of England are likely to be most opposed
as neither justifiable nor expedient, namely, the adoption of
coercive measures to compel the execution of the treaty in all


Chap. XXXIII.] FRUITS OF FORBEARANCE.
197
its stipulations. By whatever measures of a coercive nature
we might seek to attain this object, it should be clearly seen
that there is war in the background, more or less near, but
tolerably certain sooner or later to come. During the last two
years, whatever a conciliatory spirit could suggest, with tem-
per, patience, and forbearance in all things, had been tried.
Diplomacy had well-nigh exhausted its resources to induce the Japanese Government to take a different view of its inter-
ests, and to act in accordance with the spirit of the treaties
entered into. Little more remained to be tried in this direc-
tion, nor could much hope be entertained that better success
would follow a longer persistence in the same course. The
hostile element in the country had only, to all appearance, been
gathering strength, and the policy followed by the Japanese
had been growing, day by day, more unmistakably obstructive
and threatening. The conclusion would seem to be, that if
there was to be any amelioration, Foreign Powers must change
their tactics; and if these involved a struggle and the nation
were passive, the feudal classes alone being actively engaged
in such a contest (and this is what might be expected from all
that is known of the country, always assuming that no revo-
lutionary element came into play), the struggle could hardly
be a long one. For, some of the more hostile princes struck
down, the rest would probably see the necessity of coming to
terms, and suing for peace with a better estimate of our pow-
er to make our treaty rights respected, and compel observance
than has yet entered into the conception of Japanese Rulers.
So possibly we might purchase peace, and trade with freedom
from all obstructive limitations, as well as with security to
life and property. But by no other means that suggest them-
selves, after long and patient study of the people and their
rulers, does this end seem attainable, if once we break with
the Daimios, and the Government which masks them, to enter
upon a course of coercion. As regards the masses and bulk
of the population, we can not look for any thing better than
indifference or neutrality. Of foreign trade, and the benefits
which might flow to them from its extension, they know noth-
ing, or perhaps worse than nothing, in the belief that to this
Foreign trade they owe the increased dearness of provisions
and other articles of consumption, which has more or less ex-
isted since the opening of the ports. The battle would be
with their Princes and Feudal Chiefs only, unless these should
succeed in rousing a latent fanaticism of patriotic feeling
which no doubt exists in the Japanese character, nourished
by all their traditions and historical associations, no less than


198
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIII.
by their insular position and long isolation from the rest of
the world.
If once driven to enter into campaign, we should be liable
to incur their hostility from lawless acts of spoliation or de-
struction on the part of troops, a danger which would be
greatly increased if we entered into such a struggle with al-
lies instead of single-handed. In any movement in the coun-
try, the want of interpreters and means of communication or
information would be one of our greatest difficulties, both as
regards guides and supplies. A few Japanese know English
or Dutch; but we could hardly count upon securing the serv-
ices of any of these, or trust them if they offered to act against
their own rulers. Among ourselves, or foreigners generally,
no one yet has more than a limited knowledge or command
of their oral language even. Assuming, then, that the cost of
any efforts to extort by force or intimidation the full execution
of the treaties would be great, and the issue too uncertain to
permit an idea being willingly entertained of resorting to hos-
tilities, either for the protection of any existing trade or even
its farther extension, we must turn to the terms of compromise
actually offered by the Government under a pledge of greater
security and the abatement of hostile feelings. The future
which the Japanese would fain present to us for our accept-
ance, and as the price of our renunciation of any new ports
and right of residence for any but the Legations in the capi-
tal, is not without promise, though much shorn of advantages
and privileges contemplated in the treaty. It may be shortly
stated as comprising greater security for life, and the cessation
of hostility; limited trade, but friendly relations and facilities
within those limits, now virtually denied. How far even this
moderate promise may be counted upon when the concessions
which are to be its price are made, is unfortunately open to
doubt. If we would be on the safe side, some material guar-
antee would not be superfluous, assuming that oue could be
framed which the Japanese might be induced to contemplate
without too much irritation, and as only an equivalent for all
they demand.
In any circumstances, the Treaty Powers will have to con-
sider not only the cost of any line of policy which may be de-
termined upon, but the practicability .of arriving at any satis-
factory solution of the questions raised. Some effective guar-
antees for security to life, if not for any rapid development of
trade, might prove far more valuable than an extended field
of commercial operations.
As a Mission was on its way to England for the express


Chap. XXXIII.]
199
OUR POLICY.
purpose of obtaining our consent to defer the opening of the
ports, an opportunity would occur for declaring the stipula-
tions under which we could accede to the wishes of the Jap-
anese Government—defer all hopes of a rapid extension of
trade, and accept a great apparent loss. We might observe
that, however well disposed, this could not be done under an
appearance of yielding to menace and violence; and, having
unfortunately been subjected to much of this, the Government
not only owed us some reparation, but recent events rendered
it necessary that we should stand free from the reproach or
possible suspicion of yielding to fear in surrendering rights,
by the free concession, on both sides, of things equivalent.
This, it might be shown, was a condition rendered imperative
by the course of violence and intimidation which had ushered
in, and apparently prepared the way for, the Japanese propo-
sals; and on no other terms could Great Britain stand justi-
fied, either in its own eyes, or that of the world.
In reference to the concessions demanded on their side, we
might say we were not unwilling to take into consideration
the state of the country as represented by the Government—
the real difficulties they might have to contend with from the
state of parties—and, on our own side, were anxious not to
precipitate them into a civil war, or even push the extension
of our trade in any way to the injury of the Japanese people.
But we might add, in all such negotiations between States, it
was not usual for important treaty rights to be relinquished
without some fair equivalent, and in this case such a condition
could not be waived for the reasons already given, however
well disposed Great Britain might be. What that equivalent
should be would therefore become the first and principal thing
to settle. And this might be no more than the greater valid-
ity of the existing treaty, with new guarantees for its observ-
ance in the modified shape it would take, under a convention
to defer the opening of the ports in a sense altogether consist-
ent with the wishes of the Tycoon and his Government.
If it were possible to carry this policy out, and in the way
here indicated, it did not seem, on the most careful considera-
tion of all the circumstances, that any better or more satisfac-
tory solution could well be found, having in view the actual
condition of the country, and the difficulties inseparable from
it. Our progress in Japan will not be what, in the beginning,
may have been over-sanguinely anticipated; but more may be
gained, ultimately, by foregoing something in the rate of prog-
ress than by impatience and too great eagerness to advance.
The great object at this time was to avoid precipitating the


200
[Chap. XXXIII.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
country into a civil war, with which, to all appearance, it was
seriously menaced; and, on the other hand, it was no less de-
sirable to avert the necessity for any hostile measures on our
part. If both these ends should be accomplished without se-
riously compromising either our prestige or national dignity,
and securing our position at Yeddo, and means of acquiring
the language, with no more loss of trade or other material ad-
vantages in the interval than would no less assuredly follow
were a more uncompromising or overbearing course to be
pursued, then we might rest satisfied with the conviction that
nothing better was possible under the circumstances, and that
great evils to both countries, without promise of correspond-
ing advantage, could only thus be averted.
Whatever policy might ultimately be adopted, it was per-
fectly clear that to compel without compulsion was an impos-
sibility. A great change was needed; but this must, in a con-
siderable degree, be a change of convictions; and no lesson is
well learned all at once. Any change likely to be beneficial
and permanent in the minds of the Japanese must break in
slowly upon their old traditions and habits of thought, and
move forward by steady and gradual steps. But this slow-
ness, if a subject of regret in some respects, makes the final
victory more certain, and insures its completeness. New
ideas, new principles and sentiments, must be allowed to per-
meate through and through the masses, and rather by a proc-
ess of percolation from the upper to the lower strata than by
the force of an irresistible pressure from without or below.
What seemed most important, therefore, was to secure a fair
commencement to a more gradual process of infiltration and
leavening in the mass. Hitherto, and with more or less suc-
cess, those who are the custodians of power in Japan have di-
rected all their efforts to prevent this. If we could neutralize
this action, we should probably effect more in the next ten
years by peaceable means, and with mutual advantage to all
parties, than in double that period by any measures of hostility
and coercion. We can do little toward changing the current
of Japanese ideas until we can communicate our own through
their language, and it will take some years yet to give us fair
command of this first and most essential instrument of conver-
sion and civilization.
However inviting such a programme might be, it still be-
hooved us to keep distinctly in view another class of facts and
considerations, the tendency of which, it must be confessed,
was rather adverse than favorable to this policy of deferred
hope and conciliation. We have already had painful experi-


202
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIII
What should we be doing, then, by concession? Gaining
time, and only deferring an evil day that, if this hypothesis
were correct, must come sooner or later, and with increased
calamities the longer it is deferred? This was at least a pos-
sible result, and formed by no means a pleasant prospect for
future Governments and Plenipotentiaries. I wished nothing
but peace and prosperity to the Japanese, and had spared no
effort with their Government to imbue them with juster no-
tions than I fear they yet possess of the power which other
States possessed to compel the observance of treaties, and their
own want of means to offer any effective resistance; and, above
all, the danger that must inevitably attend a persistence in any
course of deception and bad faith. But it was impossible to
close our eyes to the lessons and experience each day afforded.
If we find them timid, submissive, and anxious to avoid all cause
of quarrel with Russia, while they presume not a little upon the
policy of conciliation and forbearance of all the other Powers,
it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the strong-handed and
very summary measures taken by the naval officers of the for-
mer Power at Nagasaki, Hakodadi, and elsewhere, on more
than one occasion, and the ever-constant presence or propin-
quity of large squadrons, have had a beneficial influence. To
the Japanese, as to all the semi-civilized races of the East,
Force represents Power and inspires Respect, and nothing
else does. They will talk of the necessity of conforming all
their acts to reason and good faith, and talk by the day or the
month, but deliberately disregard both exactly in the propor-
tion in which they believe you are prepared to bear it without
an appeal to the idol of their worship, and the only God they
fear or will propitiate, the God of war.
It may well suggest itself as a doubt, therefore, to Foreign
Representatives on the spot, with their own experience of the
inefficacy of reason and argument on the one hand, and that of
the Russians on the other, who adopt a totally different system,
whether we best consult even their interests, as a Government
and a nation maintaining relations with the Western Powers,
by allowing them to think they may persevere in the same sys-
tem of deception and bad faith without check or danger. It
is very true we have forced ourselves upon them, and many
may see reason to regret such a step was ever taken by Foreign
Powers. They neither desired nor were ready for the rela-
tions imposed upon them, and are quite incapable of apprecia-
ting any advantage in our acquaintance. The questionable pol-
icy of the proceeding is indeed fully shown in the danger of
collision it unavoidably entails, seeing the impossibility, by fair


Chap. XXXIII.] SERIOUS REFLECTIONS.
203
and peaceable means, of inducing the virtual rulers of the coun-
try to keep faith or observe the stipulations of treaties so ut-
terly distasteful and obnoxious to them.
Unfortunately, to retrograde safely and with dignity is often
more difficult for nations and their Governments than to ad-
vance; and the question now is not whether it was wise or ex-
pedient to enter into treaty relations with Japan in the first
instance, but, having taken this step, what course it best befits
us to follow, singly or in concert with other Treaty Powers,
with reference to the evils which such relations inevitably bring
with them. If the inclinations and prejudices of the Daimios,
as a class exercising a decided influence on the policy of the
ostensible Government, are to be taken into account for our
guidance, we ought to withdraw from the country altogether.
Or if we are to listen with confiding ear to the pleas of danger,
and the inability of the Government either to avert it or give
execution to the treaties which the Tycoon alone has ratified,
we must put in abeyance their principal provisions—all, indeed,
that possess any substantial value. Assuming, or supposing,
that we are not prepared to accept either of these alternatives,
then there are certain conditions of good faith and honest exe-
cution which it would seem necessary to insist upon, because
they are vital and essential to the realization of any of the ob-
jects for which the treaties were framed. Some are even es-
sential to the continued residence of foreigners in the country,
with reasonable security to life and property, or immunity from
continued outrage, submission to which would be impossible to
any Sovereign State in the position of Great Britain, and could
not permanently be endured, even from so distant and puny an
adversary as the Japanese. True, we have borne all this and
more, this thirty years past, from Mexico, with all its elements
of disorder and misrule rampant and hydra-headed; but this
has constituted the difficulty of dealing with those who perpe-
trated the wrongs, or holding any Government responsible. It
has been a country without a Government, and given over to
the wild license of armed factions. To exact redress, it was
necessary to contemplate the occupation of the country, and
possible necessity of providing for its administration, in the ab-
sence of any fit materials for an effective and permanent Gov-
ernment—the dilemma which France is now experiencing.
Such is not the case in Japan. There are here elements of
strength and order which the existing Government represents
and controls. It may be subject for consideration, then, wheth-
er, under such circumstances, we should do well or wisely to
trust entirely in the future, as we have done in the past, to con-


204
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIV.
ciliation and forbearance. There may be parties in more or
less intimate connection with the Government ready to sug-
gest to them that such a policy on our part is due to the im-
possibility of the British Government adopting any other
course, or resorting to means of reprisal and coercion under
any circumstances. A rougher and sterner discipline may be
needed with such men as the Daimios and their supporters, to
teach them the wisdom of maintaining peaceable relations by
observing the obligations of treaties, instead of provoking to
acts of hostility a Power that can at any time crush their best
efforts at resistance, and, whatever may be the treacherous sug-
gestions they may receive from foreign sources, will do so, if
all milder means should fail.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Government of Japan and its Administrative Machinery.—Relations of
Life: of Rulers and Subjects.—Husband and Wife.—The Relation of the
Sexes.—The Position of Woman in the social Scale.—Influence of Art
and Culture.—Religious Systems.
Of the Government of Japan we have much yet to learn,
both as regards the actual machinery and the official hierarchy
under which the administration of the affairs of the Empire is
carried on. The relative position, weight, and influence of the
constituted powers—Mikado, Tycoon, and their respective high
officers—all need farther elucidation. The old and the new no-
blesse, in their relations as feudatories of one or both Sover-
eigns, and to each other, and to the people, especially demand
careful consideration. These may be held to constitute the
moral, as the mere administrative machinery supplies the more
tangible elements of a Government.
As regards the last, and the hierarchy established among
the officers of the Tycoon's Government, I have various data,
some of them derived from official, and others from private
sources of a more or less reliable nature. The lists of Daimios,
with their revenues and territories; of the Tycoon's Court and
administration, given in the Appendix," are taken from the of-
ficial Red Book of Yeddo. This was very difficult to obtain
in the first instance, simply because the Government of the Ty-
coon did not choose we should have any books, maps, or other
means of information, even of those open to all the natives, and
purchasable by them for a few cash. The book in question is
* See Appendix D.


Chap. XXXIV.] GOVERNMENT MACHINERY.
205
as common among the Japanese as our own Red Book, or the
Gotha almanac. I doubt not, could it ever be traced how
the copy I possess came into my hands, it would fare very ill
with any parties concerned. I have, in addition, met quite re-
cently with a contribution to one of the local journals on the
subject of 'titles in Japan,' which appears to be written by one
well informed on many particulars connected therewith, not
generally known; and I think the writer's information, upon
the whole, is correct. The paper will be found in the Appen-
dix.*
The following brief summary of the public officers, with
their relative duties and ranks, in addition to the lists, etc.,
contained in the Appendix, will, I hope, serve to give the read-
er a tolerably clear idea of the whole.
The Seogun, or Dai-Seogun, rendered in the Treaties Ty-
coon, is the chief. Kcempfer styles him Crown General,Vice
Regent, Generalissimo, and Emperor indifferently. The truth
being that the successor of the originally usurped authority
of executive chief, which has become, for the last two centu-
ries, hereditary in the families of the descendants of Jejassama,
otherwise Gongen Sama, receives various titles from the reign-
ing Mikado. The first in order and most common is Seogun,
or Dai-Seogun. Though authorities differ even in Japan as
to its exact meaning, it seems derived from, or to be the equiv-
alent of the Chinese term Ta-tsiang-kiun,' the great chief, or
commander of the army;' and as the Japanese are supposed to
be a nation of soldiers, he who is at the head of the army is
virtually the head of the nation. Hence nothing will induce
a Japanese at Yeddo to admit that the Tycoon's title only
means a generalissimo of the army." What rendering the in-
habitants of Miaco and the Mikado's territory might give is
not so clear.
After the Tycoon, irrespective of the Gotairo, or Regent, an
office that only comes into existence when the Tycoon is a mi-
nor, the Kokmhi follows next in importance. It is a Council,
composed of either eighteen or twenty-four (for there is some
doubt which is the number). Among these are some of the
most powerful Daimios of the ancient aristocracy who repre-
sent the Mikado at Yeddo. Although ostensibly they take no
active part in the Government, there seems very little doubt
that not only are they a serious check on the Tycoon and his
own Council of Ministers, but something very like control and
direction must be among their attributes and the functions
they exercise. The theory appears to be that they are a con-
* See Appendix F.


Chap. XXXIV.] ADMINISTRATIVE MACHINERY.
207
pear to be very numerous, and with very various functions.
A variable number of this class, from five to ten generally, act
as Governors of Foreign Affairs, performing many of the du-
ties of Under Secretaries of State in Europe, and are called
Gaikoku Bunio. From this class are selected all the Gov-
ernors of the towns and the consular ports, as also the Judges.
The Gisha Bunio, the Governor of Yeddo, is an officer of such
high importance that he is said to rank next to the Gorogio.
All the Samourai and two-sworded men, and all the Bonzes
or priests of the whole empire are said to be under his juris-
diction. The Matchi Bunio may be considered as a sort of
civil Governor, under whose jurisdiction are placed all the rest
of the inhabitants of the capital.
Many of the more subordinate offices are filled up from a
large class of Government officers, not Daimios, but belonging
to the JTattamotto, or vassals directly dependent on the Ty-
coon, corresponding to the 'gentry and literati' of China, so
often quoted in official correspondence, and receiving annual
salaries, ranging from 3000 kokous to 200 pios of rice, or say
£2000 to £38. A classification and enumeration of these will
be found in the Appendix.'' As regards the military admin-
istration and means of defense, a certain number of Daimios
holding fiefs from the Tycoon probably, said to be twenty-six
in number, are intrusted with the defense of the Tycoon, and
obliged to furnish military contingents. It was some of these
who were called upon to supply guards to the Legations
when the Tycoon's Government deemed such measures of pro-
tection necessary. And it was one or more of these military
retainers who attempted in the night to cut his way to the
room of the British Charge d'Affaires after my departure.
Into the farther question of honorary offices, rank and or-
der of precedence as established between the Mikado's Court
and the Tycoon's, I do not propose to enter in any detail;
first, because I consider most of the information we possess
too uncertain and imperfect to be much relied upon; and, sec-
ondly, because, although we have heard a good deal of the
Tycoon's investiture by the Mikado, and of the fourth rank
being assigned him, by which he is placed not only lower than
that of other Daimios or courtiers and ministers about the
person of the Mikado, I think such distinctions have little in-
fluence on the real march of affairs. It may be true enough
that, according to the Red Book of Japan, the Quamiuku or
Prime Minister of the Mikado is classed as the second person
in the realm, and takes rank before the Tycoon, but practical-
* See Appendix D.


208
[Chap. XXXIV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN
ly what does this amount to? Does it give him any real
power to direct or meddle with the administration of affairs,
or merely to approach three mats nearer the august person of
a powerless Mikado, or receive more genuflexions in the day
from other superannuated courtiers, condemned like himself
to a life of utter insignificance in all save a name or a title?
He may come next after the Sovereign de jure, as an Arch-
bishop of Canterbury or a Speaker of the House of Commons,
and take precedence of a Prime Minister, but with a like ab-
sence of any real significance or share of power. So there
may be whole classes ofDaijo-daijins, or Sho-dijo-daijins, So-
daijins, etc., and all taking official rank before the Tycoon,
who yet have no more voice in the administration of the Em-
pire than so many pasteboard and bedizened dummies among
titles I can only regard as so many fossilized relics of a past
order, which have no vitality or real significance in the world,
and no interest for the actual living men around them, who
constitute the Japanese nation.
Japan appears to be actually governed, at the present day,
by a sort of feudal aristocracy, recalling in some respects that
of the Lombard dukes, and France under the Merovingian
kings, or the early state of the Germans when their kings were
elected out of particular families. A confederation of Princes
and territorial Seigneurs possess the land, enjoying apparently
very much the same kind of jurisdiction as our own barons in
the days of the Saxon rule or the first Plantagenets. The
Prince of Satsuma, with his colonial dependencies of the Loo-
choo Islands; the Prince of Xendai, with large territories; the
Prince of Kaga, and many others, each with larger revenues
and more men-at-arms, probably, than the virtual and de facto
Sovereign, the Tycoon himself, could bring into the field,
might any one of them play the part of an Earl of Warwick.
If not in the present day, yet not three centuries ago, these
were in the habit, separately or in combination, of setting not
only the Tycoon, but his and their Sovereign, the Mikado, at
defiance with arms in their hands. It was their feuds and re-
bellions which, in the twelfth century, gave to Yoritomo the
means of usurping the quasi sovereignty of the Tycoonat, only
then constituted by the victorious commander-in-chief of the
imperial armies, which were originally set in motion for their
subjugation. Taico-sama, toward the close of the sixteenth
century did much to break the still dangerous power of these
semi-feudatory but really independent princes. He only suc-
ceeded, however, by courting the alliance of some of the more
the properties


Chap. XXXIV. J GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN.
209
puissant of them, and leaving their sovereign rights or preten-
sions untouched. There are many who thus succeed to their
hereditary dominions and honors with all rights and immuni-
ties attaching from time immemorial, without any formal rec-
ognition or investiture by the Tycoon. Their allegiance is
obviously more nominal than real, and is held by the slightest
tenure. They are strong in their feudal rights and feudal
power, while he is weak in his avowed subordination to the
only acknowledged Suzerain of all, the Mikado, who is invest-
ed not only with all the prestige of hereditary descent in an
unbroken line from the first Supreme rulers of the Empire, but
tracing back through such ancestry, according to Japanese
traditions, a divine origin. He adds the infallibility and pre-
tensions of a Pope of the Middle Ages to the temporal rights
of sovereignty of a later era. And although he has been shorn
of much, if not all, of his real power, as Popes have been ere
now, and this ever since the Crown General Yoritomo's suc-
cessful usurpation, yet still the supreme dignity, rank, sancti-
ty, and prerogatives have ever been the undisputed attributes
of the Mikado, and his alone. Taico-sama, the great soldier-
hero of Japan, in the latter end of the sixteenth century, when
invested with the command of the armies and administrative
functions of the sovereign, did but continue the work of Yori-
tomo, his great predecessor, in still farther reducing the pow-
er of the Mikado, from whom he held the trust, to narrower
limits, at the same time that he broke down the strength of
many of the great feudatories. And when his son perished,
self-immolated in the castle of Osaca, where he was besieged
by his guardian and father-in-law, Yedai (or otherwise called
Daifu-sama, king or prince of Quanta), known in Japanese
history subsequently as Gongen Sama,* the founder of the
present dynasty of Tycoons, these several changes of the dy-
nasty in nothing affected the Mikados or their succession.
They continued inheritors by right divine of their phantom
sceptre, preserving still some remnants of their former unlim-
ited and absolute power. Their investiture is still theoretic-
ally essential to the Tycoon to consecrate his election, as is
their sanction to any changes in the fundamental laws, and
their ratification to any new treaties. The want of this, in the
case of the treaties with European Powers, there is every rea-
son to believe, as I have shown, lies at the root of our difficul-
* This frequent change of name and destination, taking place often in a
lifetime, is most bewildering to a foreigner; as much, no doubt, as are our
changes of name and mode of address when a commoner becomes a peer, or
succeeds to a new rank and title in the peerage.


210
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIV.
ties in Japan. The Tycoon, on the first appearance of an Amer-
ican squadron in 1853, driven by a certain pressure and dan-
gers which seemed to him imminent, entered apparently into
treaties without this needful sanction of his Suzerain, against
his fiat, it is said, and is therefore powerless to give them ex-
ecution throughout Japan. In the absence of this, and a for-
mal ratification, he can at most pretend to give them effect
throughout his own territories, in which the Consular Ports
are situated, and with his own subjects. The Daimios, hostile
to the innovation as a body, and never sorry, it would seem,
to use their allegiance to the Suzerain of both as a check to
the encroaching power of the Tycoon, do not recognize these
treaties as binding upon them. This brief summary of their
history was necessary here to show how this nation is govern-
ed on a feudal basis, with two hereditary sovereigns, one by
right divine, and the other by successful usurpation supported
by material force, who is himself held in check and controlled
partly by the traditional respect for ancient customs and laws,
and still more by the hereditary Daimios professing a nominal
subordination, but keeping up a real antagonism. The whole
country is thus parceled out in large and small territories, over
which feudatory chiefs rule absolutely, although ostensibly the
subjects of a Suzerain and an executive chief of the state, and
amenable to the laws of the Empire, but opposing and limit-
ing the authority both of Mikado and Tycoon, as occasion
serves or their interests and passions dictate. We have in
presence, therefore, a dual system of Sovereigns, each with
their separate court, high officers, and nobles; next a class of
nominal feudatories, the bona fide rulers of the country in de-
tail under a feudal system. And over all, intertwined and
twisted round every individual member of this tripartite hie-
rarchy of two Sovereigns, their courts of great officers, and a
class of great territorial barons, each of whom enjoys a petty
and semi-avowed independent sovereignty, there is cast like a
spell an elaborate net-work of espionage, which seeks to con-
trol by treachery and finesse those who can not be subjected
by overt force, and to bring all under one bondage or system
of government. This part of the Tycoon's administrative sys-
tem involves a duty which sends his officers into the several
princes' territories, a service, it would appear, of veritable dan-
ger. There was presented to me one day a Japanese of con-
siderable official rank, who for obvious reasons I will not more
particularly describe, of whose history I had an outline. One
of the incidents, to the credit of his wit and astuteness, which
most struck me, was the fact of his having been the only one 


Chap. XXXIV.] GOVERNMENT MACHINERY.
211
of seven ometskys or spies sent successively into the Prince
of Satsuma's territories who ever came out alive.
The Mikado, and even his power, however shorn of what it
once was, may still exist. The Tycoon is, after all, but an ex-
ecutive head ruling under the shadow of his suzerain preroga-
tive; and he again is limited and checked at every turn, as I
have shown, by one of the most powerful oligarchies ever
seen since the palmy days of the Venetian Republic, with its
Council of Ten, under whose secret and inquisitorial dominion
the Doge himself felt insecure alike of life and power; and if
they brought one Doge to the block for treason, the Tycoons
are, in certain understood cases, either by an order from the
Mikado or of difference with their Great Council, obliged
either to perform the hara-kiru or abdicate.
When we speak of the Government of Japan, then, all the
separate threads of rule linking together by a slender hold,
three hundred and odd principalities, and three hundred lesser
Daimios with territories, must be gathered up and traced into
the hands of the second ruler of the Empire, and through him
into the feeble grasp of the Suzerain of all. They each in sev-
eral degrees exercise rule and government, and help to form
what must seem to us an ill-fused amalgam of all governing
and legislative powers. By these separately and collectively
all the agencies of Government, civilizing or otherwise, are set
in motion, and controlled for good or for evil in the history of
the nation and its civilization. Of any thing like real munici-
pal or self-governing bodies I can find no trace. There is a
sort of subordinate system of wards and heads of tens and
hundreds in the Otonos of towns and villages severally and
collectively responsible for each other's good conduct, which
has some faint resemblance to our own tithings and hundreds,
which formed the foundation of our own municipal system of
decentralization and self-government. But these are here
what ours were when still in the germ, and seem wanting in
any vital elements of a representative character, on which all
power of growth and development depend.
Here, as in Great Britain in the days of the Saxon kings, the
great bulk of the servile population are adscripti glebce. Some
are domestic slaves, both male and female. With the Japan-
ese, as with ourselves in those early days, a source of servitude
is found in a law which required every freeman beneath the
rank of a thane to be either the recognized follower of some
lord, or the member of a family, or guild, or burgh who would
be responsible for him. Even wealthy traders, to buy the
privilege of wearing one or two swords, and also the protec-


212
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIV.
tion of a powerful Daimio, will often pay a large sum for the
privilege of being rated as one of his retainers and wearing
his cognizance. Thus, if there are any freemen in the proper
sense of the term, the oppression to which they are exposed by
the armed classes often induces them to surrender their liberty
into the hands of some superior who is capable of affording
them protection. Besides these, several causes of slavery or
serfdom, poverty, crime, and debt, help to swell the ranks.
Parents, too, have undoubtedly, in some cases, if not in all, the
power to sell their children; and as they are inveterate gam-
blers, I have little doubt in Japan, as in China, a man often
stakes wife, children, and finally himself on the hazard of a die.
On the other hand, I had frequent occasions of observing that
precisely as with the Saxons in the tenth and eleventh centu-
ries, the words 'freemen' and 'slave,"' as understood at the
present day, are hardly applicable, for a large proportion of
freemen are in a position in which this would not with us be
considered altogether free, and the majority of the slaves live
in a state of comparative freedom.
Let us now endeavor, if we may, to ascertain of what charac-
ter are the effective agencies actually brought into play by the
multitudinous and often antagonistic rulers of Japan, under
this most complicated and imperfectly welded system of aris-
tocratic and oligarchic government. Apart from the fact that
the feudal system itself is repressive in its tendency, limiting
and curtailing the exercise of all free energies, a Government
which rests on espionage, secret and avowed, and delation, as
among its chief instruments, sows mistrust broadcast through
a whole nation, undermines all confidence between man and
man, and makes truth and faith equally impossible among the
mass subject to such influences. 'All lies,' it has been well ob-
served, ' are discivilizing;' the 'greatest savages have general-
ly been found the most incorrigible liars and the greatest
thieves.' It is not to be wondered at if mendacity among the
Japanese has become something more than a bad habit, an in-
stitution and part of the necessary machinery of their system
of government and administration.
'Different races of men,' Mr. Thrupp observes in his 'Home
of the Anglo-Saxon,' already cited, 'and different nations are
usually found to possess particular vices and virtues to a great-
er degree than others, which thus not only become character-
istic peculiarities, but have a material influence on their national
character and manners, and require, therefore, to be duly con-
sidered in treating of their social history.' And, entirely
* 'The Anglo-Saxon Home,' by John Thrupp.


Chap. XXXIV.] FRAUDS AND TRICKS OF TRADE.
213
agreeing with the writer, I am led to place at the head of the
list of Japanese vices this one of mendacity, bringing as it does
inevitably dishonesty of action. The Japanese traders are ac-
cordingly what might be expected, and rank among the most
dishonest and tricky of Easterns. This seems a hard thing to
say of a whole race, or a class even, yet the incessant examples
of the most ingenious and deliberate fraud in the trade carried
on at the ports, and Yokohama more especially, as being the
emporium of the largest trade, leaves no doubt on the subject.'' Bales of silk are continually sold with outward hanks of one
quality, and the inner ones of coarser material most craftily
interwoven. Jars of camphor, with the top only the genuine
article, and the rest powdered rice. Tubs of oil, the lower half
water. Money taken for contracts, and immediately appropri-
ated to their own use, and unblushingly confiscated. But it
may be said we have fraudulent tradesmen too, at home and
abroad, and, unfortunately, the fact is beyond all dispute, as Dr.
Hassall and Parliamentary Committees have proved to demon-
stration. In free, self-governed, virtuous England, is it not
hard to buy any article of food which has not undergone manip-
ulation, or even medicine to preserve life that is not adulterated,
and often by the most deleterious compounds? Or to buy a
length of cotton which answers to the measurement written
upon it; or a bottle of wine or beer containing a statute pint
or quart measure? Yes, all this is true, and sad as true. Com-
mercial morality appears to have a code of its own, even in the
most civilized countries; and perhaps it may be still more
broadly stated, that the moral standard of the most advanced
nation is very far from perfect truth or honesty. We must
admit, then, I am afraid, that it is only a question of degree be-
twen the Japanese who sells rice-dust for camphor and the En-
glish tradesman who sells red lead for Cayenne pepper, or alum
and bone-dust for bread. But still, I maintain, the Japanese
have the bad pre-eminence of far surpassing us in ingenuity and
universality of cheating. In reference to mendacity, it requires
some acquaintance with Yaconins and Japanese officials to
know the full force of the term, or to what perfection such a
system may be brought. Truth is not to be obtained at any
price, for love or for money—by a foreigner, at all events I
do not believe any real progress is possible so long as a nation
preserves this characteristic, and all true civilization is neces-
sarily progressive.
* This is true, at least, of all whom foreigners are allowed to trade or have
any intercourse with—those specially licensed by the Government, and prob-
ably not substantial and responsible men, but mere agents or servants, and
not the most reputable.


Chap. XXXIV.] PLEASURE IN LYING.
215
for truthfulness; and, to their credit, I must add there were
many who would not palm off a plated for a silver article, or
venture on any gross fraud of that kind. And, to the honor
of their discrimination, I must also say they soon learned to
take me at my word, instead of chaffering and haggling over a
price they knew to be greatly in excess 'of what they were
willing to accept.' I have seen, when some one of their num-
ber, admitted for the first time, was asking an extortionate
price, the older habitues check him, and have overheard the
warning that it was' of no use; that they knew my yea was yea,
and my nay, nay in truth,' and that he would simply be left
with his goods on his hands if he did not deal more straight-
forwardly. Of course, that they should often ask twice as
much as they were willing to take, vow a modern work was
either an antique, better than the oldest, and declare no second
of the kind could be found, was in the fair way of their trade
—do not picture and curiosity dealers in every mart in Europe
the same?
But, after all, to return to the moral problem which universal
lying such as exists in Japan suggests, there must be a real
pleasure in the practice, for there is no denying it has its in-
conveniences. There must be many inducements and tempta-
tions to depart from truth, besides a mere regard to some pres-
ent interest or profit, for, on a searching inquiry into the verac-
ity or authenticity throughout history of all the wisest and wit-
tiest sayings, and of many of the reputed doings of the noblest
men in all ages and countries, some of which have become fa-
miliar as household words and undoubted as Gospel truths,
how many come out of the crucible with any shape or consist-
ency? M. Fournier laid a sacrilegious and ruthless hand on
all these heir-looms of the past in a book which he entitled
'L'esprit dans l'Histoire,' or' Recherches et Curiosites sur les
Mots Historiques,' and sad havoc he has made of the world's
most cherished traditions on the subject. Alas for witty and
brilliant retorts, for heroic inspirations in the hour of action!
Alas for King Arthur, and Charlemagne, or even William
Tell! Alas for 'Dying Words' and 'Speeches' Good-by,
all! fruits only of the inventive faculties of biographers and
historians, falsehoods stamped by Genius, and handed down
from age to age for admiration, to feed the strong propensity
to hero-worship. Let us say no more of Japanese mendacity;
M. Fournier has dried up the ink with his scorching and with-
ering scrutiny, and one is tempted to adopt the last phrase of
the syllogism, and exclaim, not only all Cretans, but 'all men
are liars' at some times and in some things, since it can be


216
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIV.
proved of nearly all the most celebrated 'Mots Historiques'
that either the people never lived, or never said the things at-
tributed to them, or did not say them on the occasions, or in
the terse and epigrammatic forms in which they have been
written for all posterity. Thus it follows that the Japanese
are by no means the only people who delight in the inventive
faculty for the sake of inventing.
Let us leave the Japanese alone, then. The human heart
and mind retain the same essential features every where, un-
changed by time, or space, or outward mould. The only dif-
ference is to be sought in those external circumstances of gov-
ernment and institutions, education and public opinion, which
all combine to supply more or less efficient checks on our evil
propensities. Men lie and cheat, gamble and steal in all coun-
tries, only in some there is a strong curb in constant play, and
in others a loose rein is given. Nor, indeed, can we very well
set up ourselves in any rank as immaculate censors of these na-
tions, according to the dictum variously attributed to James
I. and Sir Henry Wotton, that our diplomatic corps was com-
posed of'men of quality, sent abroad to lie for the benefit of
their country.' The Japanese stay at home and lie for theirs.
While meditating over these things, and the degree of im-
portance to be fairly attached to this characteristic feature of
Japanese life, a clever article in the 'Quarterly' fell into my
hands, grouping in a startling juxtaposition these 'historical
lies,' which made me pause. The writer begins by showing
that Themistocles may have said 'Strike, but hear,' though
Herodotus, the earliest reporter of the debate between the ad-
mirals, made no mention of it; but, at all events, it was not to
the Lacedemonian admiral, for this debate was with the Co-
rinthian Adeimantus. Robert Bruce may have been taught
perseverance by a spider, but it is remarkable that the same
teacher is assigned to Tamerlane. It appears Omar is no long-
er to be charged with burning the Alexandrian library, any
more than the Legate at the sack of Beziers in 1209 with the
order,' Kill them all, God will recognize His own,' so circum-
stantially related; and M. Fournier devotes a section to prove
that Charles IX. did not fire on the Huguenots with an arque-
base from the window of the Louvre in the massacre of St.
Bartholomew. So Francois premier, far from writing to his
mother after the battle of Pavia, 'Tout est perdu fors l'hon-
near,' wrote something considerably different and less epi-
grammatic. The patriotic devotion of Eustache de Saint
Pierre and his five companions, of which Froissart gives such
touching details, when they delivered up the keys of Calais to


Chap. XXXIV.] DISCOURAGING AGENCIES.
217
Edward Ill., by whom they were doomed but for his queen's
intercession, was never intended to be hanged, seeing that he
was in connivance with the besiegers, and was destined to be
rewarded by a pension. Whether Mazarin continued to his
last gasp surrounded by a bevy of ladies and gallants is doubt-
ful, to say the least, though historians and painters will have it
so; and another popular picture of Leonardo da Vinci dying
at Fontainebleau, in the arms of Francis I., is opposed by a
double alibi. And so of Sir A. CaUcott's picture of' Milton
and his daughters,' one of whom arifs as his amanuensis, though
it is authoritatively declared they were never taught to write.
Whichever side we turn, deception and delusion meet us, and
for no gainful purpose of profitable lying. Cambronne did not
utter the grandiloquent' La garde meurt, et ne se rende pas.'
The Duke of Wellington did not say, 'Up, guards, and at
them.' The Abbe Edgeworth did not say, on the scaffold,
'Fils de St. Louis, montez au ciel;' at least, he himself told
Lord Holland he had no recollection of having said it. Pitt
did not make the often-quoted speech, when twitted with his
youth, for it was written and invented by Johnson. Le Comte
d'Artois did not make the eminently successful hit, in an ad-
dress at the Restoration,'Plus de divisions; la paix et la
France 1 Je la revois, et rien n'y est change, si ce n'est qu'il
se trouve un Francais de plus.' In vain His Royal Highness,
who had extemporized a few confused sentences, on reading
his 'neat little speech' next morning in the Mwiiteur, protest-
ed his innocence. He was told 'there was an imperative ne-
cessity for his having said it.' And it became history accord-
ingly.
It is obviously only a question of degree, though the habit-
ual disregard or the love of truth vary greatly in different na-
tions. In some the second is hard to distinguish, and this is
the case in Japan. There is a good deal of lying, gambling,
and drinking; a certain amount of stealing and cheating, with
a tolerable percentage of cutting and stabbing, but I must de-
clare my opinion'that there is not altogether more of these
vices than in many European populations placed under a Chris-
tian dispensation, and, one would believe, under more favorable
circumstances for the practice of Christian virtues.
Among the discouraging agencies at work to prevent the
realization of any sanguine hopes of progress and improve-
ment are, I conceive, first, their feudal institutions, and, second-
ly, the highly artificial and unsound system of government,
based upon espionage, necessarily sowing distrust, and encour-
aging mendacity. The Rulers have just sufficient knowledge
II.—K


218
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIV.
and intelligence to see and understand that the enlightenment,
intellectually and morally, of the mass of the population must
lead inevitably to fundamental changes, the first of which
would be the destruction of their jealous, restrictive, and feu-
dal tenure of power. Hence the persistent and implacable hos-
tility with which all the more powerful Princes and Daimios
regard the establishment of foreign relations and the extension
of commerce, notwithstanding that the pecuniary interests of
many as producers might be benefited by foreign trade.*
But besides the Feudal form of Government, and an admin-
istration based on the most elaborate system of espionage ever
attempted, which is essentially a discivilizing agent, and acts
as an impediment to progress intellectual or moral, there are
certain other vices grafted on the national character, possibly
by such administrative system, but much too intimately blend-
ed with the parent tree to be either easily or promptly got rid
of. And these also constitute serious obstacles, for which I
hold the Government in some degree responsible. I allude to
the relation of the sexes, the intercourse sanctioned by law,
and the position of women. I believe a great deal of unde-
served laudation has been bestowed on the Japanese in this re-
spect. I do not wish to enter here into the question whether
they are, as a nation, more or less immoral than others, but in
a country where a father may sell or hire out his daughter for
a term of prostitution, not only without penal consequences
from the law, but with its sanction and intervention, and with-
out the reprobation of his neighbors, or not more than would
be expressed in England if a family well to do let their daugh-
ter go out to service, instead of keeping her at home, there can
be no healthy moral feeling; and that such things are I know
to be a fact. I would also say, that even though a people may
be free from the institution of slavery, though neither serfs nor
domestic slaves could be bought and sold like chattels or cattle,
and transferred from one master to another with the same fa-
cility (and the negative is only partially true as regards Japan-
ese, for girls are so bought and sold with all due legal formal-
ities, though only for a limited term, and so I believe may both
boys and men), yet, where a legalized system of concubinage
* Might be, bat, as I have already shown, and shall have occasion again to
prove, they never have been benefited, owing to the manoeuvres of the Ty-
coon's Government and officials, by which all the profit realized by the open-
ing of a new market for Japanese produce, part of which belongs to the Da-
imios, is intercepted and appropriated by a hungry swarm of custom-house
and other officials, maintained for that very purpose, apparently, at the three
Consular Torts.


Chap. XXXIV.J POSITION OF WOMEN.
219
exists, I do not see how the sanctity of the domestic relations
can be maintained; and yet, without this, the very foundation
of national growth and dignity, of national progress and civil-
ization, must either be wanting or undermined.
What peculiar counterpoises may exist to mitigate the oth-
erwise ruinous effects of these radical vices in their national
system of government and their institutions we may at pres-
ent be unable to discover. Some, I believe, there must be, as
in China, in the unprecedented and in every way extraordinary
authority given to mothers over their sons. Though they
themselves may have been bargained for, and sold to husbands
with no regard whatever to any will of their own, or any
rights of womanhood, and during their husband's lifetime have
been treated by them as household drudges or slaves, yet the
power over the son restores the balance and redresses the
wrong, by placing woman as the mother far above man as the
son, whatever his age or rank. Perhaps the right of women
to succeed to the throne even of the Mikado, of which there
are numerous examples both in ancient and modern times, may
be one of these. Certainly their position seems from many
indications to be more tolerable, if not independent and re-
spected than some of the premises would lead us to expect.
Nor is there any deficiency, as far as one can judge, of attach-
ment between parents and children. We have a great deal
yet to learn, however, on this subject also. There is no lack,
it would seem, of parental and filial affection; the philopro-
genitive organ seems indeed very fully developed, if there be
such an organ, for phrenology has long been at a great dis-
count.
There can be but one legal wife, and the son of the concu-
bine can not inherit with the son of the wife. This may, in
some respects, rectify the disorder introduced by the bond-
woman. But of one thing we may be certain, that since male
and female infants are brought into existence in equal num-
bers (with a slight fraction for greater waste of male life), ev-
ery where and in all circumstances the same law of nature has
destined them for each other in pairs, both for the satisfaction
of the appetite on which the propagation of the species de-
pends, and the exercise of the parental affections, based as
these are on natural and universal instincts; and precisely in
the proportion in which this great and fundamental law is vio-
lated by any sanctioned monopoly or prevalence of promiscu-
ous intercourse will be the impossibility of a nation so offend-
ing attaining the highest civilization. And where a govern-
ment sanctions this, if even with a view of only correcting the


220
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIV.
more palpable disorders attending it, the question will arise
whether it is not doing evil that good may come, and with the
usual evil result — whether, in a word, the tendency of all
such legislation is not still farther to degrade the woman, and
identify the government with the evil. At the same time, as
regards polygamy or concubinage, we must in fairness remem-
ber this has been the established law of Asia since the days
of the patriarchs, and it may be hard measure to hold any
government of an Eastern race, in the present day, responsible
for not having initiated a totally new principle of life and leg-
islation. So in regard to the Social Evil, it must be also ad-
mitted to be a question of policy how far a government should,
by direct intervention, seek to moderate an evil it is plainly
out of its power to prevent or eradicate, a question on which
many governments in Christian countries have arrived at op-
posite conclusions, and adopted different principles of legisla-
tion. *
I can not help looking upon what I would call radical de-
fects or vices in the national character and institutions as the
chief obstacles to rapid improvement, or any sensible progress
in a right direction—these, more than any defects of mere gov-
ernment, either in form or administration, apart, at least, from
their active agency in producing or fostering these very evils.
I believe with Mr. Mill, that for the general development and
perfecting of the human faculties and of mankind in societies,
freedom of thought and of individual action are indispensable;
and it is difficult to conceive a system more determinedly re-
pressive of all freedom of thought, speech, or action, than that
which the Japanese Government has adopted. And I also be-
lieve that in so far as it is incompatible with the free develop-
ment of man's best faculties, tends to repress the natural aspi-
rations of the moral and intellectual nature, and denies the
means of cultivation and exercise of all that are normal and in-
eradicable, it can only subsist so long as the radical vices just
described enervate and incapacitate the subject for vigorous
action in the assertion of the inalienable objects of his own life
as a human being. Could these be eradicated, the rest would
follow certainly and of necessity. The Government would
change because it would no longer be an efficient instrument
in the hands of its administrators, and it would break in their
hands, if they persisted in retaining it, with a violence propor-
tioned to the firmness and tenacity of their hold. Doubtless
it would be in the power of those now in possession to prepare
the way and greatly facilitate the desired improvement in the
civilization of the people; how far it may also be in their pow-


Chap. XXXIV.] DISCIVILIZING AGENCIES.
221
er to retard, and eventually prevent such improvement and
consequent progress, is the problem which time and events can
alone solve.
As regards the Government and the effective agencies it
employs, we see nothing elevating or ennobling, but, on the
contrary, much which is undoubtedly demoralizing and disciv-
ilizing. How far independent of the Government, religion,
philosophy, and the cultivation generally of the intellectual and
moral faculties among the people may supply a counterpoise,
and hold out any hope that ultimately they will both supply
the deficiencies and correct the evils which it has tended to
bring upon the nation, is a grave question, and all the more
difficult that we do not know much either of their literature,
their philosophy,"or scientific culture and attainments. Nor
are we well versed in their religion, though on this head more
information seems at our command. All their philosophy and
moral ethics, and much of their religion—Buddhism and Con-
fucianism certainly (by far the most widely-spread systems in
Japan) came from the neighboring continent, and are Asiatic
in origin—the first Indian, and the second Chinese. All their
science, I believe, came from Europe through the Dutch. If
they have originated any thing themselves, we want the means
of tracing it; but, whencesoever derived, we know that scien-
tific culture is not altogether wanting, any more than intel-
lectual attainments of a respectable kind.
Cultivation, however, is not civilization, just as little as it is
religion, though each may be powerful civilizing agencies.
Both must, indeed, enter largely into the highest civilization
of which man is susceptible, and can hardly be entirely want-
ing in any. Intellectual culture the Japanese have to no in-
considerable extent. Culture in art, literature, and philosophy,
borrowed or original, does not very materially matter; and
there is, perhaps, a more general diffusion of education than
most nations of European stock can boast. But the question
is, What kind of culture, and what are its tendencies and influ-
ence? If the industrial arts are civilizing agencies, as they
undoubtedly are, the fine arts may be so in still higher degree.
They are, or may be so, for this is a necessary distinction.
Art, in all its forms, in poetry, painting, statuary, and music,
appealing to the moral and emotional side of human nature,
may tend to cultivate and develop all the higher moral facul-
ties, or only address themselves to and develop the baser de-
sires and passions. In the one case, they are civilizing agen-
cies of the highest kind; in the other, they are quite as obvi-
ously debasing and discivilizing. Of the influence which art


222
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIV.
can and does legitimately exercise in promoting man's moral
and religious development, making sense, under the guidance
of the imagination, subservient to the spirit, much may be said,
and in support of its general cultivation. Yet if we look to
Greece, and later still to Rome when it wielded the empire of
the world, and art attained a higher excellence in many direc-
tions among both pagan races than it has ever reached under
Christianity, we can not but see that a people may have the
highest artistic and literary culture, and yet be thoroughly pa-
gan in spirit and brutalized in their lives. For what kind of
existence did the Romans live, whose pastime was the whole-
sale butcheries of the amphitheatre? The most civilized peo-
ple of the earth, then, found their chief delight in watching
wild beasts rend human beings to pieces, or men and prison-
ers pitted against each other for the not less brutal and deadly
combat. With Cicero's eloquence and finely-rounded periods,
with Virgil and Horace's sweet numbers, with statuary and
architecture in high perfection, were they, considered in a ra-
tional and religious point of view, any better than barbarians,
making all intellectual culture subservient to the basest uses,
and pander only to the grosser senses? Was the Roman pa-
trician, with his greasy woolen garments, his disregard of hu-
man life and suffering, his ignorance of all feeling of domestic
privacy, and of the tastes, habits, and virtues inseparable from
it, his repudiation in war of all the rights of nations, and of the
claims of humanity, with his slaves and his wild-beast shows,
his skepticism and disbelief in the immortality of the soul, real-
ly nearer to the ideal of man in his most perfect development
than the Hottentot or New Zealander of to-day? Immeasur-
ably in advance as to intellectual culture, was he so by a hair's
breadth as a religious, responsible, and moral being? This
test applied to nations, and to progress in arts, sciences, com-
merce, education, political institutions, affords a ready and a
certain gauge of the true character and worth of such progress
as they seem to indicate. Christianity has afforded a standard
wanting to the most cultivated and civilized of ancient na-
tions, and by that standard we are bound to weigh all civiliza-
tion and its various elements, law, politics, education, the con-
dition of women, the mutual relations of classes, the security
of property, the prevention of crime, its arts, its science, and
its commerce, its institutions, political, social, and ecclesiastic-
al, and pronounce judgment honestly according to the issue.
Viewed in this light, what has art, taken in its most compre-
hensive sense, done for the Japanese? Does it ennoble and
civilize by cultivating the moral faculties, or degrade and bar-


Chap. XXXIV.] ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION.
223
barize by developing the animal passions, and all the lower and
grosser parts of their emotional nature? We do not know
much—any thing, indeed, of their poetry, and little of their phi-
losophy, except the general fact that it, together with their
whole code of moral ethics and much of their jurisprudence,
are all derived from China and Confucius. Of art in other
forms we can, perhaps, better judge; and, except so far as it
carries with it culture of the mind and intelligence, and gives
development to some of the more genial faculties—to humor,
wit, and mirth—it is to be feared it has small pretensions in
Japan to be considered a valuable civilizing agency in its pres-
ent development and application, while it does act, unquestion-
ably, over a wide area of the least cultivated in pandering to
the lower desires, and often to grossness and obscenity. All
that creates amusement and innocent mirth we may admit as
good, so far as it goes. So, in like manner, whatever tends to
refinement; but coarseness and indelicacy are essentially bar-
barizing agencies, and are unmitigated evils. Art in Japan
seems to me to contribute to both these results in 'a large de-
gree, and thus whatever good it effects may be more than
counterbalanced by the unquestioned evil.
Their civilization is not, however, as I have said, without
moral and intellectual agencies in active operation. There is
even a larger admixture of these than probably will be found,
out of China, in any other part of Asia; for, although there is
no lack of sharp and effective law founded on physical force,
the torturer's rack and the executioner's sword being often in
requisition, and voluntary immolation by suicide supplements*1
largely the whole system, in which life and human suffering
count for very little, yet, viewing the administrative and legis-
lative systems together, so far as we are able to gather the
leading principles from their details, both seem to rest more on
an appeal to the intellectual and moral faculties than actual
force as a means of control. The frequency of deliberate sui-
cide in certain given cases, as a custom having all the force of
law, is itself an evidence that they hold honor dearer than life,
and are far from the low and base estimate which would place
the preservation of life itself as the highest good. There is al-
ways hope for a nation that sees something above and beyond
the possession of worldly goods, or life itself, the most prized of
all possessions. Something of the feeling of duty as the true
motive for exertion, without reference to any possible or con-
tingent reward in wealth or distinction, mingles with their pa-
triotism also. All patriotism is so far an ennobling passion or
element in national character, if for no other reason than that


224
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXTV.
of lifting man out of the circle of selfish aims, and impelling him
to sacrifices for that which is outside of self, effecting that sor-
tir de soi which George Sand, with her usual eloquence, and
more than her usual discrimination of right and wrong, has
taken for her last theme. Just in proportion as duty, and not
reward, is the motive for action, all effort is ennobling and all
labor civilizing, while even a desire for personal distinction, the
highest form which desire for recompense can take where re-
ward of some kind is the real motive power, has often a con-
trary tendency. When this sense of duty mingles in every
act, and supplies the paramount motive for all action, as it does
when Christianity is really efficient and underlying the whole,
all the elements of civilization in its best and most perfect as-
pect are in operation. This we can not look for in pagan coun-
tries, nor even in Mohammedan lands, from errors in the foun-
dations of their faith and religious system—we can not have it,
therefore, in Japan; but, inasmuch as the religious element is
never wholly wanting, and does mingle mere or less in the dai-
ly life and motives to action, of every race and people, the Jap-
anese among the rest, and not always without ennobling and
beneficial influence, it would seem a grave error to consider any
form of civilization as entirely divested of its saving and ele-
vating power. What the religion of the Japanese is, or what
it may amount to in its collective influences, can not now be
ascertained with all the fullness or accuracy to be desired. No
European is yet, indeed, in a position to speak from his own
knowledge on this subject. All, or very nearly all the informa-
tion we possess has hitherto been derived from the painstaking
labors of the early writers, especially Koempfer, who did not
himself know the language, and had exceedingly limited sources
of intelligence in his intercourse with the natives. That there
was an indigenous religion as old as their history—one formed
by and for themselves in long-past ages—the Sintoo, which sur-
vives to this day; that some ten or fifteen centuries ago, or
more, this was overlaid by the Confucian doctrines—a code of
moral ethics, not a religion in the proper sense of the term—
and about the seventh century both were in great degree sup-
planted by the Buddhist faith derived from China, we do know
with tolerable certainty. But this is nearly the sum. Of
course, we have ample information as to what both the Bud-
dhist and Confucian systems embody in India and in China re-
spectively. What we do not know are the modifications and
transmutations these may have undergone in passing through
the alembic of the Japanese mind, and by slow accretions and
changes in the lapse of ages. Of the doctrines and true char-


Chap. XXXIV.] RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS.
225
acter of the Sintoo religion, either in its original or present
form, we can know still less. So far as any personal means of
information has enabled me to form an opinion on the one es-
sential point here, I believe what Koempfer has said in respect
to the Sintoo religion is true as regards any faith the Japanese
generally may have. 'The more immediate end which they
propose to themselves is a state of happiness in this world.'
They have indeed some, but very obscure and imperfect no-
tions of the immortality of the soul and a future state of bliss
or misery. But, so far as I have seen, the educated classes
scoff at all such doctrines as fit only for the vulgar and igno-
rant, and believe, with all the ancient poets and philosophers,
that after death there is no future, or, as Catullus expresses it
in his Epistle to Lesbia:
'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus.
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est pcrpetua, una dormienda.'
But, apart from these enlightened rationalists and skeptics,
there does seem among the masses a certain kind of belief in
a supreme God, but one who scarcely looks down upon this
world, and many inferior deities, who influence more or less
directly man's destiny, and determine his happiness or misery.
They do, evidently, also believe in the future existence, in some
form or state, of a portion, at least, of those who live distin-
guished in this; for they deify and offer worship to their great
men and sovereigns precisely as the Greeks and Romans did
of old. They believe also in a devil, or satanic agencies, and
pay particular respect and worship to foxes, as being the in-
carnation of the Evil One. We can know little more of the
religious doctrines or faith of the Japanese as a nation until
some among the educated Europeans have attained sufficient
command of the language, written and spoken, to read all their
works, sacred and lay, on the subject, and converse freely, even
on abstruse subjects, with various classes of the natives in their
own tongue.
As regards material civilization, there can be no doubt they
may take rank in the forefront of all Eastern nations; and but
for the fact that their mechanical appliances are inferior, as
well as their knowledge of the applied sciences connected with
mechanical industry and arts, they may rightly claim a place
with nations of European race. As it is, if the policy of the
rulers permitted freer intercourse and trade, so as to bring
them in competition with Birmingham or Sheffield, and Man-
chester, notwithstanding all our advantages of funded knowl-
edge and civilization of a higher order—our steam and river


220
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXV.
machinery, and the marvelous perfection to which all mechan-
ical appliances have been brought, I believe the Japanese would
hold their own, send out swords and cutlery to rival Sheffield,
and silks and crapes to compete with Macclesfield or Lyons in
with natural ingenuity and skill, compensating the difference
in machinery. Of course they would copy and take hints, for
they have little of the stupid conceit of the Chinese, which
leads them to ignore or deny the superiority of foreign things.
On the contrary, they are both eager and quick to discover in
what it lies, and how they may make the excellence their own.
The Civilization of Japan.—Social and political Condition.—Durability of
their Institutions.—How secured hitherto, and on what depending.—
Dread of Innovation among the Ruling Classes a primary Cause of their
Hostility to Foreigners.—Their Progress in Art.— Illustrations of popular
Subjects.—Manners and Customs.—Their love of the Humorous and Gro-
tesque.
Speaking of our own civilization, it was said very truly the
other day, apropos to Social Science meetings, that, although
Christianity introduced new ideas, new responsibilities, new
duties, new sanctions, and new aids, yet, at the present moment,
judging from such shrieks of despair as the meetings of the
Social Science delegates imply, we are all in want of a new
moral system.
But if neither the art, science, and letters of the Greeks, as
I observed in the last chapter, nor the cultivation and intel-
lectual development of Rome, nor, lastly, in the fullness of time,
the advent of Christianity and the religion of the Gospel, have
done any thing effectual to change the whole moral nature of
man, and a fatal proclivity to evil and crime, what does the
progress of humanity, and the boasted advance of civilization,
amount to?
This question presents itself very forcibly when we turn to
Japan with a view to inquire into the civilization developed
amid such isolation, though borrowed in the first instance from
the Chinese. From China they borrowed a religion, a written
language in the ideographic character, a philosophy, and a lit-
erature; every thing, in fact, which ministers to the intellect,
and promotes social progress. Religion, law, politics, educa-
tion, the condition of women, the mutual relation of classes,

cheapness of material and labor,
CHAPTER XXXV.


Chap. XXXV.] CIVILIZATIONS OF EUROPE AND ASIA. 22?
the security of property, the prevention of crime and its pun-
ishment, the statistics of disease, poverty, and sin, on which
social philosophers are so constantly engaged, as means to the
end of improving mankind; to what do all such efforts lead,
bo far as the actual progress and improvement of mankind,
from one generation to another, are concerned? To what have
they led among the inheritors of the Greek and Roman tri-
umphs of art and intellectual conquests? What is their fruit
in this nineteenth century of the Christian era? Is moral evil
or crime on the decrease? Is there not, as has recently been
observed, rather a conviction that, if in some special depart-
ments particular vices are lessened, in other directions new el-
ements of evil have been developed? Whatever civilization
has done, it has not, to all appearances, materially diminished
the sum of human misery and crime. Is all civilization, then,
but a vicious circle, and our efforts from century to century
but the oscillations of a pendulum, which, so far as it sways to
the one side, must of necessity swing to the other? As old
evils are rooted out, and old diseases disappear, must it always
follow that there will be a similar outgrowth of new evils,
moral and physical, modern remedies seeming to generate their
own peculiar forms of disease and rottenness? Is it only to
be a change of form in Man and in States, not an essential
change of nature or condition?
The lust of conquest, scorn of all moral obligations, frenzy,
political corruption, and folly, which have been the character-
istics of times the most remote, of the Pharaohs and Babylo-
nian kings, of Alexander, Attila, or Tamerlane, are they un-
known in our days? Are there not wars and rumors of wars,
keeping all the States of civilized Europe in constant care for
their frontiers against unscrupulous allies, and necessitating
•ffinous taxes to maintain armaments for defense? The fullest
development of constitutional freedom, and the widest bases
of Republican Government in a new world, unfettered by old
institutions and traditions, have plainly not sufficed to prevent
an exhibition of frenzy and civil war, which neither the Greeks
of old, nor mediaeval Italy, ever developed with more suicidal
madness. ,
In estimating the true worth of Japanese civilization, it is
well to remember, then, what are the actual products of our
own boasted progress in all the different departments of hu-
man activity and social or political life, determining not only
the moral worth, but the destinies of individuals and nations
alike. Much is said and written about the obligation of the
Western States to spread the blessings of true religion, a


228
[Chap. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
knowledge of the Gospel, and all the advantages of an advanced
civilization to Oriental races, whom we regard as in a state of
comparative barbarism. But, if we would see the true bear-
ing of all such clap-trap phrases and popular harangues, we must bring something of a philosophic and truth-loving mind
to the task, and examine in what the civilizations of Europe
and Asia agree, as well as in what they differ; and if we find
that, as regards the fruit of both, in good and evil, there is a
far nearer approach to identity than our pride would willing-
ly admit, and that mere variations in form have been mistaken
for essential differences in substance and principle, it may, per-
haps, tend to moderate the rage for thrusting upon them, by a
coarse machinery of propagandism, all kinds of panaceas drawn
from European sources for the evils that beset Eastern despot-
isms and Oriental institutions, forgetful that the latter have
the immense advantage over any we could give of being in-
digenous to the race and the countries, and assimilated by long
growth and mutual adaptation. If, moreover, we find that they
do actually attain all the principal ends of our own social and
political institutions to an extent which no modern graft from
a foreign soil could possibly effect, were the most perfect suc-
cess to attend the operation, we may well pause in our empiric
efforts to force ourselves and our specifics upon them against
their will.
In an article headed EAngleterre et la Vie anglaise, which
appeared recently, a French writer tells his countrymen and
the world in general that'la civilisation Britannique s'appuie
sur deux livres, la Bible et Shakspeare.' Like many other
Continental sayings about us, it is more epigrammatic than
true. There are certainly very few Englishmen who could
accept this very limited view as either affording a fair account
of our civilization, or a correct definition of its leading charafc*
ters. I will take warning, therefore, and avoid the temptation
to deal with so grave a subject in epigrams.
It has been very truly remarked that'it is one of the hard-
est things in the world to form a just estimate of a foreign
country. We seldom see other nations fully, and still more
rarely judge impartially of what we do see, such is the dispo-
sition to underrate and to overrate, according to our own spe-
cial tendency.' The same writer goes on to remark, with
equal justice, 'When we remember the contradictory repre-
sentations we daily hear and read of the countries in our own
immediate neighborhood, modesty may well restrain us from
pronouncing any dogmatic opinion on those which are physic-
ally, intellectually, and morally more remote.' In the case of


Chap.XXXV.] WHAT IS CIVILIZATION?
229
such a country as Japan, it may be added, the difficulty of
judging well and impartially of what we so imperfectly know
amounts almost to an impossibility. We need not wonder,
then, if one set of writers have described Japan as a paradise,
while others, following later, should feel disposed, upon larger
experience, to depict it as a pandemonium. I will try, as much
as in me lies, to avoid both extremes, and to state fairly all that
I know or have observed, and no more, leaving it to the intel-
ligent to draw their own conclusions. But so strongly have I felt the difficulty of doing justice either to the Japanese or
the subject, embracing, as it does, the whole range of questions
affecting their civilization and social condition, that this chap-
ter remained for many months unfilled up, with a mere head-
ing in a skeleton form, though materials for its completion
were abundant, and had been continually accumulating from
my first arrival.
The political constitution, the social condition, and even the
commercial relations of Japan, all enter into the question of
their civilization, besides being in themselves subjects of great
interest and importance. But, first, we want a definition of
what civilization is; one that shall be both comprehensive and
definite, and yet in accord, if possible, with some generally re-
ceived notions on the subject; for the word is made to signify
a great variety of conditions, real or imaginary, and to convey
to different minds many totally different views.
We must begin, as I have said, with some clear idea of what
civilization imports, or, at least, what we ourselves mean by it,
when we are seeking to decide upon the claims of any Eastern
race to be considered civilized, and in what degree they ap-
proach that somewhat vague and Protean standard of devel-
opment and progress. This is necessary, in order to determine
the scope, no less than the method of inquiry. If' to give and
preserve what is vital in religion—religion as Christians know
it—and with this to stimulate the highest aspirations of the
heart and the noblest conceptions of the intellect; not only to
abate superstition and inculcate tolerance, but to introduce in
the place of the first a living faith and true motive to action,
the highest of which humanity is susceptible'—if this be civil-
ization, the Japanese have it not. And if this be the civiliza-
tion which we desire to communicate to Eastern races and
naturalize in their soil, all honor to those who put their hand
to the plow, and, whatever the difficulty of the task, the cost,
or the sacrifice, will not look back. All honor, indeed, I say;
but do we so understand civilization in Europe, its gifts or its
duties? What if there be no such civilization yet existing in


230
True. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
Europe? What, if passing in review all that can be said in
favor of the civilization of the most advanced countries in the
Western world, we feel compelled, in candor, to pardon Kcemp-
fer closing his elaborate history of Japan by a chapter bearing
the following significant title: 'An inquiry whether it be con-
ducive for the good of the Japanese empire to keep it shut up,
as it now is, and not to suffer its inhabitants to have any com-
merce with foreign nations, either at home or abroad?'
This is not an inquiry I intend to follow his example by
making; not, perhaps, that I should see very serious cause to
differ from him in many of his conclusions, but simply because
I conceive the question already and irrevocably decided by the
Treaty Powers, so far as any practical issue is concerned.
Whether it might be argued & priori as conducive to the good
of the Japanese empire to keep it shut up, would be merely a
speculative question here; for shut up it can never be again.
The gates have been forced off their hinges by commerce, by
rival nationalities, and contending interests combined. There
are many Western Powers too deeply committed, probably,
to retire from the scene now; while any one of these is far too
strong to be forcibly excluded, by any effort of the Japanese,
when such exclusion would involve either loss of prestige or
national dignity, independent of any more material interests it
might compromise. Unless, therefore, all the Treaty Powers
could agree to retire together—not a very probable contingen-
cy—such an issue may be regarded as impossible in respect to
any one of the number. The expediency or policy, therefore,
of such a measure is hardly worth discussion. The only time
when such an inquiry could have possibly been made with ad-
vantage to either party would have been before Mr. Harris,
the late Minister of the United States, entered into negotia-
tions in 1858 for the second treaty with America. Whether
the Minister or his Government took any thought on the sub-
ject is another matter. But, once the treaty made, the die
was cast for good or for evil, and nothing was left thencefor-
ward but to grapple with the difficulties which the throw en-
tailed upon all the Treaty Powers who chose to follow the
American lead. What these are, and how they may best, or
are most likely to be, overcome, are the only practical ques-
tions.
As regards civilization, it has been observed th at'nations and
individuals attain the highest state which their fundamental
convictions will allow.' And this is so far true (although nat-
ural capacity and original differences of organization must not
be overlooked), that some inquiry into the fundamental convic-


Chap. XXXV.] RELIGION AND CIVILIZATION.
231
tions of a people, as well as their general culture and capacity
for any thing better, appears to form the preliminary step in
any advance toward right conclusions. And it will soon be
obvious that no appreciation of the civilization of a nation can
be worth much which does not take all these elements into ac-
count, while the practical difficulties in the way of any fusion
or intercourse are greatly influenced by degrees of affinity and
repulsion in those directions. Some progress in this inquiry
has been made in the last chapter, but a good deal of ground
has yet to be turned over before the harvest. I observed that
in any such inquiry the religious convictions could not be omit-
ted or overlooked; for, although religion and civilization were
not exchangeable terms, and in no sense identical, yet true re-
ligion was not only a necessary adjunct, but an essential ele-
ment in all the higher forms of civilization. However import-
ant and necessary it may be in practical life and in legislation
to keep the two distinct, and under no plea to allow them to
be confounded, lest we should debase the one and retard the
other, there is no theory of civilization which can be either
comprehensive or complete that excludes religion from consid-
eration. We need not be reminded that nearly all religions
have comprised a system of morality and of doctrines regard-
ing man's rightful dealings with man, while all bring into play
religious faculties and sanctions to enforce that morality, what-
ever it may be. Though religion and civilization are two dif-
ferent things, therefore, each having their distinct domain,
they are so far identified with each other (as is the soul to the
body) that none but the lower and material forms of civiliza-
tion can exist without religion as an element of elevation and
progress.
It is true that a large and more or less influential section of
philosophers and writers on Social Science have adopted as
the exposition of their theory of civilization and its sole end,
the greatest happiness of the greatest number; yet if happi-
ness in the ordinary and mere worldly sense be meant, the def-
inition is essentially bad and false. Happiness, however gen-
erally prized, is not, after all, the greatest good, much less the
sole end of life, or its true aim in this short and manifestly
probationary stage, where the appointed means for perfecting
human nature under a Divine government seems to be much
more frequently pain and suffering, and sacrifice of worldly
goods and present pleasure or happiness, than worldly enjoy-
ment, however refined and harmless. Even equality of condi-
tion appears to be, no more than happiness, the means nor the
appointed end, yet these together generally constitute in pop-


232
[Chap. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
ular estimation the main ingredients of what is called happi-
ness, or any popular estimate of what is needful to constitute
it; worldly goods, present pleasure, and equality, as implying
the greatest liberty of enjoyment. If this be so, and it is
scarcely open to dispute, it may well admit of doubt whether
this modern and somewhat utilitarian shibboleth of philanthro-
py can furnish the right solution of so intricate a problem.
So also there may be, as De Tocqueville observed in his
work on Democracy in America, a tendency in the civilization
of the West to advance toward ' equality of conditions,' but
whether that will be a general leveling of the higher, or the
raising of the lower to a better level, remains to be seen. Yet
upon the issue it depends whether this said civilization shall
combine a greater share of happiness and enlightenment on
the totality of mankind, or on a small number only, raising, it
may be, the few nearer to perfection, but widening the distance
between them and the mass.
We hear much of the inequality of conditions in European
societies of the old race, and the evils flowing therefrom—the
disparity of rank and wide distance between the rich and poor;
and in more modern and democratic societies equal praise is
heard of the equality that reigns, and the absence of all lines
of demarcation between the highest and the lowest in the so-
cial scale. If we were to take this for our stand-point of view,
or gauge of the civilization of Japan, I should have nothing fa-
vorable to report; but the evils attributed to these distinc-
tions and disparities, however broadly or indelibly marked in
the older and monarchical states, are not so clearly the offspring
of such forms of government as of a common humanity under
all circumstances, for a law of inequality runs through all na-
ture, and evidently is of Divine origin and dispensation. And,
on the other hand, this democratic panacea fails miserably in
its promise to remove all the maladies of the body social and
politic, and even secure the dead level of equality which forms
the ideal of such a system. This is never attained, despite the
abolition of patents of nobility, hereditary honors, stars and
ribands; and it arises in great measure, no doubt, from funda-
mental errors in the original conception of democracy, as a
means of improving the human race, reforming its political in-
stitutions, and removing all social evils. It contemplates an
enforced, unnatural, and impossible equality, and sets out with
a false estimate of what constitutes a true equality. I have no-
where seen this so well and forcibly stated as in a work enti-
tled 'Letters from the Slave States,' by James Stirling; and
some of his observations bearing on this part of the subject








Chap. XXXV.] POPULAR NOTIONS OF EQUALITY.
233
are "altogether so apposite and conclusive, that I need make no
apology for quoting them at length. I could not better place
before the reader my own convictions, and the conclusions
upon which my estimate of Japanese civilization is based, or
the gauge by which I am disposed to test their claims and fix
their place among the nations, where different phases of civil-
ization have been developed. For the instruction of the whole
family of man, these seem to have been infinitely varied under
Jewish, Pagan, Mohammedan, and Christian influences; which
forms of civilization, as we now can see, have been the determ-
ining causes of national progress or decay. These phases of
civilization, no doubt, have been modified in their turn in a
thousand different ways, by special causes more or less peculiar
to each separate country or race, and wholly independent of
religious influences or creeds. Among which, as regards Ja-
pan, its utter isolation must be steadily kept in view, as enter-
ing into any problem connected with the growth of its institu-
tions, and the form or degree of civilization developed.
Mr. Stirling observes that'the popular notion of equality is
no less superficial than that of liberty. The Democrat prizes
an outward, material equality, not the essential inward equal-
ity that is rooted in man's humanity, and that exists in spite
of all outward differences. Hence he is not satisfied with es-
sential equality: he must have an outward monotony of condi-
tion. The people must all ride in the same car, and sit at the
same table, and vote at the same polling-place. It is consid-
ered a degradation for one to serve another, and the very name -
of servitude is abominated. In all this there is a want of true
wisdom and true dignity. It is right to assert the dignity and
worth of manhood, but it is a weakness and a folly to rebel
against those civil and domestic distinctions which originate in
the nature of things, and which therefore carry no real dishon-
or with them. So with service. There is nothing essentially
degrading in one man performing certain menial offices for an-
other. The degradation arises only when the office is per-
formed in a menial spirit. In itself, all labor, even the most
menial, is honorable when performed in the true spirit of duty.
The Americans will cease to disparage domestic service when
they learn to take a higher view of human equality; when
they better understand true equality, they will tolerate the
necessary distinctions of society.'
And again, giving the principle a larger application, he re-
marks: 'Democrats on both sides of the Atlantic have a con-
fused notion of the fundamental principles of liberty and equal-
ity, which, properly understood, may be resolved into one.


234 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXV.
They see in liberty only the freedom to exercise the unre-
strained will of the individual; in equality, a gross similitude
of material circumstances. Whereas true liberty is that sub-
ordination of all wills to a universal law of justice, which se-
cures to each its own unrestricted sphere of action; and equal-
ity, in the highest sense, is the equality of men as free intelli-
gences which such a subordination effects. Well understood,
therefore, liberty is not opposed to law; rather law is the es-
sential condition of liberty. But the vulgar in all times have
confounded the spiritual unseen law of justice, and the mate-
rial government which is its necessary embodiment. Justice
must be administered by some organized power, and forasmuch
as the holders of that power have often turned it to their own
uses, shallow and impartial men have jumped to the conclusion
that all law, all government, all authority, is despotism. Hence
monarchy means with them tyranny, because many kings have
played the tyrant; and democracy means liberty, because ev-
ery man gets his own way. But all this is sheer confusion of
thought. Where the universal law of justice prevails, no mat-
ter in what form or under what name, there we have liberty;
but where that law is disregarded or dishonored we have des-
potism or anarchy, according as the law is abused by its ap-
pointed representative on the one hand, or disregarded from
any want of efficient embodiment on the other. If, as is usual
in democratic communities, we confound the "people" with
the numerical majority of the nation, and set up their will, be
it holy or unholy, as the supreme arbiter of affairs, we confound
the brute force of numbers with the divine authority of right
and justice, and thereby lay the foundation of a whole system
of political blundering. The end in view is the predominance
of justice. If that end be attained, it matters little by what
machinery it is worked out; if it be not attained, then the
most specious constitution is a blunder and a failure.
It has elsewhere been observed that Christianity failed eight-
een centuries ago in producing the Democrat's ideal equality,
as it has also failed in all that period in curing the ills to which
our flesh is heir—ills, many of them, far too deeply rooted in
our common nature; we may certainly infer, therefore, to find
a remedy in forms of government or social institutions. Yet
Christianity was the best and most democratic of all constitu-
tions, with a Divine sanction for its authority, and if it failed
in realizing the Republican's dream, there is the less room for
surprise if such democracy as man can invent should fail more
utterly and miserably. But there is this broad distinction be-
tween the two, that failure can not be very correctly attributed


Chap. XXXV.] MODERN CIVILIZATION.
235
to Christianity, which never gave any promise of making all
men equal in each other's eyes, or in reality, so far as natural
gifts and outward conditions are concerned. It made no prom-
ise of ameliorating all the evils of humanity, but rather proph-
esied its own failure. But Christianity introduced new ideas,
responsibilities, ends, and sanctions; it supplied a new and high-
er principle of action; utterly repudiating all baser motives, and
taking no account of worldly distinctions; but it never gave
any promise of removing such distinctions and inequalities,
whether of rank, wealth, or political power, or of eradicating
J crime and folly by the creation of a political Utopia. What-
ever civilization exists in Europe, indeed, has taken its form
and all the best types of its development from Christianity, and
to trace the growth of modern civilization irrespective of its
influence is, of course, impossible. But it is different with ref-
erence to civilization in the East; no law of Christianity pre-
vails there to raise it above the lower standards of the heathen
and Mohammedan world.
That allshould fail in bringing the world forward in the
march of improvement, every religion and every form of gov-
ernment, or even in securing advance by any certain and clear-
ly-marked stages, presents a problem for Social Science, which
is, to all appearance, as far as ever from its solution. Civiliza-
tion, before and after the advent of Christianity, has had a large
field, and still halts far from the avowed end. Of all forms of
government, which is there that has not been tried under every
possible combination of circumstances? Despotism, feudalism,
limited monarchies, republicanism and democracy in their most
unlimited expression, all have had their trial, and what have
they done? How does the account stand if we take stock of
the social state under each, and note the degree of civilization
attained? The impotence of charts and constitutions, repub-
lics among the rest, to lift a whole nation above the common
infirmities of our nature, or save a body politic from the errors,
follies, and wickednesses of the worst government, is often, in
those which are the' last-born of Time,' sadly illustrated. One
is disposed to ask with Philarete Chasles in his ' Etudes sur les
Hommes et les Mceurs au XIX* Siecle,' '■Sans le sentiment r&-
ligieux, sans le devouement, sans la souffrance acceptee et benie,
y a-t-il une force sociale possible f and no less earnestly to
join in the farther conclusion,' La souffrance est sainte, dit
l'evangile, admettons done ce que le simple bon sens nous crie,
e'est a dire, que le -devoir impose la souffrance a des degres di-
vers. Bien de plus puerile que cette morale de l'utilite. B
n'est pas utile personnellement a l'homme de mourir pour sa


236
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXV.
mere, de se battre pour son pays, de s'exposer a la contagion
pour sauver des pestiferes qui meurent.'
As to our present European civilization, of which we are apt
to boast as something far surpassing all that has gone before,
whether in ancient or modern times, before or after Christ, it
has been very naturally asked what is the meaning of all these
Social Congresses. They have a meaning, no doubt, and spring
from some want which they are intended to supply. Social
Science means, we are told,' the art of improving society, and,
both as to principles and details, we have almost every thing
to learn!' This in Europe, in England in the nineteenth cen-
tury, with all its vaunted freedom, art, science, wealth, and re-
ligion. Is this the civilization we would so fain bestow on
other races? What are its fruits? Is moral evil or crime on
the decrease in our own land, despite the £50,000 a 'day spent
in religion and education, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
alone knows how much more on justice, and means for punish-
ing the criminals who live and grow under a system, political,
moral, and social, which a thousand years has been spent in
perfecting since Alfred was king? Progress is a taking word,
and civilization, like the cardinal's red mantle, covers a multi-
tude of sins and crimes. It is like a tinkling cymbal, which
drowns the noise of all other discordant things; but there is
enough yet in the Old World and its modern institutions to teach
humility and modesty in our appreciation of the benefits either
our institutions or our civilization are capable of conferring
upon another race or people, were they nearer akin to us in so-
cial habits and religion than the Japanese. There is vice and
crime enough in Japan, undoubtedly, to tempt our social phi-
losophers to experiment; but the garroting going on in the
heart of our own capital is scarcely better than" the cutting and
maiming by Samourai in the streets of Yeddo.
Notwithstanding these disheartening reflections, which are
too apt to intrude upon all who seek to lift the veil and search
into the true character and meaning of any civilization yet at-
tained, the task of examining closely into the working of insti-
tutions, the social and national characteristics of the different
families of man under varying conditions, and the determining
influences of good and evil socially developed, is one full of in-
terest, if not of obvious utility. Let us proceed with our in-
quiry into the civilization and social science of the Japanese,
who, although they may not really have lived, as their history
asserts, five hundred millions of years, are undoubtedly descend-
ants of an ancient race which was possessed of many of the el-
ements of civilization largely developed as far back as the
i


Chap. XXXV.]
237
ANDORRE AND JAPAN.
Christian era, and has ever since occupied a more or less iso-
lated position as a nation.
There is a little republic, isolated by mountains on every
frontier, lying between the Pyrenees of Arriege and the Pyr-
enees of Catalonia, included neither in France nor Spain, but
intervening between the two countries, consisting chiefly of
three valleys. Its greatest length is under thirty miles, and
its greatest width under twenty, with a population of about
8000. This little commonwealth, we are told by a writer in
the 'Edinburgh Review,' who has recently 'disinterred this
living relic' of a past age, was carved out by Charlemagne and
his son Louis le Debonnaire during their Moorish wars, and
apparently preserves the same frontiers and principles of gov-
ernment which it at first assumed, now more than a thousand
years ago! It is a peasant's commonwealth based upon aris-
tocracy. Long-descended patricians, who derive the grant of
their lands from Charlemagne, shear their sheep with their own
hands; but they are not the less proud of their unbroken de-
scent and patrician lineage, more ancient than the Montmoren-
cys and Rohans, though the nation has been too motionless to
rise above a peasant's civilization. A body of untutored rulers
is here so brave that every man's religion is the defense of his
rights. They are a race of nobles, who, during ten centuries,
while all around them has been movement and change, have
steadily maintained their separate existence and immobility as
a people; and, strange as it may seem, we are told ' the feudal
theory of nobility nowhere receives a more complete accept-
ance than among the Andorrian landholders, with whom luxu-
ry and education are pre-eminently wanting. They still defend
and govern the land which their fathers conquered.'
Andorre is the Japan of Europe, and Japan is another ex-
ample of the power of isolation to produce stationary types of
civilization and forms of government. Here, as in the valleys
of Andorre, isolated by the ocean, as Andorre is by its mount-
ains, from all other nations except China, until discovered in
the sixteenth century, and then only in momentary communi-
cation with the rest of the world, is a petty nationality whose
annals go far beyond Charlemagne, with a proud and feudal
aristocracy and an absolute government, but a torpid adminis-
tration and a laborious people; 'a land unequaled for the
beauty of its scenery and the simplicity of its race, yet poor
withal,'' a phenomenon of social poverty and conservative tra-
dition, a perpetual infancy of the arts in unchanging antithesis
with the everlasting luxuriance of nature.' It would be really
difficult to give any more perfect or accurate description of


238 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXV.
Japan than this epitome of the characteristics of Andorre and
its conservative race, except that being a larger country, with
a population of millions instead of thousands, they have devel-
oped more material wealth. How the little republic has pre-
served its insular liberties intact, wedged in between two of
the greatest Powers in Europe, amidst the general wreck of
small kingdoms by ' the growth of empires and the violence of
power,' is scarcely a greater marvel than the long-maintained
conservatism and isolation of Japan. But the hour seems ap-
proaching when even this Japanese stronghold of medieval and feudal institutions must disappear before the ever-advanc-
ing tide of European invasion and civilization. It may well
happen that the Andorrians will still preserve their antique
freedom and feudal tenure when the waves of revolution and
change shall have swept over the Japanese soil, obliterating
the very landmarks of their past history; for Andorre is still
fast locked in its mountain barriers, and has little to tempt the
cupidity of the great. It has nothing to tempt the restless en-
ergy either of missionaries or merchants, while Japan, less for-
tunately situated in this respect, is on the great highway of
nations, the coveted of Russia—so many believe—the most ab-
sorbing, if not the most aggressive of all the Powers, and a
perpetual temptation alike to merchant and to missionary, who,
each in different directions, finding the feudalism and spirit of
isolation barriers in their path, will not cease to batter them in
breach, or undermine them to their downfall. Such seems to
be the probable fate of Japan, and its consummation is little
more than a question of time. When all is accomplished,
whether the civilizing process will make them as a people wiser,
better, or happier, is a problem of more doubtful solution.
One thing is quite certain, that the obstructive principle which
tends to the rejection of all Western innovations and prosely-
tism as abominations is much too active and vigorous in the
Japanese mind to leave a hope that there will not be violent
and obstinate resistance, and this inevitably leading to corre-
sponding violence in the assault, there must be a period of con-
vulsion and disorder before the change can be effected, and
new foundations laid for another social edifice. Looking for-
ward to this impending future, the actual state of a people and
their institutions, so long and successfully maintained in medi-
aeval forms, and with a fully-developed feudalism, is worthy of
careful study. This feudalism has left the nation, if not free in
our estimate of freedom, yet in enjoyment of many blessings
which all the boasted freedom and civilization of Western
States have failed to secure for them in an equally long succes-


Chap. XXXV.] HOW TO ESTIMATE CIVILIZATION.
239
sion of centuries. National prosperity, independence, freedom
from war, and material progress in the arts of life—these are
* all among the possessions of the Japanese as a people, and the
inheritance of many generations.
How to arrive the most rapidly and certainly at some just
estimate of the degree of civilization actually attained in a
strange country, and what the agency and machinery employed,
is a question of great interest. It has been suggested by Mr.
Meadows, in an essay on Civilization contained in his work on
China, that the artificial means of communication, and the size
and value of private dwellings and public buildings, exclusive
of fortifications or other edifices for warlike purposes, will give
a very ready criterion, I can not say I think so. These con-
stitute but a very small portion of the outward and palpable
signs even of a material civilization, and entirely fail to give
the necessary insight into that which is intellectual and moral.
Judged by these criteria, Japan may vie with ancient Rome,
for, like the Romans, the Japanese are great in roads. Their
highway, the Tocaido, the imperial road throughout the king-
dom, may challenge comparison with the finest in Europe.
Broad, level, carefully kept, and well macadamized, with mag-
nificent avenues of timber to give shade from the scorching
heat of the sun, it is difficult to exaggerate their merit. But
if from roads we pass to means of artificial communication in
the larger sense, including post-offices, mails, telegraphs, and
means of rapid transit, they are immeasurably behind the least
advanced of European nations. Railroads and electric tele-
graphs, though known to the Rulers by report and working
models brought both by the American and Prussian Missions,
are wholly unthought of in the country. There are no public
carriages, or carriages of any kind indeed, if we except the Mi-
kado's carriage drawn by buffaloes, or something quite as cum-
brous borne on men's shoulders, for ordinary means of travel.
Indeed, the usual rate of all traveling in Japan is from five
to ten Re a day (fourteen to twenty-eight miles), and, while
the first is the more usual distance performed on foot, horse-
back, or in norimon, the last is rarely attempted except under
conditions of urgency. You can not travel farther or faster
than men on foot and beasts of burden can follow with your
baggage. In my own journeys, though well mounted myself,
I found five-and-twenty miles the extreme limit, and that could
not be done several days in succession. As to postal commu-
nication, it is all conducted by runners. Government couriers
run between the ports at stated periods, doing the distance be-
tween Yeddo and the extreme north or south, Hakodadi or


240
[Chap. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
Nagasaki, in about twenty-five days, the distance being 290 Re
to Hakodadi (say 650 miles), and 350 Re to Nagasaki (say 875
miles). By express, paid at the rate of eighty itziboos, or six
pounds sterling, letters can be conveyed in nine or ten days.
Thus, with some of the best roads in the world, they are three
centuries behind the rest of the civilized world in all that con-
cerns speed and means of communication. And even this very
primitive post has no reference to the wants of the people, but
serves merely to keep up the communication between the Gov-
ernment and its officers. The merchants combine among them-
selves to send couriers express from one trading city to anoth-
er, but, so far as I could learn, at no regular periods or in any
permanent form. The Chinese even seem in advance of them
here, for in most of the large cities in the North there are reg-
ular posts established by the people, or certain guilds of mer-
chants for them.
There are no newspapers and no public press; occasionally
penny sheets appear in Yeddo, and possibly other large cities,
and circulate items of news which the Government has no in-
terest in suppressing. They have had, in the old times, a sys-
tem of signals all the way from Nagasaki to Yeddo, by means
of guns, to announce the arrival of any foreign ship, but since
they have come by hundreds, the authorities have ceased to
waste their powder.
As to the size and value of private or of public buildings, it
would go hard with the Japanese if their civilization, either
mental or moral, were to be judged by such a test. They have
no architecture. They live on a volcanic soil, the surface of
which is affected with a tertian ague, thus denying the first
conditions of the builder, a stable foundation, and imposing a
law of construction fatal to all architectural pretensions or ex-
cellence. Houses for dwelling in seldom consist of more than
one story, those of the wealthy never, I fancy, and those of the
busy and commercial classes in large cities where land is valu-
able—more valuable than life in Japan—consist of a ground
floor and garret above.
These are all constructed of solid wooden frames strongly
knit together, the walls being merely a thin layer of mud and
laths to keep out the cold and heat, the whole surmounted in
the better class by rather ponderous and overhanging roofs, as
may be seen in many of the sketches scattered through these
volumes. These, as may easily be understood, are not very
easily shaken down; nevertheless, once in about every seven
years, according to Japanese report, the inhabitants of Yeddo
must lay their account for seeing their wooden city reduced to





_ Chap. XXXV.]
243
JAPANESE ART.
a heap of ruins by an earthquake too violent, even, for such
constructions to resist, and completed by fire, which inevitably
follows. We need not look for architecture, then, here; and
nothing, accordingly, can be more mean or miserable-looking
than the streets of Yeddo, one of the largest cities in the
world. The Daimios' Yaskis are merely a low line of barracks
of the same construction, rather higher in the roofs, and occa-
sionally they venture upon a modest attempt at a three-storied
pagoda. The temples are more ambitious, and, moreover, af-
ford safer ground for architectural experiments or pretensions,
as people do not usually live under their roofs. These furnish
the only specimens of Japanese architecture. The wood-cut
on the opposite page is from a photograph of the belfry at the
temple where we were lodged at Osaka, and is a very fair
specimen of all their temple and gateway architecture.
It will be seen that no fair criterion of their civilization or
advance in the arts can be drawn from such a source, the spe-
cial conditions of the soil exercising an absolute controlling
power over all architectural development. In all the mechan-
ical arts the Japanese have unquestionably achieved great ex-
cellence. In their porcelain, their bronzes, their silk fabrics,
their lacker, and their metallurgy generally, including works
of exquisite art in design and execution, I have no hesitation
in saying they not only rival the best products of Europe, but
can produce in each of these departments works we can not
imitate, or perhaps equal. It is quite true that Europe may
also make a similar boast with justice. There is much, espe-
cially in the province of art properly so called, to which the
Japanese can not make the slightest pretensions. They can
not produce, by any effort, works to be compared with the no-
te, a Morel Ladeuil, or a Monti, which the Great International
Exhibition showed; yet the Japanese bronze castings are,
some of them, scarce inferior in skilled workmanship and mix-
ture of metals to any thing we can produce of the same
kind. No Japanese can produce any thing to be named in
the same day with a work from the pencil of a Landseer, a
Roberts, or a Stanfield, a Lewis, or Rosa Bonheur, whether in
oil or water-colors; indeed, they do not know the art of paint-
ing in oils at all, and are not great in landscape in any materi-
al. Their knowledge of perspective is too limited, and aerial
effects have scarcely yet entered into their conception. But
in figures and animals, I have some studies in Indian ink, so
graphic, so free in outline and true to nature, that our best art-
ists might envy the unerring touch and facile pencil so plainly
ble

from the chisel of a Tech- 


244
[Chap. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
indicated. In the rendering of animals, whatever the material
employed, they seem to have studied not only the mere forms,
but the habits and character of each, with such accuracy and
closeness of observation that they gain a perfect mastery over
their subject, and by a few lines and a dash of the brush, pro-

duce a faultless imitation of nature. This is especially true of
the stork, the emblem of longevity, and nearly as much ad-
mired and revered by the Japanese as ever was its kindred
ibis in Egypt. Hence, on porcelain, lacker, in enamels, on
ivory, in basso-relievos, in steel and iron, in bronzes, it is every


Chap. XXXV. J GENIUS OF THE JAPANESE.
245
where to be met, and with a marvelous perfection of workman-
ship and artistic power. On the preceding page is a rough
specimen cut out of a com-
mon picture-book, of which it
formed the fly-leaf. Who-
ever has seen a flight of these
birds must be struck with
the fidelity of the sketch.
Here, again, is a wild goose
in flight, than which nothing
can be better.
I need say nothing of the
lacker-ware. The Japanese
are, in all probability, the
originators of the manufacture, and have never been approach-
ed in Asia or in Europe. Neither Soochow, Canton, nor Bir-
mingham appear to possess either the material or the skill nec-
essary, and certainly have yet to show that they can even make
a near approach to some of the fine specimens of old slacker which I collected for the Exhibition, to illustrate the progress
of the Japanese in the mechanical and higher industrial arts,
and as evidences of their civilization.
Perhaps in nothing are the Japanese to be more admired
than for the wonderful genius they display in arriving at the
greatest possible results with the simplest means, and the
smallest possible expenditure of time and labor or material.
The tools by which they produce their finest works are the
simplest, and often the rudest that can be conceived. Wher-
ever in the fields or the workshops nature supplies a force, the
Japanese is sure to lay it under contribution, and make it do
his work with the least expense to himself of time, money, and
labor. To such a pitch of perfection is this carried, that it
strikes every observer as one of the moral characteristics of
the race, indicating no mean degree of intellectual capacity and
cultivation.
They have been familiar with the art of printing in various
colors by blocks of wood—a process similar to our lately-dis-
covered art of lithochnJme printing—from an unknown date;
similar, at least, so far as the employment of several blocks in
the same design for different colors. They do not seem, how-
ever, to print one color over another, to produce depth or rich-
ness, as we do. Mr. Leighton, an artist himself, who saw some
of these color-prints in the Japan Court at the Exhibition, in-
forms me that he has discovered, upon close examination,' that
they have the power of reducing their prints by some process,


246
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXV.
as doubtless of enlarging also—a thing patented by us some
few years since, and used by Mr. Leech in his enlarged pictures
from " Punch."' If this be true, it is only one more instance
in which, by their own unaided genius and ingenuity, they
have anticipated by centuries some of the most recent inven-
tions and discoveries of Europe. Another improvement in
color-printing, only lately patented, also is evidently known to
them—graduated shading.'' They meet the popular taste for pictures and bright colors
at the cheapest possible rate. There are countless works on
drawing, filled with illustrations of the styles of their different
masters, from which it would be easy to select any number of
groups and figures worthy of Teniers,Van Ostades, Jan Steens,
or any of that school of Dutch Painters; and much in the same
style of broad farce, of humor and fidelity in the representa-
tion of the life of the people, too faithful, in many instances,
like their Dutch compeers, to be always very delicate or re-
fined. But on this subject I may as well say, en passcmt, and
not to revert to it, that, although there is no doubt a wide-
spread taste for gross and obscene productions (of which evi-
dences will occasionally thrust themselves upon those who seek
them least, proving how widely the demand exists for such
things, since the supply is so large and various in type), yet,
upon the whole, they are not usually obtruded upon a casual
observer, either in real life, or their books and toys, although
they do exist in these last to an extent that speaks ill both for
their taste and system of juvenile education. In the ordinary
run of illustrated works and pictures, however, of which I made
a large collection, the scissors of the censor are but rarely re-
quired, unless in very prudish hands. Of course, where the
customs of the country present quasi-nude figures every where
to the eye, in the streets and houses, without any conscious-
ness of indelicacy attaching to such absence of costume, a
painter of popular manners will necessarily reproduce what he
constantly sees, and in attitudes ill suited to European notions;
* The following opinion of artistic characteristics, as exemplified in the
specimens sent to the Great Exhibition, will be interesting as coming from
an artist. Mr. Leighton writes to me on this subject:
'The" quaintly-picturesque seems to govern all in Japan—harmony of col-
or with extraordinary finish, avoiding symmetry and delighting in sharp an-
gles—just the reverse of all other nations. They have many things in com-
mon with the Chinese, but a far finer touch. A great deal of this comes, I
think, of their buildings being of wood, having a wooden architecture rather
than an enduring one in stone; had they been masons, then would they have
worked on a grander scale. They seem fond of sensations; the sweet, the
soft and pretty, is heightened by the grotesque, yet all is in harmony.'


Cusp. XXXV.] WORKS IN METAL AND IN IVORIES.
247
but he does so without the slightest consciousness of offend-
ing against any of the proprieties, and under such circum-
stances we must take his works as we habitually do those of
Phidias, or the sculptors of more modern date, more graceful
it may be, but quite as scantily draped. -With this proviso,
there is nothing to deter the most fastidious student of art,
and the manners and customs of Orientals, from turning over
the leaves freely.
Very many of these clever and graphic studies of Japanese
life have been already introduced as illustrations of manners
and customs, being so good and perfect in their kind that no
European pencil could improve upon them. Their enamels
are quite equal to those of China, which at the Great Exhibi-
tion of 1851 were for the first time seen in England among
some objects which I sent from thence, and attracted great ad-
miration. Finally, their carvings in ivory of groups of figures
and animals are often in the best style of art; and although by
their cheapness they are evidently the fruit of a kind of skilled
labor by no means uncommon, they could only be produced in
Europe by some of our best artists, and at a proportionate
cost. Some twenty or thirty of the finest of these were also
sent to the Exhibition, but the large and not very discrimina-
ting demand for such things at the Consular Ports has sadly
deteriorated the quality of all those that come now into the
Japanese market.
I had intended giving a more detailed description of their
works of art in metal and in ivories, as illustrating their life
and traditions; but, having already far exceeded the limits I
originally proposed, I must pass them over with a cursory no-
tice. I close, however, with the less regret, feeling that no de-
scription could convey any perfect idea of the kind or degree
of excellence attained, and that numerous specimens of the
best were in the Exhibition. Among other things, there was
sent a collection of some three hundred medallions and intag-
lios in mixed metals, in iron and steel, silver, gold, and bronze,
to the Exhibition, many of which I should have no hesitation
in placing side by side for comparison with the best works of
the kind bequeathed to us by mediaeval art, not excluding Ben-
venuto Cellini's chef-d'oeuvres. This, no doubt, will read to
many as the exaggerated praise of a biased judgment, or the
admiration of an indifferent connoisseur of art. The public
will have been able to form its own judgment, so no harm will
be done. Their power of blending and producing artistic ef-
fects out of mixed metals is, so far as I am aware, an art
scarcely known in Europe. They were carefully examined by


248
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXV.
Mr. Hunt, of the well-known firm of Hunt and Roskill, as one
of the jurors at the Great International Exhibition; and in his
report he makes the following statement, which, coming from
so competent a judge, will be read with interest:
'This collection is very remarkable. The smaller fancy ob-
jects, such as brooches and clasps, are admirably executed.
In all the figures the national character is represented with
perfect truth and expression. These objects are principally in
iron, relieved by partial overlaying of gold and bronze. Great
aptitude is evinced in these works.'
I may add that many of the specimens are elaborate and
highly finished; and the legends attached to some, and the in-
dications of character which may be traced in all, make them
highly instructive as well as interesting. I can only venture
upon a description of four or five which happen to be under
my eye as specimens while I am writing. The first and lar-
< gest represents Mongaku shonin, a priest of Buddha, supposed
to be sitting under a waterfall, and praying that he may have
much knowledge given him; while praying, two gods appear
to answer his prayers. The face of the priest, with gold teeth
the gods in the vision are also in gold, and wonderfully minute
in their workmanship. The next is one of Hotai oshir, and
represents a Chinese Buddhist priest of high rank, who having
fallen asleep, his servant is endeavoring to awaken him by tick-
ling his nose with a piece of twisted paper. Absurd and
worthless as the subject is, the faces of both are very perfect
in expression. Ubi sakino sambato is a juggler, supposed to
be balancing a weighted image upon his little finger. Kai-
raishi is a toy-merchant crying his wares, a practice said to be
long since out of date, but I have often seen something very
like it in the streets of Yeddo. These men used to walk about
the streets singing, and trying to entice people to purchase
their goods, but my Japanese expounder of these medals tells
me the practice died out at Miaco.
Mukashi banashi bakamono tszasyra.—This represents the
last act of a fable, which shows the Japanese have also their
fairies, who know how to bestow good and evil gifts.
The following is the popular legend:
An old couple were living together, when one day the old
man brought home a sparrow in a cage, but its twittering an-
noyed the wife. She determined to rid herself of the annoy-
ance, but could find no reason for so doing. One day, how-
ever, while she was out, the sparrow picked all the stitches out
of a new garment she had been sewing, which so enraged her

elaborate work in iron; while


Chap. XXXV.] POPULAR WORKS AND LEGENDS.' 249
that she cut a piece of its tongue off and let it go. Her hus-
band, on his return, inquired for the bird, and was very angry
when he heard what his wife had done, and upbraided her with
her cruelty to a bird which he loved as if it had been his daugh-
ter. So he went out in search of the bird. As he was walk-
ing on the hills, an apparition of a beautiful girl appeared to
him, thanked him for his kindness to her while in his house,
and offered him his choice of a present, asking him if he would
prefer a heavy basket or one of less weight. He, being an old
man, preferred the lighter, so she gave him a basket to open
when he got home. On opening it, he found it full of most
beautiful clothes. His wife, on seeing them, and hearing where
they had come from, thought she would try her luck; so she
went on to the hills in search of the sparrow. The beautiful
girl appeared to her, and, after upbraiding her with her unkind-
ness, gave her also her choice. She chose a heavy basket, and
took it home, but, to her disgust and surprise, on opening it
two goblins jumped out. This is the moment chosen by the
artist; the old woman is on her back, prostrated with alarm,
and her heels in the air, while the goblins rising out of the cage
are faintly indicated by the graver, but full of ghoulish expres-
sion. This also is wrought in two metals, giving relief and
color to the figures.
A somewhat similar legend is attached to a very delicately
chiseled medallion of the collection, where the good spirit in-
habits the body of a favorite dog, the property of an aged
couple who had no children. He takes the old man into a
wood, and shows him where a treasure lies buried. This com-
ing to the ears of a vicious neighbor, he borrows the dog of his
good-natured master, but, though he is shown where to dig,
he finds nothing but stones, and he kills the dog in his rage.
Grieved by this cruel act and the loss of his canine friend, the
old man demands where he was buried, and, cutting down the
tree by which the body lay, he fashions a temple to his mem-
ory, and out of the trunk a mortar to beat his rice. No sooner
does he employ this than gold also comes. The evil neighbor
again comes to borrow, again fails in getting gold by the same
process, and in his rage burns the mortar. The owner only
humbly begs the ashes, and in a dream his dog appears, and
tells him to go with the ashes to a certain spot, and when a
Daimio passes not to kneel, but, if summoned, to say that he is
a magician, with power to bring flowers on dead trees or out
of their season. Accordingly, taking his post, when the pro-
cession passes, and the terrible word is echoed along the road,
Shitaniriol kneel down! he finds courage to keep his feet.


250
[Chap. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
The Daimio's attendants, hearing the reason, determine to re-
port it to their lord instead of inflicting summary punishment.
The Daimio demands the proof of his power. Whereupon,
throwing some of the ashes upon the tree over his head, it sud-
denly burst into bloom. This is the moment chosen by the
artist, and the delight and amazement of the old man to see
the golden flowers is admirably rendered. The end of the
story soon comes; he is taken to the Daimio's house, who re-
tains him and gives him presents. The vicious neighbor, still
pursuing, asks for some ashes; with inexhaustible good-nature,
this also is granted, and now comes his punishment. Waiting
the arrival of a Daimio's cortege, he makes the usual supple
joints rigid, and, on being approached, declares his power; but,
on throwing the ashes, instead of covering the branch and pro-
ducing flowers, they fly into the Daimio's eyes, who instantly
draws his sword and hews the culprit down, while his attend-
ants finish the work by cutting off his head, and so the evil-
minded gets his deserts—in a way perfectly characteristic of
the country and its rulers.
While studying this branch of the subject, and collecting
materials for a judgment on the progress of the Japanese in
the fine arts, amidst the hundred volumes accumulated about
me, I came upon one work which, after a world of explanation,
perfectly unintelligible, I found, at last, consisted of a series of
illustrated charades or rebuses, such as Charivari delights in.
Many of the drawings, all colored, are inimitable, both as draw-
ings and illustrations of popular life and manners. I confess
utter incapacity in reference to the solution of the various in-

Pearson with the most perfect skill and fidelity.
SPECIMEN OF GROTESQUE.
genious enigmas they are
meant to illustrate. I nev-
er in my life could guess a
conundrum or a rebus in
plain English or French,
how much less in 'Japan-
ese Mrakana? Yet, as
specimens of art, and illus-
trations of the civilization
and every-day life of the
people, I can not resist in-
troducing some of them;
and should any one feel in-
clined to try their talent
in deciphering the written
characters have been given
in many cases also by Mr.






JAPANESE PHYSICIAN.


Ciiaf. XXXV.] POPULAR MANNERS.
253
The engraving on page 250 represents a courtier in full cos-
tume, who is evidently in
great anxiety to carry a
tray to its destination with
a speed which the interm-
inable prolongations of his
trowsers must render un-
safe, if not impossible. The
whole expression and ac-
tion of the figure is admi-
rable. Here we have a
Japanese, it may be your
servant,takinghis ease and
enjoying the luxury of be-
ing well shampooed—and
one he will by no means
forego, though you should
want him ever so much.
He engages to serve you
only on those well-under-
stood conditions. Or,ifhe
is not being shampooed, then he is being shaved and having
his hair dressed, with a stiff cue twisted and laid over the
crown of his head—a daily operation also, or, if it is not, it
ought to be, to make him look cleanly and decent; therefore
you know the alternative if you make difficulties. Then comes
a doctor, feeling the pulse of his patient. The barber and the
surgeon were one not so long ago, even in England, as Holbein's
ainting of the barber-surgeons receiving their charter from
luff King Harry proves. But in Japan the physician enjoys
a good social position, and holds his head as high as any other
in Europe. Our Japanese friend has thus been to the sham-
pooer, and the barber, and even the doctor, a very habitual
round with them all, but he has not yet had his bath, a matter
of still greater importance. A little conjugal scene awaits
him when he returns to his domestic hearth. I do not pretend
to know the cause of quarrel, but it is quite evident the lady
has the best of the argument, and is not disposed to forego her
advantage until she has obtained full satisfaction, and it seems
precisely one of those cases in which no one else has any busi-
ness to interfere, or chance of doing so with advantage. He
appears to have got over his troubles; perhaps, after all, it
ended in the pace di marcolfa, of which Prince Puckler-Muskau
used to write so mysteriously. And now he is engaged in
buying a new robe; possibly his last may have suffered some





Chap. XXXV.] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
257
figure represents some ladies at their toilet—quite as often per-
formed with open windows as in the privacy of an inner cham-
ber—and it has its merit as regards fidelity and truth of detail
also. The toilet-stand, with the polished metal mirror (that

LADIES AT THEIR TOILET.
might have been dug out of Herculaneum or Pompeii), is faith-
fully rendered, as is the lady in the centre, painting her lips
with the bright red of the hollyhock or the thistle, a dye ex-
tracted from the flower. A group of beggars trudging along
the road forms the subject of one of the happiest illustrations,
already given in a former chapter. The figures are barely
sketched in, yet so felicitous is the touch that you see at once

GOING UP HILL.


258
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. True. XXXV.
they are blind, and of the type vagabond.
And this scene on the road' is scarcely in-
ferior — wayfarers of the humbler class as-
cending and descending—the poor Coolie,
with his heavy burden, evidently feeling
the hill unpleasantly stiff. Or, still on the
road, see this peasant in his coat of rush-
es. How much expression, again, is there
in the mere rough outline of these men
towing.f You do not see the boat, but you
can have no doubt that it is close behind,
and heavily laden too. And, to show that
they are not, as artists, servilely copying a
stereotyped pattern, here, is the same sub-
ject, but quite differently handled, yet equal-
ly good. I had proposed passing in review
some of the principal incidents of the life of
snow coat. a Japanese, as these are painted by them-
selves, but it would carry me too far for the
limits of a chapter, if not for the patience of my readers. Out
of the mass of illustrations before me, I will only take at haz-
ard half a dozen more. We have seen how little conjugal dif-
ferences may arise and be settled in Japan. Here is a court-

JAPANESE WOOING.
ship behind the screen; and, emerging into the streets, we are
caught in a shower of rainf—a good ' even-down pour,' as we sometimes see in Yeddo. This is very well rendered, with a
good deal of humorous by-play in the grouping. But better

* See preceding illustration.
t See opposite page.


2G0 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Ciiap.XXXV.
still, as a specimen of perfect effect, with the fewest possible
touches, is the snow - storm. I was just shutting the book

A SNOW-STORM.
when I came upon a whole series of a celebrated professor,
who teaches how to obtain the greatest effect in single lines
and one color; and all his specimens are certainly admirable,
both in outline and effect. One, a dame and her child, pre-
ceded by a servant with a lantern—very perfect in its way—
has already been introduced to the reader.
Another sample of the mistress and her servant is very char-
acteristic, and whoever has been in the country would recog-
nize the type.* A little domestic scene, the mother-in-law and
the daughter, is also very graphic, and tells a tale not new in
England or other lands, though it may be daughters-in-law are
not so reverential under censure from that quarter in all coun-
tries.'' How far they have profited by Dutch instruction in the
course of the last two centuries it may be difficult to determine
accurately. That they have had, and communicate to each
other, instruction, even in perspective, is proved by a volume
of drawing lessons in perspective which I found in turning
over a book-stall.
They not only have an eye for form and picturesque group-
ing, and understand effects of light and shade, but they evident-
ly have a considerable amount of humor, and are very fond of
* See opposite page.





262
[Chap. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
the grotesque. If somewhat Rabelaic in its grossness, it is not
the less humor, and betokens a keen sense of the ludicrous.
Here is a very pleasing specimen, full of life and fun, and wor-
thy of Hogarth for its truth to nature; it needs no explanation.

BLOWING BUBBLES.
It shows plainly how children of large growth blow soap-bub-
bles to amuse their progeny, and are not above enjoying the
sport. When they yield themselves fairly up to the grotesque,
they give loose rein to their imagination, and produce some of
the most absurd and monstrous combinations and distortions
of humanity. Sometimes they are simply monstrous or laugh-
able, at other times they are grim in their significance. One
now before me is of a gentleman who by some accident (not
an uncommon one in Japan) has lost his head, or, at all events,
it has flown from his shoulders, and, although the body ex-
presses considerable discomfort, the head evidently thinks it a
capital joke.
Another grotesque from the same pencil shows an uncom-
mon tenuity about the epigastric region, but a happy state of
mind notwithstanding, and is very laughably rendered, while
for vis-d-vis he has a friend whose lower limbs have shot up-


Chap. XXXV.]
263
JAPANESE HUMOR.
ward so immeasurably that he can not help laughing himself
on finding his head in the clouds. Then follow a couple of
amphibious-looking wayfarers with wings on their backs, and
carrying a packet between them by means of a monstrous nose.

GNOMES.
They are intended to represent some kind of gnomes or spirits.
This prolongation of the nasal organ, sometimes not in very
decent shape, is a favorite exemplification of the grotesque with
the Japanese. It is very common in their masks, and in the
leaves I am turning over there is a grand display of what noses
may become, and to what strange uses perverted. On the fol-
lowing page will be found a rebus, in which a lantern-maker is
represented at his work, and face, attitude, expression, and ac-
cessories are all perfect in their way.
Let us close up the list with the artist himself at his work.
Here is one of the guild painting flowers, and, following him,
another painting with two brushes at once—a tour cle force by
no means uncommon, though it seems quite as difficult and in-
comprehensible as the lady's performance, who, having no
hands, used to paint with her toes, an example of which I saw,
by the way, the last time I visited the picture-gallery at An-
twerp. Lastly, welcome to the enthusiastic genius who, not


264
[Chap. XXXV.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.

LANTEBS-MAKEIt.
contented with a brush in each hand, has a third in his mouth, and a fourth and fifth between the great and small toes of each
foot. I do not think dexterity in art can go beyond this, and
it forms a fitting finale, therefore, to our exhibition of the Jap-
anese school of painting.
Having thus passed in review some of the leading traits of
character, and endeavored to trace the chief influences under
which their national life has taken form and development, if I
were asked to give in a few words the conclusion to which I
have been led as to the kind and degree of civilization attained
by the Japanese, without taking account of the various quali-
fications and reservations already touched upon, I should say
that theirs was a material civilization of a high order, in which
all the industrial arts were brought to as great perfection as
could well be attainable without the aid of steam power and
machinery, an almost unlimited command of cheap labor and
material supplying apparently many counterbalancing advan-
tages. Their intellectual and moral pretensions, on the other
hand, compared with what has been achieved in the more civ-
ilized nations of the West during the last three centuries, must
be placed very low; while their capacity for a higher and bet-
ter civilization than they have yet attained should be ranked,
I conceive, far before that of any other Eastern nation, not ex-
cepting the Chinese.


Chap. XXXVI.] RELIGION OF THE JAPANESE. 265
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Temples, Religion, and Amusements of Japanese.—Strange Combination of
the two.—Description of Asaxa under both Aspects.—Jugglers.—Story-
tellers.—Top-spinners.—Various Games.—Game of throwing the Ball on
Horseback.—Picnics in the Country much in vogue at Spring Festivals
Theatres.—Wrestlers.—Matsuris and Feasts.—Japanese Cemeteries.
In a former chapter I have referred generally to the religion
of the Japanese, so far as scanty information would permit, on
a subject which, above all others, requires a thorough knowl-
edge of the people and their language to qualify any one to
speak with authority. Considering the religious doctrines and
faith of a people as an important element of their civilization,
it was necessary to form some estimate of its character and in-
fluence, however imperfect the data. But beyond the fact that
the Japanese, with the written and ideographic language of
the Chinese, borrowed a philosophy and a religion, and, in
both instances, added it to their own, adopting them more or
less completely in their integrity, we really do not know much.
All that the Portuguese and Spanish missionaries of the six-
teenth century seem to have left—and they were the only peo-
ple in a position to know and understand in what the different
forms of religion in vogue consisted—amounts to very little.
Kcempfer, ever painstaking and indefatigable in his inquiries
on-all subjects, has given a general view of the different sects,
and what they professed to believe in his day; and as Japan-
ese must doubtless have been his informants, we may probably
adopt his as a fair account, giving at least some idea of the
modification the two systems of Confucius and Buddha may
have undergone in the Japanese mind. My own impression I
have already stated to be, that religion, in any form, does not
enter very largely into the life of the people, and that the
higher and the educated classes are all more or less skeptical
and indifferent. The strange mode in which their religious
ceremonies and temples are made to amalgamate with and
subserve their popular amusements is one of the evidences on
which my convictions rest. Plays are performed in their tem-
ple gardens, which also contain shooting-galleries, bazars, tea-
houses, flower-shows, menageries of wild beasts, and exhibitors
of models like those of Madame Tussaud in Baker Street.
II.—M


266
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVI.
Such a medley can scagcely consist with any reverential feel-
ing or serious religiouroonvictions.
That the Japanese should, nevertheless, be very much ad-
dicted to pilgrimages with professedly religious objects, may
be taken, on the other hand, as an evidence that, among the
lower orders at least, there is a religious sentiment of some vi-
tality. There are pilgrimages to Isje, to the thirty-three chief
Quanquon temples—pilgrimages to some of the most eminent
Lin and Cami or Buddhist temples, celebrated for miracles
wrought there and the benefits conferred on pilgrims, which,
no doubt, is a powerful motive with the votaries, giving the
hope of parcipitating in their turn. A true and orthodox dis-
ciple of Sinto visits only those of his own gods, and Koempfer
adds, the' Temple Saif in Sicousin, where Teentin died, is one
of the most esteemed.' On the other hand, both Buddhists and
Sintoists seem to go to the Quanquon temples as a means to
obtain happiness in this world, and bliss in that to come. In
reference to the Sintoists, there seems to be a strong analogy
in the laws of purity and purifying observances enjoined by
their creed with those of the Mosaic dispensation, while their
priests give to the pilgrims an ofarrai in a small oblong box,
which is an absolution and remission of their sins—whether
preceded by a confession or not, I can not say; sometimes it
is wrapped in white paper, in 'order to remind the pilgrim to
be pure and humble, these two virtues being the most pleasing
to the gods.' The effects and virtues of the absolution last
only for a year, otherwise it is obvious the priests' treasury
would not be sufficiently frequently replenished, something be-
ing always given for this valuable document. And even for
the benefit of those who can not make the pilgrimage, large
numbers of ofarrai are sent throughout the country, for dis-
posal like the indulgences that excited Luther's indignation.
An indulgence or absolution, and an almanac, are generally
supplied together at the new year, and in Koempfer's time
might be had for an itziboo, or eighteen pence. It must be
confessed neither could be considered very dear.
Making vows in times of trouble or distress, building tem-
ples as tokens of gratitude, and gifts to the poor, are not un-
common in Japan. There are several religious orders, hermits and holy men, who dedicate themselves to a life of prayer and
solitude for the mortification of the flesh; nor are there want-
ing counter-types of the mendicant friars of Europe. Many
of these seem to deal in charms and incantations for the cure
of distempers, discovery of criminals, etc., and curiously enough
their principal charm is called in the Japanese ' Sin? There


Chap. XXXVI.] BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM.
267
are two sects of the blind, also, founded by two great celebri-
ties in Japanese history—one the third son of a Mikado who
wept himself blind for the death of his mistress, and the other
by a defeated general in the civil wars, who tore his eyes out
that he might not be provoked to take the life of a generous
victor in Youtomo, the founder of a dynasty. Into these two
sects, half religious, half secular, persons of all ranks enter.
They are generally, but not exclusively, musicians, and earn
their subsistence by playing on musical instruments.
Ingrafted on the Sinto, or original religion of the Japanese
(which had the one great merit, at least, of not being idola-
trous), are the two derived from China—Confucianism, Chi-
nese in origin, and Buddhism, which found its way across
Asia from India. We have far less means of information as to
the Japanese version than we possess in regard to the Chinese.
Some contend that they accept the doctrine of futurity and
the immortality of the soul with more or less clearness of con-
ception, but for both men and animals. They are also sup-
posed to believe in a place of happiness after death, to which
the good pass, and some place of punishment for the bad—the
first a sort of Mohammedan paradise with various grades or
degrees of beatitude. Amida is the sovereign commander of
these heavenly regions, and through his sole mediation men
obtain absolution of their sins, and their portion of happiness
hereafter. Leading a virtuous life and keeping the command-
ments of Siaka are said to be the only way to become agree-
able unto Amida, and worthy of eternal happiness, and the
commandments are five:
1. Not to kill any thing that hath life. 2. Not to steal. 9.
Not to commit fornication. 4. Not to lie (there can be no true
Buddhism in Japan). 5. Not to drink intoxicating liquors
(especially unobserved).
As there is an elysium with varying degrees of bliss, so is
there a place of torment, also varying in degrees of punishment,
but not eternal. These may be greatly diminished by the vir-
tuous life of their friends and relatives, their prayers, and, above
all, their offerings to the great and good Amida, who is able to
obtain their release finally, and send them into the world again
as soon as possible, consistent with divine justice, but to ani-
'mate such vile creatures as are nearly identified with their for-
mer sinful inclinations; and so, by successive transmigrations,
they at last are suffered again to enter human bodies to run a
second course of virtue or of vice, and so on to a second future
life of bliss or punishment ad infinitum.
According to the Japanese, Buddhism appears to have come


268
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVI.
over from China and Corea about the sixth century of our era,
whereas Confucianism was adopted in the first. It is men-
tioned by the Japanese writers that the somewhat arid doc-
trines of Confucius made slow progress, whereas Buddhism
rapidly found votaries, and the most effectual and persuasive ar-
guments were those which spoke of the immortality of the soul
and the promises of a future life.
One can readily believe this, and agree with Mr. Edkins, a
learned missionary who has devoted much labor to the study
of Buddhism and Confucianism, and their joint influence on the
Chinese mind, when he says that,' holding such cheerless views
as the Confucians did of the destiny of man, it is not-to be won-
dered at that the common people should desert their standard,
and adopt a more congenial influence.' Nor can we avoid be-
ing struck with the phraseology of retribution and a future
state wherever Buddhism has taken root. An omnipotent
Creator, a Divine Incarnation, a man-God who came into the
world to enlighten and to show the way to salvation, are among
the doctrines of Buddha—a vast religious system counting its
votaries over all the East by hundreds of millions. It is re-
marked upon by the late Abbe Huc, in his travels in Tartary
and Thibet,' as containing a great number of moral truths and
dogmas which form the basis of Christianity.' That they
should be united in a system of idolatry is sad enough, and
that both should so long continue inseparably blended is per-
haps disheartening; yet may not these ideas of immortality,
redemption, and retribution, which pervade their language and
make a part of the popular faith of the millions of Asia, be the
germs of a purer faith, which, stripped of its debasing idolatry,
is destined to spring forth in God's good time, and bear a har-
vest such as the world has not yet seen? It is impossible not
to feel how wonderfully such religious convictions as these
great fundamental truths of Christianity are calculated to pre-
pare the way for Christian truth. We may even see in this
long vitality of a system of doctrines blended with grievous
errors how, in the dispensations of Providence, the evil of such
long persistence may, in the end, be overruled for good in the
conversion of the Asiatic race, numbering more than half the
whole population of the world, in far less time—this, too, by
a far more natural and easy process than were the untutored
and semi-barbarous races of the North of Europe. The transi-
tion from such thoughts to those which their temples suggest,
with their busy, laughing, noisy crowds, their plays and their
rope-dancing, has something in it incongruous to one brought
up under Christian influences. But I have undertaken to de-


Case. XXXVI.]
269
TEMPLE AT ASAXA
scribe Japan as it is, so far as my own observation extends,
and therefore, after this glance at their religious systems, the
reader must follow me to their places of worship, their temples
and their cemeteries, and not hold me responsible for whatever
he may find there distasteful or startling. There is a strong
similarity in all; any difference, indeed, chiefly consisting in the
greater or lesser magnitude of the temples, and the extent of
their grounds. One of the largest and most celebrated in Yed-
do is the temple at Asaxa, situated in one of the most populous
quarters of the city, and in describing what is to be seen there
I shall have discharged my duty as a faithful cicerone, and leave
little to be regretted in the omission of visits paid to many
others, which I shall suppress, as possessing neither novelty nor
interest after one like that of Asaxa has been gone through. It
is also called the temple of Quanonas, the god Quanwon of
thirty-six arms and a hundred hands, who must be very popu-
lar, to judge by the crowding of the thousand idlers, who seem
to be never wanting in its vicinity, and who rush through from
one extremity to the other, to catch a sight of the foreigner,
with an uproar as loud as distant thunder. A long avenue in-
tervenes between the outer and inner gateway, as at Tozenjee,
and on each side are stalls or booths forming a vast bazar of
a very mixed character. Toys for children occupy a large
space; a few little stone models of shrines, idols, tombstones,
and temples were the only things I could perceive having the
remotest connection with the ascribed sanctity of the edifice
adjoining. Trinkets for women, especially metal pins for their
hair, and combs, almost the only ornaments they appear to in-
dulge in; and perhaps, to make up for any restricted use else-
where, they sometimes carry a forest of these on their heads;
pins with hollow glass heads, filled with bright-colored liquids,
also seemed to enjoy great favor. The infant windmill, stuffed
tigers, and barking dogs, drums and fifes, and miniature swords,
bows and arrows, dressed dolls, and masks, kites, and even
hoops, seemed to make the staple of the toy-booths, so that
our common humanity asserts itself even in toys for Japanese
children. Of course, picture-books and gaudy prints were not
wanting; nowhere in Japan apparently, certainly not in Yed-
do, is the supply of these deficient.
The whole avenue is crowded with women and children,
idlers, buyers, and votaries—the last in great minority, to all
appearance, and not very easily distinguishable, even with the
help of such sketches as the native artist furnishes.
It was late in November when I paid my first visit in re-
turning from Ogee and its tea-houses, which Mr. Oliphant so


210
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVI.
pleasantly described some years ago in his ' Narrative of Lord
Elgin's Mission.' The autumnal tints of brightest scarlet were
still on the maple-trees, but the country was beginning to look
somewhat bare and wintry. Indeed, the day in question might
have been a November day in England. The sky was over-
cast, and threatened rain, if it should not'sna,1 as the Scotch-
man suggested on the Highlands as the only alternative, for the
air was raw and cold enough. There was a great crowd, and
it was both noisy and boisterous, but it did not particularly in-
commode us. Some officers attached to the temple, or sent
there to meet us, exerted themselves to prevent our being
pressed upon. I have often been there since, and once or twice
with ladies, but have never been molested, and what seemed to
me to be a fair or semi-festival appears to continue all the year
round. The numerous amusements provided within the gar-
dens went far to account for this, and no doubt the principal
revenues of the temple come from this source. We made our
way through the dense crowd not without some effort, as we
had dismounted from our horses outside, being told by our
Yaconins that such was the rule. And this, by the way, was
one of the many examples of how unfailingly they seek to place
a Foreign Minister in a false position in the eyes of the people,
and subject him to indignity whenever they think they can
count upon his ignorance of their customs. I afterward found
that all officers entitled by their rank to ride proceed mounted
up to the inner gate, and upon the next occasion I did the same
with my mounted escort, and, evidently guessing that I knew
what I was about, my Japanese guard had the discretion to
avoid any remonstrance. But now we are at the foot of a high
flight of steps through the second gate. We have passed the
stable where two sacred white horses are kept for the god's
exclusive use, and before us is the temple. It is a large, mass-
ive-looking building, with a ponderous and elaborately carved
roof and ornamental pillars, and heavy folding door of hacker, a great improvement on the usual tawdry daubing of red and
blue paint.
On entering the temple, the same stereotyped altar, image,
and trumpery decorations of artificial flowers, chandeliers, etc.,
strike the eye as leading features in all. The same 'bell and
book,' priests in their robes and scapulars, acolytes in attend-
ance, and choristers to stand behind the officiating Bonze; the
same burning of incense, the same reiteration and mumbling
of prayers and rituals in an unknown tongue—unknown even
to the priest who gabbles them—at other times consisting of
three words, incessantly reiterated for an hour without ceas-
ing, ' Amida! Amida! Amida!' the name of the god.


272 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVI.
not the very type and presentment of a 'friar of orders gray,'
such as we could have shown before Harry Tudor made the
race scarce? The uproar created by the rushing in and out
of the populace following our footsteps, with small reverence
for the house of worship, only seemed to add another feature
of resemblance; for in St. Peter's at Rome I have seen dogs
and children on high holidays mingling in a crowd which pass-
ed in and out, and with quite as little outward show of rever-
ence either for the temple or the Deity. Here, certainly,
nothing could be less impressive or calculated to inspire rever-
ence than the row of ill-favored monks, with their shaven
crowns, hammering monotonously at a sort of wooden gong,
placed before them as they squatted on their knees and heels.
At the side which would correspond to one of the aisles in a
Gothic church, my attention was drawn to a large and elabo-
rate picture of numerous figures, Japanese ladies, dressed, ap-
parently, in the height of fashion. 'That,' said my guide,'is
the portrait of all the most celebrated courtesans, or public
women, in Yeddo, and is placed there in their honor annually.
The Social Evil would appear to be a national institution in
Japan, therefore, which is not without its honors!
And, talking of strange co-
incidences of customs and cos-
tumes, and the reproduction
of familiar types in these dis-
tant islands, far removed from
all temptation or opportunity
to imitate, is not this figure of
a porter the very picture of a
serving-man in England when
a Plantagenet was king?
Passing from the temple and
its monster idol with lesser sat-
ellites, we wandered through
the grounds, evidently laid out
for the express purpose of at-
tracting and amusing the idle Yeddites — a sort of Surrey
Gardens, with a good show of
flowers, at this season consist-
ing of a fine collection of Chi-
na-asters and chrysanthemums,
many very beautiful in size and
color. Dwarf and tortured
trees are here in quaint and


Chap. XXXVI.] WEDDINGS AND CHRISTENINGS. 273
brightly-colored flower-pots. Then to the zoological depart-
ment, neither very cleanly nor rich in animals. The archery
ground for women and children all had their votaries; and
though last, not least, a gallery of figures the size of life, with
real dresses, illustrative of national manners and customs,
which was quite worthy of Madame Tussaud.
There are christenings and marriages both, or something
that corresponds to these ceremonies, in Japan, but either they
take place by 'special license' in the houses, or I have never
been fortunate enough to come upon either a wedding or a
christening party, though more than once I have encountered
a burial procession. Here are two designs by a native artist,
who painted them for me by order, but he has chosen to repre-
sent the costume of Kioto or Miaco, the great strong-hold of
temple worship—of priests and monks, rituals and ceremonies

THE WEDDING PARTY.
M 2


274 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVI.

THE CHRISTENING.
—a sort of Rome, or ecclesiastical city, where the Mikado reigns
supreme, the only spot in all his empire, it would seem, which
he can even call his own. About thirty days after birth they
shave the child's head, and the wet-nurse or mother then takes
it out for the first time to go to the temple to make the baby's
first offering to the deities of a few cash. These are dropped
into a box with a slit in it, always to be found at the entrance
of every temple.
As illustrative of the people, the wax-works could not be
without interest, though on other grounds, as works showing
considerable artistic power and fidelity to nature, these wood-
carvings, painted to represent living figures with real dresses,
formed a very curious collection; and the difference between


Chap. XXXVI.]
275
BEGGARS IN JAPAN.
these as works of art, if that be not too ambitious a term to
apply, and the two guardian monstrosities, or colossal demons
which guard the entrance of the temple, took us somewhat by
surprise.
In the first gallery, for there were several, we were intro-
duced to a scene of life in the country, I presume. Two young
ladies were taming a wild horse, each holding a rope attached
to his head, while the pony was careering in a most untamable
spirit, with his heels in the air. I could not learn whether this
was really a customary amusement of the young ladies of Ja-
pan, or whether it was an illustration of some popular history
or tradition. Then came a scene in a barber's shop, in which
both the barber and the individual operated upon were very
faithfully rendered, with a little of the grotesque. Beyond
this was a beggar, looking quite as burly as beggars usually
do in this country, I think, although there are many species of
them which may be studied along the public road to Kanaga-
wa and elsewhere. There is the jocose beggar—often a group
of them—and they salute you with a jest or a grin, and with
outstretched palm, and invite you to bestow a tempo, equiva-
lent to an Irish beggar asking 'your honor to give him a six-
pence.' They are evidently beggars by vocation, but seem by
their whole bearing to say to the passers-by,' We are beggars
and must live, but there is no need to be miserable about it.'
Then there is the unsightly, diseased, and generally lachrymose
beggar, who seeks to make the desired impression upon you by
exhibiting as much misery as possible, bodily and mental, and
these are generally crouched on all-fours on a mat by the road-
side, in tatters, with uncut hair, their face but a little raised
from the ground, unless it be necessary to expose some loath-
some limb covered with sores. And, lastly, there is the decent,
grave, and respectable beggar, like the gaberlunzie of 'Old
Mortality,' or the yellow-robed mendicant of China, who has an
imperial license to beg, and these are generally single, and only
men, I think, dressed something like a Bonze, and stopping at
each shop with a little gong, or a bell, or whistle, to call atten-
tion. I do not know whether they carry their privilege as far
here as in China, where it is often a trial of endurance and im-
pudence, for, whether by law—or custom, sometimes stronger
than law—no shop-keeper may send a beggar away unless he has
first given him something. It may only be a single coin, the
five-hundredth part of a shilling, but it must be of some cur-
rent value; and as there is no reason why the same mendicant
may not pay an importunate visit every day, and by a deafen-
ing noise wear out the patience of the most apathetic house-


Chap. XXXVI.] AMUSEMENTS OF THE JAPANESE.
Ill
sword, and such is the effect of his air of determination, that
the Lonins themselves seem all paralyzed in various attitudes
of terror. I should be disposed to conclude this was more the-
atrical than true to nature.
The collection was, however, as a whole, well worth a visit,
and many of the figures were admirably true to life. They
all seemed carved in wood and painted to represent life. The
last, I remember, was an heroic group of warriors suddenly
attacked by tigers, and the remarkably affable way in which
they met their formidable-looking assailants at the sword-point
was calculated to give a very high idea of their valor and
coolness under very trying circumstances. Tight-rope danc-
ing, and a circus, may sometimes be seen here, and rope-danc-
ing in their peculiar wooden sabots must be worth seeing,
but neither have been in play when I happened to be there.
Leaving the temple and its shows, we must give a glance at
what constitutes the chief amusements of the people. Some-
body has remarked that national amusements are often a more
delicate index to character than serious pursuits or public
policy. Certainly with many nations, and I think with the
Japanese, both their amusements and their manner of indulg-
ing in them do afford a fair index of prevailing taste and
character. Whatever may be their religion, it is certain they
abound in festivals: I used to think these occurred with as-
tonishing frequency in some Roman Catholic countries, but
Japan far exceeds in processions and holidays any of these.
It has been suggested we might be called a nation of crick-
eters and fox-hunters, and some French do think we are made
up of jockeys and boxers. The same hasty generalization
would make the Japanese a nation of top-spinners, in which
they certainly have achieved greater excellence than any other
people. I went on one occasion to the American Minister's to
see a professor of the art. We leave spinning of tops and fly-
ing of kites to children in Europe, while the last is especially
affected by gray-beards in China, and the former is followed
as a profession in Japan, and very clever and wonderful are
the performances of the professors. There is a company of
them generally, who come to your residence, as do the jugglers,
with stage properties and all the accessories. The jugglers,
however, ought to perform in the open air, and in a court-
yard, with the solid earth for their stage, for so exceedingly
delicate are many of the manipulations of their gyrating prod-
igies, that the slight tremulousness or vibration of a matted
floor, even with the steps of the performers, is enough to cause
the failure of some of their most dexterous tours de force, and,


278
[Chap. XXXVI.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
moreover, they require height for others. We were unlucky
in our choice of day, for it began to rain almost as the per-
formance began, and the stage had to be transferred to the
house, with all its disadvantages of bad light and unsteady
matted floor. The tops are of great variety both in size and
construction, the largest or father of all the tops being more
than a foot in diameter, and proportionately heavy; and while
some are, like this, solid, others of the smaller ones contain
in their cavities a whole progeny of little ones, which fly out
on raising the top, and figure away like the parent; others,
again, pull out into a ladder or spiral of successive tops; a
third draws up into a lantern, and spins cheerily in that form.
The most remarkable fact connected with some seems to be
the marvelous persistence of the gyratory motion once com-
municated. This I thought at first might perhaps be in con-
sequence of the form, which is a horizontal section of a cylin-
der, instead of being conical, as are those of Europe, with a
thin iron rod passing through, forming a handle, a spindle,
and a peg, each answering equally well for any of the three.
But I afterward ascertained that it was a top within a top.
With this glance at the properties and material conditions,
the play begins. There are two men performers and a young
boy, whose chief occupation is to make a great noise on the
table with two small wooden spatulse, and to chime in with a
sharp cry to every phrase and turn of the hand of his senior.
He succeeded in making a most distracting noise with both
instruments—the wooden and the vocal. The young urchin
devoted himself to that particular branch of his business with
a serious earnestness, and a degree of energy worthy of all
praise; for certainly he followed a scriptural injunction, and
what his hand found to do he did with his might.
The two seniors alternated their performances, each playing
successively first or second part with hand and voice. The
play opens with the first performer coming gravely forward
and kneeling on the mats; he prostrates himself before the
company, and makes a long and loudly intonated exordium as
to what he purposes and hopes—' if he may dare to show his
small attainments to the thrice honorable and noble company'
— Gozalimas being one of the terms in every sentence, ali or
ari meaning simply 'it is' or ' will be;' Go and Za, with the
final mas, being cumulative honorific terms.
Having got over his preamble, he began with a running
commentary of explanations and ejaculations, responded to by
his companions with short sharp ories, in which the urchin
played his part con amore, and with startling effect. At first


280
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVI.
One of the most delicate of the performances consisted in
making a top spin in the left hand, run up the arm, round the
edge of the robe at the back of the neck, and down the other
arm into the palm of the right hand, still spinning. Another,
again, was to toss a spinning top into the air and catch it on
the hem of the sleeve without letting it fall. A third was to
fling it high in the air, and catch it on the bowl or the angle
of a Japanese pipe, pass it behind the back, flinging it to the
front, and there catching it again. Finally, one of the larger
and heavier tops was given its gyratory motion by simply
rolling the peg in the bite of a cord, one end being held in
each hand, then flung some ten or twenty feet in the air, and
caught, as it fell, with the same cord, spinning always, and
this six, eight, and ten times in succession. The last grand
display, which consisted in sending a top spinning up a rope
to the head of a mast, was unavoidably postponed, the rain
having drenched the cord, and rendered it impossible; but I
have seen it since performed in the streets.

PLAYING AT BALL.
V


Chap. XXXVI. ] GAMES AND AMUSEMENTS.
281
Certainly I never saw a more perfect display of wonderful
tact and dexterity, and there is evidently a great amount of
humor and vis comica in the Japanese character, which tends
to make all these exhibitions doubly amusing.
The Japanese seem to have many games and for all ages:
those for children, many of them at least, are analogous to the
games in Europe. I have seen the hoop trundled along, kites
are much in vogue, battledore and shuttlecock, walking in
stilts, playing at ball, and even playing at monster snowballs,
as is evident from the illustrations, all drawn from native
sources.
I should say the children in Japan have a merit the tendency
of modern education is to deprive ours of at home, namely,
r

THE MATERNAL LESSON.


Chap. XXXVI.]
GAME ON HORSEBACK.
ceedingly like a couple of white-skinned bears or well-shaven
baboons. The pit is covered with sawdust. There is a judge
of the sport seated in front just outside a circle made by wisps
of straw, victory being his who pushes his antagonist, if but a
foot, outside. They grapple very fiercely, but seldom seem to
throw each other.
Of feasts and festivals, religious and secular, there really
seems to be no end. Besides the great annual feast of the new
year, kept pretty much as it is in China, there are Matsuris for
every town and village, and every month of the year, I believe.
Their picture-books are full of illustrations. Then springtime,
when the peach-blossoms are out, is a time for universal re-
joicing, feasting, and picnics in the country and in tea-gardens
for ten miles round. And withal there is a due regard for
economy, as is proved by the collector of empty present boxes
constantly to be seen with a load of them at his back gathered
from the recipients, who do not part with them for nothing.
The Japanese have undoubtedly a very rural taste, and
seem to enjoy their games with the greatest zest, even where
the saki is sparingly indulged in. Festivals are high days for
the temples, and they seem to take it in rotation to hold a sort
of fair. Formerly lotteries were held there, of which I have
many illustrations, but they have for some time been prohibit-
ed as immoral on the same ground as gambling with cards or
dice, to which, however, the Japanese are greatly addicted.
Dice are made so minute as to be concealed in a small scent-
bottle worn at the girdle, the cube being scarcely more than a
tenth of an inch.
The officers have a game on horseback, which consists in
taking up a ball with a sort of racket, and throwing it through
a hole at the end of the list. The players are divided into two
parties, distinguished by their colors, and the fun consists in
knocking the ball out of their rival's racket as he is approach-
ing at speed to the throwing point. They play with great
spirit, and, it must also be said, great good-humor, though they
have such wretched horseflesh and heathenish saddlery. A
light snaffle only is loose in the mouth, and great leather sad-
dle-flaps effectually prevent their wheeling their horses by the
touch of the heel, even if Japanese ponies had any mouths;
but as their riders generally hold on by the reins, one in each
hand, the beasts, to resent such heavy usage, generally go with
their heads in the air, and become at last proof against any
thing short of a Mexican bit.
Of their theatres I have already given some description.
With this glance at the popular games, festivals, and amuse-


284
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVI.


Thor. XXXVI.]
285
CEMETERIES.
ments, the reader must be content. For seeing many of these,
my position as a Minister was unfavorable, as it precluded
much personal observation, and it would serve little purpose
to describe at second-hand what I had not myself witnessed.
In describing their temples, I ought not to omit some notice
of their cemeteries, by far the most remarkable and pleasant
part of their religion, and the one which is most in harmony
with our own feelings of the sanctity due to a place of rest for
the dead. They are generally beautifully situated, planted
with fine trees, and admirably kept. The graves are for the
most part simple tablets, sometimes recording the names and
dates, at other times a single name only, as ' True-heart!' which
marks the grave of some one at Tozengee. The cemetery at-
tached to the Legation temple is one of the finest and most
picturesque in Yeddo. In front of each grave is always a vase
for flowers and another for water, and it was pleasant to see
how constantly these were renewed. They reminded me of
the' Field of God,' the cemetery outside of Copenhagen, where
each grave is made a little garden, the resort of the families of
all whose loved ones have been consigned to their rest. Some
of our extra-mural cemeteries, I am glad to think, are fast be-
coming equally worthy of admiration, that of Highgate more
especially perhaps, aided by its picturesque situation on the
side of a hill, and the beautiful view it commands of the valley
of the Thames.
The temple of Tozengee, the grounds and cemetery, cover
an immense area. It was formerly, I have understood, the
palace of a small Daimio called Ito-sciitridaibu, who made a
present of it to the priests, having built a better one in a more
suitable place in Yeddo. It is in consequence of this that he
alone is allowed to go under the portico in his chair, while the
Princes of Xendai and Bisen (two other patrons who give
large supplies of rice and undertake all repairs, etc.), though
much higher and powerful Daimois, are obliged to get out of
their chairs at the gate where the steps are.
The Government gave us this temple after having received
the consent of the former Daimios, though it is well known
that the other two, who had but an indirect voice in the
matter and were not consulted, disliked exceedingly the idea
of our occupying it even temporarily.
One morning, after the attack on the Legation, the Prince
of Xendai sent an officer with a retinue of a hundred men or
more, to remove one of his ancestors' tablets to another tem-
ple. The common people believed he did this because he was
displeased that the temple should be contaminated with our


280
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
presence, and the 'unclean' food we use, by killing sheep and
fowls. My informant, however, thought he had taken this
very unusual step to show his displeasure that the Legation
was not removed, and his hatred to foreigners, which is com-
monly spoken of as something generally known.
Certain it is, that, the evening before the tablet was re-
moved, our chief of the Yaconins on service came to inform
me of what was about to take place, with a sort of vague inti-
mation that it would be as well if our own guard were on
foot. They came, as it happened, at a much earlier hour than
was announced; so that, as far as any preparation on our part
was concerned, they might have had us at a disadvantage;
but it was observed that all our Japanese guards were mus-
tered, and stood to their arms, lining the palisade which sur-
rounded our courtyard and the entrance.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Western Diplomacy and Eastern Policy.
The borders of the Mediterranean, with Asia Minor and
Syria as the farther limit, long constituted the East in com-
mon acceptation. The 'Levant' (le soleil Levant), as the re-
gion thus defined was styled in the Middle Ages, nearly
marked the extent of European traffic and intercourse. Later,
when the discoveries of Vasco da Gama opened a sea route
to India, though China and Japan were added to the countries
with which we .maintained certain relations of commerce,
India monopolized to itself all popular conceptions of 'the
East.' It is only within the present generation that we have
been compelled to acknowledge an East far beyond the Gan-
ges.
The West and the East, in this more extended sense Europe
and Asia, present a moral and political antithesis and an an-
tagonism quite as real as the geographical bearings at opposite
sides of the globe. The general character of the relations
which have existed since the beginning of history between
the East and West, whether in the original circumscribed
limits, or now along the whole sea-board of Asia, bears the
unmistakable impress of antagonistic and apparently irrecon-
cilable tendencies, pointing to certain conditions which would
seem inseparable from any intercourse between the two races.
If this not only be true, but admit of demonstration, it obvi-
ously behooves all European Powers to keep in view a fact of


(Jhap. XXXVII.] ANTAGONISMS.
2S7
such vital importance to the success of their policy; for it
must be very clear that no treaties of amity and commerce can
either give good fruit or promise of permanence if entered into
without reference to these conditions. As regards ourselves,
vast commercial interests, a large revenue and territorial pos-
sessions, which constitute an empire of no ordinary magnitude,
are all at stake. And just on the same scale of magnitude are
the adverse influences and elements of untoward character,
which constitute the difficulty of reconciling such opposite con-
ditions, and bringing either our relations and interests in har-
mony with Asiatic tendencies and character, or effecting some
needful change in these. Out of such complex and antipathetic
elements, it can never be easy to frame a treaty which shall be
good and durable. To make a treaty is indeed only the first
and least of the difficulties, as all history and experience prove.
The real touchstone of success lies in the practical working.
Given a demonstrated superiority of force and military means
at command, any treaty may be extorted from an Eastern po-
tentate, however repugnant the stipulations or impracticable
the details. Indeed, the more obvious the impracticability of
the stipulations, the more readily will an Eastern Government
■ subscribe, because, in the anticipated impossibility of giving
effect to the obnoxious conditions, they see their future safety.
They gain by the nominal assent, what to them is every thing
in such circumstances—Time, and few people know better how
to turn it to account, when an obligation is to be evaded.
Foremost among the sources of difficulty and antagonism
here alluded to, apart from certain differences in the moral
constitution, temper, and tendencies of the two races, are, first,
the fear of territorial aggrandizement; secondly, the instinct
of a great danger from the infiltration of European ideas and
influences of a wholly subversive and revolutionary tendency,
as regards their customs, policy, and religion. Lastly, the re-
pugnance of Asiatics to relinquish or bate one jot of their
long-cherished pretensions to an unquestioned superiority over
all of an alien race.
In reference to characteristic differences in the constitution
and habits of thought of the Eastern mind, closely linked as
these are with those same lofty pretensions to superiority,
there seems an unconquerable tendency in the European race
to run headlong against the barrier, and fling down the gaunt-
let in mere wantonness, for the sake of provoking a conflict
—a conflict, too, be it observed, in which the strongest passions
and the most rooted convictions—all that enters most thor-
oughly and deeply into the very texture and fibre of the Air. 


288
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
atic mind—are roused to antagonism in nations never remark-
able for pliancy, and very easily stirred up to stubborn and
dogged resistance. Europeans enter within the borders of
Asia for the most part with a feeling of indifference or con-
tempt for all that constitutes the life and the pride of an Asi-
atic. And setting aside the manifest impolicy of such a course,
there is perhaps as much vain pretension on our side, and for-
getfulness of the true claims to consideration which properly
belongs to Asia, from the part her race has played in the his-
tory of the world, as any that can be justly charged against
them. Europe owes much to Asia, the great cradle of the hu-
man race, besides mere parentage and descent. The European
family is but the cadet branch, and has been enriched and en-
nobled by all the elder branches have done and suffered,
thought, and accomplished. Each generation, it has been truly
observed, receives the benefit of the cultivation of that which
preceded it,'and not only that immediately preceding, but of
all former ages and generations. Civilization, like capitalized
profits, descends through ages, and the civilization of to-day
represents the accumulated wealth and capital of all preceding
ages. The elder branch has therefore some title to gratitude
in the fact that from its progenitors we have ourselves derived *
much that is precious in our own life and history; which is
what it is, not by our own efforts and superior intelligence
alone, but, in great degree, by all we have gathered from the
past—not the past of Europe only, but also of Asia. The
creeds, doctrines, and faith of the millions that have peopled
Asia in successive generations, not less than the discoveries,
inventions, and material products borrowed from their soil,
have all contributed to make Europe, her history and her civ-
ilization, what they now are, for its children to boast of, as
something higher and better than any of Asiatic growth.
There are elements of civilization and germs of spiritual
growth essentially due to the mind, the character, and the
temper of the people of Asia, and which, but for them, might
be wanting now in us.'
We do not owe more to Greece and Rome—to the cultiva-
tion of reason, taste, and the sense of beauty in the one, and
the genius of government, or the spirit of order and legal or-
ganization, in the other—than to Asia for its persistent and si-
lent protest against the materialistic and essentially practical,
but mundane tendencies of all the European race.* Asia has
* I am in some degree indebted for this train of thought to the Essay of
the Rev. Dr. Temple 'on the Education of the World,'in which he dwells
upon the influence of the Asiatic mind and character.


Case. XXXVII.] ASIATIC PHILOSOPHY.
289
had at all times a tendency to spiritualism, often dream-like and
mystic, yet ever with a teeming imagination directed to the
unseen, the spiritual, and mysterious elements of another world.
She has often sought her inspiration in things above, while we
have been groveling in earthly and material aims, in which the
conquest of nature, for our own immediate ends, has been the
primum mobile of our efforts. Often, in times past, as the
hordes of Asia surged across the vast steppes for conquest and
aggrandizement to the ends of the earth, they failed; but even
in failure they gave to Europe the new blood required to in-
vigorate and lift up the worn-out stock of an effete and de-
praved civilization, the legacy of Roman and Byzantine mis-
rule. They have ever recoiled and been baffled in any per-
manent settlement when these mighty waves of invasion have
swept over Europe. Babylonian and Persian hosts, Attila and
his myriad hordes, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, with their
Mongols and Turcomans, all, one after the other, in successive
waves, have been swept back from the fields of Europe, and
failed in every effort to hold its fertile lands in permanency as
Asiatic dependencies. The Mongols long held on to Russia in
the north, and the Turks fixed more tenaciously still on the
Byzantine fragments of empire, half European, half Asiatic, in
the south. But may not this perpetual check to all earthly
progress have taught her children to seek, if not their inspira-
tion, at least their greatness, in repose, and to fix their thoughts
on things above? So, it has been suggested,* these two con-
current influences may have moulded the Asiatic life into the
form it has now long assumed, contempt for earthly progress
and mushroom nationalities, and scorn of utilitarian pursuits,
combining to make their very mode of being and living a silent
protest against the unrest which is one of the chief character-
istics of European life. Modern society seems to have adopted
only half of Goethe's motto, 'Ohne Hast, ohne Hesf They
do not rest, indeed, but they will hasten and press onward.
Asia has had its philosophy also, into which many things en-
tered not dreamed of in ours. And if even the Hebrews, as
has been surmised, did not learn from their Babylonian con-
querors the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (not, cer-
tainly, taught in their scriptures), there is no doubt they
emerged from a long slavery with far clearer ideas on the sub-
ject than they took with them. There is a mystic grandeur
in the conception of eternal truths and divine law, familiar to
the imaginative Asiatic, which the positive practical spirit of
all the more advanced nations of Europe seldom appreciates in
* See Essay ' on the Education of the World,' by the Rev. Dr. Temple.
IT.—N


290
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
others at its true value. If Asia finds the best elements of its
life in rest and contemplation, and its highest happiness in a
dreamy repose—enemy to all change and progress—Europe no
less certainly is absorbed in material aims, where reason and
a practical and thoroughly mundane spirit prevails over all the
more spiritual and mysterious elements of human nature. The
greatest happiness of the greatest number, as the highest good
to be striven for on a well-calculated and enlightened regard
for our own best interests, which has ere now been held to con-
stitute the highest virtue, are conceptions of the mind of Eu-
rope, and could hardly have emanated from Asia. What won-
der that the two races should feel a mutual repulsion, and that
the Asiatic especially should shrink from all contact, as bring-
ing into his existence discord and confusion—forcing upon him
the cares of this world, and a struggle for the right to live as
he deems best, abhorrent to his nature, and all his habits of
thought and being. Ours may be the best developed form of
life, and the tendency of Asiatic life may be toward stagnation
rather than progress, or a spiritualizing movement upward and
outward, away from the ever-debasing, if not essentially ab-
sorbing thoughts of self. But Asia, as the counterpoise in the
world's activities to the fly-wheel of European progress, and a
mute and solemn protest against the all-absorbing pursuits of
a more thoroughly mundane and rationalizing existence, may
supply, in the dispensations of this lower world, the corrective
needed to check and rebuke the exaggerations of a more ex-
clusively practical and unimaginative spirit in nations which,
compared with those of Asiatic stock, are yet in their infancy
as to age and experience, whatever they may be in progress and
attainments. Even in these they can put forward high pre-
tensions. Not only may the system of ethics embodied in the
thoroughly popular works of Confucius and Mencius, who lived
nearly 600 years B.C., vie with the contemporaneous produc-
tions of the Greek mind in its best days, but there is a current
of ideas among all classes of Chinese, a shrewdness and power
of observation, as well as a fund of knowledge on all the more
practical duties and relations of life, which will bear compari-
son with the state of enlightenment of the masses in the best
civilized country in Europe. Although it is a form of courtesy
for them, in putting forward an opinion even to a foreigner, to
sign themselves ' Your younger brother,' or even ' Your stupid
younger brother,' it may be reasonably doubted whether, in
many cases, the subscription would not more properly belong
to the European. This rapid glance at characteristic differ-
ences in manners, customs, and habits, and the very stamp of


Chap. XXXVII.] CAUSES OF MUTUAL REPULSION.
291
the civilization which exists in the East, compared with the
type of Western development, may suffice to show how many
and how strong are the antagonistic influences in full operation
against any efforts to draw closer the bonds of union for mu-
tual advantage. Some may be disposed to treat lightly these
social antitheses, as in no serious degree interfering with the
interchange of merchandise, or the pressure and influence of
material interests, when these demand the drawing together
of nations, and make it one of the conditions of their prosperi-
ty. But this is to contend that men's feelings, prejudices, and
passions are inert, and only called into play as a ' clear and en-
lightened view of their own interests' shall prompt. Slight
worldly experience is required for the rejection of such a the-
ory as utterly erroneous. Not only do our habits, feelings, and
prejudices blind us to our own interests, but they lead us per-
petually to consult the one in preference to the other, and with-
out any regard to the moral worth of what we object to or de-
spise. The man who voids his rheum upon your hearth or car-
pet, shouts slang or barbarous language in your ear, and jars
all the fibres of your organization, is a man that you will dis-
like and avoid, even though he has good bargains to sell, espe-
cially if there are other fields where you can invest your money
without being subject to such discords. As with a man, so
with a nation. Uncongenial habits and customs, and the want
of a common language, are great impediments to free inter-
course. Now, that such uncongeniality exists, and antipathetic
tendencies too, can not be doubted, and that these involve dis-
taste and contempt facts sufficiently establish. The Chinese
and the Japanese, like other people, are very apt to condemn
what they dislike or do not rightly understand; and we may
rest assured that the foreigner who finds the necessity for
'walking his thousand steps every day,'* or pulling like a barge-
man for exercise, or shouting hurrahs with stentorian lungs
after dinner for enjoyment, will be regarded as a 'barbarian'
by the Chinese, and despised and disliked accordingly, even if
he could establish a more unquestionable and invariable supe-
riority in moral worth.
If so many grounds of dissidence or antagonism may be
shown to exist between the trans-Gangetic East and the West,
between the Japanese, Chinese, or Mongolian, and the Euro-
* The way in which the daily exercise of the foreigners (when confined to
the space within the Factory Gardens) used to be described by the Canton-
ese. It was supposed by the natives, in order to explain a proceeding other-
wise so irrational and unintelligible to them, that this was the mode by which
the foreign trader computed and made up his accounts I


292
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
pean races—in manners and customs, religion and philosophy
—in all their characteristics, social and ethical, we can not be
surprised to find, upon inquiry, other and equally strong points
of divergence in the political economy and commercial policy
of this Eastern yet scarcely Oriental people, as this term is
popularly understood. That there should be such differences
very clearly defined, seems to follow almost as an inevitable
necessity. The state of civilization to which a nation has at-
tained, its acquired tastes and wants, and the material inter-
ests of the country, always more or less influenced by those,
must go far to determine their system of political economy and
commerce, and China and Japan, in these respects, form no ex-
ception. In any foreign relations established between these
Empires and the Western States, whether political or com-
mercial objects may have been the end chiefly in view, these
elementary conditions, without doubt, play a very prominent
part, and it is essential to know how far the influence is favor-
able or adverse.
It would be a great mistake to conclude that because the
economic and commercial principles of Chinese writers (bor-
rowed and adopted by the Japanese) on these confessedly in-
tricate subjects are different from those most prevalent in the
West, they have made no progress in the science of political
economy (if science it deserves to be called even in our day),
or were in by-gone ages without the knowledge and practice
necessary to give development to the resources of a country,
and the commercial interchange of products on a colossal scale.
In Europe, and even in England, there is no such unanimity of
opinion on the cardinal points as to entitle us to lay down the
law ex cathedrd or very dogmatically, either to the Chinese or
any other nation. It was a science with them very certainly
before modern nations existed, and has ever since been culti-
vated with more or less success. We can scarcely hope to
make much impression upon either the Chinese or the Japan-
ese mind in this direction, therefore, without taking cognizance
of the current opinions and received principles of that science
as they understand it. If a Chinese political economist had
come among us forty years ago and pointed out the fallacy in-
volved in protective laws for corn, we fear he would not only
have signally failed in any advocacy of a principle of free trade,
but in obtaining a hearing, unless he could show that he at
least understood where the stress of the question lay, and
what were the arguments in vogue on the opposite side. I
can not here show by many extracts what their views are, but
that they should form the special study of those charged with


Chap. XXXVII.] EASTERN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 293
the extension of our trade in these countries can not be doubt-
ed. We should then see, as M. Hue remarks, that'the Chi-
nese are as advanced as we are in the art of making formulas.'
There is one example from Tsien-tche, a celebrated writer of
ancient times, who maintained that a legal interest of thirty
per cent, was calculated to facilitate commerce! He says:
■ 'A well-organized society would be that in which every one
laboring according to his powers, his talents, and the public
necessities, all property would be divided in such proportions
as should secure its enjoyment to every one at the same time.
The richest State would be that in which a small amount of
labor would furnish the productions of nature and art in abun-
dance, superior to the number and the wants of the inhabit-
ants. Wealth has necessarily a relation to wants. The em-
pire was richer with a smaller amount of property under the
first dynasties, because less labor produced more in proportion
to the number of inhabitants. The superabundant produce of
some localities may be made to become a help to others that
are deficient, and it is for commerce to undertake their trans-
port. The necessity of commerce in the empire is equal to the
necessity of exchanges, and the utility of commerce to their
utility—that is to say, the necessity is absolute, and the utility
universal and continual.'
Again, as bearing upon existing opinions and foreign com-
mercial relations:
'If all the goods of the empire belonged to the State, and
the State would undertake the distribution of them, it must
necessarily undertake those exchanges which are effected by
commerce, by carrying the superabundance of one place to an-
other. Merchants, however, undertake to render this import-
ant service to society at their own risk and peril. The pro-
portions and the correspondence of the exchanges of produc-
tions is neither uniform, constant, nor convenient enough to
provide for the varied and continual wants of society; but
money, as the sign and equivalent of a fixed and recognized
value, supplies this want so much the more easily, as it lends
itself with facility and promptitude to all the proportions, di-
visions, and correspondences of exchange. Money is the spring
and the leaven of commerce, and commerce can only be flour-
ishing inasmuch as the circulation of money facilitates, acceler-
ates, and perpetuates the multitude of exchanges.'*
But if we pass from the antagonistic influences at work in
the far East, from Cochin China to Japan, under merely social
* It is passing strange that in a country where such doctrines were taught
centuries ago, there is not even yet a gold or silver currency.


294
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
and economical, or commercial aspects (though these, it will
be seen, are neither few nor insignificant, and in their cumu-
lative force constitute a barrier offering serious obstacles to
farther advance), and consider the class of influences, of a dif-
ferent order, in which the religious and the political elements
predominate, both being closely intermixed, we shall find still
stronger causes of dissidence and hostility. It would be to
give a very imperfect and altogether erroneous view of the
trans-Gangetic East, and its empires in their foreign relations,
as well as of those influences among the Chinese and Japanese
more especially perhaps, which at the present moment are
most active in respect to foreigners, if among the various
causes of indifference or contempt on the one hand, and active
hostility on the other, the religious and missionary conditions
were omitted. These enter into the question of farther prog-
ress or improvement in our relations, in a manner so effective
and significant as to determine and control the foreign policy
at the courts of Pekin and Yeddo alike, but the latter more es-
pecially, far more decisively than any other of the many condi-
tions, discordant or antipathetic, to which I have hitherto re-
ferred; and this because both rulers and people probably see
in this direction an element of greater danger, and one which
strikes a key-note of fear, rousing a corresponding feeling of
hatred and anger. Religious or political propagandism they
suspect is always contemplated by Western Powers. Some
are more suspected than others perhaps, but all are held taint-
ed with this, to them, pestiferous mania for converting and
proselytizing the Eastern races, changing their customs and
making them other than they are. This unpropitious influence
of a religious element in the state policy, and the bias of the
rulers of Eastern«nations, appear to be equally inimical to their
conversion to Christianity, and to improved political and com-
mercial relations, on which latter, the only avowed objects of
European intercourse, all access to the countries depends.
This is so important a fact, that even were it less likely to be
hotly contested, I feel called upon to support my opinion by
such evidence as, leaving little room for doubt, shall bring the
reader another stage toward a knowledge of the whole truth.
If I am not greatly mistaken, it will lead him to this farther
conclusion, that the remarkable and admitted want of success
'in the missionary labors of the present time, as of all past ages
in Asia, may be traced to well-ascertained causes, some of
which are contingent on the means adopted, and the course
taken by the missionaries themselves; while others, again, are
of a more absolute character, not contingent upon the shifting,


Chap. XXXVII.] RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDISE
misdirected efforts, or otherwise, of any body of men, but upon
natural causes. Among the obstacles to any satisfactory prog-
ress or permanent effect which I deem entirely conditional and
temporary (contingent upon the means brought to bear, and
not inherent in the subject), I trace throughout, first, a want
of unity and accord among the teachers of religion, and in the
things taught. Next, a glaring contradiction, patent to the
observation of those whom it is sought to convert, between
the doctrines and the practical illustration they receive, both
in the lives of foreigners in the whole sea-board of Asia from
Rangoon to Yeddo, and in the policy of Governments profess-
ing Christianity. Among those of a more absolute character,
and due in some measure to natural causes, we must take into
consideration the hostility of the native Government. This
hostility plainly takes its origin from a double source; the one
to be traced to the means adopted by the evangelizing agents,
with the open or covert support of Foreign Governments, but
the other inherent and inseparable from all efforts in this direc-
tion, because they are and must be pregnant with a danger
which menaces destruction to all governments founded on pa-
gan creeds and absolute despotism.
It is only the latter that I propose to discuss here, as the
former would take both myself and the reader too far away
from the immediate subject of inquiry. ' M. Hue was certainly
quite right when he said the Chinese emperors were neither
intolerant nor bigoted, and' are, indeed, too entirely without
any religion to care for creeds, save in so far as they interfere
with temporal things, and among these, as chief and paramount
over all other considerations, their political supremacy and ab-
solute power. This, which is true of China, is doubly so of
Japan, where there has been a life and death struggle, a long
and a bloody war of a mingled civil and religious character,
in which Christianity, as Jesuits and Dominicans taught it,
formed the war-cry on one side, and that the losing one.
A Japanese, as well as a Chinese, may please his fancy as to
what religion he professes, provided, as M. Hue says of the lat-
ter, it is not one connected either with secret societies or po-
litical objects. 'Unfortunately,' as he goes on to add, 'the
Chinese Government has placed Christianity in this category,
and it is very difficult to correct this error and introduce more
just ideas.' Not only difficult, but quite impracticable I should
say, taken from either a Chinese or a Japanese point of view,
with their right divine to absolute and undisputed rule over
their subjects. Is it an error to assume that Romanism mili-
tates against such rule? Let us listen to the Emperor Young-


290
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
tching, who, in 1724, proscribed the Christian religion, and con-
descended to state his views to three Jesuit fathers who peti-
tioned against the decree for their expulsion.
'Certain Europeans* in the province of Fokien have been
endeavoring to defy our laws and trouble our people. The
great men of the province have applied to me, and I must re-
press this disorder. It is the business of the Government with
which I am charged, and I neither can nor ought to act now
as I did when I was a private prince.'
'Gentlemen,' said Frederick the Great, about the same time,
at the opposite side of the globe, iMon metier e'est d'etre Hoi.'
'
So Young-tching evidently understood his duty. But he con-
tinues:
'You say that your law is not a false law, and I believe it;
but what would you say if I were to send a troop of Bonzes
and Lamas into your country to preach their law in it? How
would you receive them? You wish to make the Chinese
Christians, and that is what your law demands, I know very
well; but what, in that case, would become of us? the sub-
jects of' your kings. The Christians whom you make rec-
ognize no authority but you; in times of trouble they would
listen to no other voice. I know well enough that there is
nothing to fear at present, but when your ships shall be com-
ing by thousands and tens of thousands, then, indeed, we may
have some disturbances.'
Can any one say that these were not, upon the whole, very
rational views for the speaker, as the despotic head of a great
Pagan empire, to take? Or can we feel surprise if a wide-
spread opinion, extending from the emperors to the lowest
Mandarin or official in both countries, exists; that political ele-
ments of disturbance are thickly sown with the spread of
Christianity, tending to unsettle the minds of the people, and
subvert the national creeds and the traditions of absolute sub-
mission to the ruling powers? Can we doubt that this is the
greatest barrier at present existing to any successful negotia-
tions with the governments of either country for political or
commercial objects? Certainly it is so in Japan. Universal
tolerance is, to them, equivalent to deposition or the resigna-
tion of their authority; nor is it difficult to see that this must
be to them a vital question. Not only our Christian enter-
prises to spread the faith, but all contact with Europeans on
* Spanish Dominicans settled in the province of Fokien. Some of the
following illustrations and extracts, with slight differences, may be found in
an article which appeared in the 'Edinburgh Review' for April, 1857, on
'British Relations with China.'


298
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
and rule from them, must regard all Christian emissaries, wheth-
er Romanist or Protestant, as agents of a revolutionary propa-
ganda. I repeat, they will inevitably be considered disturbers
of the peace, as teaching a new religion, which, in its Protest-
ant and least aggressive form, inspires a feeling of equality and
independence, often makes resistance to the civil power a duty,
and indubitably strikes at the root of the institutions and pol-
ity of the empire as they now exist. It is evident that all con-
nected with such a mission can not fail to be obnoxious to those
in power, and to be viewed with rancorous hostility as a source
of danger and confusion. And what is true of China applies
equally to Japan, Cochin China, and, I believe, Siam and Bur-
mah, but with special intensity to Japan.
The religion—be it Christianity or any other—which intro-
duces as inherent to it a principle of independence to all earth-
ly power, where the subject is taught he must obey God rather
than man, if the behests of the latter should be contrary to his
duty, even though that man should be Emperor and styled the
Son of Heaven, is'in its nature insurrectionary when applied to
a kingdom and countries governed as these are. This applies
to Christianity apart from all sectarian difference of churches
and questions of sacerdocy or polity. But, it can not be de-
nied, the argument applies with tenfold force when we come to
consider Romanism. The Protestant missionary is bound, in-
deed, to teach his convert that he must obey God rather than
man, whatever be the cost in worldly interests, even to the sac-
rifice of his life; but the Romanist adds the pretension of de-
ciding ex cathedrd, for the Ruler's subject who is his convert, in
what obedience to God consists, and this in all the changing
circumstances and relations of daily life, whether as regards
his neighbor, his country, or his sovereign. The priest becomes
the virtual sovereign. While the Protestant raises a standard
of resistance to despotic or heathenish power by teaching as a
sacred right the duty of resisting authority, whencesoever
emanating, if it demand obedience contrary to another law and
a higher, embodied in the Scriptures and written in the heart,
the Romanist exacts obedience ostensibly to the same Law,
and resistance to any other, but the Law as interpreted by him,
and which he shall prescribe, as the representative of the Ro-
man Church, holy and infallible. Who can be surprised if in
both cases the Rulers see only, in the efforts of missionaries to
convert their subjects to this Christianity, the introduction of
a revolutionary element not only antagonistic and hostile to
the monarch's supreme rule, but necessarily and directly sub-
versive of his authority in exact proportion to their success?


Chap. XXXVII.] SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY.
299
Or can we wonder, in so far as the Emperors of China and
Japan are informed of the distinction between the two Church-
es, that in the case of the Roman Catholics they should see an
additional motive for hostility and alarm in the pretension of
foreign priests to direct all these elements of disturbance and
resistance to their power, and to override all authority claim-
ing to be independent of and superior to that of the Church,
and not under its control? True, the Roman Catholic mission-
ary will reply,'only in things spiritual;' but have we yet in
Europe, hi this nineteenth century, been able to draw with any
accuracy this line between things spiritual and temporal?
Does it not yet remain to be traced, the exact boundaries be-
ing debatable ground, often threatening a renewal of wars and
persecutions, conflicts between State and Church, nation and
nation ranged on opposite sides, the temporal power and civil
government on the one side, and the Pope, with the pretensions
of a spiritual supremacy for the Church of Rome, on the other
—conflicts only less bloody and desolating than those of prece-
ding centuries because the power of the Papal Church is weak-
er, and that of the State is every where stronger? Perhaps it
might be truly added, because there is less of faith; yet are
these conflicts not liable to be renewed with the pitiless hostil-
ity of the worst times, if a new field could be found where these
conditions were reversed? It is not that there is less of intol-
erance or bigotry in the world than in former days, I fear, but
a larger development of interests inimical to their free display.
What are the scenes passing around us in Europe at the pres-
ent day? Do we require the Procession of the Shirt at Treves,
or the denial of medical aid to the dying man who has not
come to terms with his confessor, or the imprisonment of Prot-
estant families for adhering to their faith, to tell us that the
spirit of the Inquisition and the ashes of the martyr's fagot
are yet smouldering, and capable of being again fanned into a
destructive fire?
'Shall I,' writes the Editor of the' Record,' in a leader which
appeared but a few years ago, 'shall I, therefore, fall in with
this abominable delusion? Shall I foster that damnable doc-
trine that Socinianism and Calvinism are not every one of them
mortal sins, like murder and adultery? or hold out hopes to
the Protestant that I will not meddle with his creed?'
An imperium in imperio, therefore, subversive of his own
rule, hostile to his supremacy, and with a gauntlet of defiance
ever on the ground against all who claim liberty of conscience,
to be enforced, whenever the secular power is theirs, with the
arms of flesh—by war and persecution—this is the prospect


300
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. True. XXXVII.
held out to the potentates and rulers of China and Japan by
the introduction of' Christianity' into their empires. Is there
any rational ground of hope that either they or any of their
successors will ever tolerate, much less welcome as a benefit,
the propagation of the faith, of whatever denomination the
agents may be, Romanist or Protestant? And in proportion
as foreign Governments are identified with these efforts, is it
not evident that in this same degree will the presence of their
subjects in the country be considered an evil imposed upon
them by major force, to be acquiesced in only so long as that
condition shall exist? While, as regards political relations
and efforts at negotiation for the extension of trade and com-
merce, with the view of obtaining the removal of disabling re-
strictions and barriers to a freer intercourse, nothing can be
more vain or futile—more utterly opposed to the ruling princi-
ple of the foreign policy of Japan and the spirit of its rulers.
I have not discussed this question, it will be observed, upon
any other principle than that which should govern all rational
inquiry into the policy of States and the action of natural
causes. The writer in the' Record,' no doubt, spoke out in all
sincerity, the more so that he discarded all suggestions of dis-
cretion; and it can not be supposed he spoke only his own in-
dividual convictions. What he said was no less true than log-
ical. Romanism is not only the most intolerant of creeds, as
has been observed,' but intolerance is its essence—that pervad-
ing spirit without which it would not be itself, or be true to its
own nature. It looks upon heresy, of whatever form (that is,
dissent), not as a dangerous and deplorable error out of which
men are to be persuaded or forced, but as a sin to be put down;
as an insult to the Divine Majesty, which calls for punishment;
as a crime against the best interests of society, which it is the
duty of the State to repress and prevent, as it most effectively
can, with the secular power and the arm of flesh. It is bound
to look upon matters in this light. It would be untrue to it-
self, and self-contradictory, if it did not?
Neither have I entered into this examination of the influence
and prospects of missionaries and proselytizing labors in the
far East with any feeling of hostility, or from any indifference
to the success of well-advised efforts to spread the light of
the Gospel over Asia, but with a mature conviction that they
are not to be advanced at present, if ever, by any direct action
or political interference on the part of Foreign Governments.
I am led to this conclusion by the knowledge that this is pre-
cisely one of those objects which is the most liable to injurious
interference, from the diversity of the thing sought by ourselves


Chap. XXXVII.] ANTAGONISTIC INFLUENCES.
301
and other Foreign States, and the most open to objection from
the existing conditions and necessities of the Chinese and Jap-
anese nations, living under pagan, despotic, and Oriental gov-
ernments.
In considering the antagonistic influences in full operation,
more especially in Japan, it was necessary to show honestly
how the question of religion told upon our present relations
and future prosperity. We have seen, independent of all an-
tipathies of race, difference of language, and customs, that there
is a Political Economy opposed in all its accredited and funda-
mental principles to the development of Foreign commerce.
Behind this obstacle, sufficiently formidable in itself, is a great
gulf, into which the bodies of thousands of martyrs have been
flung—victims to the political aspect of Romanism more espe-
cially, but to all Christianity as subversive of the temporal
power. Finally, ranged beyond, and ready to do battle to the
death, stands Feudalism in full strength and vigor—Feudalism
armed cap-d-pie, with its nobles and their followers, as it ex-
isted in Europe many centuries back. These feudal classes,
with more or less intelligence as to cause and effect, but a true
instinct, see the destruction of their privileges and the subver-
sion of their power in the progress of Foreign relations and
the full development of commerce. They see that we bring not
only goods for sale, the purchase of which they believe will im-
poverish the nation, but new religions, new ideas of social or-
der, liberty, and political rights, new customs and habits, all sub-
versive of those now existing, and hostile to them and their
order. Finally, I think they also see the line of progress as this
has been traced in the Past. They may even have gleaned
enough through the Dutch of European history to know how
feudalism fell in Europe by the growth of trade, and the en-
richment and enlightenment of a burgher class, who ultimately
became strong enough to make terms and extort concessions
from both sovereign and nobles, and sometimes even to fling
the sword into the scales and turn the balance when the two
were in conflict and victory hung in suspense.
In this farthest extremity of Eastern empire, Western civil-
ization is aux prises with Feudalism, strong in its traditions
and nationality, and defiant in its semi-chivalric and militant
character. There are thus three great and well-defined obsta-
cles to any progress—a political economy opposed to free
trade, a religious intolerance founded on purely political
considerations, and, lastly, a rampant feudalism. How these
three enemies to all progress are to be dealt with, and by what
means they may best be encountered and overcome, is the


302
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
question of questions—the one difficulty which lies at the root
of all others.
The reader will now be in a position to understand that, in
any policy or course of action to be adopted, there are inher-
ent difficulties which no art or skill can eliminate. Taking
this knowledge with us, we may proceed a step farther and in-
quire, What, then, are the essential, irrevocable conditions of all
Western diplomacy in the far East? In other words, What
are the necessities and exigencies which govern its action, and
the limits within which we may reasonably look for success?
These questions have a direct bearing on momentous interests
both in the Western and Eastern world, and the questions
they embrace constitute one of the great problems of the day,
so far as the far East is concerned. Two wars in China, cost-
ing millions of treasure and no small loss of life, have tended
to fix public attention upon our relations in the trans-Gangetic
East as matters of too serious a character to be overlooked or
uncared for. It has been seen that the national exchequer, as
well as commercial prosperity, are deeply concerned in the re-
lations we maintain with these trans-Gangetic Eastern races,
and that taxation, revenue, and the annual budget are all di-
rectly affected by our position, and the means we take for
practically asserting the rights which treaties only nominally
bestow. Serious considerations these, which even an English
public, proverbially careless of Indian or Eastern affairs, and
absorbed in Home affairs political and domestic, is beginning
to perceive, demand, by the very fact of their influence upon
the subjects of their predilection, the best attention that can be
given to them, and fuller and more authentic information than
it has hitherto been possible to obtain. Though we may not
be over-sanguine if we look at the future by the light of the
past—for
So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be,
may still describe the feelings with which such far-distant re-
lations are discussed—yet, on Paley's principle of' an enlight-
ened regard to self-interest,' the least discursive intellects in
bucolic and manufacturing communities are turning their
thoughts occasionally eastward with a sense of the importance
of what is passing there as regards the more personal and im-
mediate interests of their own boroughs and homesteads.
Once this idea penetrates the native soil and takes root, it will
not fail to bear a fruitful crop of inquiring minds, and an inter-
est that will not die out. What is passing in those outlying
regions of the farther Asia, among the Siamese and Cochin-


Chap. XXXVII.] VALUE AND COST OF TRADE.
303
Chinese, in China and in Japan, will be eagerly studied, until
the earth is girdled round with a visible and continuous chain
—link within link of reciprocal interests; not, as now, invisi-
ble to many, and apparently broken short off at Vienna or Na-
ples, beginning again at Constantinople, cropping up some-
times at Teheran in a fitful way, and finally dropping into the
limbo of shadows and uncertainties at Calcutta, after travers-
ing the Indian peninsula. Merchants, indeed, know this vital
truth of continuity and reciprocal influences—the heads of the
guild at least, for each day's transactions impresses the fact
upon their minds, and prints it in their ledgers in characters
far too legible and significant to be overlooked or mistaken.
A murrain, an insurrection, or a war in the steppes and fertile
Elaine of Russia make sad havoc in the markets of tallow and
emp, and divers other articles entering largely into the con-
sumption of whole populations little knowing and little caring
what is happening in the political or physical conditions of the
earth out of their own parish. A civil war in a world beyond
the Atlantic, a world which did not exist for Europe or for
Asia three hundred years ago, has flung half a million of thriv-
ing workmen here and in France into deepest distress, and
paralyzed a whole industry. The progress of a disorganizing
process from the combined influence of our wars with the vast
Empire of China, over-population, and feebleness with corrup-
tion in the government, threatens us with the loss of our chief
supplies of tea and silk, both coming perhaps under the cate-
gory of luxuries and artificial wants, which our ancestors have
done without, and we might again learn to dispense with, but
now become almost necessities by long habit. How hard
would be the lesson if it had to be learned; how much capital
and industrial labor would be flung out of profitable employ-
ment; and, though last, not least, what new tax would supply
the deficiency of six millions in the budget, which none of us
feel very seriously in its present form on tea. A war or a rev-
olution, even in Japan, small in its extent, and all but lost in
the far-distant horizon, with an existing trade of scarce a mil-
lion sterling with all the rest of the world, has its importance
in this wider view of continuous and reacting wants and inter-
ests which makes 'the whole world kin,' however little there
may be of the 'touch of pity,' or true philanthropy in the ac-
knowledged relations. The supply of tea, as of silk, we at
present draw from Japan is but small, compared with the
whole supply which reaches the English market, but yet both
have qualities not found elsewhere, and supplying. something
new and valuable. Nor is this all: what Japan now is in a


304
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
commercial point of view, is no criterion of what Japan might
be as a new market both of consumption and supply, could our
relations with it be placed on a more satisfactory footing.
What Belgium and Holland, Spain and Portugal, Sweden and
Denmark, are to us at present, I have no hesitation in saying
Japan might very speedily become under better and a less
hostile regime. Whether this be worth sriving for, and what
may be the risk or cost, are precisely the questions each day
arising and now pressing for solution. ♦
Western diplomacy in these Eastern countries necessarily in-
volves, as in other fields, the consideration of the policy and
interests of other Western Powers in the same regions; and
it is too much to expect, whatever may be the identity of
these in some respects, that there should be a common accord
in all. Yet such common accord is the one thing above all
others most essential to any large or complete success in the
inevitable struggle! Diversity of objects and views, however,
there will always be. Even when the ulterior ends are the
same, there will be divergence and difference of opinion as to
the means to be employed. What may be the actual policy
and interests of the various Western States maintaining rela-
tions with the countries extending along the whole sea-board
of Asia, and northward to Japan, the farthest limit of the East,
is therefore a legitimate subject of inquiry to all, and must en-
ter essentially into the question of what our own, under any
given circumstances, should be. What British interests are
at the present day, and what the sole object of our policy,
needs no explanation. Both should be, if they are not, patent
to the world. Commerce is with us, in Siam, China, and Ja-
pan all equally (for with Cochin-China we have no relations
yet), the one sole object. If any political interest be connected
with it, this can only be in direct reference to India, and in the
necessity of guarding ourselves from a loss of prestige by a
tame submission to wrong persistently and intentionally inflict-
ed, and the like necessity of preventing either our territories
or our commerce in these seas being endangered by the occu-
pation, on the part of Foreign Powers, of adjoining provinces
and sea-board, which either seem to have this for the object, or
may otherwise become a manifest source of danger. Such,
for instance, are, or may be, certain acquisitions made and sup-
posed to be farther contemplated by Russia in connection with
both China and Japan. The vast acquisitions of territory and
line of sea-coast made by Russia during the last few years at
the expense of China, without a pretext of war, gives to the
former an entirely new position in relation to Europe and


Chap. XXXVII.] RUSSIAN ADVANCE.
305
commerce in all the adjoining seas, including the great high-
way of nations between China and the American continent
across the Pacific. No longer shut up the greater part of the
year in frozen harbors, far removed from any great lines of
commercial traffic on the northern shores of Okhotsk and
Kamtschatka, at the farthest extremities of her Asiatic domin-
ions, Russia has now well-nigh attained the great object of her
ambition, so long sought in vain in the West—on the coast of
Norway, in the Black Sea, and toward the Bosphorus—name-
ly, a free outlet for her fleets and her commerce in unfrozen
seas. A wide field has thus been secured for her navy, mili-
tary and commercial, where vast interests and ever-increasing
trade are in full development. Olga Bay, already in their pos-
session, has two harbors, an outer and an inner port, and the
former remains unfrozen during the whole winter. But Vic-
toria and Broughton Bays lie still farther south, and the one is
already included in their newly-acquired coast-line, while the
second is marked for acquisition as being' still indeterminate'
This last brings them to the northern limits of Corea, with
merely the Straits between them and Japan, while the China
Seas and the great Pacific are before them. These are im-
mense strides, and have been all made in the short space of ten
years, during a time of profound peace as regards Russia and
the Chinese Empire. China has been made to yield up prov-
inces larger in area than France and Great Britain by a proc-
ess of simple pressure, which the government of Pekin felt
too weak even to make the attempt to resist otherwise than
by words and protests, of small avail, as they must have fore-
seen, to avert their discomfiture.
The result has undoubtedly been to give to Russia a com-
manding position as regards the territories of China and Ja-
pan. Still more, perhaps, in reference to the great commerce
rapidly developing from the Gulf of Pecheli to the western
coast of America, with California in its centre—intervening
groups of islands on the one side of the globe, and those still
more important centres of trade, Australia, Borneo, Java, and
the Philippines, with the Chinese and Indian trade between
those two countries, on the other. To a government which
knows how to turn to profit the weakness of an ally whose ter-
ritories lie in tempting contiguity, proximity alone becomes a
source of danger. To annex a territory, with nearly three
hundred leagues of sea-coast, without war or other expense
than the pay of a few agents, preparing the way by their ' sci-
entific explorations,' must be considered the triumph of a pol-
icy of- annexation, and a diplomacy which sees clearly the ob-


300
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
ject to be attained, while it is deterred by no fears of resist-
ance. It is less necessary to canvass the real or possible inter-
ests and aims of other Treaty Powers, scarcely yet developed,
perhaps. Holland, no doubt, like ourselves, has no other aim
than the extension of her commerce. The same might proba-
bly be predicated with truth of America, North or South. As
regards France, apart from missionary protectorates, or Prus-
sia and Portugal, is it not rather a matter of national dignity
than of material interests which has made them Treaty Pow-
ers in Japan?
Great Britain, America, and Holland, so far as our material
interests are concerned, might most easily and cordially assim-
ilate in their policy and interests—all Protestant States, little
given to impose missionaries upon an Asiatic people, undesir-
ous of territorial acquisitions, and willing, upon the whole, to
be both patient and tolerant of difficulties. But, unfortunately,
there runs beneath these superficial and apparent elements of
combination an undercurrent of incompatible bases and preten-
sions. The Americans have hitherto sought a 'platform' of
their own, as having loftier and less questionable claims to the
full trust and confidence of the Japanese than any other Pow-
ers. Self-designated as mediators, if not protectors, in any dif-
ferences • that may arise between Japan and the more 'belli-
cose,' ' unreasonable,' or' aggressive Powers of the West,' they
stand aloof. This is the more to be regretted, as no two of
the great Western Powers should, by identity of interests and
absence of aggressive tendencies, whether as regards terri-
tory or religious and political propagandism, be more per-
fectly united in their course of action where Japan is con-
cerned. Nor could the cordial union of the two Powers ever
be more beneficial to both, and to the interests of civilization
generally. The Dutch, too, have their pretensions of a special
claim to good-will in their long-enduring relations, and pa-
tience under every form of Japanese oppression in times past.
As the friend and ally,^>ar excellence, Holland is the agent for
the introduction and supply of all European appliances, arms,
ships, engineers, professors, etc. I do not know that other
Western Powers should see cause of complaint in this, viewed
as a matter of business and a kind of official agency. Any
tendency to special or exclusive relations, however, unavoida-
bly militates against a general accord, which is the common
interest, and in this instance undoubtedly it imposes on the
Dutch the necessity of standing aside when any question arises
against the Japanese Government demanding the vigorous as-
sertion of a treaty right, though that right be the privilege of


Chap. XXXVII.] INCOMPATIBLE TENDENCIES.
307
all. These are so many dissolvents, preventing any very close
affinity in action or policy. Russia, with no trade, but a re-
pute for desiring territorial acquisitions, and France, with a
protectorate of Roman Catholic missionaries in the Eastern
Hemisphere, bring other uncombinable elements into the alem-
bic; and thus the Treaty Powers, isolated each from the other
by irreconcilable objects and lines of action, leave Japanese
Rulers a fair field for a policy directed perseveringly against
the progress of all, whether commerce, territorial acquisition,
or religious propagandism be the main objects in view.
In reference to all the Treaty Powers, and their supposed
aims or tendencies, if no aggression be contemplated with ter-
ritorial acquisitions for the result, they could probably do noth-
ing more effectually tending to smooth the way for real prog-
ress, in the way of commerce and friendly relations, than by a
convention among themselves formally disclaiming all acquisi-
tion of Japanese territory, and mutually contracting to abstain
from any enterprise with that object or result.
This would dispose, at least, of one great obstacle to prog-
ress—the fears of the Japanese of any attempt to despoil or to
subjugate them. The next, or religious element of jealousy,
could, of course, be dealt with somewhat similarly—not quite
so effectively, perhaps, from the nature of the enemy they fear,
and the intensity of their feelings on the subject. But if the
Treaty Powers were disposed to enter into a convention of re-
ciprocal obligation to abstain from all coercive action or inter-
vention in favor of proselytizing efforts on the part of their re-
spective subjects, there can be little doubt it would greatly
tend to allay the fears which lie at the foundation of the most
implacable hostility, and by so much it would smooth the way
for more friendly and cordial relations, on the maintenance of
which must depend progress by peaceable means. For let it
not be forgotten that, beyond the limits of Western Europe,
as has been truly said, the results which we understand by
progress and civilization are neither desired nor understood.
Whatever aims at these under the stipulations of a treaty, it
may be affirmed, therefore, can only be a cause of distrust and
an element of disturbance. If progress and civilization follow,
as doubtless they will, if not injudiciously put out of their place
and natural order—follow as the necessary attendants of com-
merce when this is in the hands of a Christian people, then
will they come gradually to be understood, and in the end de-
sired;and not civilization only, but a true religion also may
find its place, and take an ever-enlarging field within its fold.
But so long as treaties with Western Powers are not the


308
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
spontaneous acts of the Rulers of an Asiatic people, but forced
upon them, it matters little whether by what is called moral
pressure or rifled guns, the reality of force is there, and the
vice of their origin will follow them to the end. They can
never be maintained in their integrity save by a command of
the same means as those to which they owed their birth. Pol-
iticians and philanthropists, therefore, who are opposed on prin-
ciple to resort to coercion under any circumstances, either for
the advance of Trade, Civilization, or Religion, should be no
parties to treaties entered into with Eastern nations by West-
ern Powers.
The relations established, I repeat, are all compulsory in the
first instance, and so long continue after the visible compelling
power has disappeared. But to expect to be able continuously
to compel, without resorting to the means of compulsion, is a
simple absurdity. All that can be hoped is that, with the aid
of time, patience, and an honest desire to avoid all open or un-
necessary appeal to force, the necessity for its application in
any material shape will gradually diminish, and finally disap-
pear.
There are fundamental conditions of all intercourse inherent
in the nature of things, and, whatever may be the special cir-
cumstances modifying their action, they will still prevail in their
integrity. If treaties of amity and commerce are entered into,
they must be maintained, if not by good faith on the part of
the Eastern, then by fear and respect for the means of compul-
sion at command. For it were better a thousand times for
them and for us—for all the nations of the West alike—to aban-
don them altogether, than to sit down tamely acquiesce under
the flagrant and continuous violation of treaties, or beat the air
with idle complaints and protests equally vain. Submission to
a wrong in Eastern States acts invariably as a provocation to
farther injury, until outrages multiply and become intolerable
to the most patient or pusillanimous, and then war in its worst
shape follows as a necessity—a war which carries devastation
in the midst of unoffending populations, at great cost both
to the assailants and the country attacked, and from which a
Western Power can reap neither glory nor profit.
The extension and free development of commerce without
costly armaments of war being the avowed and sole object of
our treaties, it would be very important if we could determine
with some degree of certainty under what conditions and to
what extent it may be possible to attain this end in the far
East. To secure new markets without danger of collision or
risk of interruption is the dream of Manchester and the hope


Chap. XXXVII.] COMMERCE AND ITS INFLUENCES.
of our manufacturing interests generally. But, although com-
merce shuns the evils of a belligerent condition, there is no
doubt that in practice it often provokes the contests which it
deprecates in theory. It has been said, with more or less of
truth, that the appeal to physical force lies in the background
of all national affairs, just as there is no law which does not
rest on some force to give it effect. And if these axioms find
illustrations of their truth but too often in the West, it may
safely be concluded our treaties in the East will not be exam-
ples of the converse, or prove exceptions in any sense. It is
manifest that where force is habitually resorted to in questions
between different races and Powers, as it assuredly is over the
whole of the East, and where force, therefore, becomes the final
arbiter, a corresponding obligation is imposed upon those West-
ern nations who enter into treaties with them to make them-
selves respected. For, without an appeal to unvarying expe-
rience, it must be clear that' a nation which shows it can not
easily be trifled with is in a much better position, cceteris par-
ibus, than one with which liberties may be taken without fear
of punishment.'
'Mankind,' it has been said,' is going through a great fusion.
It is being made one, not by conquest, not by the spread of a
creed, but by the interchange of commodities.' Tested by ac-
tual experience, I am afraid, however, this conclusion holds
good only in a very qualified sense. It may be true that com-
merce and the material wants which it supplies are among the
most effective agencies at work in the present day for the civ-
ilization of the world and the fusion of races. For if the most
barbarous and the least advanced in mental culture or refine-
ment have but few wants or appetites, the demand for their
satisfaction is imperious and vehement in strict proportion to
the smallness of the number. Wants, on the other hand, mul-
tiply with cultivation and with civilization; they grow by what
they feed upon, and are thus the best friends to commerce.
But these, however numerous—and their name is legion—are
more or less artificial in their origin, and can only be called
necessities in a very conventional way. A public lecturer, not
long ago, began by gravely announcing as a fact that'orna-
mental art was a necessity of man's nature.' It is hard to say,
then, what may not be considered a necessity; but it may safely
be concluded that such necessities as these bear no comparison,
as to cogency, with the primary wants of less civilized races.
Tea and coffee, in time, become very like necessities to a whole
town in Europe, and I suspect they might again be dispensed

three centuries ago neither was


310 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
with, after an effort perhaps, without any material diminution
of the sum of human happiness; partly because, at the state
of civilization we have now reached, the ingenuity of man would
find many substitutes in the whole range of the vegetable king-
dom, abounding as it does in stimulants and narcotics (and
such, with all deference to teetotalers, most unquestionably are
these two favorite beverages of the valetudinarian and the vir-
tuous), and secondly, because, in default, there are still a thou-
sand other sources of enjoyment and consolation to fall back
upon. But the semi-civilized Oriental and Malay races have
no such resources. Neither mind nor body has been so devel-
oped as to enable them to find pleasure and occupation in an
infinite variety of ways. As I have already said, the only
wants of which they are conscious, are few, and imperious in
proportion. For the supply of these Commerce is made wel-
come, opposed though it be by religious or political creeds of
antagonistic tendencies, which would otherwise prohibit all in-
terchange of thought or merchandise. Thus, and so far, it is
true, as the writer I quoted in the beginning implies, commerce
in our day is a great promoter of fusion and civilization.
In past ages, nations were only brought in contact, and any
fusion effected by Conquest. Then came the influence of Re-
ligious creeds, which often perfected what the sword of con-
quest began, but could not complete—the fusion of different
races. And last in the order of time is Commerce. The tend-
ency of the present day is, nevertheless, I conceive, to attribute
more to this agency of commerce than often properly belongs
to it. Like the Armstrong gun, it is very potent and far-reach-
ing, but there is much it does not and can not effect. It does
little more, in truth, than open the way, predisposing men's
minds to friendly intercourse and the interchange both of ideas
and products; and if on one side there be great superiority of
mind and civilization, progress in the higher order of ideas may
be both rapid and great.
It has been very truly observed, however, in speaking of such
progress, that one of the chief difficulties in the way arises from
the want of pliability and flexibility,' the deficient facility of
accommodation to new circumstances, which belongs to a low
state of intelligence and education.' What the king wrote to
Lord Baltimore in the early days of colonization in America is
especially applicable to the efforts we are making to spread
our commerce and civilization in Japan: 1 New plantations
have commonly rugged and laborious beginnings.' And, in
connection with the whole of this part of the subject, I can not
help quoting here one or two passages from M. de Tocqueville'e


Case. XXXVII.] HUGGED BEGINNINGS.
311
Correspondence, which have a singularly just application to
the influence and position of foreigners at the present day in
Japan, though it is a country which was scarcely dreamed of
when the talented writer penned the letter in which it occurs
to Mr. Reeve. He is speaking, however, of European settlers
in the East when he observes—
'J'ai toujours remarqué que partout où on introduisait, non
des chefs européens, mais une population européenne au sein
des populations imparfaitement civilisées du reste du monde,
la supériorité réelle et prétendue de la première sur les secondes
se faisait sentir d'une façon si blessante pour les intérêts indi-
viduels et si mortifiante pour l'amour propre des indigènes,
qu'il en résultait plus de colère que d'aucune oppression poli-
tique. Si cela est vrai pour presque toutes les races europé-
ennes, à combien plus forte raison cela est-il vrai de la race an-
glaise, la plus habile à exploiter à son profit les avantages de
chaque pays, la moins liante, la plus disposée à se tenir à part,
et (on peut le dire parceque ce défaut s'unit intimement à de
grandes qualités) la plus altière de toutes les races europé-
ennes.'
He then goes on to say, as between Europeans and the East-
ern races, that 'La civilisation et la race mettaient une si grande
différence, que l'un s'apercevait à chaque instant que, non seule-
ment il n'était pas l'égal, mais qu'il n'était pas le semblable de
l'autre.'
And, finally, still referring to the same subject, in a letter to
Lord Hatherton, he remarks, with admirable justness and pow-
er of discrimination: 'Une race inférieure par sa constitution
ou son éducation peut bien supporter le gouvernement d'une
race supérieure. Elle ne ressent que les bons effets de cette
supériorité, et si le gouvernement est habile, elle peut le préfé-
rer à celui même de ses princes; mais le voisinage d'un par-
ticulier plus civilisé, plus riche, plus influent, plus habile que lui,
ne peut manquer d'être un objet de haine et d'envie à l'indigène
d'une race inférieure. Le gouvernement étranger ne blesse
que les sentiments nationaux qui sont faibles. Le colon étran-
ger blesse ou semble blesser de mille manières les intérêts par-
ticuliers qui sont chers à tous les hommes. On croit toujours
qu'il abuse de sa supériorité, de ses lumières, de sa fortune et
cle son crédit pour faire de bonnes affaires et s'enrichir aux
dépens de ses voisins, et de toutes ces petites haines particuli-
ères la haine nationale s'accroît infiniment.'
Such are a few of the difficulties opposing that progress of
the higher order of ideas which the sanguine and the theoret-
ical would fain hope to see realized in the intercourse now


312 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
maintained between the Western and Eastern peoples; but
the history and the experience of the past, it must be confess-
ed, are very far from bearing out such hopes.
The Japanese borrowed from China its ideographic lan-
guage, and with it the Confucian philosophy; a great deal of
the literature, and finally the Buddhist religion. They enter-
ed into commerce, each supplying to the other products in re-
quest. And yet, despite all these pledges and guarantees for
peace, the history of both countries shows a chronic state of
war and antagonism, which can only be compared to that ex-
isting so many centuries between France and England. Gen-
ghis Khan fitted out a great armada for the conquest of Japan.
The Japanese, aided by their iron-bound coast and stormy
seas, repulsed it, and retorted by a century of aggressive de-
scents on the Chinese coast, and attempts to conquer Corea.
Thus it often happens that a higher order of civilization, and
commerce itself, are met and checked in their progress by a
hostile phalanx of prejudices, interests, traditions, customs, and
very often religious creeds, and these supported by much of
the intelligence and all the strength and power of the ruling
classes. They feel with a true instinct that commerce never
comes singly, but brings new elements of thought in its train,
and forms a wedge which will force asunder the most compact
structure, if not resisted at the very beginning, and cast out.
And that which begins by a conflict of ideas, ends almost in-
variably, and it would seem inevitably, either by a war of con-
quest, or by civil convulsion and bloodshed among the natives.
Such has been the history of all our relations with the East.
We begin in perfect good faith by seeking only the inter-
change of commodities, and flatter ourselves that civilization
and the blessings of a true religion will follow peaceably and
naturally in the track of commerce. But here theory and
practice, hope and experience, are wofully at issue. And for
once it would be well, perhaps, to allow experience to have its
weight; for hope only deludes, while the other enlightens and
warns.
In the moral as in the physical, it would seem as if a process
of disintegration formed the necessary preliminary condition
to any new combination or radical change of form. The new
product, whatever it may be, is only the result of much effer-
vescence and decomposition, during which some dangerous
elements are set free, while others, which served to give sta-
bility and body, evaporate and disappear. Powerful solvents
come into operation, and the most destructive agencies are
evolved in full activity. Thus all revolutions, social and polit-


314
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
pie so long secluded and isolated as the Japanese have been
are being discussed. Among the chief difficulties which beset
the paths of commerce in these Eastern regions, there is yet
one more that must not be passed over; for, although of less
magnitude and importance than those already examined, it
still forms a very pregnant source of danger, and adds no in-
considerable tributary stream, flowing into and deepening all
the main channels of those waters of strife which obstruct our
progress. The difficulty I allude to originates in the 'rowdy'
and disreputable element which universally finds entrance with
treaties and commerce in Japan, as every where else in the
Eastern seas when the former have opened new markets. The
absence of any system of efficient control over all foreigners
alike, whatever their nationality, if found in the country, and
bringing Europeans generally into disrepute by disorderly or
dishonest conduct, is an ever-fruitful source of mischief. Such
specimens of our civilization there always are—ill-conditioned
and unscrupulous adventurers, claiming the benefits only to be
secured by the maintenance of treaties, while they violate all
the provisions. Sometimes there are subjects of Powers which
have no treaties whatever with Japan, while in others a right
of residence exists; but there is either no Consul to take cog-
nizance of their acts, or none willing and with adequate means
to deal efficiently with the cases which arise. To stipulate for
a right of admission into a country like Japan, where the Sov-
ereign has been stripped of his territorial jurisdiction by a
clause of exterritoriality, and then leave him exposed to the
outrages and disorders which lawless Europeans may at their
pleasure commit, or without giving ample security against such
license and gross abuse of treaty rights, can only be regarded
by the Japanese in one of two lights—either as an indication
of indifference on the part of the Treaty Powers collectively to
whatever evil or humiliation we may bring upon them pro-
vided we attained our own end, or as an admission of incom-
petence to deal with an evil which I have no hesitation in say-
ing is both serious and discreditable. Were it only the spec-
tacle daily given at the open ports of drunken sailors reeling
about and often committing acts of violence, as such men will
when they are drunk, we should have much to regret. And
this is not the least of our difficulties, for the sailors of men-of-
war of the different nations, I am sorry to say, are no excep-
tion, and furnish their full contingent. Yet men can not, es-
pecially after a long voyage, be kept for weeks in port close
prisoners in their ships, so that the difficulties are neither few
nor easily to be met. In China I have known three or four


Chap. XXXVII.] PRACTICAL FICTIONS.
315
ruffians of a Western race, armed with revolvers and bowie-
knives, put a whole district under a levy of black mail by the
terror they inspired, aided by an impudent assumption of au-
thority to collect taxes!
There is no doubt that here, as in so many other cases, the
omission to do what is right ourselves is to sign a blank com-
mission to others to do what is wrong; and, in the present in-
stance, the Treaty Powers find it lays a stumbling-block on the
threshold of all negotiations, and until it is removed the ablest
negotiators will work in vain. It lies, in truth, full in the path-
way of all successful efforts for obtaining practically enlarged
facilities for intercourse, and any. access into the interior. Nor,
while these abuses exist, can'Foreign Powers pretend to de-
serve that there should be any such increased facilities. Good
faith on our part in giving effect to treaty stipulations, with
all the obligations they impose, is and ought to "be the first
condition of any effort urged upon the Japanese to perform
theirs. A very solemn obligation has been accepted by every
Treaty Power claiming for its subjects the privilege of exter-
ritoriality—to provide, at whatever cost or trouble, adequate
means for performing the duty thus assumed of preserving the
peace, repressing all lawless violence and illegalities, and rig-
orously punishing the offenders. How lamentably and per-
sistently this has been disregarded in many instances in the
Chinese and Japanese Seas by Western Powers is, unfortu-
nately, too notorious to require farther evidence. But how
fatal the neglect has been to the wrong and prejudice of the
Chinese more especially, or how seriously the best interests of
civilization and commerce have been compromised in conse-
quence, I feel it must be difficult to give any adequate idea to
those who have not lived in the country and had opportunities
of marking the effects. Fortunately, we can only be reproach-
ed with wrongs of a less grievous kind in Japan. But little
credit is due to foreigners for this result, since it is partly ow-
ing to our more restricted intercourse, and partly also to the
fact that there is an armed class quite capable of avenging on
the spot any wrong or violence done them, and only too ready
to find even a bad pretext for shedding the blood of a foreign-
er, and casting him out of the country dead or alive.
If Western nations are to maintain any relations of amity,
then, with this people, there would seem a great necessity for
some common basis of action. But, as I have elsewhere ob-
served, in this lies the main difficulty. Yet there are many
grounds of mutual accord; and even where ultimate divergence
may be more or less unavoidable, the causes are still in the


316
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVTt.
germ, as it were, and many years will be required for their de-
velopment. In the interval there is a common interest in the
progress of a civilizing intercourse which might serve as a
bond of union, and some of those rivalries or antagonisms
which loom in the future may possibly melt and disappear with
time and the march of improvement in all international rela-
tions. If the Japanese could be strong enough to assert and
maintain independence, and its rulers become sufficiently en-
lightened to enter frankly into the family of civilized nations,
acknowledging all the obligations which are held to be bind-
ing among these, the dark and lowering clouds now covering
the horizon might be dispersed without a storm.'' It is the
obvious interest of all Western Powers having no other object
than the extension of trade and civilization to promote such an
issue out of existing dangers and difficulties. In this direction,
indeed, lies our best hope of a peaceful and a general beneficial
solution.
Existing relations are based on a fiction of exterritoriality,
which assumes that the laws and executive power of Foreign
Governments are in full force on the soil of Japan as regards
all foreigners, and effectually supply the place of the laws of
the country, making adequate provision for the preservation of
the peace and the repression of crime. But the right of ex-
emption from the law of Japan is alone a reality; the other
condition of the exterritoriality clause is too much a fiction.
A Government that undertakes what it does not perform,
and which is either unwilling or unable to protect foreigners
from insult or massacre when these come to reside within its
territories, on the faith of treaties, as we have recently seen at
Jeddah, in the Red Sea, in Morocco, and in Japan, must bear
the consequences of its own bad faith or imbecility; because
to hold such Governments free from responsibility upon any
principle of Christian forbearance or political expediency is to
take away the best check on crime, if not the only security for
life and property in such countries. In other words, it is to
render residence impossible, all development of trade a delu-
sion, and amicable relations or civilizing intercourse alike im-
practicable. But, on the other hand, if it be impossible with
Eastern races, still in their infancy as regards any knowledge
* Since this chapter was written, I have read a contribution to the 'North
China Herald,' from a writer in whose knowledge of the Japanese language
and long residence in the country there is a certain guarantee for correctness
of information. As this letter contains much interesting speculation on the
present state of political affairs in Japan, and some details on matters of fact
well worthy of consideration, I have given it a place in the Appendix (see
Appendix G.), without, however, adopting the conclusions of the writer.


Chap. XXXVII.] NECESSITY OF ELECTION.
317
of international rights, or the reciprocal obligations of treaties,
to intrust the lives and property of foreigners to the Territorial
Sovereign and the administration of justice prevalent in the
country without some safeguard, such as the fiction of exterri-
toriality has invented, it specially behooves each treaty power
to provide adequate means of its own on the spot to do justice
and maintain order. There is a French proverb about the wis-
dom of not running after two hares at once, strongly inculca-
ting the folly of attempting to compass two objects perfectly
incompatible. For conciliation to have its proper fruit, we
must be just, then, in performing our part of the contract; and
that forbearance may not provoke aggression, we must show
determination to insist upon good faith toward the foreigner in
return. With due regard to both these conditions, will any
amount of tact and forbearance bring Eastern rulers and the
subjects they govern to observe the stipulations of treaties
forced upon them by Western Powers?
If we could really hope that any thing approaching a perfect
fulfillment of such conditions were possible, and not on the part
of one Western Power, but of all equally, then indeed there
would be solid ground to rest upon. It is the want of combi-
nation of the two in just proportions, and the equal adoption
by all the Foreign Powers of these principles, which constitute
the main difficulty of dealing with Eastern races in the pres-
ent day. Every divergence in word or action among the
Treaty Powers of the West, where the objects and interests are
all ostensibly and professedly the same, is an element of weak-
ness to them and of strength to the Eastern rulers. Naturally
distrustful of all Western nations, and attaching little faith to
mere words or the phraseology of treaties, they seek to read
in the policy and action of each a truer indication of real ob-
jects. It no less naturally follows, attributing, as they do, a
far greater degree of solidarity in the European family than
really belongs to it, that they seize upon a dissidence as an Old
Bailey lawyer pounces upon a discrepancy or a contradiction
among the witnesses for the accused, and proceed to condemn
without hesitation on the faith of it. No doubt any principle
of firmness and resistance to wrong carries with it a contin-
gency of war. But, on the other hand, unlimited concession
and submission is even more dangerous, and directly tends to
war by encouraging in an Eastern race intolerable and increasing
aggressions. And although we may talk of retiring altogeth-
er, and abandoning treaty rights as not worth the cost of fight-
ing for them, or relinquishing trade and commercial privileges
because it is against our principles to adopt coercive means for


320
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVII.
indisputable truth that' war can not be carried on with rose
water,' and I believe it to be equally true that treaties are not
to be maintained with Eastern rulers on whom they have been
imposed against their will, by diplomacy or protocols, unless
these are known to be backed by something more irresistible.
But I do not feel any more responsible for this than the author
of the first truism could be held answerable for the necessary
conditions of war. On the contrary, to all who do not like
war, it is clear, he who publicly announces in advance its true
and inevitable conditions should be held the best friend of
peace, since, if any thing would deter nations—only nothing
ever does—from rushing into wars, it would be the full knowl-
edge and clear perception of their cost. I am only concerned
here, therefore, with the problem as I find it. Our commerce
feeds a vital want; we seek trade, therefore, every where, al-
though it is not without its risks and expenses. We seek new
and ever-expanding markets to meet our ever-increasing wants
and powers of production, and these seem to lie principally in
the far East, and there we naturally, if not inevitably, go.''' Our first step is to obtain access by treaties to the markets
they present. The Native Powers being little disposed to en-
ter into negotiations, we bring to bear the only effective means
—pressure, and gain the document which purports to give all
the rights and facilities for trade required. But one step more
remains, and the end is ours. The treaty has to be reduced
to practice and made a working treaty. Unluckily, this is the
principal, nothing having been farther from the intention of
one of the contracting parties than such a result. We are
forcibly reminded of the courtier's dilemma in the play of Cin-
derella.' In despair at the difficulty of finding a fit for the
dainty but vacant slipper, he tries it first on one foot and then
the other of the beauties, until at last, finding one smaller than
the rest, he exclaims with joy,' It is all in—except the heel!'
A hard case; for no shoe-horn of smoothest ivory, or flattering
words of the most refined courtier, will evidently get this re-
calcitrant heel into the slipper.
That is just the difficulty to be solved by diplomacy in the
* I say these seem to lie principally in the East; but it may admit of ques-
tion whether, under existing antagonisms of race and differences of habits
and wants, our most hopeful field for increased consumption really lies east-
ward. The whole of our import trade with Eastern countries, even includ-
ing India, is far inferior in amount to that which exists with one or two
countries of the West, having a kindred civilization and similar wants, real
or artificial—the United States, for instance, which in one year took over
£20,000,000 of our manufactures. Our colonies, again, are far more certain
markets than China or Japan can ever be in the present generation.


Chap. XXXVII.] COERCION NECESSARY.
321
East—' the true point of difficulty,' as the Bonze replied to the
Abbe Huc, who had expounded the cause of the want' of faith
and funds in China.' 'Your marvelous intelligence has seized
the true point of difficulty' But, until the heel is in, and some
means, persuasive or forcible, shall have been found to accom-
plish that end, all the treaties and protocols in the world are
little better than waste paper, or the title-deeds to an estate in
Chancery, possession of which is the subject of litigation.
If, now, having considered what are the chief difficulties in
the way of commerce, and any fusion of races or amalgamation
of rival civilizations, we attempt to sum up the whole argu-
ment as furnishing principles of action rather than a specific
policy to be shaped out in their application, I think that, with
a clear conception of what are 'the essential conditions of all
Western Diplomacy in the far East,' no less than ' the necessi-
ties and exigencies which govern its action,' the reader will
have little difficulty in himself defining' the limits within which
we may reasonably look for success, and the conditions essen-
tial to any.'
There must, we have seen, be means of coercion in the back-
ground, and to this must be added the known will and power
to resort to them, if all other means fail to secure the honest
fulfillment of the stipulations of Treaties. This implies a pos-
sible contingency of collision and war; but if there be firm-
ness and discretion in the employment of such means of diplo-
macy, there is the best chance which circumstances admit of
avoiding the actual resort to force, or any overt acts of com-
pulsion.
With such a policy firmly and consistently carried out, much
of forbearance and patience may find profitable exercise. Too
much precipitation, or want of judgment and temper, are just
as much to be deprecated as timidity or vacillation and incon-
sistency. The one means war, and the other such a rapid de-
terioration and accumulation of wrong as must inevitably lead
to one of two results: the destruction of all trade and treaty
rights, or a crushing and more destructive war than otherwise
might have been required to vindicate and maintain them.
Within the limits of a policy thus conducted, seeking only
peace and the establishment of a mutually advantageous com-
merce as the end, and desiring of all things the avoidance of
coercive means in the grosser forms of menace and war, suc-
cess in some cases may be possible, though it can hardly be
either absolute or complete. The traditions of a race can not
be eradicated, neither can national customs, habits, and modes
of thought or action be wholly changed in one generation.


322
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVIII.
Such a sweeping transmutation has never yet been seen in the
history of the world, least of all can it be looked for in Orient-
al races over the face of Asia, which present the type of immo-
bility and fixity in striking contrast to the spirit of progress
and unrest which marks the descendants of Japhet, and more
especially the modern offspring of Europe and its civilization.
We must be prepared, therefore, whatever course may be
followed, for many and persistent grounds of complaint on
both sides, not wholly unfounded as regards either. If the
Oriental is slow to yield and reluctant to change, the European
is no less apt to be rash and aggressive in his spirit of innova-
tion, especially where his interests are at stake. All that we
might claim will not be attained; all that we owe to Eastern
Governments and people will hardly be rendered; but, in the
midst of these and many other drawbacks to perfectly friendly
relations, there seems a possibility of a practical solution which
may be accepted as satisfactory by both parties—as satisfac-
tory, that is, as either party can hope, by any immediate ac-
tion, to secure. Trade will be established and develop itself;
prosperity and intelligence will grow under its influence, by a
more gradual process, it is true, than the more sanguine could
desire in the West, and somewhat quicker than Rulers in the
East could wish, but that is unavoidable. The essential seems
to be, that changes mutually beneficial, and preparing the way
for a fusion of ideas and interests, shall ultimately take place;
and those who come after us will probably see more clearly
than we can now, that, tardy and halting as may have been
the steps, no quicker or better line could have been advan-
tageously followed with such antagonistic elements to contend
against.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Arrangements for the Departure of the Japanese Mission to the Courts of
the several Treaty Powers in Europe.—Embarkation on board H. M. S.
'Odin.'—Close of 1861.—Trade of the Year, and Commercial Prospects
for the incoming Year of 1862.
Toward the close of 1861, it became necessary to make final
arrangements for the departure of the Japanese Mission nom-
inated by the Tycoon to represent him at the courts of the
several sovereigns in Europe with whom he had entered into
treaty. H. M. S.' Odin,' a fine frigate under the command of
Commodore Lord John Hay, had been specially fitted up for


Chap. XXXVIII.] JAPANESE DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS. 323
the reception of the Japanese Ministers and their suite. The
first difficulty was to reduce the number of these within any
reasonable limits. When a Mission was sent to the United
States the year preceding, they had been allowed to take any
number they chose, and, consequently, some eighty-four in all,
I believe, had been accommodated on board the frigate con-
veying them to the American coast. Such a number, however,
would not only have entailed great inconvenience during the
passage, but have been still more objectionable in the long
journeys to be made across the whole breadth of Europe, in
passing from one country to another. It would have caused
great superfluous expense to the respective Governments, and
been a source of endless trouble and embarrassment to the sev-
eral courts where they were accredited. We had undertaken
to convey them at our own charge to England, the French
Government agreeing in like manner to find transport for them
back; but the traveling to Berlin, St. Petersburg, the Hague,
and Lisbon, would have to be arranged after their arrival in
Europe. The precedent of the mission to America rendered
my task additionally difficult and delicate, from the danger of
appearing to wish to curtail the establishment they might have
been led to think necessary to maintain their dignity, but which
really had nothing to do with it. This I endeavored to prove
by enumerating to them the ordinary suite of Ministers and
Ambassadors from the greatest Powers in Europe, while, on
the other hand, I described to them the incessant anxiety and
trouble a number of helpless subordinates and servants would
constantly occasion to the Ministers themselves, and those
whose business it would be to render their residence at the
different courts agreeable. Upon the whole, they were not
unreasonable, and seemed fully persuaded in the end that I had
both their proper dignity and their comfort equally at heart.
Accordingly, after the long hours required to possess them ful-
ly with the necessary information, some of the more useless of
the subordinates were eliminated to the number of one half,
and finally reduced to thirty-five in all—an Envoy Extraordi-
nary and Plenipotentiary, two Ministers Plenipotentiary, ac-
companied by thirty-two subordinate officers and servants—
secretaries, ometskys, doctors, accountants, cooks, and barbers!
But, when this was effected, we were only at the beginning of
our troubles. As the period of their departure approached,
the necessity for precise information as to the quantity of bag-
gage, and of provisions fitted for a Japanese palate, became
more urgent, while the difficulty of obtaining it only seemed to
increase as each day brought them nearer the date fixed for


324 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVIII.
their embarkation. Then there was the question of sleeping ap-
Eliances. A whole suite of cabins had been arranged for them
y Lord John Hay with sliding panels, papered with Japanese
patterns, and as innocent of furniture as their own reception-
rooms. Our advice to them was to sleep either on a matted
floor, as was their custom, or in cots that could be removed by
day, without lumbering their cabins. But they finally decided
on having bunks put up. Nothing could have been more lib-
eral or considerate than the arrangements as to space, etc.,
made for their comfort by the Commodore. The whole of the
main deck had been given up to their use. The Ministers and
superior officers were provided for abaft the main-mast, and
the subordinates and servants forward. To each set of cabins
there were two or three bath-rooms, with movable heating ap-
paratus, on the Italian plan of a double tube and central heater.
A pantry also, and place for the storage of all their crockery
and stores for daily consumption, were attached to each class
of cabins; for I should say they began by sending on board
fifty crockery teapots - an immense supply of soy in five hund-
red Champagne bottles; then a service of five porcelain cups
for every individual, with saucers innumerable to answer for
Elates. There were also some fifty Hebachis, or vessels for
urning charcoal and warming the rooms, corresponding with
the Spanish Brazeiro. But I heard something about these be-
ing all stowed down below in utterly inaccessible places—a
needful precaution, if the Commodore ever intended to convey
them as far as Suez, or arrive there himself, without a confla-
gration; which, by-the-by, he did not succeed in doing, though
from no fault of the passengers. Notwithstanding every Jap-
anese, at some time of his life, I suppose, is burnt out of house
and home, and certainly lives in constant peril of such a catas-
trophe, there is no race in the world, perhaps, unless it be the
Chinese, more reckless, or utterly devoid of common care and
prudence in regard to fire than they are. On the forepart of
the deck, immediately abaft the windlass, was a movable kitch-
en, a galley upon wheels, so that when it was necessary to
weigh anchor it could be shifted, and into this had been fitted
their own cooking apparatus. The Ministers were very anx-
ious to go on board and see their future home, and, as ill luck
would have it, the day chosen was rather boisterous; the nat-
ural consequence of which was, that the third Minister gave
evident signs of being very miserable, and my old friend Mat-
sudaira, the second Minister, the next time I saw him, was ur-
gent in his entreaties to know if the Western people, who went
so much in great ships on the seas, had no medicine or specific


Chap. XXXVIII.] PRELIMINARIES.
325
against sea-sickness? They were nevertheless much pleased
with the imposing size of the ship, and its perfect order, as well
as the liberal space and other arrangements made for their ac-
commodation.
Some twenty days, I think, were consumed in launching this
'Great Eastern' Mission. Many were lost in finding out with
what amount of stowage for baggage they could be contented.
Then it was necessary to get some of the subordinate members
of their suite and servants on board, to remain and accustom
themselves to the ship, that they might not be quite useless the
first week, which they proposed to accomplish by the notable
scheme of sending on board substitutes! Really there is a na-
ivete in some of the propositions of the Japanese that quite
takes one by surprise. To what extent the system of vicari-
ous punishment goes I can not say with any certainty; but a
British merchant one day threatening a Japanese dealer, to
whom he had made large sales, that he would complain to the
authorities if he was not paid, intimating that imprisonment
might follow—' OhI' exclaimed his Japanese debtor, 'you don't
suppose I should go to prison; my substitute would go!'
Though, after all, I do not know why we should be so much
surprised at this, since not many days ago precisely the same
thing happened in London, and a convicted offender, sentenced
to a fortnight's imprisonment, managed between the police
court and the jail to arrange a substitute.
However, as regarded the motion and geography of a ship,
it was quite clear the system of substitutes would not work at
all, whatever it might do in trade, and the relations between
debtor and creditor; and so, in the end, I succeeded in getting
some of the real personages caught, and caged on board.
Then the baggage could not be got ready in time, and at the
last moment sundry bags of rice were sent on board, contrary
to all instructions, in loose sacking, and under conditions which
would insure its being all spoiled and useless in a few days. I
began to think they were determined, after all, to spend their
new year in Japan (which did not begin until January 29), and
were deliberately planning all these difficulties. However, on
the 20th, having ridden up to Yeddo the day previous, I went
to present Lord John Hay and his officers on taking leave, and
to my agreeable surprise, and still more, I am sure, to the sur-
prise of the Commodore, the Mission was announced'to be
ready to embark the next day! Indeed, so much did it take
us both by surprise, that I found to my dismay there were va-
rious and important matters which must be instantly settled
with the Ministers before the embarkation could take place.


Chap. XXXVIII.] DEPARTURE OF MISSION.
327
and announced that they were on board! I now felt perfectly
satisfied, being very sure they would never get out of the Com-
modore's grip while the ' Odin' was in Japanese waters, even ,
for an hour. Indeed, so anxious was he to secure them and be
off, that, as I afterward learned, he had performed Joshua's
feat, and put back the sun nearly half an hour to enable him to
give them their salute; but every body knows the sun's prog-
ress on the dial on board a man-of-war is subject to the fiat of
the commander; it may be noon, or sunset, or eight o'clock to
the rest of the world, but it can not be so on board until the
word has gone forth—' make it so!'
And thus the Japanese Mission took its departure. The
next morning, January 23, at the first dawn of day, the ' Odin's'
steam was up, and she was steering down the Bay. Opposite
Yokohama the Commodore made a halt of a couple of hours to
pick up an unfortunate Interpreter, Ota, who had been desig-
nated as needful, and had only received notice of this voyage
to the Antipodes during the night; and Ota was as effectually
impressed into the service of the Mission as though a press-
gang had been employed. They can move sharply and decis-
ively in Japan when they themselves have made up their minds
as to the necessity. A few proofs are as good evidence as a
thousand.
The Mission away, I had now little farther to do before tak-
ing my own departure on leave, long and anxiously looked for-
ward to, except to wind up some pending affairs, and gather
in the trade and other reports for the year just ended. The
dispatches with my final instructions, it is true, had not yet ap-
peared, but each succeeding day might bring them: they were
already long overdue.
The year 1861 had closed, and as the trade reports came in
shortly after, I can not do better here than give a brief sum-
mary of their contents, showing the state of foreign commerce
at this period, just two years and a half from the opening of
the ports, with a few remarks on its prospects. Trade had
been nearly limited to the two southern ports, Kanagawa and
Nagasaki, the first by far the most important. As to Hako-
dadi in the north, nothing deserving the name of trade had
been found possible, and at this time not a single British mer-
chant or agent was left on the spot, nor of residents of any
other nation who could really be placed in the category of
merchants.
Kanagawa enjoys the lion's share of the infant trade, and,
despite all the multifarious impediments, small and great, which
the artificial system and natural obstructiveness of Japanese


328
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVIII.
officials create, it appeared, at the end of 1861, after a thirty
months' trial, to be thriving fairly. In round numbers, it gave
employment to about one hundred vessels in the year, and was
worth a million'sterling, of which more than half was carried
in British vessels, and considerably more, probably, on British
account, as two of the largest American ships among those
loaded were dispatched to London.
The import trade increased in 1861 some thirty per cent.,
from £197,023 to £307,981; but there was a corresponding
decrease in the exports, for in 1860 they were estimated at
£823,812, and in 1861 only at £558,948, taking both at a low
rate of 4s. 2d. for the exchange of the dollar, to which, how-
ever, from ten to twenty per cent. might fairly be added as the
current value of this coin at the port.
The export trade, which began with bulky articles—edibles
chiefly for the Chinese market—employed more shipping in
1860, but it settled down in the last year to a more valuable
trade, if less bulky, in its staples; the chief exports being these
last years tea and silk, both of which realized well, but more
especially the former, taken up eagerly to supply deficiencies
in the supply of China green teas. Rags for paper furnished
cargo for three ships, and, at first, were said to have realized a
large profit. Unfortunately, the reverse proved to be the cor-
rect version. Had it been otherwise, the vexed problem of a
supply of rags might have been considered settled, so far as an
unlimited quantity was concerned, for all China and Japan pro-
duce rags in abundance, and consume none in the manufacture
of their paper or any thing else. The only question was wheth-
er they could be made to cover the extra cost of freight, and
that unfortunately seemed to be settled in the negative.
Among the imports, the only novelty was an attempt to sup-
ply raw cotton and cotton yarns to the Japanese, and, after a
little attempt to shut both out as ' unenumerated articles' by a
prohibitive duty of twenty per cent., I succeeded, as regarded
the yarns, in removing the obstacle, and getting them received
at five per cent., since which they have held their place among
the imports to the extent of some 2500 piculs of 133 lbs., val-
ued at £15,291. Among the curiosities of imports, I find duly
entered two tigers! upon which I fancy a larger profit was re-
alized than on any other article in the tables. Worth about
$100 in the Straits, they sold here to Japanese for purposes of
exhibition for three or four thousand. And in this, as in other
things, the appetite appeared to grow by indulgence, for the
tigers led to an order for a brace of elephants. But even here,
as in all other novelties, there was an impediment in the first


Chum XXXVIII.] "WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH IT?"
329
instance to be got over on the part of the Japanese authorities,
and the following story was in circulation: Whether they ob-
jected because tigers were not in' the tariff,' or on some other
equally valid ground, certain it is they did object, and, as the
importer was a Dutch subject, it became a matter of discussion
with the Dutch Consul, who solved the difficulty with great
readiness. When the Japanese Custom-house and the Consul
seemed to have come to a dead-lock, the question arose, What
was to be done with the article? The Custom-house would
not pass it, the ship could not take it back—What was to be
done with the beautiful beast ?' Oh, very well,' said the Con-
sul, seeing it was time to make a last stroke for his country-
man's merchandise; 'since you say it is impossible to allow it
to be entered and sold, there is nothing left but for the mer-
chant to lose his money and let the beast out.' 'Let it loose!'
exclaimed the officials, in various tones of horror and dismay;
'why, it will eat us all up!' 'Really, I don't know; perhaps
he is not very hungry; but, in any case, I can not compel the
merchant to keep him.' It is superfluous to add that all inter-
dict on his sale was soon removed, and, instead of making a
meal of the Japanese, he served as a feast to the eyes of thou-
sands in the different cities at so many cash per head. The
moral of which seems to be, that it is the nature of the Japan-
ese officials to object; but it does not answer to be too soon
discouraged, when new imports have to be introduced into Ja-
pan!
I am surprised glass is not more rapidly adopted by the Jap-
anese. Perhaps one reason is, that the paper, after all, besides
being less costly, does really keep out both heat and cold bet-
ter than a thin sheet of glass. In the Tycoon's new palace, I
am told, however, there has been a tolerably free use of glass
for screens and windows. They have attained no small skill
in manufacturing glass for themselves, in great variety of forms,
though I am not aware whether they have attempted window-
glass; but lamp-chimneys, ground-glass shades, bottles cut and
moulded, these they can manufacture at about English prices,
and scarcely, if at all, inferior in material or workmanship.
At the end of this third year that the ports had been opened,
the foreign community consisted, at Kanagawa, of
British 55
American 38
Dutch 20
French 11
Portuguese 2
Total .126


330
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVIII.
At Nagasaki the number was considerably less, thirty-nine if
I remember right, but the proportion of Dutch was, I believe,
larger.
The trade at Nagasaki, I have said, was much inferior to that
of Kanagawa in value—rather a strong argument against the
idea broached by a Dutch partisan of the Japanese policy for
not enlarging the boundaries of foreign intercourse beyond
Nagasaki, as offering all the facilities that could be required
for trade, without any of the disadvantages attending its ex-
tension, and the residence of foreigners at other ports. The
total value of imports in the year 1861 amounted, according to
the returns made up on the spot, to 1669,261, and of exports,
$1,000,317, or say £140,000 and £203,000 in round numbers,
against £308,000 and £559,000 at Kanagawa, giving, of imports,
a total of £448,000, and of exports, £762,000, or a little over
twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling for the whole trade
of Japan with foreign countries.
This is not a very large result for the trade taken collective-
ly, but when it is remembered in what a state of isolation the
Japanese have lived, and how entirely the country has been
from the most remote times self-sufficing, there is nothing dis-
couraging in the result. Indeed, could the policy of the Gov-
ernment be modified, and be made less restrictive and hostile
to the extension of trade, there is not the slightest doubt that
the country possesses resources, hitherto undeveloped, which
would supply an export trade of ten times the amount, and af-
ford a market for a large, if not an equivalent increase in the
imports. In tea and silk alone there is every reason to believe
they could produce in two or three years, and afford to part
with, an enormous surplus. I fear we are yet distant, however,
from the period when any great or fundamental change in the
policy of the rulers of Japan can be anticipated with confidence;
and, in the mean time, whatever trade is developed will be
only with constant efforts, both on the part of foreign mer-
chants and their authorities on the spot, and despite of a sys-
tem of obstruction expressly designed to prevent all rapid exten-
sion, and only too well adapted to the end in view. We have
undoubtedly the largest interest at stake in this trade; yet,
in proportion to the whole import and export trade of Great
Britain, nothing Japan is likely either to take or to give can
be considered otherwise than trifling. One, or a half per cent.,
on the whole of our export trade, is much too small a propor-
tion to induce us lightly to incur unnecessary risks in preserv-
ing, or to resort to any very costly or serious efforts to extend
it. More than the half of what trade there is has fallen into


Chap. XXXVIII.] A HORRID SIGHT.
331
our hands; we can not complain, therefore, of our share, what-
ever may be the value of the whole, and I fear we must be
content with this, as the only result attainable for the pres-
ent. Not all the merchants, with all the Consuls and Ministers
combined, can make any essential change in the system and
action of the Japanese authorities, high and low. This can
only come with time, or political and social revolutions.
I rode down from Yeddo to Yokohama after having dis-
patched the Mission to Europe, and some other business with
the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and on my way had to pass
one of the execution grounds, lying just off the Tocaido, by
the edge of the bay, a short distance from the capital. As I
came up, three gory heads fresh severed from their trunks
looked grimly down upon me from their unenviable elevation
on a little platform at the top of a pole. Were these the heads
of any of the assassins who penetrated into the Legation on
July 5? One struck me as singularly like the only man I
closely scanned as he lay wounded on his back the following
morning. The face, and even the expression of the villainous-
looking ruffian as he lay bound and a prisoner, eying me with
a sullen look of baffled vengeance, were suddenly recalled to
my mind. And, what is more remarkable, the same idea of
resemblance struck one of my attaches without our exchanging
a word. The Ministers had informed me secretly that either
two or three of these men were to have been executed that
morning in their prison, the man I allude to among the num-
ber. But I alone knew this. If they were the heads of my
would-be assassins, however, the Government did not dare to
state it on the placards beneath, for these, I ascertained, de-
scribed them as highway robbers who had entered a temple
and stolen property. As I pursued my way, I could not help
musing on the strange state of uncertainty in which we were
left as to the actual position of the Government in this country,
and its relations with its subjects and great feudatory princes,
and how thorny the path of those who, in the midst of such
imperfectly understood conditions, had the task of establishing
commercial relations, and maintaining a good understanding
with both rulers and people. The wind blew cold and keen
right down from the snowy peak of Fusiyama, and the range
of mountains below equally clad with a mantle of white, as we
crossed the bleak causeway leading over the salt lagoons by
which Yokohama is cut off from the main road. How admi-
rably the situation had been chosen for isolation and espionage,
for a system of control and surveillance, such as only Japanese
could, I think, carry out to the same perfection! Not a soul


334
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXVIII.
to the most likely causes of danger, as shown by past experi-
ence. These were, furious riding; firing loaded arms in the
settlement; taking the wrong side of the road, which is often
filled with large retinues and processions composed of Daimios
and their followers, only too prone to come in collision with
foreigners, if they could find a plausible ground of quarrel (as
has since been most fatally exemplified); sleeping in distant
localities, where no adequate protection could be afforded, or
knowledge of their habitat and conduct could exist; and, last-
ly, shooting game, strictly prohibited to all natives within ten
Re of the Tycoon's residence. These abominable ' restrictions
on the liberty of the subject, really repugnant to the feelings
of Englishmen,' which could have no other object than to ' op-
press and lower them in the eyes of the natives,' nor better
motive than 'to appease and conciliate the Japanese Govern-
ment' by ' pusillanimous and unworthy concessions,' seemed to
me at the time, I confess, so innocent and reasonable, that, with
less experience of the spirit in which all official action is judged
in these localities, and handled in the local newspapers, I think
I should have been taken by surprise on learning the storm of
vilification and abuse of which they and their author had be-
come the object. But against abuse which we feel is unde-
served, and an evil we know to be inevitable, the most sensi-
tive become hardened by time. It was rather amusing, at this
moment, to fall in with a memorial by the 'Citizens of the
United States resident at Yokohama,' which by chance came
under my notice in one of the San Francisco newspapers, dated
some time in the past year. It was a memorial to the Presi-
dent of the United States praying for the removal of their Res-
ident Minister (whom 'they did not recognize as their Repre-
sentative except nominally'), and the Consul of his nomination.
I do not care to give circulation to all the grievances they set
forth against their own functionaries, but I could not help
smiling, as I threw down the paper, at the similarity of result
with the dissimilarity of provocation. To believe the Ameri-
can memorialists, neither their Minister nor Consul had done
any thing' either directly or indirectly, to serve or help them
or uphold their treaty rights. Some of my countrymen, had
they been memorializing the Queen, would evidently have based
their grievances in a pernicious activity thwarting them, con-
trolling their liberty as free-born Britons, and interfering with
their right to construe treaties and pursue trade, or any other
object, as seemed best to themselves.


Chap. XXXIX.]
335
THE YEAR 1862.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Year 1862.—Progress of Events in Japan.—Attempt on the Life of the
Second Minister of Pq^ign Affairs.—My Departure for England. Ar-
rival of the Japanese Mission in Europe.—Results.—The Monetary Sys-
tem of Japan and Questions of Currency.—Assassination of two of the
Guards at the British Legation.—Attack on a Party of British Subjects on
the High Road, with Loss of Life.—Summary of the Year, and Reflections
on the present Situation.
The year 1862, the third subsequent to the opening of the
ports under treaty, instead of an assassination and a menace of
a general massacre, with which each of the preceding years
had begun, opened more propitiously, as I have related, with
preparations for the departure of a Diplomatic Mission from
the Tycoon to the Courts of all the Sovereigns in Europe with
whom he had entered into treaties—Great Britain, France, Hol-
land, Russia, Prussia, and Portugal, six in all.
The Mission dispatched, I only waited for my instructions
in answer to the Tycoon's proposal respecting the delay in
opening more ports, to take my own departure on sick leave,
and follow as quickly as possible, in order to overtake the Jap-
anese Envoys before they should leave England. The neces-
sary arrangements in anticipation of their arrival before me
would, I knew, be made, to secure the good employment of
their time in the examination of all the elements of our wealth
and power—our manufactories, arsenals, and mines; but it was
very desirable that they should not suffer any long detention.
Waiting for the mail, and anxiously counting the days and
weeks before it could well be expected, taking into account the
various causes of delay, and chances of a break-down in the
chain of many links which connects Japan with Europe, the
14th of February arrived, and no mail. We had begun to
seek consolation in the reflection that at least our new year
was so far unstained with blood, when, on the evening of that
day, a message was received by the French Minister and my-
self, both temporarily resident at Yokohama, from the Gover-
nor of the place, to inform us that two Governors of Foreign
Affairs had arrived express from Yeddo, intrusted with a com-
munication of importance from the Gorogio. Evil news, we
knew, they must bring; what was it? Monsieur de Belle-
court happened to have been dining with me, so that we were


336
[Chap. XXXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
together at the moment when the message came, and vainly
speculated upon what it might be. Was it to warn us of an-
other gathering of Lenin's, and a plot to attack the settlement?
or had any thing disastrous happened either to our American
colleague in the capital, or any of the members of the Tycoon's
Cabinet?
"We were not far from the truth. About ten o'clock at night
the Governors arrived and made their jjpmmunication, which
was to inform us that a band of eight men had that morning
attacked Ando Tsusimano Kami, the second of the Foreign
Ministers, and the one supposed to be most favorable to the
maintenance of foreign relations. It appears they had taken
their measures pretty much as they did when the Regent was
attacked and killed; only, if possible, looking to the smaller
number engaged, they had shown a more reckless and despe-
rate courage, determining to kill, and willing to be killed, in
the accomplishment of their object. The Minister was in his
norimon, and proceeding to the palace in the midst of an arm-
ed retinue befitting his rank as a Daimio and a member of the
Cabinet. The distance between his official residence and the
palace is very short, and he had but to cross an open space or
glacis to gain the bridge leading over the broad, deep moat
which surrounds the Tycoon's castle. Short, however, as was
the distance, and exposed to view, these desperadoes were
nothing daunted; for, as the train approached the bridge, a
shot was fired, wounding one of the officers by the side of the
norimon. Ando Tsusimano, it appears, instantly divined that
he was to be attacked, and, throwing himself out of the nori-
mon, drew his sword to defend himself. It was well he lost
no time, for already his people were being cut down by the
desperate band of assassins. The next instant he received a
sabre-cut across the face, and a spear-thrust in the side that
had wellnigh proved fatal. As in the previous case of the Re-
gent, the life-and-death struggle was brief as it was bloody.
In a few seconds seven of the assailants lay stretched, wound-
ed or dead, on the ground, and one only (the eighth) escaped.
Among the wounded, however, were some who lived long
enough to have confessions extracted from them as to their
motives and associates. The Ministers told me one of the
wounded had confessed that among the assailants were some
of those who had attacked the British Legation in July, and
that it was partly from the same motives, and partly to avenge
the execution of three of their confederates. Was this the fact?
If so, it would be a sufficient answer to all those who amused
themselves and their readers in the local press of China by pre-


Chap. XXXIX.]
337
INCENDIAEY FIKE.
tending to find a personal motive for the attack on the British
Legation, founded upon some dislike to the individual Minis-
ter. But if the policy it was my duty to carry out was the
cause of hostility, then it is clear that the Japanese Minister
of Foreign Affairs must have been thought to approve, and
was held equally obnoxious and amenable to the wild justice
of these summary judges and executioners.
We were long in a state of painful doubt whether the un-
fortunate Minister had not, as in the Gotairo's case, been slain
on the spot. The declarations of the officials could be taken
as no certain evidence; that, at least, we knew by what had
passed when the Regent's head was on its way to Miaco.
Popular rumor now, as then, rather favored the report of his
death, and neither I nor my colleagues could regard such a
possibility without pain and regret. We could only consider
the attack upon him as another blow aimed at ourselves and a
foreign policy based on the obligation of treaties. And, de-
spite my frequent struggles for the better maintenance of trea-
ty rights, entailing of necessity much official interchange of
conflicting opinions and discussion of rival interests, my rela-
tions personally with Ando Tsusimano Kami had always been
of a friendly and courteous character. Moreover, I had the
same conviction as his assailants, that he was, of all the Minis-
ters we had discussed affairs with, the one best disposed to take
a fair and a reasonable view of the exigencies inseparable from
the treaties entered into, and the most willing, so far as his
position would admit, to place the relations of Japan with For-
eign Powers, if not on a perfectly satisfactory footing, at least
on a friendly basis. The former, perhaps, he knew better than
any one else, was for the present not possible. 'When sor-
rows come, they come not single spies,' Shakespeare has said,
and in no country does this rule seem to hold good more truly
than in Japan. It was midnight before the conference was
over; and scarcely had the Governors taken their departure,
and M. de Bellecourt wished me good-night, when there was
an alarm of fire in the European settlement. It lasted several
hours, and a large block of houses was destroyed. The dan-
ger of its spreading over the whole settlement was at one time
very great, and that which made the event more serious was
the fact of some men, dressed like the Japanese police, having
been discovered by Lieutenant Aplin, at the commencement,
actively engaged in spreading the fire to an adjoining house.
This troubled night over, the arrival of my dispatches again
occupied my thoughts. It was late in February before they
reached me. Captain Craigie, in H. M. S.' Ringdove,' brought
II— P


338
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
the mail, with orders to wait a week to bring me away, if I at
once undertook to be on board within that time. As it was
obviously impossible for me to do this with the necessity of
first returning to Yeddo and there carrying through to some
definite result difficult negotiations with the Government of
the Tycoon, I had no alternative but to let the 'Ringdove'
spread her wings without me, and return to Shanghae in the
twenty-four hours peremptorily prescribed by the Admiral.
The same mail brought orders to the only remaining ship of
war, the ' Charybdis,' to proceed to Vancouver's Island; and
thus again, and at the least auspicious moment, the station was
destined to be left for weeks and even months without a Brit-
ish ship of war. After waiting in vain for some time for Ando
Tsusimano's recovery, and partly in the hope also that, before
I proceeded to Yeddo, a vessel of some kind would have been
dispatched by the Admiral on the return of the 'Ringdove'
without me, in conformity with the instructions from home not
to leave the station without a ship of war, I finally had no al-
ternative but to proceed to Yeddo, and I accordingly rode up
on March 4 with my escort. I had no guard for the Legation
of course, but Captain Faucon, with his usual courtesy, was
good enough, at the suggestion of my excellent colleague the
French Minister, to send a small guard of his men—blue-jack-
ets from H. I. M.'s transport ship the 'Dordogne'—to supply
the place, as far as he might, of a guard of marines from one
of our own ships. Fortunately, it seemed not to have entered
into the plans of those from whom so many murderous attacks
had come, to make any attempt at this time to remove me out
of their path before I might make any farther arrangements
with the Tycoon's Government. The next attack was re-
served for my successor and H. M.'s Charge d'Affaires some
months later, and when he least anticipated any danger. But
considering that, less than a month before, they had fallen,
sword in hand, upon one of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs
for his supposed leaning to foreigners, the position of H. M.'s
Minister at Yeddo could hardly be considered a very secure
one.
Ando Tsusimano, though badly wounded, survived, and my
negotiations with his colleagues of the Council detained me in
Yeddo nearly three weeks. I saw Ando Tsusimano no more,
however, to my regret. It was reported he was not sufficient-
ly recovered to see me when my last interview with the Min-
ister took place; and shortly after my departure, his retire-
ment from the Cabinet was officially announced, on the ground
of promotion to Tarncdidsoomay Kakf—whatever that office


Chap. XXXIX.] EMBARK FOR HOME.
341
left the week before the' Charybdis;' still, there was no sign
of a British pendant. In this dilemma, my Dutch colleague,
Mr. de Wit, and Captain Buijs, commanding H. N. M.'s ship the
'Admiral van Hoopman,' kindly came to my rescue, and were
good enough to offer me and my proteges also a passage to
Nagasaki, where, if no British ship of war had arrived, I might
possibly find a merchant ship proceeding to Shanghae, and so
make my way. We embarked on March 23, but baffling winds,
too strong to allow the auxiliary steam power to make any
headway, kept us eleven days at sea—so long, indeed, as to
make it scarcely possible that I should save the mail leaving
Shanghae on the fth. My ill fortune seemed, however, to have
exhausted itself, and I found a gunboat in harbor on her way
up to Yeddo, detained by the sickness of the commander, who
had an attack of smallpox. As he was in quarters on shore,
I found no difficulty in obtaining the vessel to run across with
me, and in fifty-six hours I was steaming up the Hwangpo.
Even then I had the narrowest escape of missing the mail, and
being detained a whole fortnight, for the regular mail steamer
had passed us at the mouth of the river without being recog-
nized. Fortunately, a second steamer was on the berth, hav-
ing been detained twenty-four hours by the Admiral for his
dispatches, by which I was enabled to proceed on my way.
Amid all the reserve and self-possession, natural and ac-
quired, of the Japanese, the surprise of Moriyama and his friend
at all they saw, mingled with intelligent observation, could not
be concealed on our journey homeward. As we came to each
colony—first Hongkong, then Singapore, Penang, Point de
Galle, Aden, and Malta in succession, I pointed out that these
were so many links in a chain of colonies with which we gir-
dled the globe. When we came to Malta, I took them to see
Sir Gaspard le Marchant, the Governor, and he was good
enough to send an officer over the fortifications with them.
On their return, I asked them what they thought of the place.
They had evidently been impressed with its strength; and on
my casually remarking that it was but a small island, and of no
importance as a colony, Moriyama rejoined, with more empha-
sis than was usual to him,'Ah! a small place to you, but to us'
—leaving his phrase unfinished.
On my arrival in England, the Japanese Envoys were very
eager to give instant effect to the instructions Moriyama had
brought them. It is only necessary here to remark that the
delay of five years in opening the new ports, and the city of
Yeddo, the object of so much effort and anxiety on the part
of the Japanese Government, was conceded conditionally, that


342
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
certain specific grievances should be removed, and greater se-
curity to life, as well as increased facilities for commerce at the
ports actually open, should be effectively enjoyed. There was,
indeed, but one of two alternatives. We must either grant
the delay which the Japanese Government declared to be es-
sential for their own security no less than ours, and thus give
them the means of making head against hostile factions and in-
ternal difficulties, trusting that in the interval they would keep
faith, and employ the time in preparing the way, as they prom-
ised, for the fulfillment of all the stipulations of the Treaty, or
refuse, and be prepared to enforce execution at the period fixed
by Treaty—that is, at the end of the year; and this, whatever
might be the circumstances of the country or our own conven-
ience. By adopting the first, making the concession distinctly
conditional on a tangible and manifest improvement in certain
specifically enumerated directions, one of two things must fol-
low: either we and all foreigners must gain such advantages
in security and facilities for trade as would be far more valu-
able than any extension of points of contact with perpetual
danger, obstructions to trade, and threatening of civil war, or,
failing these, we retained the right of withdrawing the conces-
sion, and insisting upon the due fulfillment of all the stipula-
tions at the time and in the way that might be deemed most
expedient and suitable to ourselves. There seemed, by such
an arrangement, much to gain and little to lose. Of course, it
was quite possible the Japanese Government, under the dicta-
tion of the hostile Daimios, might act in bad faith, and, instead
of clearing obstacles and preparing the way for a better order
of things, turn the time to a totally different account. But as-
suming this, in what worse position should we be, having the
right distinctly reserved, on failure of engagement, to cancel
the concession at any time, and take action precisely as if it
had never been made? Whereas, on the other hand, we should
have the advantage of demonstrating to the world that we had
been willing to trust them, and of satisfying ourselves at the
same time that, having granted largely and without diminution
what they asked as essential to their progress and stability,
nothing more could be hoped from effort in that direction. If
called upon to assert our rights, it would only be when driven
to it by this second and continued failure on their part to keep
faith. We should have nothing to reproach ourselves with,
for we should have done all the Japanese Government had
themselves asked as needful to their stability and success. Un-
der such circumstances, not only the whole country would prob-
ably be with any Government that might take measures for ex-


Chap. XXXIX.]
343
ALTERNATIVES.
acting a better observance of treaties, but the other Treaty
Powers might be disposed, upon this evidence, to join Great
Britain in a more perfect accord than could well be hoped for,
prior to any such effort and experience of its futility.
On the other side, there was reason to believe that, had Her
Majesty's Government resolved to insist upon the opening of
the ports at the time fixed by Treaty, and peremptorily refused
to listen to the representations of the Tycoon's Government,
we might have had to undertake the task of enforcing the con-
dition alone, or nearly so. The United States of America had
already consented to the postponement, when their Resident
Minister negotiated an indemnity of $10,000 for the murder
of Mr. Heufckin, their Secretary of Legation, as a provision for
a widowed mother—at least so I was informed by the Japan-
ese Ministers; and I have no reason to doubt that assurances
to that effect had been given. Russia had no commerce—seeks
none in Japan, keeps no Diplomatic Agent at Yeddo, and prob-
ably has no wish or care for more ports to be opened. Hol-
land, bound by peculiar antecedents and old relations with Ja-
pan, would not have been very likely to take a decidedly hos-
tile course. There remained, then, France, with whom alone
any probably of accord or alliance for such objects could have
been contemplated, and even there the material interests at
stake were small, and, as has been already pointed out, certain
elements of dissidence in ulterior objects and lines of action are
not wanting to weaken any united action, with whatever good
faith both parties may enter upon such a course. Taking all
these considerations into account, there could be little question
that the best and wisest course was to give the Government
of the Tycoon the benefit of any doubt as to their ability and
willingness to repress all hostile action and keep better faith,
before proceeding to extremities involving expense or chances
of war. It may, indeed, be alleged that the Treaty Powers had
only to be resolute, and insist upon the opening of the ports to
succeed, and strike discouragement into the hearts of all now
raising pretexts for delay and non-fulfillment. But nothing is
easier than to make such assertions, and one condition of such
a course could not be overlooked, namely, that it neither ad-
mitted of retreat nor delay. Either the ports must have been
opened in that case at the day fixed, whatever the risk, real or
supposed, to the existing order of things in Japan, or action
prompt and decisive must have been taken to enforce execu-
tion. No one could be certain, no Foreign Representative as-
suredly, that a determined front (even in the supposition of a
common accord, to all appearance unattainable) would or could


344
[Chap. XXXIX.
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN.
secure the desired end without internal convulsion and a re-
sort to menace or coercion from without. And was the Gov-
ernment or Foreign Power willing to accept the alternative ?*
The wisest course was no doubt taken by the Foreign Pow-
ers, with more or less of concert and identity of action. If, in
point of time, the United States had taken precedence, the cir-
cumstances were such as, no doubt, favored a double arrange-
ment at one and the same time, very much in accordance with
the general course of American policy in the far East. The
Resident Minister had to obtain indemnity for his murdered
Secretary, after a year had passed over, without any action
taken; and the Japanese Government had a concession on their
side to ask. By being the first to concede the postponement,
two objects would be gained. The Americans would act in-
dependent of other Treaty Powers in a sense favorable to the
wishes and prejudices of the Japanese Government; and the
more hesitation other Powers might show in following a simi-
lar course, the more would the Japanese be likely to appreciate
the initiative in the American Government. And, on the oth-
er hand, if ultimately the remaining Powers, any or all of them,
should refuse, the 'most favored nation clause' secured the
United States from any possible.prejudice, wliU^heir previ-
ous action would save them by anticipation fronitne cost and
damage of participation in any coercive measures.
If I were asked whether I felt sanguine that the concession
ultimately made by Her Majesty's Government and other
Treaty Powers would ever realize the hopes professedly enter-
tained by the Japanese Ministers, or secure to foreigners the
advantages promised, I should be very much disposed to an-
swer in a trans-Atlantic fashion by another question: Who is
ever sanguine of results contingent on Asiatic good faith? Or
who that has ever passed years in constant intercourse with
Asiatics, rulers or subjects, feels any implicit trust either in the
most solemn engagements they may enter into, or the reliabil-
ity of their judgment, even when most honest, as to the prob-
able result of political measures and the action of chiefs and
armed retainers in a given order of circumstances?
* While this sheet is going through the press, a China paper has reached
me containing an oracular leader on Japanese affairs, by a writer who it is
to be presumed has never seen Japan, in which we are confidently told,' It
was a mistaken policy to assent to a postponement of the opening of Miaco
(Osaco it should be—but that is a trifle) to foreign commerce. The West-
ern Powers have been fairly outmanoeuvred by the Japanese diplomatists.'
What a pity it is that none of these very clever and able commentators on
public affairs can ever have an opportunity of trying their hand in settling
the destinies of nations, always provided that it could be at their own risk
and peril, and not at the expense of others.


Chap. XXXIX.] RETROGRADE SPIRIT.
345
So the Mission ended its course in Europe, visiting all the
Courts of the Sovereigns with whom they had treaties, failing
in all subordinate objects, but succeeding in the one and great
end of their diplomacy—a conceded delay in opening the Ports;
for notwithstanding this, which was conditional in our case,
and, I believe, that of France, was indefinite as to limit of time
in the case of Holland, etc., yet such variations in the terms in
nothing affected the identity of result. Although this was a
main object of the Mission to Europe, the Envoys had other
instructions and hopes as to objects which European Govern-'i
ments would consider either secondary or utterly frivolous.
And I confess, when I saw what these were, and how eagerly
and pertinaciously they sought to engage Her Majesty's Sec-
retary of State for Foreign Affairs in their consideration, after
the primary end was gained, I could not help feeling how
doubtful must be the result of any concession Foreign Powers
might make. The list of their grievances and the restrictions
they wanted to be imposed on foreigners were so thoroughly
expressive of the very spirit of reaction and a retrograde poli-
cy of isolation, that, although they did not actually propose
among the number the restriction of foreign trade to Nagasaki
with an enlarged Decima (as it had been reported they con-
templated), it was difficult to believe that such a desire did
not lie at the bottom of their hearts. Nothing probably but a
conviction of the utter hopelessness of such a proposition had
prevented the Government of the Tycoon from including this
too among the exigencies of their political position! There
were nine of these demands, of which it may be truly said that,
with the exception of the Currency, which stands first, and an-
other of mere custom-house detail, there is not one that a rea-
sonable government desiring to carry out the-stipulations of
existing treaties in good faith could well have proposed. Most
of them had been frequently discussed in Yeddo between the
Ministers of Foreign Affairs and myself, as with the other For-
eign Representatives, and therefore they were perfectly aware,
in giving instructions to press them on the Governments in
Europe, that they were going counter to the opinion of the
Ministers accredited to the Tycoon from the different Courts.
The following is the list:
1. Currency.—Proposed alterations—on which there is much yet to be
said.
2. Prohibition of the export of manufactured copper.—Copper in bar hav-
ing virtually been prohibited by the Japanese Government refusing to sell to
foreigners, or to permit their subjects to do so.
3. Prohibition to Japanese to leave Japan by foreign vessels.—This at the
very time that they were sending a numerous mission to Europe, and fit-
P 2


346
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. True, XXXIX
ting out European-built vessels to trade with China and other foreign coun-
tries.
4. Prohibition to men-of-war to practice ball-firing in harbor.—They had
already been told of the willingness of the Representatives to enter into any
arrangements analogous to those prevailing in like circumstances in Europe,
but they wished to insist the ships should always go out to sea, out of gunshot of the coast, on a plea of danger to their subjects, though no case of in-
jury had ever occurred.
5. Foreign cavalry escort not to be kept in Japan.—In the face of their
own notorious inability to protect the life of a Foreign Minister in their
streets or high roads.
6. No exemption from duty of the private effects of foreign officials resi-
dent in Japan.—Some question of abuse had arisen as regarded stores im-
ported under this head, but really for sale; and as to the privileges of mer-
chant-consuls, in which, no doubt, there might be something requiring alter-
"ation.
7. Prohibition to bury the dead any where but at the consular ports.—A
question had arisen on the death of an officer on board one of Her Majesty's
ships in the inland sea, who was buried in an uninhabited spot. They had
even induced Admiral Hope, when at Yeddo, to consent to its disinterment
and removal to Nagasaki; and not on any religious, but a purely political
ground—the absence of any right to land elsewhere than the open ports.
8. Claim to exercise the right of examining Japanese servants before pass-
ing into foreign employment.—In other words, the right to prevent any Jap-
anese serving foreigners without a permissive license, in the teeth of an ex-
press stipulation to the contrary in all the treaties. This violation of a very
important treaty-right has always been persevered in under plea of a protect-
ive measure, but, there is no doubt, with a view to perfect a system of control
and surveillance utterly incompatible with any sense of liberty or freedom of
action. One consequence is, that none but the lowest class of coolies can be
obtained for the household work of foreigners, and with no better guarantee,
as experience has proved, for their honesty, soberness, or absence of treach-
erous intent, than if they were picked up promiscuously by foreigners them-
selves in the highways.
9. Limitation of the foreign settlements or quarters at all the consular
ports.—In a word, isolation and means of effective surveillance, as effective
as ever established at Decima. This is what they have persistently aimed
at from the first hour, and they have as invariably met with a determined
opposition on my own part, and that of some, if not all, of the other Repre-
sentatives at Yeddo.
This is not an encouraging list to contemplate. There is too
clearly one unvarying tendency toward the isolation of the for-
eigner, and the seclusion of the nation from all intercourse save
with the salaried officials of the Government, and a few of the
lowest classes. There is but one stereotyped idea in their brains
as to foreigners. We are a cross between barbarians and wild
beasts, ferocious and dangerous if let loose, only safe and tract-
able when securely caged, watched, and in the hands of re-
sponsible keepers. Their one idea of a port for foreign trade,
if such must be, and a foreign settlement, is Decima; and so
far as in them lies, they strive that no other shall exist. They
have labored incessantly and indefatigably to convert every


348
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
resolution they came to on this occasion had been firmly ad, hered to, when four years later Mr. Harris was negotiating a
new treaty.
The question was no other than this, upon what principle
of exchange should American coins be received in payment for
goods and supplies? As regarded their relative value with
Japanese coins, and the condition of their currency at that
particular period, one fact appears to have been known to both
parties, namely, that silver coins were overvalued in relation
both to the gold and copper money. When an endeavor was
made, therefore, by the Representative of the United States
to obtain a recognition of the Mexican dollar as of equal nomi-
nal value with the silver coin of Japan, the Japanese Commis-
sioners insisted that the Foreign coin was but bullion to them,
while the American Finance Commissioners, nominated by Com-
modore Perry from among his pursers to discuss the question,
contended the effect of this would be to put their silver dollar,
so far as payments in Japan were concerned, on a level with
the silver itziboo, which weighed only one third as much. But
if the relative value of their silver and gold coins was (as we
know it to have been) in that proportion, the Japanese were
perfectly justified in objecting to the dollar being circulated
with equivalent weights of itziboos. No inquiry appears to
have been made regarding the relation which the silver coins
of Japan bore to their gold and copper, yet this was essential
to any equitable arrangement, and lay at the root of the whole
matter in question.
By careful assay at the British Mint, it was subsequently
found that silver coins in the currency of Japan bore the rela-
tion of hardly five to one with the gold, and were overvalued,
therefore, to the extent of two thirds above the average pro-
portion (viz., fifteen and a half to one), which silver bullion
bears to gold in the general market of the world.
So, again, in reference to the copper, the silver itziboo, not
quite one third the weight of a dollar, was worth in Japan
1500 good copper cash, whereas in China the Mexican dollar,
containing three times as much silver, had long ceased to be worth more than 1200, and often was rated at less.
Here, then, clearly it is established that the silver money of
Japan consisted, as the Government alleged, of token coins,
greatly overrated in reference to their contents of precious
metal, and representing in exchanges a wholly disproportion-
ate value in the two extremes of gold and copper coins. In
round numbers, the silver coin was overrated in the proportion
of two thirds both as regarded the gold and copper currency.


Chap. XXXIX.]
349
CURRENCY.
Probably what greatly tended to obscure this view and con-
fuse the question with the American Commissioners was some
fallacy confounding value and prices, a very common source
of perplexity in discussions on currency. There is no possi-
bility of denying the greatly overrated value of the silver itzi-
boo in reference to both gold and copper coin. But there is
still this other perplexing fact, no doubt present to the minds
of the Americans, as it has been forced upon the attention of
all the Diplomatic Agents since resident at Yeddo under later
treaties, that although the dollar's weight in itziboos would
purchase, or be exchangeable for, three times the qauntity of
copper cash, or of gold, that it could procure in China, such
increased amount of cash or gold would not purchase more
goods or unskilled labor in the markets. of Japan than a third
of the number of cash or quantity of gold would command in
China. How was this to be accounted for? On this aspect
it seemed no less clear that the silver token or coin did not
represent more value than properly belonged to it in reference
to its purchase power in the markets of labor and common ar-
ticles of consumption, the best of all tests of value, if not the
most unvarying throughout the world. Thus a coolie for com-
mon labor could be hired by the day in China for 150 to 200
cash, say from -J-th to -|-th of a dollar. The same labor could
only be obtained in Japan for exactly three times the amount
of cash, for 450 cash to 600, say ^d of an itziboo, or from $th to
^th of a dollar. Or, in other words, in each country, taking
the price of the lowest labor, one dollar in China, or 1200 cash,
would buy the services of from six to eight men per diem, and
in Japan the same labor could be only got for some 4800 cash,
or for three itziboos, equal in weight to one dollar. So of
things in general; and accordingly, when the Japanese carried
their point with Commodore Perry, and had it not only ruled
that the rate of exchange, but the prices of every supply, should
be fixed by themselves, they made the fleet of the negotiator
pay $28 a ton for native coal, though the range of prices at
Nagasaki has been for several years since the last treaties from
$6 to $8 per ton, and we may be sure they are not sold at a
loss.
There is something in this that may well have perplexed the
American negotiators, as it has proved a cause of embarrass-
ment to all who have had to enter on this discussion. One
thing alone seems perfectly clear. If the silver itziboo, under
such circumstances, without other and corresponding changes,
is to be taken in exchange for dollars as a token worth two
thirds more than the weight, or intrinsic value of the precious


350
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX, metal it contains, Japan will be by far the dearest country in
the world, so exceptionally dear as to put all foreign merchants
out of its markets, unless they can barter their goods for equiv-
alent values in Japanese produce. At least this would seem
to be the natural and legitimate result, unless it can be safely
concluded that the Japanese rulers, with their peculiar and
only imperfectly comprehended system of Government, and
mysterious power over the transactions of every subject in the
realm, may have hitherto brought this to bear in some manner
unknown to us, to compensate for what they regarded as a
robbery, and to counteract the forced circulation of the dollar
against the itziboo, weight for weight, by affixing to all labor
and goods supplied to foreigners a purely factitious price. I
believe they possess such a power. I know that they have
cognizance of every merchant who gains access to a foreigner;
that they examine, tax, and, I believe, fix the prices of every
article sold, the officials reserving such portion as may seem to
them good or fitting in view of the price obtained. Perhaps,
even in such a view, the best remedy would be found in aban-
doning on our side any thing false or not justly tenable in the
monetary clause of existing treaties—article X. in our own.
One error begets another—one false step is the parent of
many. If Foreign Powers in the Treaties of 1858 have been
mistaken in imposing upon the Japanese an engagement for
the exchange and circulation of foreign coins which is anoma-
lous as regards international principles of intercourse between
European Powers, and in its essence erroneous and vicious,
the sooner it is departed from the better, even at some risk of
monetary derangement and great embarrassment to commerce
in those regions. As it now exists it can not continue; nor,
indeed, is it desirable, in view of our own interests, that it
should; for I believe the two greatest and most generally per-
vading causes of hostility are to be traced to the feudal element,
and the monetary perturbation reacting especially upon the
military retainers and official classes, and giving them an addi-
tional and special motive of hostility. They believe the whole
nation has suffered wrong and injury by Mr. Harris's original
clause in the American Treaty, stipulating that American coin
(and therefore, in the sequel, all foreign coins, more especially
the Mexican dollar) should pass current for the corresponding
weight in Japanese coin of the same description.
I am not aware what motives may have led Mr. Harris to
propose, and it is still less easy to conceive what possible in-
ducement the Japanese could have had for yielding consent to
a proposition which they had four years before resolutely and


Chap. XXXIX.] JAPANESE EXPEDIENTS.
351
consistently refused to accede to when proposed by Commo-
dore Perry. No inquiry appears to have been made as to the
effects of the well-known relation which the silver coins of Ja-
pan bore to their gold and copper coins on nominal prices.
The neglect to ascertain this point, and to provide for it, has
no doubt been productive of much evil. It has tended more
than any one circumstance since foreign relations began to vi-
tiate the position of foreigners, and hold them up to popular
odium as despoilers and impoverishers of the land—a charac-
ter only too well justified in appearance by the rise of prices
and depreciated value of their silver. Necessary consequences,
in some degree, of a sudden development of trade in a country
long isolated, and a currency only adjusted, like their supplies,
to their own wants; but undoubtedly the pressure and pertur-
bation must have been greatly increased by this radical vice
in the first arrangements.
Whether the Japanese negotiators were clear-sighted enough
or sufficiently well-informed to duly estimate and foresee the
exact influence and degree of perturbation such an engage-
ment as the clause in question involved, may be questioned.
Seeing, however, that four years before the whole subject had
been maturely considered and discussed, and that the Japanese
Commissioners had said that' the Mexican dollar was but bul-
lion to them,' and thus 'hit with precision the point at issue,'
as has been well observed by an impartial authority in financial
matters in this country, I can not but conclude that they did
not enter into the engagement blindfolded, or fall into a trap,
as by some has been supposed. I am still farther confirmed
in this conclusion by the fact that when the first correspond-
ence on this subject took place after the opening of the ports
between the Japanese Government and the Foreign Repre-
sentatives, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs wrote to me in the
following terms: 'As we mentioned in our former letter, it is
merely stipulated in the Treaty that coins of the same weight
and the same sort shall be exchanged, and not that no new
coins should be issued without a previous notification; there-
fore we supposed that no objection would be raised to our is-
suing a new coin. And far that very reason we did not allude
to it when the Treaty was concluded?
It must be abundantly evident, therefore, that, whatever be
the true history of the negotiation which took place with Mr.
Harris, or the motives by which the American negotiator was
induced to impose so unprecedented or anomalous an engage-
ment, and the Japanese to accede to it, the latter signed under
a mental reservation to alter their silver currency in the way


352
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX
they subsequently attempted by reducing it as much as they
deemed it overrated—that is, two thirds, issuing a coinage of
Ivalf itziboos, two of which should contain the same weight of
silver as three of the then current itziboos. That Mr. Harris
had not contemplated this as one of the contracting parties is
to be inferred by his joining the other Foreign Representatives
in resisting the change, at all events until farther discussion
and a reference to our respective Governments should give
time to clear the question of all doubt and obscurity.
In point of fact, although there was a certain craftiness in
the silent mode in which they prepared a totally new coinage
on the opening of the ports, acting, as they thought, within
the letter of the Treaty, and in the exercise of their sovereign
right to regulate their own currency as they themselves might
deem best, there was great clumsiness also; for, while they
had this clear and indefeasible ground to stand upon, they vi-
tiated all right in the matter by making a coin too palpably
designed only for foreign trade and dealings with foreigners,
while they left the coin current when the treaties were signed
still in circulation as silver tokens for the natives. With their
unlimited power in the country, it was quite clear they could
thus maintain a special and restrictive currency for foreign
trade only, and compel the Japanese dealers to bring back to
the Mint the new and weighty silver coins to exchange for the
silver tokens.
This involved a clear infraction of Treaty, since coins issued
for a restrictive purpose could not properly be classed with
Japanese coins; British and all other merchants would have
had the right to avail themselves of the coins in general use.
This was the ground taken by H. M.'s Representative and his
colleagues in remonstrating against the proceeding, and the
matter has been in abeyance ever since.
At the end of the first year, during which, according to Trea-
ty, they were bound to exchange dollars for itziboos, weight
for weight, in order, as the Article expressly states, that the
Japanese might become familiarized with the value of foreign
coins, it became necessary to consider whether any, and what
steps could be taken by the Foreign Representatives to secure
the ends apparently contemplated by the contracting parties
to the Treaties, in regard to the free exchange at par of for-
eign coins with those of Japan. The Treaties stipulate that
'all foreign coin shall be current in Japan, and shall pass for
its corresponding weight in Japanese coin of the same descrip-
tion;' and farther, that 'British (foreign) and Japanese sub-
jects may freely use foreign or Japanese coin in making pay-
ments to each other.'


Chap. XXXIX.] PUBLIC DISCUSSION.
353
The equity of this singular engagement the Representatives
of Foreign Powers were not called upon to discuss; that was
a question for their respective governments. But the practi-
cability of interposing in any way calculated to insure its exe-
cution according to the terms of the Treaty was necessarily a
subject for their consideration.
As H. M.'s Consul subsequently stated to a public meeting
of the merchants at Yokohama,* while there was 'no dispute
about the obligation of this government (the Japanese) to do
all that is in its power to give effect to this clause, there is a
question, and a difficult one, as to how far it is in the power of
this or any other government to force a foreign coinage into
general circulation, and at a fixed rate or valuation. The Jap-
anese Government says it can not; and even in the case of a
single coin, the dollar, that it has already, as a government,
done all it can do, and failed; that it has issued an edict
throughout the empire making all foreign coins legal tenders,
weight for weight; that it has even attempted, with the con-
currence of the Foreign Representatives, to secure the circula-
tion of the dollar (at something less than weight for weight,
in view of the facility of exchange), and stamped a certain
number with a government stamp of three itziboos, but still
they only find circulation at the ports, and that varying at a
depreciated rate of two, or two and a half itziboos, while in the
interior there is reason to believe they have no currency.
• Is there any remedy for this?
'That is the question for consideration. Because it is to be
remembered that no treaty can be invoked to effect an impos-
sibility. Many may believe that the Japanese Government
are not acting with good faith in the matter, but are them-
selves the chief impediment to the free circulation of the dollar
at its full value, and that in any case they have the power, if
they had the will, to secure their currency both at the open
ports and elsewhere. But it must be remembered, on the oth-
er hand, that the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of forcing
a foreign coinage on a people is of universal experience, how-
ever despotic or absolute the government. In China, where
they have no courage to displace, where a coinage of any kind
is a desideratum, and where dollars of Spain and of American
States, all of the same (or nearly the same) intrinsic value,
have for the last twenty years been in circulation at five ports
on the coast, with the government of the country passive in
the matter, having no obvious interest one way or the other,
this free circulation throughout the country is as far as ever
* See Minutes of a Public Meeting, Appendix B.


354
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
from being attained. Even in the case of those districts where
our large dealings in tea and silk have, so to say, forced for-
eign species into circulation, the result was not the general cir-
culation of all dollars bearing a pretty equal value, but an un-
meaning preference for the only one of those that was obso-
lete and could not be reproduced, the Carolus dollar, to which
obsolete coin an entirely fictitious value was attached by the
Chinese, continually increasing until they were at last used up,
and not to be had at all, to the depreciation of all other dollars
some thirty or forty per cent. The circulation of a Western
coinage in an Eastern country must then be admitted to pre-
sent great difficulties, and some that may be quite insurmount-
able, even where there is no active influence of a government
to prevent its currency, or no want of good faith to help. On
the other hand, although it is to some extent an evil to the for-
eign merchant not to be able to circulate the coinage of his own
country and buy produce with it, weight for weight against
native coins, the committee have rightly shown it is not so
great an evil as has been often represented; nor is it altogeth-
er unmixed with good. If it tends to restrict the export trade
of Japanese produce, it certainly no less serves to increase or
develop a trade in imports. And, again, whether the dollar be
nominally rated by the Japanese at two and a half itziboos or
at two, it does not follow that more dollars must be paid for a
chest of tea or a bale of silk than if they were rated at three
or more, because it is to be assumed that the foreign merchant
will only give as many dollars as he calculates it is worth, to
leave him a fair profit; and if they were to circulate at their
weight value of 311 or 312 per $100, competition would still
keep up the price of Japanese produce to the same margin of
profit.
'Lastly, no large trade could be conducted by means of this
coinage only, any more than it could by shillings and six-
pences. Such, at least, are some of the considerations which
it appears desirable should be carefully weighed, and kept in
view, before any proposals are made, by means of more or less
determined effort and action upon the Japanese Government,
to alter what actually exists, and which, perhaps, may only be
altered by risking some greater or unforeseen derangement in
monetary and commercial relations. These suggestions are
thrown out in view also of a considerable diversity of opinion
among the community here, which is at all times an additional
reason for caution, and for mature deliberation in any steps
recommended. It may be true that the government does in
effect prohibit the circulation of the dollar in the interior, and


Chap. XXXIX.] EFFECTS OF A FORCED CURRENCY. 355
will only give two and a half itziboos in exchange when Jap-
anese take their dollar to the mints (or that there are extor-
tions and bribes which bring it down to that), but we shall
never be in a positi n to prove it; and Her Majesty's Envoy,
I know, believes it a very profitless, and not a very dignified
or politic course, to persist in assertions reflecting on the char-
acter of the government which he can not support by proof,
and they meet by a flat denial.
'It seems probable that they have the means of purchasing
the produce, or otherwise working the silver mines in Japan,
so as to obtain the bullion at a less rate than two and a half
itziboos for a dollar weight. Of course, by so much less as
they can thus obtain it, the exchange of dollars is a dead loss
of revenue. If this be the fact, it is vain to hope the Japanese
Government will frankly and honestly subject themselves to.
this loss, whatever treaty stipulations may require to the con-
trary.'
This public statement was made under my instructions some
months after the close of the first year, when it was clearly as-
certained that the average exchange of dollars against itziboos
at the different ports was never more than some two itziboos
and a third, instead of a fraction over three, which would have
been the rate if they had been exchanged according to the
terms of the Treaties, weight for weight.
The Foreign Representatives had therefore, as the Consul
reported, to consider how far it was in the power of the Jap-
anese or any other government to force a foreign coinage into
general circulation, and at a fixed rate or valuation. The Jap-
anese Government affirmed that they had done their utmost
and failed; and to invoke the terms of a treaty to effect an im-
possibility was obviously absurd, as well as unjustifiable and
mischievous.
Again, there was a want of unanimity among the leading
foreign merchants themselves as to the wisdom or expediency
of any attempt to intervene in a forcible manner to regulate
the exchange beyond what had been done in the first instance
by edicts declaring the equivalent value of coins, and stamp-
ing the Mexican dollars with a mint mark of three itziboos.
Under these circumstances, it was resolved by my colleagues
and myself to take no farther action until something could be
definitely determined by our respective governments as to the
But another difficulty arose as regarded the Legations in
Yeddo, where no dollars would pass current at any rate. The
members of the several establishments, with a fixed stipend


Chap. XXXIX.] CURRENCY ATTACKS.
351
to trade—had fixed salaries, and must live upon them—and I
carefully estimated for each Consulate, as for the Legation, the
average disbursements for salaries, wages, and contingencies,
paid out of the Legation and Consular chests on public account.
In so far as wages, rent, and other contingencies were con-
cerned, the public, of course, benefited equally by the arrange-
ment.
I have been induced to enter more fully into the details than
I should have otherwise deemed necessary for the general read-
er, because I find occasion has been taken, since my departure
from Japan, to make them the subject of a series of scurrilous
attacks in the local papers. It was impossible to show that
the merchants were damaged or made poorer because the Le-
gations and Consulates were enabled to obtain itziboos direct
from the mint for their daily expenses at a somewhat more fa-
vorable rate than traders could effect an exchange in the mar-
ket for their household expenses; and, as regarded trade, it is
admitted the operations were untouched. Even the writers
seem to have felt ashamed to appear to contest an advantage
which, whatever it might be, cost them nothing as merchants,
and consequently were driven to the necessity of considering
the difference of exchange as a premium paid by the Japanese
Government to buy over the Foreign Representatives, and in-
duce them to connive at an infraction of the Treaty, to the
prejudice of trade," which they could and would otherwise have
prevented!
The plain answer to all this vituperation lies in the fact that
none of the merchants themselves could suggest any means by
which Japanese could be forced to take foreign coins at a for-
eigner's valuation, or any fixed rate. Such a thing had never
been done or attempted, so far as I know, in any country in
the world, before Mr. Harris introduced the singular clause in
the American Treaty. Merchants were not entitled by Treaty
to have their dollars exchanged at the mint—in any quantity,
large or small—after the expiration of the first year. What
they were entitled to (according to the exact terms of the
Treaty), namely, that their coins should pass. current, weight
for weight, with Japanese coins of the same metal, was de-
clared by the Japanese Government to be out of their power
to secure. I believe that, great as their power is over the lives
and property of their subjects, this might well be impossible.
It was clearly out of my power, or that of my colleagues, in
the face of such a declaration, and equally beyond our province,
to adopt any measures of coercion. What had the merchants
to complain of, then, or what could a bribe avail one way or


358 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
the other, to alter the conditions of the currency? But the
calumnious object of such detractions of a Minister, three years
of whose life was passed under a continual menace of assassin-
ation in defending their interests, is manifested by their care-
fully keeping out of view the fact that all my colleagues, not
Her Majesty's Minister alone, entered into the provisional ar-
rangements objected to, and were consequently to be held
equally responsible and open to any charge of venal motives.
If it be meant by the suppression of all reference to these that
they had no voice in the matter, and were entirely led or over-
ruled by me, I am constrained to repudiate a compliment to
my influence at the expense of the integrity and independence
of the Representatives of every other Treaty Power in Yeddo;
though, apart from this, I should accept without hesitation the
whole responsibility of this, or any other act of my adminis-
tration, however endorsed by the common consent of my col-
leagues. I have not usually shrunk from responsibility when
it properly devolved upon me, and I feel less inclined than
ever to do so in this instance. As for the grasping after pecun-
iary advantages implied in all these imputations, the calumny
is pointless against a public servant who, after more than twen-
ty years of arduous service, chiefly in the East, returns poorer
than when he first entered.
But, to resume the consideration of the general question of
the currency, thus temporarily in abeyance: it was evident
that it could not so remain indefinitely, or for an unlimited
time, and it was natural that the Japanese Government should
seek a final solution in negotiations with the respective Treaty
Powers in Europe on the occasion of sending a mission to
them. Accordingly, it was brought prominently forward by
the Envoys, and they received an assurance that, although no
immediate decision could be taken in a matter of such import-
ance, it should receive the careful consideration it demanded;
and upon reference to the department to which questions of
finance and currency more specially appertained, instructions
should be sent to Her Majesty's Representative at Yeddo;
and the whole subject has since then been most carefully con-
sidered and examined in all its bearings by those most compe-
tent to give information, and assist in arriving at a right con-
clusion.
A financier in Europe and a diplomatic agent in Japan would
naturally approach the subject from two very opposite points;
but, if both were simply desirous of arriving at the truth, they
could hardly fail in the end to come to very similar conclu-
sions. The financier would naturally take his starting-point


300 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
wages had no less manifestly a political bearing, which may,
or rather which must, seriously affect our future relations with
the Japanese. The Daimios have in their service large bodies
of retainers, who, in addition to their food and clothing, receive
a very small allowance paid in itziboos. This, barely sufficient
before to enable them to dress themselves and support their
families, by the depreciation of the currency became altogether
inadequate. The discontent and irritation caused in the mind
of this class is intense, as we have had evidence written in
blood. The Daimios, whose pecuniary interests have probably
been little benefited by foreign trade, owing to the profits of
the sale of all produce being intercepted by the Tycoon's offi-
cials at the consular ports, and who are alarmed and exasper-
ated by the danger these foreign relations bring to their feudal
privileges and rights, and the institutions of the country gen-
erally, have obviously no motive, if they had the means, of al-
laying this discontent by increasing the money-wages of their
retainers. On the contrary, there is very little doubt they
have profited by the circumstances to increase their followers
more against foreigners. Under these circumstances, the Jap-
anese Government appear impressed with the necessity of tak-
ing measures for the purpose of allaying this general discon-
tent. This is their avowed object in the change which they
now propose in their currency, and such a change, if suggested
with that motive and for that object, is as much in our interest
as theirs. They propose to withdraw the present silver coin-
age, and substitute for it pieces to be denominated half itziboos,
two to the dollar in weight. It is contended financially that
the natural effect of this arrangement would be that two half
itziboos would be equal in weight to three itziboos of the pres-
ent coinage, and the two coins would represent the itziboo in
the denomination of account. The purchasing power of the
itziboo would thus be raised to an equality with that of the
dollar, unless other causes operated to prevent the recognition
of the dollar as a tender of payment on an equality, weight for
weight, with Japanese coins. If 1500 iron cash continued to
represent the nominal value of one itziboo, the purchasing pow-
er of the cash would be raised equally with the value of the
itziboo. Consequently, the nominal value of the dollar ex-
pressed in the term ' cash' would be reduced two thirds; but
its real value in relation to cash would remain unchanged, as
the purchasing power of 1500 cash would be the same as that
now possessed by 4500 cash, representing the value of three
itziboos.
If this be correct, the objection hitherto offered, that the dol-


Chap. XXXIX.] JAPANESE PROPOSITIONS.
361
lar would be exchangeable for no more than one third of the
quantity of cash for which it is now exchanged, and that its
purchasing power would thus be reduced by the change to the
extent of sixty or seventy per cent., falls to the ground. It
would, in that case, appear to be founded on a confusion be-
tween the real value of coins derived from intrinsic contents
of precious metal, and the nominal value of token coins repre-
senting parts of the standard money.
It is not, however, perfectly clear to me that the purchasing
power of the dollar will suffer no diminution. I confess to a
belief that it will suffer, though to what extent it may be diffi-
cult to say, from the power the Japanese Government possess
to control and modify the course of exchange. But, whether
the reasoning on this point be correct or not, it does not seem
that there is any ground on which Her Majesty's Government
can claim a right to object to the present proposition of the
Japanese Government on the plea of its involving an infraction
of Article X. in the Treaty. The Tycoon must be held at lib-
erty to regulate the designation and weight of the coins cur-
rent in his dominions as he pleases. All that can fairly be con-
tended for is, that the manner in which it is brought forward,
and the serious considerations affecting our international ar-
rangements with Japan which the currency question has raised,
would point to the policy of co-operation with the Government
of the Tycoon in their attempt to remedy the evils which orig-
inated in foreign interference, while the clause admitted into
the Treaty gives us a claim to be heard.
Such a settlement of the currency question in Japan should
be undertaken in the view only of what is just to the Japan-
ese; and if with a frank acknowledgment of error in the past,
it would not, I venture to believe, from what I know of Japan-
ese Ministers, detract from our merit in their eyes. I quite
agree with the financial authorities that the real claims of for-
eign merchants in Japan, and their commercial interests, can
not be affected, certainly neither wrongfully nor injuriously, by
a proper regulation of the currency of a country with which
they trade. If foreign money is wanted for the settlement of
their transactions, it will find its way; but the attempt to
force foreign coin upon the Japanese by compact in a treaty
can hardly be regarded otherwise than as showing a disregard
of the laws of political economy, no less than of the principles
which govern international relations between civilized nations.
Japan is rich in minerals, and to require them to take silver,
of which they have already a superabundance, in exchange for
other produce, such as tea and silk, which our merchants ro-
ll.—Q


302 THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
quire, can not be regarded otherwise than as a one-sided oper-
ation, which violates the principles of commerce. The proper
use of the precious metals in international transactions, it may
safely be affirmed as beyond dispute, is to adjust the balance
of exchanges. This fundamental principle, it may not less
safely be asserted, can never be disregarded without inconven-
ience; while in the case of Japan, it is to be feared the attempt
to contravene it could only lead in the end to very serious re-
sults, the reverse of those which were anticipated from the
Treaty. It seems an unavoidable conclusion that the dollars
sent to Japan will remain in that circumscribed territory, as
there is no vent for them. The Japanese will not require them
for the purchase of commodities from other nations. The in-
evitable consequence, therefore, must be a glut of silver in Ja-
pan, and a rise in prices until they reach a point at which it will
be no longer profitable for the British merchant or any other
foreigner to transmit dollars for the purchase of Japanese pro-
duce, and thus all trade would be brought to an end quite as
certainly as it could be under any equitable adjustment of their
currency, were even the worst fears of those who would dep-
recate such a course realized to the fullest extent. But there
would be this difference, that in the latter case we should our-
selves be the authors of the mischief, by persisting in a wrong
course—one equally open to condemnation on the best ascer-
tained principles of political economy and international law—
while in the former, Foreign Powers would have nothing to
reproach themselves with, and could no more be held responsi-
ble for the result than for the changes of the seasons, or the
operation of any other of the immutable laws by which the re-
lations of supply and demand are regulated all over the world,
whatever may be the efforts of man to change their course.
This is the more worthy of attention, perhaps, as opening a
view of the subject in which the immediate interests of our
merchants connected with the country may be opposed to the
permanent objects of commerce; and Treaties of amity and
commerce, if they have not nobler ends, should at least have
wider aims than the temporary enrichment of a few individuals,
even if these may have an interest in promoting the introduc-
tion of British manufactures into a new market. Such were
the conclusions which seemed naturally to follow a searching
investigation into all the various phases of this long-debated
question of the Japanese currency. And as material interests
must be affected by any action that may ultimately be taken
by the Japanese Government, not only the investments and
trade of the merchant's actually in the country at the time, but


THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX
very quickly and painfully undeceived. The anniversary, ac-
cording to the Japanese calendar, of the last attack on the Le-
gation had come round. One of the Governors of Foreign Af-
fairs paid him a visit of congratulation in the afternoon, and all
had gone to rest in the building save the two or three solitary
sentries (blue-jackets, and marines of H. M. S. 'Reynard') post-
ed at intervals round the house, when suddenly Lieut. Col.
Neale, who was still awake, heard the sentry outside his door
challenge. Although the parole was correctly given, some-
thing suspicious, or unsatisfactory apparently, made the sentry
advance toward the party approaching, when suddenly a cry
of mortal anguish broke the stillness of the night, and the sound
of blows reached him as he lay. To leap out of bed and make
his way across his own apartments to the guard-room was not
the work of many moments. All were suddenly roused and
sprang to their arms, to feel how desperate was their position
if any attacking force had to be resisted. At the same mo-
ment the sentry staggered among them, covered with wounds
and frightfully gashed. To gather together in one place, the
largest room in the house, and stand prepared to resist from
whatever quarter assailants might come, was indeed all that
could be done, in their ignorance as to the nature or extent of
the danger, the numbers to be met, or the direction from
whence attack might be expected. After a pause, a corporal
of marines was missed, who it appeared had been going his
rounds when the alarm was first given, and Lieut. Aplin, with
some of his men, went in search of him. He was found lying
dead across the door which gave entrance from the outside to
Colonel Neale's rooms, and by which, during my residence
there, the retreat of the sentries at that side had to be effected.
He had received numerous sword and spear wounds, and had
fired one barrel of his revolver; but so sudden and murderous
must have been the assault that he was probably at the first
blow disabled. The Japanese Government wished it to be be-
lieved there was but one assailant; but it is astonishing, in that
case, how quickly the one succeeded in overpowering two men
both armed, and inflicting some thirty or forty wounds.
The night must have passed drearily enough for that band
of foreigners, taken at sore disadvantage, and caught in some-
thing very like a trap, so entirely open on all sides to attack,
and so incapable of defense from within. From the dying sen-
try, a sailor of the 'Reynard,' some few particulars were gleaned
before he breathed his last. The night was very dark; he had,
as usual, a Japanese sentry by him, who it is to be presumed
had his dim paper lantern by his side, when he perceived some-


Chap. XXXIX.] SECOND ATTACK ON LEGATION.
365
thing approaching across a rustic bridge immediately opposite,
which gave passage over a large pond. On challenging, he
received back the word for the night, 'Tama,' but, not liking
the appearance of the object in the dark, he stepped down
from the platform, and advanced toward it, when a man sud-
denly sprung to his feet from the end of the bridge, where he
had been on all-fours, and thrust at him with one of their fifteen
feet lances. The next instant, with a sweep of a sword, the
hand that held the musket was nearly severed from the wrist,
and, thus rendered defenseless, he received a succession of sa-
bre-cuts before the corporal of marines appeared on the scene.
The latter approached from the veranda at the end of the lawn,
some twenty paces off, and, advancing to the rescue, the assas-
sin or assassins (for whether there was more than one does not
seem to have been ascertained) left the sentry and rushed upon
the corporal, who, after firing a single shot, was hewn down
in the same ferocious manner, having apparently maintained
some sort of running fight until he reached the steps leading
to Col. Neale's bedroom, where he was found lying quite dead.
One of the murderers had evidently taken refuge under the
veranda, for the next morning a pool of blood was found, and
spots all along the veranda showed his track across another
small bridge, directly past a Japanese guard-house.
There seems to be no doubt that this man was a retainer of
the very Daimio who furnished the Japanese guard, or a por-
tion of it; for more than one Daimio was charged with the
defense of the Legation. The man in question, however, ap-
pears to have been a retainer, some said a confidential officer,
of Matsdaira Tembanus Kami; and, wounded by the shot
from the corporal's revolver, he made his way unmolested, or
rather aided by his comrades, back to his own house, where
he killed himself, after confessing (or boasting) that he attacked
and killed some foreigners. The Japanese sentry admitted
that he ran away — to call assistance! then, as ever, disarm-
ing vigilance by a show of protection and support, which was
wholly illusory. Whether he was in collusion or not, or how
many of the man's comrades were in complicity with the more
active instruments, we shall never know with any certainty.
But a very significant incident marked the following day.
Lieut, Col. Neale demanded to see the body of the murderer,
and, after some demur, the request was acceded to, accompa-
nied, however, by an intimation, the sinister and menacing pur-
port of which admitted of no mistake, that the body would be
brought, to be laid in the temple, and surrounded by a large
body of his comrades, the retainers of Matsdaira. It was after-


Chap. XXXIX.] LIFE INSECURE IN JAPAN.
367
unknown or .lawless outcasts, but by the liveried retinue of one
of the proudest nobles in the land, and at the order of his sec-
retary. Under his own eye the party was attacked, and one
of them, after being desperately wounded, was slain outright
by a farther order as he lay on the ground. So at least it is
confidently reported. Two of his male companions, danger-
ously wounded, together with the lady, only escaped with
their lives by riding through the band of armed ruffians.
Let us hope this will close the series for the year, though
none may safely venture to predict that it will, or what a day
or a month may bring forth in such a country under existing
circumstances. Life in Japan is, in the present day, under a
feudal and military system, no more secure than it was in the
Anglo-Saxon era in our own land, with which lawless and fe-
rocious period in our history the present social state of Japan
has, as I have shown, many points of close resemblance. There
is and can be no security to life under such conditions. Yet
as I wrote now two years ago to the Japanese Ministers,
'It is for the Government to answer, for they are responsi-
ble by the Law of Nations. In the eyes of all the world they
are responsible for the maintenance of order, and that respect
for the laws which protect life and property; if they fail in
this, they cease to preserve the essential character of a Gov-
ernment, and lose their best title to the respect of Foreign
Powers, who can only treat with those who govern de facto,
and not merely in name. This is, indeed, the very condition
of their permanence as a Government, and they can not forget
it without imminent peril. The Government of Japan is men-
aced, therefore, in its own existence, in such a state of misrule;
and, in their own interest, I must urge the actual situation upon
their most serious attention."' Nor can I better close this chapter, and the book devoted
to an exposition of the true nature of our relations with Japan,
than by the following extract from the same dispatch, address-
ed to the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, to be laid be-
fore the Council immediately after Mr. Heuskin's murder, in
which, in concert with my four colleagues, I sought to rouse
them to a true sense of the impending danger to them as a
Government, and to their subjects: 'My long-continued per-
sonal relations with one of your Excellencies, and their uni-
formly friendly character, lead me to hope that, sharing in the
regret I feel for these untoward impediments to a good under-
standing, you will see the necessity for similar decided action
* See Correspondence respecting Affairs in Japan, March and April, 1861,
presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 1861.


308
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
with your colleagues in the Government, that this standing re-
proach may be removed. The faction of violent and unscru-
pulous advocates for a system of terrorism and assassination,
whom I must suppose to be the real authors of such troubles,
must be controlled, whatever may be the rank or number of
those concerned, or nothing but grievous consequences, from
which Japan will be the first and greatest sufferer, can follow,
in spite of the sacrifices and efforts I am now making to pre-
vent such a catastrophe. The Government, in a word, must
show that it has both the will and the ability to impose re-
spect on all the disaffected or violent spirits who would seek,
for their own ends, to disturb the good relations hitherto ex-
isting between the Treaty Powers and Japan, and which, on
the part of Great Britain, the Government of Her Majesty is
most anxious to maintain for the mutual advantage of both
countries. They must no longer be permitted to take life with
assured impunity, and follow out a system of intimidation in
the vain hope of driving foreigners out of the country by mur-
der and terrorism. Europe, united, would resist the attempt,
render its success impossible, and punish the authors of such
an outrage on the laws and rights of nations. Could they even
temporarily effect their object, and murder every foreigner,
Japan would be the most grievous sufferer. Were such a fla-
gitious policy ever to be carried out, the whole country would
fall under the ban of civilized nations, and be dealt with as a
common enemy. I trust, for the interests of humanity, such
deplorable contingencies may be rendered impossible, and that
both the Government and people of Japan will be convinced
that their best policy is faithfully to fulfill their engagements,
and to maintain friendly relations with a Power which has at
its disposal ample means for obtaining, in case of need, full re-
dress for injuries done to its subjects.
I had already, at a much earlier date, been compelled to
write in a similar strain a dispatch, and with a single para-
graph I may sum up the whole of this dismal chapter of vio-
lence, treachery, and murder:
'It is the desire of my Government and the interest of Great
Britain to be at peace with all nations, and cultivate only the
best relations; but it is not permitted to any nation, with
large interests at stake and national honor to defend, to shrink
from the due maintenance of its treaty rights, and least of all
can Great Britain allow them to be trampled under foot here
or elsewhere." * Correspondence from Her Majesty's Envoy, etc., in Japan, presented to
both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 1860.
x


Chap. XXXIX.] QUESTIONS OF POLICY.
369
As to what may be the best policy for this country, or for
other Treaty Powers, under such conditions, I will not here ex-
press any opinion. The whole question is surrounded by dif-
ficulties of the most serious kind. That there should be an ac-
cordance of views among all the Treaty Powers, and some uni-
ty of action, were it possible, would appear to be a first import-
ant result to be aimed at, as a preliminary condition in the suc-
cess of any course ultimately adopted. Not that each one is
not strong and powerful enough to exact retribution for itself,
if that be deemed the one thing needful; but, having entered
into relations with a people presenting this strange anomaly
that, while their material civilization is not far behind our own,
and the mass of the nation is well-ordered and peaceable, with
as much of culture and intelligence as any nation in Europe,
they are governed by a feudal and military class, for a parallel
to which we must go back to the ferocious and turbulent pe-
riods of our own history — to a period when Anglo-Saxon,
Dane, and Norman had fought over the whole land, and di-
vided the kingdom among the respective chiefs and followers,
and no sovereign that ever held the sceptre of the whole or
a part could maintain order, or insure peace among his bold
and savage feudatories. How to deal with two such opposite
social states and conditions of existence in the same nation is
a problem which has never before been presented to any Gov-
ernment for solution, and one which may well prove perplex-
ing to the best statesmen of Europe. The feudal element is
the true obstacle for the moment to all progress toward a pa-
cific and satisfactory solution. How is it to be dealt with?
That is the first question which seems to present itself, in any
review of possible alternatives or conditions of settlement.
The dual sovereignty of Mikado and Tycoon follows close upon
it, and equally requires to be grappled with before any satis-
factory conclusion can be arrived at by one, or all the Treaty
Powers combined. No doubt various answers might be sug-
gested more or less satisfactorily dealing with the real ques-
tions at issue. They would be out of place, however, here. I
have merely endeavored, in the history of our past relations,
which this narrative may in some degree, I hope, supply, to in-
dicate where the real difficulties seem to lie, and what the na-
ture and extent of the obstacles to all progress toward a bet-
ter state of affairs, in which security to life and reasonable fa-
cilities for a legitimate commerce are the chief ends. How
such difficulties and obstacles may best be dealt with, remains,
of course, for each Treaty Power to decide as it may see fit.
I can only hope to have contributed some materials in the way
Q 2


370
THREE YEARS IN JAPAN. [Chap. XXXIX.
of information on the actual state of the country, and our pres-
ent relations, which may assist in the formation of a right judg-
ment. As to both these, and the policy best calculated to
bring about the desired end in the interests of commerce and
civilization, it is hardly possible to speak in any decisive terms
at this moment above all others. A great change is being ef-
fected in the fundamental relations of suzerain and subject.
The whole Feudal power is profoundly moved, and their or-
ganization, political and social, is crumbling under the shock
of a sudden contact with Europe. Whether all this can take
place, and a new social and political basis be attained, without
an interval of disorder, violence, and bloodshed, must be very
doubtful. The danger is undoubtedly great. The changes
indicated by the departure of the Daimios and their families
from the capital are of the most sweeping and fundamental
character. It is, in a word, a revolution, effected either by
compromise and compact between the governing classes and
the Tycoon, or it is the preparation for an appeal to arms, in
which latter case foreigners are likely to be the first objects of
attack, as their presence has undoubtedly been the immediate
cause of such fermentation. If, on the other hand, any com-
promise has been entered into, on a basis of mutual concession
between the Tycoon and the leading Feudatory Princes, the
object of which is to remove to a distance from Yeddo the
Daimios and their armed retainers, better days may be in store
for Western nations and Japanese alike, than could reasonably
have been hoped for after such a troubled and inauspicious be-
ginning. A very short time must show which of these two
phases of national life the Japanese are now entering upon,
and equally tell the foreigner what his prospects are in Nipon
—whether he is to be allowed to dwell in peace, or must stand
prepared to resist desperate and continuous efforts for his ex-
pulsion from the Japanese territories.


374
APPENDIX.
interchange of opinions was, he thought, one of the best modes of arriving at
the truth; but he hoped the proceedings of that day might go far to remove
many misconceptions, and prepare the way for a better understanding in fu-
ture, in all that concerned their mutual relations and the position of residents
in the country. The following statement was then read by the Consul:
'I ought in the first place to inform you, that the letter of the committee
nominated at a preliminary meeting, and which was addressed to me on the
15th instant, inclosing the minute of the proceedings, was duly laid before
Her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary, and I am directed to inform you that he
read the whole with great interest, and observed with satisfaction the excel-
lent spirit in which you had set about the consideration of the grave matters
brought under your notice. I am farther to assure you of his earnest desire
to contribute by every means in his power to the improvement of your posi-
tion generally, and the removal of any grievances that can be shown upon
full information of all the local conditions to admit of practical remedy.
'He has instructed me accordingly to afford you every information as to
the steps which have hitherto been taken with the Japanese Government and
authorities toward the improvement of trade, the security of life and proper-
ty, the custom-house system at this port, and the occupation of land for build-
ing purposes; and, to enable me to do so more effectually, I have had access
to all the sources of information the Legation affords. I think you will see,
in what I shall now lay before you, abundant evidence of watchful regard for
every legitimate interest, and that no efforts have been spared by Her Maj-
esty's Envoy in communication with the Government at Yeddo to advance
these interests, and avert the dangers which have menaced both you and
them. It will probably best promote the objects of the meeting if, in the data
I now wish to lay before you, I follow the order observed in the dispatch of
Her Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary, and subsequently in the proceedings of
the preliminary meeting and the letter of the committee.
'The Currency.—The treaty stipulates that "all foreign coin shall be cur-
rent in Japan, and shall pass for its corresponding weight in Japanese coin
of the same description." That has not hitherto been the case; and, while
there is no dispute about the obligation of the government of this country to
do all that is in its power to give effect to this clause, there is a question,
and a difficult one, as to how far it is in the power of this or any other gov-
ernment to force a foreign coinage into general circulation, and at a fixed
rate or valuation. The Japanese Government says it can not; and even in
the case of a single coin, the dollar, that it has already, as a government,
done all it can do, and failed; that it has issued an edict throughout the
empire making all foreign coins legal tenders, weight for weight; that it has
even attempted, with the concurrence of the foreign representatives, to secure
the circulation of the dollar (at something less than weight for weight, in
view of the facility of exchange), and stamped a certain number with a gov-
ernment stamp of three itziboos, but still they only find circulation at the
ports, and that varying at a depreciated rate of two, or two and a half itzi-
boos, while in the interior there is reason to believe they have no currency.
'Is there any remedy for this?
'That is the question for consideration; because it is to be remembered
that no treaty can be invoked to effect an impossibility. Many may believe
that the Japanese Government are not acting with good faith in the matter,
but are themselves the chief impediments to the free circulation of the dol-
lar at its full value, and that in any case they have the power, if they had
the will, to secure their currency both at the open ports and elsewhere. But
it must be remembered, on the other hand, that the difficulty, not to say im-
possibility, of forcing a foreign coinage on a people is of universal experience,


APPENDIX.
ment will frankly and honestly subject themselves to this loss, whatever treaty
stipulations may require to the contrary.
'The second subject for consideration has relation to the various impedi-
ments, traceable more or less distinctly to Japanese officials, in the way of
trade; and restrictions not in accordance with the treaty, or the free sales
and purchases of goods.
'The non-observance or enforcement of contracts the committee place at
the head of these, and no doubt it is a serious grievance. Within the last
month, it is true, greater efforts have been made by the Japanese authorities
here to fulfill this obligation than in all the antecedent period; yet this, I
fear, is rather to be traced to circumstances connected with the present polit-
ical situation than any settled determination to give effect to contracts.
'But in reference to a practical remedy being found, I confess I am not
sanguine. In China, I am told, after twenty years of effort and experience,
little progress has been made in this direction, though precisely the same
grievance exists; so much so, that a mode of transacting business has grown
up which, except in the case of Chinese of well-established character, rarely
leaves it in the power of the native dealer to inflict loss upon the foreign
merchant. In exceptional cases where this has not been done, an appeal to
the native authorities, in nine cases out of ten, leads but to one of two re-
sults: if the Chinese dealer is a man of means and only dishonest, he is
squeezed as long as he has any thing squeezable, for the benefit of the man-
darins and their subordinates; if poor, he may get a bambooing or impris-
onment, but in neither case does the creditor get any thing for his pains.
'Something may be done by persistent representations and remonstrances,
but I fear it will be long before either my best exertions on the spot, or those
of Her Majesty's Envoy at Yeddo, will remove all cause of complaint under
this head. It is true, the governor, upon more than one occasion, has pro-
posed to take off the head of the defaulter by way of a caution to others, and
possibly it might be effective, but I confess to some scruples in accepting such
composition for the payment of debt, and some doubt whether it would be as
satisfactory to the plaintiff as even a small dividend.
'The official interference with the sale of Japanese produce is, I conceive,
a much more serious evil. I wish I could honestly tell you I thought it
easier of remedy. I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind that the
grievance exists to the full extent stated; but the evidence is unproducible,
and were it otherwise in any one or two cases, the only result would be a
more secret and astute mode of going to work for the same end. The spirit
of official meddling and restriction seems a part of the very constitution of
Japan. The government and whole class of officials seem incapable of ab-
staining, or even understanding how the country could be governed without
it. The ruling classes believe the country is being ruined, as it is, by too
large and unrestricted foreign trade. The ministers tell Her Majesty's En-
voy this nearly every time he sees them. They have long been urgent, on
the alleged ground of public opinion and general discontent from the en-
hanced price of every thing (attributed exclusively to foreign trade), for the
deferring of the opening of any other ports; and they urge it on the double
ground of a necessity for the country, and to prevent a revolution or sangui-
nary outbreak, which would be fatal to foreigners themselves, and possibly put an end to all relations. The last menace of general massacre was referred
to by them as a proof of the truth of their statements on this head. Wheth-
er the restrictive and retrograde policy is founded on Japanese views of po-
litical economy, combined with the hostility, on other purely political grounds,
of a large party among the ruling classes, or the result of a hostile public
opinion and general discontent with a view to prevent a catastrophe, is open


APPENDIX.
to question. Whether, in fact, the repeated menace of attack and series of
assassinations have a political origin, and are to be taken as part of a policy
which has been carried out either by the government of the country or in
spite of it by those who wish to create political troubles, is matter for grave
consideration, and a question on which even the foreign representatives are
not unanimous. But as respects the hope of inducing the Japanese author-
ities, under such circumstances, to abstain from meddling, with a view to pro-
mote and not restrain the free development of trade, I confess I see little of
promise in the future. When pressed on this subject, they have even hinted,
by no means obscurely, to one of the foreign representatives at Yeddo, that
there were more evils than breaking a treaty, if it should be found really
ruinous to a country in its operation; and upon another occasion, they pro-
posed openly to seek the consent of all the Treaty Powers to a limitation to
be fixed for all articles of export for a term of years, especially oil, silk, tea,
and vegetable wax. I am authorized to mention these facts of deep interest
to you all, and in order to show you clearly how great the difficulties to be
encountered in any efforts to secure the full and honest execution of treaties
in respect to trade with a government that can deliberately contemplate the
rupture of all relations with foreign powers, as a lesser evil than a rigorous
execution of treaties, which they regard as impolitie and imperious, and have
indicated plainly enough that if they are driven to choose between a civil
and a foreign war, they should not hesitate to accept the latter in preference.
'The want of system in the custom-house and inadequate wharfage accom-
modation are, of all the obstacles to trade, those which may best admit of
gradual and certain improvement, and I am quite ready to give effect to your
suggestions; and the same I should say in reference to the interference with
labor and cargo-boats, respecting which all you propose is, I think, perfectly
reasonable.
'We come now to the occupation of land, in which the committee speak
of" unaccountable" and, what has appeared to many, "vexatious" delays in
obtaining building sites. Yet nothing admits of more easy explanation. I
need hardly remind you that, when the port was first opened, it was a ques-
tion between the Japanese authorities and the foreign representatives which
side of the bay offered the most eligible site for the permanent objects of trade.
The British and American ministers both saw cogent reasons for preferring
Kanagawa in a permanent point of view; while the majority of the mer-
chants, arriving by ones and twos, seemed to find greater advantage, in view
of immediate facilities, on the Yokohama side, where the Japanese desired to
fix them, and had gone to great expense with that object. Both may have
been right from these separate points of view: the ministers looking to na-
tional and permanent interests, the merchants to what was individual and
temporary. That is a question which need not be discussed now, and it is
not, in fact, before the meeting; but as there has been no little misconception
(I do not wish to use any harder word) as to the real facts and the action of
Her Majesty's authorities, it may not, perhaps, be without advantage to all
if I offer a few words in explanation in respect to the past, as tending to clear
the way to a good understanding for the future.
'We will not discuss who was right or wrong, or whether any thing better
could have been done at first than to leave the question to be decided by
events, the progress of the settlement being left to itself in a great degree. It
is no very grave reproach to those who have only temporary interests at stake, to charge them with preferring these to any future permanent advantages; so
neither is it a very legitimate subject of reproach to consul or ministers, who
by office are the representatives of interests that are national and permanent,
if they should keep these constantly in view as the more important, whatever


APPENDIX.
379
they were finally obtained from the Japanese Government by him, as an ad-
vance on the security of the land. The ground, too, was after this cleared
and surveyed. The process of clearance was a slow one, with infinite diffi-
culty effected, and it proved a source both of delay and difficulty, which can
be deemed unaccountable by those only who never considered the circum-
stances. And yet this same process of eviction and clearing land in occupa-
tion is notoriously difficult, and often it very slow operation in many countries
more civilized than Japan, especially when people are forcibly dispossessed
for the benefit of others, and those of an alien race. Even then, unless the
whole tract, as in the old site, was in the first instance to pass into the large
grasp of a few, not unwilling to invest their funds in land as a stock in trade,
more or less to the prejudice of all who might be less amply provided with
funds, and certainly to the damage of all who might come after, it was obvi-
ously necessary some principle of allotment and distribution should be agreed
upon, and certain conditions of tenure, in order that every one might possess
a clear legal title to his property. But to any such arrangement, however
useful or obviously necessary, there were necessarily many parties, all of whom
must be consulted, as they had each a voice in the matter: the foreign con-
suls and local Japanese authorities here, the ministers, both foreign and Jap-
anese, at Yeddo. Is there any one here who thinks agreement on such mat-
ters, involving both principle and detail, is so simple and easy a matter that
no differences of opinion could arise—no impediments or causes of delay and
difficulty? I trust to have sufficiently explained, then, why those who desired
land, after the old location had been all absorbed and appropriated by the
first comers, could not immediately get their wants supplied. So far from
the delays already experienced being " unaccountable," I can not help think-
ing, as I look back on all that has been gone through, that the most unac-
countable of all things would have been the absence of delays and serious
difficulty. It is, at all events, in my power to assure you that no exertion
has ever been wanting, either on the part of Her Majesty's Envoy ormyself,
for their removal; and I am happy to be able, also, to inform you that the
last of the difficulties (as I hope, and so far as I know) has now been re-
moved.
'The conditions of tenure have been settled, as you will find them em-
bodied in the printed Land Regulations, and form of lease or Certificate of
Title on the Table, subject only to the final confirmation of the Japanese and
Foreign Ministers, in which I do not anticipate any difficulty, as they have
already been submitted in draft and approved. It is in the nature of a lease-
hold tenure; transferable, without fine or charge of rent, in perpetuity—the
next best thing to a freehold, and equivalent in all but the rent. You will
perceive only one scale of rental has been referred to; nevertheless, it seems
desirable here, as at Nagasaki, that a difference should be made between
front, middle, and back lots. The rental for land demanded by the Japanese
authorities does not appear unreasonable, and they assure my colleagues and
myself that it is estimated on the actual value in the locality to Japanese.
It is 10,875 momme for one tsoboo, a tsoboo being six feet square, which is
little more than a tempo according to the present rate of exchange. In round
numbers, that would give for a square area of 100 tsoboo, that is, 600 square
feet, a rent charge of 1084 tempos, a little more than six itziboos, and as
there are 4840 square yards to an acre, unless I have made any mistake in
the calculation, they offer you building ground at the rate of 144 itziboos, or,
say at the present rate of exchange, about $57 per acre.* bat as the front
* Note by the Chairman.—There was an error here; It was found later that the rate stated
was per mensem, and not per annum, thus multiplying the rate by 12 for the year, or, say
$684 per acre.


380
APPENDIX.
lots are undoubtedly more valuable than the middle or back lots, it would
probably be fairer—as the government demands for the whole area, as laid
down on the plan before you, a sum equivalent to the rate specified—to fix
different rentals for the different lots according to situation. Nothing, how-
ever, has been finally determined on this point yet, and I am quite ready to
hear any opinions on the subject. The total amount paid for clearing the
ground has been $10,211 66, of which $3398 66 was raised by the sale of
choice in lots, and the remainder has been advanced by the government, to be
repaid without interest as the remaining lots are taken up. I hope shortly
now to see the streets according to the plan laid down, and all the lots acquired
fenced in, when nothing stands in the way of the proprietors turning them
to account, and building such accommodation as they require.
'Finally, as to the security to life and property, which is the first and most
essential condition to any development of trade. I appreciate the reserve the
committee have manifested in dealing with a subject which, if it has its spe-
cial dangers and difficulties, has also its paramount interest; and if I am con-
strained in some degree to follow their example, I am sure you will believe
it is from no indifference either to your security or your natural desire for
information. The steps recently taken by Her Majesty's Envoy, in concert
with the representatives of France, Prussia, and Holland, while it must satisfy
you that he regards in the most serious light whatever menaces your security,
is also a sufficient indication that he thought some considerable danger ex-
isted, or, at all events, that there was that in your position, and of foreigners
generally in Japan, which rendered it an imperative duty in him to take some
decisive step. Whether this may prove successful, and attain the objects he
and his colleagues have in view, as fully or as promptly as I would fain hope,
it is impossible in the present state of impending negotiations to say with any
certainty. In the mean time, his temporary removal here among you is itself
a security and a pledge of safety, for it lessens the danger of any attack by
increasing the responsibility of the government, and gives it, therefore, addi-
tional motives to prevent it. And when he leaves us, either to return to
Yeddo or to proceed elsewhere, you may rest assured the security of your po-
sition here will equally occupy his attention. It was not his own personal
security he came here to insure, but the improvement of yours and our posi-
tion generally in Japan; and whatever steps he may feel called upon to take,
I am authorized to assure you all that they will be taken with due delibera-
tion, having in view the equal necessity of averting, by -every means in his
power, any interruption to trade or disaster to yourselves. I would only say
in conclusion that I am sure you will readily see the necessity of contributing
to this end by avoiding to the utmost all causes of quarrel or collision with
the Japanese, either officials or others, and by abstaining from all unneces-
sary exposure in going about the settlement after dark; with such precau-
tions, I trust this alarm of dangers menacing foreigners generally will, like
many preceding, pass over without more serious consequences, and that it
may be with permanent advantage to our future relations.'
After some desultory conversation on the subject of a church, no one hav-
ing any farther observations to make on the subject announced for discussion,
the Consul concluded by suggesting the desirability of forming a committee
to give effect to the wishes of the community regarding the erection of a
church.
It was then proposed by Mr. S. Maine that Messrs. Ross, Clarke, Marshall,
and Bell, with the Consul as chairman, should form the committee.
Mr. Bush seconded the motion.
Mr. Boyle thought the affairs of State should be finished before those of
Church be introduced. He therefore proposed that the other topics touched


APPENDIX.
381
on in the merchants' letter be discussed before this meeting. This motion,
finding no seconder, fell to the ground.
Mr. Marshall proposed, and Mr. Boyle seconded a vote of most cordial
thanks to the Consul for the manner in which he had conducted the meet-
ing, for the admirable statement he had made, and for the valuable informa-
tion given upon all that concerned them.
The meeting was then dissolved. (Signed), F. Howard Vyse,
H. B. M. s Acting Consul for Kanagawa.
(True Copy), F. Blekman.
C.
EXTRACT FROM MR. MEDHURST'S COMMUNICATION.
During my recent visit to Japan, I have been much struck by the gen-
eral and familiar use made by the Japanese of the Chinese written language
in its own proper construction, and I avail myself of your suggestion to sub-
mit the following few remarks on the subject, in the hope that they may
prove useful to you in directing the studies of the young gentlemen of your
suite who are now trying to acquire the Japanese language.
Until I came here, I was always under the impression that the Japanese
written language merely had its basis in the Chinese character, and that, al-
though the Chinese symbols did appear in Japanese books and writings with
their own proper meaning attached, yet it was rather an exception than a
rule; and even then they were isolated here and there, and never combined
so as to be readable by a Chinese in the idiomatic construction peculiar to
his own country. This impression I believe to be general among all persons
who have ever given any thought to the subject. The brief opportunity,
however, which I have now had of observing the people and their customs
has led me to conclude thafthe case is materially different, and that not only
the Japanese can read Chinese to a much greater extent than has been sup-
posed, but that Chinese can understand a considerable portion of what they
see written in Japan, and from their knowledge possess peculiar facilities for
acquiring its hieroglyphic and syllabic languages, as well as for learning its
vernacular. I doubt not, moreover, that with larger opportunities for obser-
vation I might discover even more grounds for believing this to be the case.
That a Japanese can understand Chinese to a considerable extent I have
repeatedly tested by writing short sentences for people of various classes; and
the following instances will show that a person conversant with Chinese has
only to walk through a Japanese town and look about him to be at once con-
vinced how largely and intelligibly the Chinese character and construction
are used. The tea and saki shops, which are so numerous, are all scribbled
over with the words a, 'Royal Tea; ^gj, 'Royal Wine;'
gr,'R°val Resting Place.' Fruit-shops show invariably the
sign r^fjj J£^> 'R°yal Fruit, and often the very term used
in China for 'Fresh Fruit.' The fruit themselves are labeled with prices
exactly as in China, the character being used to represent the copper
coin. Ginseng and drugs are distinguished, as in China, by a more flaming
or elaborate sign than usual, and are represented by the same characters


382
APPENDIX.
likewise. Advertisements by quacks of life pills, and a hundred other medi-
cines, might be Chinese but for the walls and posts on which they are exhib-
ited. The notice seen every where in China, answering to our 'Commit no
nuisance,' I have met with here, worded in the same peculiar phraseology
which the Celestials have adopted. Public bathing-places have two doors,
side by side, with the notices ^ 'men's baths,' and 'wom-
en's baths,'which are, however, not separated farther in, as in China, by a
corresponding discrimination in a more tangible shape. On roadway gates,
over entrances to inclosures which are public or Imperial property, and over
particular bridges, may be observed the ^ ^ and J^, which in
China hint the necessity of dismounting from chair or home while treading
sacred ground. On one bridge in the highway leading to Yeddo I noticed
the warning m g^/^jV 'jL ^,'unless on Imperial service, dis-
mount,' in which sentence the construction is strictly and purely Chinese.
I even observed one day in the main street of Yeddo a plank stuck up by the
workmen in front of a portion of road under repair with a notice in Chinese
to pass by on the other side. These instances will suffice to prove the famil-
iar use of the Chinese written language in common life. In books, maps,
pictures, and printed publications of all kinds, the use of Chinese is quite as
decided and remarkable. Chinese prefaces are common in the books I have
seen, and the titles or headings, not only of the books, but of any illustrations
they contain, are invariably in Chinese. The outer covers of maps seem al-
ways to be superscribed in Chinese, and every town in the kingdom appears
to have a distinct Chinese name applied; it would seem, as in China, in ref-
erence to the site or some other associations connected with it, the Japanese
sound of the character having in some cases the same meaning as the char-
acters themselves possess. Yeddo is written A 'River's Door;'
Yokohama, JR 'Cross Shore ;' the highway between the two towns,
Jit ISt' 'East Sea Road'' Fusiyama> §^ "4^ )\l< 'Rich Scholar
Peak;' and so on.
Pictures the Japanese seem peculiarly partial to, and they are to be met
with of every description and rate of value; and I think I may say with truth
that by far the larger proportion I have seen had Chinese titles attached,
and answered perfectly to the description given. The few envelopes of offi-
cial letters from the Japanese authorities which I saw in the Legation office
were all superscribed with the minister's title in Chinese, and his name in
Japanese, the identical characters being used for the former which are em-
ployed for the corresponding title in China, with the single exception of the
translation t%fc*k for 'Plenipotentiary,' a term introduced by Morrison,
and since discarded by Mr. Wade for another more correctly Chinese.
The facts above detailed, I think, warrant me in the opinion that a person
conversant with the Chinese language possesses vast advantages for the ob-
servation of the people, habits, and language of Japan; and it follows as a
consequence that a student wishing to acquire the language will, if previous-
ly grounded in Chinese knowledge, master the difficulty with more ease than
this man who attacks it without that aid. The former has only to apply the



List of Daimios holding Offices in the Tycoon's Government—£-),4£d).
Dffices, Titles, and Councils of
the Tycoon's Gov0nment.
Council of the Mikado,
at the Court of the Ty-
coon . 04 members ),
Daimios of the 3d and
4th Classes, of whom
ten have fortresses.
The Tycoon's Represent-
ative at the Court of
the Mikado .at Kioto
Onzoushidai).
10 Aids-de-camp in or-
dinary to the Tycoon
.'Osobashiou').
04 Daimios, Ambassa-
dors of the Tycoon at
the Courts of Daimios
.'Gokokishiou').
Daimios holding these Offices.
4. Soua Inaba no Kami
0. Sakai Oukiono-souke
0.
7.
Kouchiki Omi no Kami
Matsdaira Hoki no Kami
Inoie Kawatsi no Kami
Awoyama Daizen-noske
Matsdaira Souronga no Kami..
Matsdaira Idzou no Kami
Nishno Oki no Kami
Makino Kawatchi no Kami....
Midzouno Sakounsiogen .ou
Daiken Montsen).
Ota Bitjou no Kami
Sakai Wakasa no Kami .Dai-
mio of 1st Class).
Possessing from.
Possessing from.
T0.ito.ial
Revenues
in Kokous
of Rice.
3000
1000
000
7000
000
000
000
7000
000
000
0000
0000
1000
Value of
Revenues
(at 13». lOd.
00
Kokou).
000
to 000
100
to 400
4
1000
000
0040
4400
400
4004
0040
4400
0040
0040
000
3000
0400
400,
to 400
04
to 4£0
Fo.t.esses
belonging to these
Daimios.
Taka Sima...
Foukoutchi
Yama
Myatsou....
Nama Matsou
Ghef
Iwatsi
Ioshida
Jokoska....
Tanabe....
Jamagata..
Kakegawa..
Obama
In the
P.ovince of
Sinano..
Tamba.
Tango.
Totomi.
Mino.
Igo.
Mikawa.
Tango.
Tango.
Dewa.
Totomi.
Wakasa.
Rema.ks
Entered the Council
in 100.


of Daimios holding- Offices in the Tycoon's Government—(,£i,£ed).
Rema.ks
In the
Province of
1
Po.t.esses
belonging to these
Daimioa.
Value of
Revenues
(atl3(.10<f.
0000
Kokou).
100000
00,000
00,000
000000
009,920
10080
to 00,0000
1,920
to 00,0000
00,0000
00,920
0
0
Te..itorial
Revenues
in Kokous
of Rice.
200000
0000000
0000000
500000
0080000
20000
to 000000
80000
to
100000
800 pios
to 000000
kokous
000 pios
to 80000
kokous
Mabe Awa no Kami.
Doi Oljitji no Kami.
Possessing revenues to the
amount of
Midzouno Sakonsiogen
Awoyama Daisen Noske
Daimios holding these Offices.
Matsdaira Hoki no Kami
Matsdaira Idzou no Kami
Offices, Till™ and Cornelia of
the Tycoon's Gov00nment
20 0 Daimios holding dif-
ferent military com-
mands under the Ty-
coon's orders (' Onzou-
menami').
0 0 Daimios, Superintend-
ing Governors of Jus-
tice, and Comptrollers
of Temples and Mon-
asteries ('On-Disha-
Bougnios').
8 Daimios, Superintend-
ents of Passports at
Hacone and Arai (' On-
roussoui Tosijorisniou')
00 Daimios, command-
ing Imperial Fortresses
('Ogoban Shiou').
20 Daimios, Lords of the
Bedchamber (' Goshiou
Goban').
Grand Ometskys, Coun-
cillors of State ('Dai
Omitski'), 5 Daimios.
11
12
18
00
00
000
0


STATEMENT OF THE FEUDAL PRIeCES OF THE JAPAve, EMPIR", ARRA.."D ACCORDING TO TREIR REVENUES.
[The Daimios to whose name an asterisk is prefixed (twenty-four) a.e all more or less independent.]
-Daimios having Land Revenues of from 100000000 to 2000000 Kokous £00970ue to 00008000),, and possessing
Fortresses.
Daimios, with their Names and Titles in full,
taken f.om the .
Ja00anese' Official Almanac.'
Thei. Revenues
in Kokons of
Rice.
Valne of
in English
Money.
Fo.t.esses, ,.onEholds,
and Castles in thei.
Posesssion.
Situated in the
Provinces of
♦The Prince of Kanga, Maida
Kaga no Kami.
♦The Prince of Satsuma, Mats-
daira Satsnma no Kami.
The Prince of Owari, Tokunga-
wa Owari dono.
♦The Prince of Montsen or
Xendai, Matsda'ira Montsen
no Kami, or Xendai.
10000000,0
000,000
00290000
00,00000
0
0
0097028
00800,900
0000800
000,00000
Kanasawa, Daisodgi,
Koumatsou.
Kagosima, Sadowara.
Nagosa, Inu Yama.
Siraisi, Xendai, Taira.
Kaga and Noto.
Satsnma and
Fouigo.
Owari.
Moutsen, or
Oshiou Xendai.
Bearing the title of
'Tsounagon,' a high
dignity conferred by
the Mikado, and an-
swering to the title
of 'First Officer of
the Court of Kioto.'
Purely honorific.
Known also by the
name of' Siouri no
Taiou,' but less gen-
erally.
Of the three families
from whom the Ty-
coon is elected, call-
ed' Gosankay,' or
'Brothers of the Ty-
coon.'


II.—Daimios hating Land Seventies op from 1000000 to 1000000 Kokous £1000000 to 000000000),, and Fortresses. «5
to
Daimios, with thei. Names and Titles taken f.om the 1 Official Almanac.'
Thei.
Revenues in
Kokous of
Rice.
In English
Honey.
In the P.ovince of
•The Prince of Matsdaira Dewa no Kami
The Prince of Matsdaira Kai no Kami
The Prince of Matsdaira Okino Kami
Okasawa Sakio no Taiou
Okoudaira Daisen no Taiou ...
Sakai Sayemon no dzio
Wiezougui Danio no Daihitzou
Sakakibari Sikibou no Taiou..
The Prince of Ooto, Sakai Ooto no Kami
* Tachibana Sakou Siogen
The Prince of Ana, Kourousima Awa no Kami
The Prince of Simosa, Matsdaira Simosa no Kami
Toka Ouemenou no Zio
The Prince of Sinano, Sanada Sinano no Kami
The Prince of Igo, Abe Igo no Kami
♦The Prince of Etjou, Tsougaro Etjou no Kami
The Prince of Wakasa, Sakai Wakasa no Kami
Maa'ida Keenoske"
♦The Prince of Inaba, Matsdaira Inaba no Kami
The Prince of Mikawa, Matsdaira Mikawa no Kami
The Prince of Isen, Abe" Isen no Kami
The Prince of Matsmai, Matsmai Sima no Kami
The Prince of Totomi, Date Totomi no Kami
1000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
1000500
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
1000000
t
1000000
0
0
1000000
9000000
9000000
9000000
9000000
9000000
9000000
9000000
9000000
00,000
005,000
00000000
00000000
00000000
00000000
0000,000
00000000
00000000
00000000
00000000
00000000
00000000
Madzi
Koriyama
Ouso"o,Takou, Matsyama.
Kokourii
Nakatzou -
Shouai
Igouesawa
Takata
Ghimedgi
Yanagawa
Takeda
Oshi
Ogaki
Matsiro
Sirakawa
Ghieromase"
Obama
Togawa
Sikano Totori, Yonoka...
Tsouyama
Tokouyama
Matsumai
Owadzima
Idzumo.
Yamato.
Igo or Iho.
Boudzen.
Boudzen.
Dewa.
Dewa.
Etsigo.
Harima.
Chikongo.
Boungo.
Mousachi.
Mino.
Sinano.
Oshiou.
Oshiou.
Wakasa.
Etjou.
Inaba, Houki.
Mimasakka.
Bingo.
Island of Yesso
Igo.
t De.ives a considerable revenue from the fisheries and products of the chase in the island of Yesso, given to him as an appanage.


V.—Daimios possessing Land Bevenues of prom is0000 to 250000 Kokous £009, 00 to 0000000),, and Fortresses.
Dalmlos, with thei. Names and Title*, taken f.om the' Official Almanac.'
Thei. Revenues
in Kokous of
Rica.
In English
Honey
In the P.ovinces of
The Prince of Totomi, Naga'i Totomi no Kami....
Matsda'ira Totomi no Kami
The Prince of Bouzen, Honda Bouzen no Kamit
The Prince of Uoto, Doi Uoto no Kamit
The Prince of Oki, Nishono Oki no Kami§
The Prince of Kawatchi, Makino Kawatchi no Kami§ ....
The Prince of Souragano, Matsdaira Souragano Kami§...
The Prince of Higo, Naga'i Higo no Kami
The Prince of Omi, Koutchidi Omi no Kami§
The Prince of Setsou, Inagaki Setsou no Kami
Matsda'ira Setsou no Kami
The Prince of Noto, Matsda'ira Noto no Kami
The Prince of Sona, Sona Juaba no Kami
The Prince of Tosi, Tosi Tambano Kami
The Prince of Okoubo, Okoubo Sado no Kami||
The Prince of Itakoura, Itakoura Ua'igeu no Sono||
The Prince of Nakaskasa, Matsda'ira Nakaskasa no Sono
The Prince of Hori, Hori Tambano Kami
The Prince of Saki, Matsda'ira Sakio no Taiou
The Prince of Akidzouki, Akidzouki Sado no Kami
Omoura Tanga no Kami
Kinosita Yamato no Kami
Matsdaira Sayemon no djo
00000000
000000
000000
000000
850000
850000
850000
000000
000000
800000
800000
800000
800000
800000
800000
800000
800000
800000
80,000
2000000
250000
250000
250000
£
29,0000
25,000
25,000
25,000
200000
200000
200000
20,0000
20,0000
190000
190000
190000
190000
190000
190000
190000
190000
190000
190000
000010
1000000
1000000
1000000
Kotching )
Amagasaki J
Tanaka
Oue
Totooka
Tanabe
Iwadzi
Kano
Foukoudgi Yama..
Toba
Takatzou
Iouamoura
Takasima
Mibou )
Krani Yama J
Toukousima
Kami Yama
Mouramatsou
Saidzio
Saifou
Omoura
Shide
Foumaye"
Setsou.
Sourouga.
Etsisen.
Totomi.
Tango.
Igo.
Mino.
Tamba.
Xima.
Mino.
Mino.
Sinano.
Simodzouke.
Oshiou.
Dewa.
Etsigo.
Igo.
Choulga.
Fizen.
Boungo.
Boungo.
t Membe. of the Council of the Mikado at the Court of the Tycoon.
S Membe.s of the Council of the Mikado 85 the Court of the Tycoon.
t A Commander of the Tycoon's Gua.d.
U Commande.s of the Tycoon's Guard.


APPENDIX.
397
E.
NOTES ON THE AGRICULTURE, TREES, AND FLORA OP JAPAN. By Mb. JOHN
G. VEITCH.
Agriculture of the District of Yokohama and Kanagawa.
Agriculture forms the chief occupation of the lower classes. Land is
brought to a very high state of cultivation, arising, in a great measure, first-
ly, from the country having to provide for an annually increasing population,
and, secondly, from the fact that all rents are paid in produce. The revenue
of the princes, and other proprietors, is derived almost solely from their land-
ed estates. The greatest landowners are the princes and the crown. Some
of the former are possessed of immense estates, their annual incomes being
sufficiently large to give them great power in the country, and often to men-
ace the ruling powers.
It is somewhat difficult to arrive at the relative position of landlord and
tenant. It is, however, known that all payments are made in rice. The Jap-
anese measure is termed Kokou, weighing about 100 lbs. English. A landed
proprietor calculates his income by kokous; his retainers and attendants are
again paid in rice, and thus but very little money passes. Each estate is
surveyed once or twice a year, when an approximate value is placed on the
crop; and, at the time of harvest, each tenant pays six parts in ten (this is
as near as can be ascertained) of whatever the valuation was. The crown
tenants, it is said, do not pay so much as those of other proprietors.*
The land in this neighborhood is exceedingly fertile, a friable loam extend-
ing to a very considerable depth, and easily worked. There is a great amount
of waste land, which might be cleared at a very slight expense, and cultivated
if necessary; but, on the other hand, there is not a spot of ground which,
having been once under cultivation, is not taken the best advantage of.
Cropping and the rotation of crops are thoroughly understood by the Jap-
anese. Kice forms the chief food of the entire population. The great num-
ber of rivulets and streams of water, which are found alike in all parts, ren-
ders the growth of rice every where practicable. There are several varieties
of rice; some adapted for growing on irrigated lands, and others on higher
and drier situations. There are entire valleys, of immense extent, planted
with rice in this country. No hedges or fences of any kind are necessary.
All domestic animals are stall fed; and there being no necessity for protec-
tion against wild animals, does away with the obligation of dividing and fenc-
ing lands, which is so common in England.
There is one particularly striking feature in every Japanese farm, viz., the
cleanliness and order every where prevalent. Each man seems to take a
pride in keeping his land in perfect order, and clear of every thing in the
shape of weeds. The use of manures is well understood and appreciated.
Human manure is the commonest and that most generally in use. It is
given in a liquid state, during the younger stages of the growing crops.
Horse manure and sea-weed are both used, but the latter only suits a certain
few crops.
THE CHIEF CROPS OF THE DISTRICT.
Rice—It la grown as in China. The fields are plowed and irrigated. The seed is first
sown in small nurseries, and transplanted in April, in small tufts of eight to ten plants, in
rows about eight inches apart. The plants, at this time, are about six inches high. The
harvest commences in December.
* There is reason to believe the proportions vary under different proprietors or in differ-
ent provinces.


APPENDIX.
399
few, tomatoes, ginger (the young roota Are boiled before being eaten), the egg plant {Sola-
rium esculentum), gourds, chilies, cucumbers, mushrooms, horseradish, lilies (the roots of va-
rious kinds are eaten), spinach, leeks, radishes, the young shoots of bamboo, just as they ap-
pear above the ground, garlic, capsicums, endive, fennel.
THE FRUIT-TREES OF THE DISTRICT.
The fruits of Japan are, generally speaking, not good. The want of flavor
is the great fault. No attention is paid to improving the various kinds of
fruit-trees, and consequently the same sorts continue without alteration from
year to year. Both the climate and soil are very favorable to their growth;
and, with proper attention to the subject, the fruit of Japan ought to equal
any in the world.
The following is a list of the principal kinds met with in the district:
Apple, pear, plum, peach, grapes (one of the best fruits in Japan), chestnut, persimmon,
pomegranate, figs, oranges, lemons, citrons, strawberries (growing wild, and very insipid),
melons (several species).
THE FLORA OF THE DISTRICT.
The flora of this district is very remarkable, principally (as, indeed, is that
of the whole of Japan) for the great abundance of evergreens. Four fifths
of the plants growing wild in this neighborhood belong to this class, so that,
even during the winter months, the country has a clothed and cheerful as-
pect. Coniferous plants play a conspicuous part. There is a great variety,
most of which are peculiar to Japan.
The assortment of showy flowering plants is not so great as might be im-
agined, but for this the abundance and variety of foliage fully compensates.
The land throughout the district is undulating—one continued succession of
hill and valley. The former is for the most part uncultivated, and contains
some of the most interesting botanical specimens in this quarter of the globe.
The Japanese are great amateur gardeners. Every cottage of any size
has its garden attached to it. Plants are brought from all parts of the coun-
try, and high prices often paid for rare specimens. The annexed list con-
tains an enumeration of the principal genera and species found wild in the
neighborhood of of Kanagawa:
Abies. One species.
Acer. Three or four species.
AInus. Two species.
Amaranthus. Many varieties.
Axalia japonica.
Ardisla crenulata.
Aucuba japonica.
Azalea. Many varieties.
Balsamina hortensis.
Bambusa. Five species.
Bambusa foliis variegatis.
Benthamia japonica.
Berberis japonica.
Camellia japonica. Very common.
Camellia Sasanqua.
Celosia cristata.
Celosia pyramidalis.
Cephalotaxus Fortuni
.
Coras us flore pleno.
Chamaerops excels*.
Clematis. Two species.
Convolvulus. Several varieties.
Cornus officinalis.
Cryptomeria japonica.
Cryptomeria species no /a.
Cupressus. Many varieties
Daphne.
Deutzfa. Two ppceies.
Dianthus. Many varieties.
Hiervilla versicolor.
Elseagnus.
Eriobotrya japonica.
Kuonymus japonica.
Filices. There are fifty species in the vicini-
ty of Yokohama.
Forsythia suspensa.
Gardenia florida.
Hedcra Helix.
Hibiscus. Two species, very common.
Hydrangea. Several species.
Hypericum. Two species.
Illicium. Three species.
Indigofera.
Iris. Several varieties.
Jasmin um.
Juniperus. Three or four species.
Kerria japonica.
Laurus.
Ligularia gigantea.
Ligustrum japonicum.
Lilium. Many varieties'.
Lychnis. Two species.
Magnolia. Two species.
Moras papyrifera.
NandIna domestics,
Nelumbium speclosum.


400
APPENDIX.
Nerium Oleander.
Nymphsea. Two species.
Olea. Three apecies.
Orchis. Three or four species.
Oxalis.
Pseonia. Many varieties.
Paulownia imperial is.
Pinus. Five or six distinct
Primula. Two or three
Prunus flore pleno.
Quercus. Several species, both
evergreen and
Retiuispora. Many species.
Rhus vernix.
Rosa. Two species.
Ruscus sempervirens.
Sciadopitys verticillata.
Skimmia japonica.
Spiraea. Two species.
Stauntonia.
Taxus.
Ternstroemia japonica.
Thuja. Two or three species.
Thujopsis dolabrata.
Traded can tia.
L'lmus. Two or three species.
Viburnum. Two species.
Vinca.
Vitis.
Weigela. Two species.
Wistaria sinensis, and others.
THE PRINCIPAL TIMBER TREES GROWING IN THE VICINITY OF YEDDO
AND KANAGAWA.
Japanese Namei. General Remarks; also the Botanical Names, ai far as they are procorable.
1. En g o, s. . . A good wood in common use for building purposes.
2. Mo-ku, s. . . A very fine timber, hard, and of close grain, used for saddles and turn-
ing purposes.
3. Mo-mi, 8. . . Abies Jirma. A common pine in the district, growing to a height of
120 feet; the wood is good but 15 feet. In common use for building
and other purposes.
4. To-yo-matsu, 8. Pinus parvijiora. One of the common pines of the country, used in
building.
5. It-su-ga . . . Abies Tsuga. A wood much valued by the Japanese. It is a white,
strong wood, used for house-building.
6. Su-gi, or Sun-gi Cryptoineria japonica. Commonly called the cedar of Japan. It is
common throughout the entire empire. The wood is light and soft,
but, being very cheap, it is one of the most generally used timbers.
7. Ki-a-ki,«. . . Planera acuminata. The Japanese elm. This is probably the finest
timber in Japan. Planks 4 to 5 feet in width are often seen. The
wood is hard, very strong, and of a dark brown color. The grain is
beautiful, but rather coarse. It polishes well, and is used for the
facings of houses, doors, furniture, cabinets, lacker-ware, etc
8. Kay-a . . . Cephalotaxus drupacea. Used principally for ship-building.
9. A-cang-a-shi, & Quere&s species. One of the oaks of Japan, but not the common oak
of the country. The timber is very good and highly valued. It is
very hard, and of immense strength. Used for ships, their rudders,
sculls, etc., etc.
10. Shi-rong-a-shi,s., Quercus species. A close-grained, heavy wood, very similar to NaJO,
and used for the same purposes.
11. Sa-wa-ra, s, . . Retinispora pisi/era. A common tree in this part of Japan, but does
not attain a great size. Used for making tubs, barrels, baths, etc.,
etc.
12. Icho .... Salisburia adiantifoUa. This tree grows to a great size, and assumes
a very fine habit. The wood polishes well, and is used for light box-
es, cabinets, tables, etc., etc.
13. Ku-a .... A coarse-grained, light wood, used chiefly for small polished articles.
14. Sa-wa-ku-ri, s. Thuja species. Not extensively used. The wood is soft and light.
15. Ku-ro-bi... A very nice, light wood. It is dark-colored and light. Used for fac-
ing walls, ceilings, etc., etc., in houses.
16. Kir-ri . . . . Paulownia imperialis. A very light wood. Used for the bottoms of
Japanese shoes, etc., etc.
17. Hi-no- ki, 8. . . Retinispora obtusa. One of the finest and most beautiful timber trees
of Japan. The wood is much valued; temples and chapels are gen-
erally built of it. It stands well in water and under ground. Ships
are built of it. Used for house-building, and especially for flooring.
The wood is light, white, and fine.
18. Asu-na-ro, 8. . Thujopsis dolabrata. One of the most beautiful trees in Japan. The
wood is coarse and light. It is used for building.
19. A-ung-kir-ri . Paulownia species. A variety of No. 16. The wood is very similar,
and used for the same purposes.
20. Cash-y, s. . . Quercfts species. The oak of Japan. There are many varieties, both
evergreen and deciduous. The trees attain a great size. The tim-
ber is very fine, and probably equal to any oak in the world. It is
used for all purposes where great strength is required. The han-
dles of Japanese swords are chiefly made of cash-y.


APPENDIX.
401
Japanese Names. General Remarks; also the Botanical Names, as far as they are procurable.
21. Ging-dl-su-gi, s. Thuja species. A light wood. L sed for house work.
22. Mee, s. . . . A fine wood, very heavy and hard. It polishes beautifully, and is one
of the woods selected for making the finest boxes, cabinets, etc., etc
23. Hi-ba .... JRetinispora species. Nearly allied to No. 17. Used chiefly for build-
ing.
24 . Mo-mo, s. . . A heavy, strong wood. It polishes well, and is used for boxes, cabin-
ets, etc.
25. Kat-su-ra, a. . A beautiful wood; it has quite a silky appearance when planed, and
is of a very fine grain, dark brown color, and medium weight. It is
considered by the Japanese as one of their best woods for fine, neat
work, and is highly prized.
26. Ho A light, white wood. All the sword-sheaths in Japan are made of it
.
27. Shi-ra-bi . . A light, white wood, used for building.
28. Va-ma-na-ra-shi, Used for shoes, sword-handles, etc., etc
29. Ka-ki .... Diospyros Kaki. Not very extensively used. The wood is hard, but
somewhat brittle, and will not stand exposure to weather.
30. Mats-u, e. . . Pinus densijlora and Massoniana. The common pines of the coun-
try. The trees attain a great size. The timber is large and fine in
quality. These trees are valued by the Japanese, who plant them
to form avenues, and on all prominent positions. Mats-u answers
to the deal of Europe. Rosin is also made from them.
31. Kats-u-no-kl . An unimportant timber tree, used for chop-sticks, and similar small
articles.
32. Na-ra .... Used for small boxes.
33. Ku-rong-no-ki. The wood is almost black, very like ebony. It is very scarce in Japan,
and used for the finest lacker cups, etc., etc.
34. Sing-y ... In common use for building and rough work.
35. Ya-na-ny . . Common wood of little value.
36. Momids-y . . Acer species. The Japanese maple. There is a great variety of ma-
ples in Japan. The wood is not much used in this country. The
trees are chiefly planted for ornaments.
The above is a list of the principal timber trees. Taken as a whole, I think
the timber of Japan will equal that of any other country. It is very plenti-
ful and cheap. Most of these trees would probably thrive well in England.
Those marked thus (5) are found only in Japan and the neighboring isl-
ands.
ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE TREES AND FLORA OF JAPAN.
THE CONIFEROUS PLANTS.
There is probably no country in the world, of the same area, which pro-
duces so great a variety of conifers as the group of islands composing the
Empire of Japan. From Nagasaki in the south, to Hakodadi in the north,
conifers are every where abundant, and in great variety; and, as foreigners
have hitherto been enabled to explore but an exceedingly small portion of
these islands, it is more than probable that the numerous mountain ridges of
the interior produce a great number of entirely new, and, as yet, undiscover-
ed species.
The Japanese are great admirers of evergreens, and great trouble is taken
to cultivate them to the best possible pitch. The greater portion of the tim-
ber used for building, and for all ordinary purposes, is that of coniferous
trees. The annual demand is exceedingly great throughout all parts of the
empire; and it is said that landowners are compelled to plant a certain num-
ber of forest trees yearly, in order that the stock in the country may not be
diminished. Conifers are also employed very largely for ornamental pur-
poses. Clipped hedges of the Cryptomeria, Retinisporas, Biotas, etc., are
very general; and scarcely a garden can be met with that does not contain
specimens of conifera, many of which are cut and trained into the most gro-
tesque forms.
The main roads which intersect this country are very generally planted on
either side with rows of conifers. Pinus densiflora and Massoniana, Crypto-


404 APPENDIX.
Japanese Names. Botanical Names and General Remarks.
large quantity of oily substance. From the seed itself oil is press:
ed, while the husk produces the substance from which the bulk of
the Japanese candles are made.
Ka-so Brousaonetia papyri/era. The paper-tree of Japan.This shrub is
grown exclusively for its bark, which forms the chief material used
for paper-making. The shoots are cut annually in December or
January, after the leaves have fallen, having grown some four or
five feet in length. They are then immersed in water for several
days, after which the bark is taken off. The inner and whiter bark
is separated from the outer, and the former selected for making the
better qualities of paper. The bark is then beaten into a pulp, and
afterward well washed and cleaned. This done, it is allowed to ac-
cumulate in a vessel, and is ready for being converted into paper.
In making the paper, a portion of the pulp is taken up in a tray with
a very low (almost imperceptible) projection round the edge. Suf-
ficient pulp is thus retained to make the paper the desired thickness,
and the remainder runs off. The paper being made by hand, these
trays are small, which accounts for the Japanese paper being always
made in small sheets. It is dried in the sun after this latter proc-
ess, and becomes fit for use. There are three plants grown in this
district for paper-making, viz., Droussonetia papyri/era, Buddlea
species, and Hibiscus species. The bark of the two former, and the
root of the latter is employed. The Broussonetia is, however, by far
the commonest, only comparatively small quantities of the two lat-
ter being mixed with it.
NOTES ON JAPANESE PLANTS INTRODUCED TO ENGLAND BY MR. JOHN G.
VEITCH, AND NOW IN CULTIVATION IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MESSRS.
VEITCH AND SON.
The following additional notes have been supplied me while the work is
going through the press; and, as affording the latest information in refer-
ence to the plants now in the country, they will doubtless be acceptable to
all interested in ornamental gardening.
Many of these plants will unquestionably be most valuable additions to
our gardens, their hardiness adding much to their value.
Among deciduous trees, Planera acuminata, the Japanese elm, will occupy
a prominent place, not only as an ornamental tree, but from the value of its
fine timber, which the Japanese use for their best work. The maples, also,
will prove very handsome trees, from their rich autumnal tints. (See page
264.)
Conifers are abundant; and among those at present most admired, per-
haps because most known, the graceful Thujopsis dolabrata, numerous ele-
gant species of Retinispora, both green and variegated, the singular and dis-
tinct Umbrella Pine, Sciadopitys verticillata, the Abies Alcoquiana, rendered
peculiarly interesting by the seeds having been plucked on our pilgrimage to
Mount Fusiyama, with other beautiful species of Abies, Picea, Pinus, etc.
Our collections of hardy shrubs are enriched by the addition of many fine
things, including the evergreen female Aucuba japonica, producing copious
branches of red berries in the autumn. It is from this original species that
our well-known variegated Aucuba originates; and now we have several va-
riegated additions.
There are also many fine species of Ligustrum, Euonymus, Elaiagmitf etc.,
both green and variegated, as well as the beautiful Holly-like Osmanthus
aquifolius, a charming little shrub, of which there are several varieties. Nor
must the various Bamboos be omitted, which, from their very distinct and
peculiar habit, are calculated to form most useful objects for ornamental
planting, especially near water.
Of Ferns, also, a great number have been received, and are now under cul-
tivation.
Annexed will be found a list of the principal Japanese plants now in cul-


406
APPENDIX.
T. Retinispora obtusa.
8. " pisifera.
9. Paulovnia species. Yeddo.
10. Chamaeropa excelsa.
11. Acer species. Yedda
12. Ilex species (?). Evergreen shrub; 8 to
10 feet.
13. Rhus vernix.
14. Abies species
15. Biennial. Unknown.
16. Nandina domestica, fructu rubra,
IT. Paulovnia species (f). 18. Euonymus species (O. 19. Ilex latifolia.
20. Ilex species. (Smooth leaved.)
21. Nandi.ua domestica, fructu luteo.
22. Lilium species.
contents of cases for the
Cask No.
1. Abies species, from Mount Fusiyama.
2. Thujopsis dolabrata variegata.
3. Zauthoxylon species CO. 4. Abiea species (larch), from Mount Fusiya-
ma.
ft. Magnolia species, from Mount Fusiyama.
ti. Pernettya species, from Mount Fusiyama.
7. Canna species C). ROYAL GARDENS, KEW.
t
A tree (unknown) from which the Japan-
ese are said to make varnish.
Azalea species.
Osmanthus species.
"variegatus.
Rubus species, from Mount Fusiyama.
Gardenia radicans variegata.
Carex species variegata.
Thuja species.
Case No. 2.
2. Thujopsis dolabrata variegata.
8. A tree (unknown) from which varnish is
said to be made.
9. Azalea species.
15. Thuja species.
16. Thujopsis dolabrata.
17. Retinispora obtusa.
18. Melastoma species © 19. An orchid (unknown).
20. Creeper with variegated foliage.
21. Chrysanthemum. A handsome and Iel variety.
22. Shrub (unknown).
23. Platanus species.
24. Acer species.
25.
Quantities of Seedling Pines, Oaks, Maples, etc., etc., planted in both cases. p.
TITLES IN JAPAN.
[From the 'Japan Herald.']
The subject of the titles of officers in Japan is to the uninitiated a maze
of obscurity. It is a labyrinth in the mazes of which one is immediately lost
without a guide, but through which it is easy to steer when the crew has been
obtained. Not one of the many Japanese officers (whether their titles be
hereditary or not) is so often misnamed, by those even who know his position
and his proper titles, as he who holds the position of what foreigners style
Temporal Emperor. The titles of officers generally is too large a one to
take up at present; but it may not be amiss to discuss, or to throw out a few
hints for the discussion of what is the proper title of the Temporal Emperor.
In our last number, we, in noticing another subject, expressed an opinion,
in a passing way, that there was little or nothing of spirituality in the ideas
that the Japanese have of the Mikado beyond what is contained in the doc-
trine of the divine right of kings. The title of almost any one of the rulers
in Christendom contains some expression to denote more or less plainly that
the person of his or her majesty is most sacred, and that he rules by the
grace of God. That Easterns should call the highest individual in their re-
spective empires by the title of the Son of Heaven, or that these should so
style themselves, is not a matter of surprise. But in Japan it is supposed
by foreigners that there is something in the official titles of the one and of
the other to constitute them coequals in rank, to one of whom is given the
execution of the laws, to the other the dispensation of honors only as from
a sacred fountain.


APPENDIX.
407
If, however, it be granted that there is any thing which would denote an
idea of spirituality in the office of Mikado, there is nothing, we shall find, in
the titles of the other to denote any idea of imperial or kingly power what-
ever.
The name by which this officer is commonly known is 'the Tycoon of Ja-
pan.' In all the Treaties made between the respective Governments of En-
gland, France, America, Holland, and Portugal, and Japan, he is styled 'his
Majesty the Tycoon of Japan,' and in the Japanese text of the Treaties he
is also styled Tycoon. There is, however, no such word as Tycoon in the
language of Japan. There was no such title given in Japan to any officer
before the arrival of Commodore Perry in Japan. Whence has it arisen
that an officer is, in such an important document as a Treaty, given a name
which is not known in the country with which the Treaty is made?
The two words Tycoon or Taikun are Chinese, the first signifying 'great;'
the second is translated, in Williams's Dictionary, 'a chief, head of society, a
prince, sovereign, or ruler—honorable, exalted; to rule, to fulfill the duties
of a sovereign, etc.;' the two words therefore imply that the bearer of the
title is the 'great sovereign or ruler of Japan.' The word emperor, in Med-
hurst's vocabulary, is translated Sohera Mikado; and another word is given
for the Spiritual Emperor, no word being given for Tycoon. But this is only
an old word for Emperor, and ought to be Smera Mikoto.
We may then inquire whether (if this high-sounding name be a foreign
importation) it is borne out to the full extent, or to any extent, by the titles
by which he is known in Japan.
And, in the first place, we may state what we have learned on the spot as
to the origin of the name Tycoon in the Treaties. When Commodore Per-
ry arrived in the Bay of Yeddo, the Government was naturally anxious to
find out what he wanted, what his powers were, and how far he was likely to
go in pushing his wishes. The expedition was heralded with such a flourish
of trumpets so loud and so long as to reach the shores of Japan long before
the Commodore himself.
The Government, no doubt, consulted long and anxiously about the diplo-
matist whom they should send down to carry on a negotiation: they seem,
not with their usual skill and wisdom, to have deputed a man who was more
notable for his knowledge of the Chinese language than for worldly wisdom
or practical shrewdness. This was Hyashi Daigaku-no Kami. Not the
Prince of Daigaku, as the American official report styles him, but the head
of the Chinese college, or professor of Chinese in the college of Miaco, and,
at the time, teacher of Chinese to the Tycoon. He happened to be a pedant.
He was devoted to the study of Chinese literature. During the conferences
which took place at Yokohama, the question of the proper title of the Em-
peror, as he was then called, came up, and, so far as we recollect, the ques-
tion was put if the 'Tycoon' was the proper title to embody in the text of
the Treaty. The answer given by Hyashi implied that it was the proper
title by which to designate the person intended in the text of the Treaty.
Poor Hyashi, in consequence of his diplomacy on this occasion, fell into dis-
grace and poverty, died some years ago despised by his countrymen and
neglected by his friends, and an object of aversion to the Government by
whom he had been accredited. With such an authority, and with interpret-
ers who were acquainted with Chinese only, it was natural that the style
should be adopted.
At what period the name was first adopted by foreigners we have no means
at hand of discovering.
Koempfer calls him the secular Emperor, secular Monarch, a Crown Gen-
eral; but we can not find that he alludes to any such title as Tycoon. The


408 APPENDIX.
old Jesuit fathers called him the Kubosama, the Xogune, Daifusama, at dif-
ferent times, according to the exact title he received from the Emperor at
the time they wrote.
He is never spoken of in public documents by the title of Tycoon. So far
as we can learn, nearly all his titles are given to him by the Mikado, and
he goes through the several grades of rank in succession. Such being the
case, we may conclude that Tycoon is not a title to which he has any right,
and the more especially that it seems to convey an idea of supsriority and
of sovereign rule which is not included in, or to be inferred from, any of the
titles conferred on him by the Mikado. The very giving of such a title,
and the assumption of it, is likely to create a feeling of jealousy, when none
would have existed had his own honors been strictly adhered to.
So far as we can learn, the son and heir, or the 'Temporal Emperor,' wheth-
er his father be alive or not, goes, till he is fifteen years of age, by the name
of 'Take-cheoo,' two Chinese words meaning a bamboo shoot green for ten
thousand years. If his father is dead and he has succeeded him, this title
is changed when he is about eight or nine years of age. He assumed the
toga virilis at an earlier age than is usual—i. e., at fifteen—has his head
shaved, and assumes the name by which he is afterward known, such as Iye-
yas, Iyaymitzno, Iyaytzna.
But if he have succeeded to the vacant seat even at an early age, there are
two titles which are inherent in the position. The first, Junna Shongakoo
drio een no Bettowo, which means that he is the head or principal of the two
colleges of Janna and Shongakoo. These were formerly in Miako, but are
now in Yeddo. This title always is assumed by the person who holds the
next, Wis., 'Genjee no-choja.' Genjee is the family which opposed the Heji,
and, after a lengthened civil war, overcame them. Genjee is the Chinese
sound of the characters of the word Minnamoto. Sometimes the title is
given with the latter instead of the former word—Minnamoto-no Choja;
Choja means the head of a large house or family. The title signifies 'the
head of the Minnamoto family.'
These two titles appertain to the individual, whoever he may be, who is
the real or supposed lineal descendant of Iyeyas and other lines upon which
this line has been ingrafted. So soon as this officer assumed the toga virilis,
and shaves his head as a man, the Mikado gives him titles and honors.
Those which we have just noticed may be called family and'literary honors.
Those which he receives from the Emperor are civil and military, and of
rank or position. Of each of these there are several, with differences. Three
years ago, shortly after his elevation, the present Tycoon was Dainangoong
(Ta-nah-yen in Chinese); since then, we believe, and shortly before his mar-
riage with the Emperor's sister, he was advanced to either Nai-dai-jin or
Oodaijin—i. e., to be either middle or right great Minister. He was not ad-
vanced to this without some opposition from officers of high rank at Miako.
He receives from the Emperor, generally at a very early period after his ele-
vation, the title of Daisiogoong (in Chinese Ta-tsiang-kiun), the great com-
mander of the army. This is a title given in China to the commander-in-
chief of the Tartar troops only. This is the highest military rank in Japan,
and has been generally hereditary. It carries with it no actual military du-
ties; but, as the Japanese consider themselves a nation of soldiers, the hold-
er is, in fact, the head of the executive.
To this title is sometimes, but not always, added Se-i or Savee (in Chinese
Ching-i), the chastiser or subjugator of barbarians, as we translate the word
'I,' the use of which is prohibited by the last treaty with China. This title
was originally given with reference to the Ainos in the north of Japan and
Yezo, but this has lately been applied to foreigners in communications from


412
APPENDIX.
The weakness and the unpopularity of the Government at Yeddo is to be at-
tributed to many causes, which I will not now discuss.
The kind of hostile antipathy which we meet from the privileged class can
not but surprise those unacquainted with the character of a two-sworded
Japanese. The Government at Yeddo, in opening Japan, reserved to itself,
in petto, the right to overrule with an absolute authority the new relations.
The energy and dignity of our Representatives have singularly disappointed
their pretensions: all those who are attached to the Government, whose na-
tional pride has not forgotten the homages rendered to the great Nippon by
Desheema, are scandalized to see the foreigners make the treaties a serious
thing, and acquire in Japan an influence more or less fatal to their privi-
leges. A Japanese official can not understand how a merchant dares to ap-
peal to what is right as the sole arbitrator between himself and the Yaconin.
He can not bear that a despised akindo (merchant) should be more enlight-
ened than himself, and should prove it daily to him.
I said the conclusion of the ' Open Letter' was practically impossible. The
Mikado would certainly not receive the European envoys, but would send
them back to Yeddo, where the Taikong is the official deputy to treat on
such a matter.
Moreover, such a measure would be most dangerous. The Daimios would
move heaven and earth, and intrigue in every manner, to influence the Mi-
kado to ruin the detested Government in condemning its policy toward for-
eigners. The Daimios would necessarily be against us, because they are the
enemies of R Government whose cause is fatally connected with our interests.
Such are the reflections which the reading of the 'Open Letter' has sug-
gested to me, and which I submit to your appreciation with all possible re-
spect. E. E. M. * * * *


INDEX.
Abortion, i., 125.
Accountants, Japanese, t, 384. Chinese, 384.
Acrobats, Japanese, ii., 282.
Acupuncture, common in Japan and China,
i.,390.
Adams, William, his visit to Japan, i., 99.
Adieu, the Japanese, i., 407.
Administration of Japan. See Government.
Adscripti glebce, the great bulk of the servile
population of Japan really, ii., 211.
Agawa Farozayamang, the wealthy landlord
of Idzoo, i.,377,382.
Agriculture, Thunberg's account of the, of
Japan, i., 83. Minute and elaborate care
bestowed on manures, 84. The crops grown
near Yeddo, 121. Liquid manure carried
out of the cities into the fields, 123,124.
Paddy-fields near Yeddo, 261. Modes of
separating rice grain from the straw, 261,
262. Wheat sown before the end of Novem-
ber, 262. Soil near Yeddo, 262. Japanese
mode of plowing, 263,284. Rich variety of
crops grown in strange juxtaposition, 263.
Treading and rolling down the seed, w 264. Economical mode of manuring a field,
265, 266. Tall and well-kept hedges of va-
rious kinds of plants, 264. Little hamlets
and farmer's homesteads, 266. Device for
- keeping off the birds, 266, 267. Reaping
the paddy crop, 266. Apparent happiness
of the l 268. Japanese system of
agriculture, 280. Captain Vyse's notes on
the agriculture in the district of Kanagawa,
280. No part of the ground allowed to re-
main idle, 281. Rents and revenues paid
in kind, 281. The special relations of land
lord and tenant, 282; G) 397. Place occu-
pied by the Japanese farmer in the social
scale, i., 282. Agriculture held in high es-
teem by the Japanese 282. Their standard
of superficial measurement, 283. Land-tax,
283. Cropping and rotation of crops, 283.
Irrigation, 283. Rice, 283. Other crops,
283, 285. Order and neatness observable
on Japanese OT 283. Flails and win-
nowing machines, 284. Economy of labor.
284. Chief grains and vegetables grown
near Red and G" 283; it, 397-8.
Mode of cultivating rice, a 284. Evidences
of agricultural wealth on the road to Fusi-
yama, 361. Teeming variety of the prod-
uce near Missima, 376,377. The Japanese'
rice the best in the world, 394. Deficiency
and flavor in every thing else grown, 394.
Harvest-time in Japan, ii., 66. Rice culti-
vation, 66,76,2 The aram, the sweet po-
tato, and bearded wheat, 66. Hedgerows,
66,83, 84,127. Character of the soil in the
island of Kiuslu, 69, 75. Tenure of land,
76. Sand and sandstone of the country, 76.
Various crops grown, 76. Vegetable wax,
66,83. Primitive wells for irrigation, 107.
Every inch of soil turned to profit, 107.
Brinjalls or egg fruit, 107. Native tobacco,
128. Simple flails used by women, 132.
Poverty-stricken appearance of the peas-
ants' houses on the road between Osaca
and Yeddo, 133. Interior of a cottage, 133.
Women engaged in field labor, 136, 137.
Plows, the Japanese, 137. Wheat not sown
broadcast, but drilled and planted in rows,
137. Cheapness of labor, 137. Notes on the
agriculture, etc., of Japan, by Mr. John G.
Veitch, 397. The agriculture of the district
of Kanagawa and Yokohama, 397. Clean-
liness and order of the farms in Japan, 397.
Agriculturists, their fondness for useful birds,
i.,134.
Alcock, Sir Rutherford, H. B. M.'s Minister to
the Court of Yeddo:
— his departure from Canton for Japan, i,,
88.
— his arrival at Hongkong, i., 39.
—. leaves Hongkong, Fe b, — reaches 'AAA i., 52.
— leaves Shanghae, i.,60.
— first impressions of Japan, I., 86.
— casts anchor immediately opposite the
city of Yeddo, i., 101.
— lands at Yeddo, i., 104.
visits the Temple of Tozengee, i., 109.
establishes his residence there, t( 112.
bis official letter addressed to the Japan-
ese Minister for Foreign Affairs on the con-
duct of the Yaconins, s. 129.
his first lessons in Japanese diplomacy,
i., 138.
. lands officially at Yeddo, t, 150.
his first official reception, i., 150.
exchange of ratifications, i., 154.
his hermit life in Yeddo, i., 154
.
left to his own destiny and resources, i.,
156.
visits the great commercial centre of
Yeddo, 1,158.
his remonstrance respecting the insults
and outrages committed on foreigners in
Yeddo, i., 215. attacked by cholera, J., 225.
— visited by one of the Governors of For-
eign Affairs, i., 225.
— his interview with the Ministers for For-
eign Affairs,!, 228.
— his visit to the i., 240.
— and to Yokohama, i., 274.
— his reflections discursive and retrospect-
ive of Japanese relations, i., 314.
— stray leaves from his journal, i., 317.


414
INDEX.
Alcock, Sir Rutherford (continued):
his (audience with the Tycoon for the
presentation of his credentiala, i.. 328.
preliminary difficulties i., 328.
ceremonies of the audience, I., 332.
his pilgrimage to Fujiyama, L, 340.
his visit to the mineral springs of Atami
.
i. ,379.
his residence on fire, ii., 20.
proofs of good will and friendly Interest
shown on the occasion by the Japanese au-
thorities, iL, 21.
— newspaper account of his landing at
Yeddo, iL, 21, 22.
damages obtained against him in the
Supreme Court of Hongkong, ii., 25.
his dispatch to H. M.'s Government on a
threatened massacre of foreigners in Japan,
U.,37.
■ the Legation put under the charge of a
Paimio with two hundred soldiers and two
field-pieces, ii., 41. his representation to the officials on the
insecurity of life in Yeddo, aud his deterni-
ination to withdraw, ii., 44. takes up his residence at Yokohama, iL,
54.
his circular addressed to the British Con
suls as to his withdrawal from Yeddo, iL, 55. his letter to the Ministers for Foreign
Affairs, iL, 55, 56. his demand for guarantees for greater
security for the future, ii., 56.
negotiation commenced, ii., 59.
—— returns to Yeddo under a salute to the
British flag, ii., 60. takes a journey overland from Nagasaki
to Yeddo across the island of Kiusiu, ii., 61,
et scq.
expenses of the Journey, ii., 62.
his visit to a coal mine, ii., 77.
incivility and interference of the Prince
of Fizen's officers, ii., 80. leaves Kiusiu, and embarks on the Su
onada Sea for Hiogo, ii., 88. consents to avoid Miaco on his journey
to Yeddo, IL, 105.
visits Osaca, li.,108.
objections of the officials to take him to
the Tycoon's castle there, ii., 122.
his greeting in the city of Nieno, ii., 131.
arrives at Kanagawa, ii., 142.
returns to Yeddo, ii., 143.
■ measures for protection of the Legation,
ii. , 146.
midnight attack on the Legation, ii., 147.
conspirators* bond found on one of the
assassins, ii., 149. was the Government aware of the in
tended attack? ii., 150.
, the killed and wounded, ii., 157,158.
■ position of the British Minister after the
assault, li., 158. declaration of the Japanese Government
of their inability to protect the Foreign
Ministers, ii., 163,164. information afforded by M. de Belle-
court, ii., 167,168. extracts from the British Minister's
memorandum made at the time for the
Foreign Office, ii., 168,169.
Alcock, Sir Rutherford (continued):
— sends Mr. Oliphant home for the cure of
his wounds, and as the bearer of the auto-
graph letter of the Tycoon to the Queen, ii.,
171.
— obtains a confidential and secret inter,
view with the Ministers for Foreign Affairs,
as to their general policy and the dangers
| incident to it, ii., 171. his resume of foreign relations with Ja-
pan, ii., 176,179, et seq.
— means taken by Admiral Hope for the
protection of the British Legation, ii., 178.
aspersions of the local press on the Brit-
ish Minister's * pusillanimous concessions,'
iL,334. *
— his departure on sick leave, iL, 340.
— arrangements made as to the delay in
opening Yeddo and the new ports, ii., 341.
his remonstrance as to the proposed re-
duction in the value of the silver coinage,
ii.,352.
Alcohol, fondness of the Japanese for, i., 185.
See Saki.
Amaga Saki, Japanese castle near, iL, 107.
Amaral, Captain, governor of Macao, assassi-
nated, i., 46.
American treaty with Japan, L,100. Ques-
tion of the currency and exchange with
America, ii., 347.
American Legation threatened, iL, 168.
Americans, their destruction of the Barrier
forts, L, 39.
Amida, the sovereign of heaven, in the Japan-
ese theocracy, ii., 267.
IAmphitheatre, an, of hills and ravines of for-
mer volcanic action, iL, 127.
Amusements of the Japanese, ii., 265. Strange
combination of religion and amusement,
265. The Surrey Gardens of Yeddo, 272.
Archery ground for women and children,
273. Great number of Japanese festivals,
272,283. Top-spinning, 277. Games with
forfeits, 282. Musicians and acrobats, 282.
Story-tellers, 282. Wrestling, 282. Gam-
bling, 284. Game on horseback, 283,284.
Ando Tsusimano Kami, second Minister for
Foreign Affairs, interview with, L, 320.
Menace posted on his door, iL, 168. At-
tacked and severely wounded on his way to
the Tycoon's palace, 192. Attempt to as-
sassinate him, 336. His friendly and court-
eous relations with the British Minister,
837. His recovery, 338. His retirement
from the cabinet of the Tycoon, 33S, 339.
Andorre, republic of, compared with Japan,
iL, 237.
Animals, Japanese pictures of, it., 244,245.
Annesley, Mr., his zeal for the protection of
the British Minister, iL, 166.
Anstey, Mr. Chisholm, L, 42.
Apprenticeship of female servants, Ii., 133.
Aqueduct, a primitive, at Atami, L, 392.
Arabs, records of their former civilization and
mental development, L, 226.
Arai, town of, iL, 139.
Aram, a sort of lotus, eaten by the Japanese,
ii.,66.
Archery, Japanese skill in, ii., 254. Archery
ground for women and children in Yeddo,
273.


INDEX.
415
Architecture, Chinese and Japanese, i., 207,
266. No architecture properly so called in
Japan, iL, 240.
Arima, King of, his letter to the Pope of
Rome, L, 73.
Ariraatz, town of, ii., 139. Its manufactures,
139. Appearance of comfort in, 139.
Aristocracy, federal, the form of government
in Japan, ii., 208. Its power in former
times and at present, 208.
Armorers of Yeddo, i., 115.
Army of Japan, ii., 207.
Art, infancy of, among the Chinese and Jap
anese, i.,207. Its civilizing influence, lL,
221. Results to which it contributes among
the Japanese, 223. Their graphic delinea-
tion of animals, 244,245.
Artillery practice of the Japanese in Yeddo,
i., 120.
Artist, a Japanese, at work, ii., 263.
Arts, excellence of the Japanese in all the me-
chanical, ii.,243.
Asaxa, the great temple of, described, ii., 269.
The perpetual fair in the gardens of, 270.
Asia, Western diplomacy and Asiatic policy,
remarks on, ii., 286, et seq. What Europe
owes to Asia, 288. Asiatic philosophy and
European mundane aims, 289. Causes of
the mutual repulsion of the two races, '290.
Influences inimical to the conversion of Asi-
atics to Christianity, 294. Wants and pri-
mary necessities of Orientals, 309. Their
policy when conquered, 182. Never enter
into alliance with Western States, 184.
Reasons why the East is a bad school for]
teaching moderation, 136. The Oriental
system of bad faith and assassination, 175.
Importance of England maintaining her
prestige in the East, 194. What represents
power and inspires respect in the East, 202.
Western diplomacy and Eastern policy, re-]
marks on, 286, et seq.
Assassination of Russians, i., 220. A Japan-
ese, 292. Planned assassinations, 294. Of
Dutch Captains in Yokohama, 300. Of the
Regent of Japan, 304. History of the event,
S05, et seq. Causes of, in Japan, ii., 183.
Attack of assassins on the British Legation,
147. Bond of the conspirators, 149, 150.
Their number, 155. Their fate, 155,156.
Ataroj, town of, i., 378. Traces of the wild
boar at, 369. Population and employments
of the people of, 380. Fish caught in the]Beverages of the Japanese, L, 268.
bay,380. Manufactures of, 380. The min- Birds without song in Japan, i.,85. Japan
eral springs of, 380. Nitre collected nearf ese farmers* device for keeping off, 266,267.
them, 382. The paper mills of Atami, 384. iBirds, land:
Houses, temples, and tomb-stones of the city, I Crane, i., 134.
388. Peasants of Atami, 389,390. Manu-
factory of moxas at, 390. A primitive aque-
duct at, 392.
Atango, temple to the god, i., 118.
Atango-yama, view of the city and bay of
Yeddo from, i., 118.119.
Autumn in Japan, i., 177,264. In Yeddo, 130.
Avenues of trees on the road to Yeddo, i., 403.
Awabee, caught'in the Bay of Atami, i., 380.
Azaleas at the temple of Tozengee, i., 110.
Bamboo of the shores of the Bay of Nagasaki.
i. , 89. Height to which it grows, 264. The
young shoots used as food, 286. The Chi-
nese * Indian paper* made from, 386. Bam-
boo-trees near Nagasaki, iL, 66. Near Yed-
do, i.,110,122.
Bantam fowls in the streets of Nagasaki, i,
96. In Japan, 277.
Barber, a Japanese, iL, 275.
Bark of a creeper, linen and rain coats manu-
factured from the, ii., 141.
Basket-makers of Yeddo, i., 115.
Bath, the luxury of even the peasant, i., 267.
Shampooing, 268. Bath-rooms invariably
attached to every inn in Japan, 348. Sim-
plicity of the Japanese tub-bath, 367. Eco-
nomical and rapid mode of getting a warm
bath, 368. Bath-houses in Yeddo, 108,230,
357. Saline baths in the Hakoni range of
mountains, 356. Gossip of the, 357. Con-
sidered as the people's Parliament, 358.
Hot sulphur baths of Urisino andTakeiwa,
iL, 70. Shampooing, 253.
Batteries erected and in course of erection at
Yeddo, L, 120.
Battledore and shuttlecock,iL, 281.
Bay of Atami, i., 380.
of Hakodadi, L, 240,241 Fish of, 244.
of Maisaca, ii., 140.
of Nagasaki, L, 87,89.
of Osaca, ii., 102.
of Owari, ii.,137.
Bazar, a daily, in booths in Yeddo, L, 117.
Beans grown near Yeddo and Kanagawa, L,
283. Uses of, 285.
Bear, grizzly black, of Japan, L, 27T.
Beds of the Japanese, L, 348.
Beef not eaten by the Japanese, L, 96.
Beggars of Japan, L, 116,117; ii., 257,275. A
dead beggar on the high road, L, 394. Not
so many beggars as in China, 394. Mendi-
cant monks, ii.,276.
Begging penitents of Japan. See Lonins.
Bellecourt, M. de, his generosity to the mem-
bers of the British Legation in their dan-
ger, iL, 164. Extracts from his bulletins,
167,168. His Italian servant, Natal, wound-
ed by Samourai, 13,14. Letter of the Jap-
anese Ministers for Foreign Affairs to him
as to the hostility of the Japanese toward
foreigners, 187. His kindness to the British
Minister, 338.
By the hedge-sides, ii., 66,107.
playing at, fondness of the Japanese
Ball, p
for,ii
.
for, iL, 280,!
.134
Lark, i.,369.
Paddy-bird,"
Sparrow, L, 369.
StorM.,134.
. Unguissu,iL,124.
Bird", water:
Fishing-hawk, i., 89.
Ibis, at Yeddo, i , 134.
Wild-fowl of Yeddo, i., 134.
BUen, Prince of, one of the patrons of the
Temple of Tozengee, ii,, 2S5.
Blindness in Japan, L, 40i. Prevalence of, on
the road to Yeddo, ii., 137. Two sects of
blind people, 267.


416
INDEX.
Blood-fends of the Japanese, L, 306; IL, 24
.
Japanese delight in deeds of bloodshed, 114.
Boar, wild, of the slopes of Fusiyama, L. 369.
BS A" on the sand-choked riv-
ers, iL, 87.
Books, Chinese, the * Japanese Martyrs,* i., 32.
Japanese, iL, 246.
Booksellers* shops in Yeddo, L, 115.
Bows and arrows, maker of, as, 254.
Box-tree, abundance of the, on the road to
Yeddo, ii., 133.
Breakfast, a Japanese, ii., 129.
Bridges over the moats in Yeddo, i., 135.
Enormous number and size of the, of Osaca,
ii., 117.
Brinjalls, or egg fruit, iL, 107.
Bronze ware of Yeddo, i., 115. O Osaca, ii.,
109.
Bubbles, blowing, ii., 262.
Buckwheat grown near Yeddo and Kanaga-
wa, i., 284, 285.
Buddhism of the Japanese, ii., 224,267. Pe-
riod when Buddhism was introduced into
Japan, L, I "KY 268. Its influence in
Asia, 268.
Bungo, Prince of, his territories the first to re-
ceive Romanism, L, 68,69. His letter to
the Pope of Rome, 73.
Bufiios, their various functions in the Japan-
ese government, t 207. The Gaikoku
Bunio, 207. The Gisha Bunio, 207. The
Matchi Bunio, 207.
Cahte, his accident on shipboard, O' 99. His
dislike of the sea, 100.
Cakengawa, town of, iL, or Manufactures
of, 141.
Calico, printed, Japanese, l it Camellias of the Bay of Nagasaki, L, 89. Of
the hedge-sides, iL, 66.
* Camilla,' loss of the, in a typhoon, L, 367.
Camphor, trade in, with the Japanese, L, 326.
Japanese frauds in, iL, 213.
Cango, a Japanese, L, IN Canton, the carpenters of, i., 34 . Ruined state
of the suburbs, 36. Commissioner Yeh, 36.
Condition of Canton in the hands of the Al-
lies, 36. Wrong and injury suffered by the
English at, previous to the first war, 89.
Cardinal numbers, Japanese, L, 170.
Cards, gambling with, in Japan, N., 283.
Cartoon, an old Japanese, at Simonoseki, iL,
94
.
Castle of the Tycoon at Yeddo, L, 333. At
Osaca, ii., 123. And at Nangoya, t Castles in Japan, mode of building them, ii.,
137,138. Castle of Kawana, A., Cattle not kept for food in Japan, L, L Cautery, the actual, in Japan, i., 390. Manu-
factory of moxas at Atami, e Cemeteries, Japanese, ii., 285.
Cemetery of the Tycoon, in Yeddo, L, 108,
116. Rudely closed to some of the mem-
bers of the British Legation, 321.
Cemetery, the foreign, near Yeddo, iL, 47.
Funeral of Mr. Heuskin in the, 47,48.
Ceremonies of an audience with the Tycoon,
L, 334, 335.
Chairs not used by the Japanese, L,34
.
Charades, illustrated Japanese book of, iL,
Cherry-trees near Yeddo, L, 264
.
Chickens, scarcity of, in Nagasaki, i., 96.
Children, fete to commemorate the birth of,
L, 92. Japan the paradise of babies, 94.
Numbers of, in Yeddo, 124. The mothers'
mode of disposing them before they can
walk, 124 . Power of parents to sell them
into slavery, ii., 212. Scaldhead frequent
among, 137. Dirty appearance of, 137.
Japanese children and their amusements,
281.
China, hooks TI L, 32. Musquitoes of, 35.
Power of the mandarins, 37. The law re-
specting emigration repealed by Governor
Peihkwei, 37. Chinese craft, 42. Pirates,
42,48. Anger and jealousy of the Chinese
government at the prosperity of Hongkong,
48. Venality of custom-house officials, 44,
48. Efforts of China to improve its Cus-
toms administration with the assistance of
foreign officers, 48. Benefits to be derived,
if successful, 49. Remedies for piracy and
smuggling, 51. Rapid growth of the for-
eign settlement at Shanghae, A. Position
of England with regard to China, 53. The
Taepings, 53. Policy of Great Britain, 54,
55. Statistics of the trade of Shanghai from 1855 to 1860,56, note. Reflections on
the future, 61. Farewell to China, 62. Mr.
Mill on the mediocrity and immobility of
the Chinese mind, 62. Rapid communica-
tion between Canton and London, 63. Lan-
guage and literature of China adopted by
the Japanese, 161. Their asserted right of
seclusion, and consequences of their resist-
ance to demands for admission, 192. Jap-
anese notion of the causes of the ruin and
impoverishment of China, 253. Trade be-
tween Japan and China, 325. Instance of
the foreigner's ignorance of the 'rites and
ceremonies* of, 366. Causes of our second
war with China, iL, II Made to yield up
immense territories to the Russians in time
of peace, 304.
Chin-a-lin, the ruffian Taeping leader, L, 56.
Chinese accountants, i., 384.
books, L, 32.
characters, the three Japanese modes of
writing the, i., 165,166. The Kaisho, 166.
The Giosho, 166. The Sosho, 166. Chinese
cursive writing, 167.
coolies, i., 58.
crimps in the sea-port towns, I., 37.
Customs superintendent, or Hoppo, L,
38,39.
furniture, made at Canton, L, 34
.
* Indian paper,' L, 386.
language, systems of intonation of the,
L, 165. Familiar use of the, in Japan, ii.,
381.
Mandarins, their power, L, 37.
pirates, L,42,48.
smuggling, L, 44,48. Remedies for, 48.
women, L, 162. Position of women in
China, ii., 219.
Chinese, their untiring industry, persever-
ance, and enterprise, L, 42. An easily gov-
erned people, 52. Their oppression of the
English in Canton, 89. The first war with
them, 89. M. Thiers's remark on the life
and civilization of the, 206. At a stand-


INDEX.
still in the arts and manufactures, 207. In-
fancy of art among them, 207. Their for-
mer eminence, 208. Their notions of the
causes of earthquakes, 290. Their postal
communication, ii., 240. Their notions of
European character, 291, 292. Their eco-
nomic and commercial principles, 292. Ex-
tract from Tsien-tche on the commercial
advantages of a legal interest of thirty per
cent., 293. Their Emperors neither intol-
erant nor bigoted, 295. The Christian re-
ligion placed by the Chinese government
among the forbidden secret societies, 295.
Proscribed by the Emperor Young-tching,
296. Wars between the Chinese and Jap-
anese, 312.
Cholera, the, in Japan, L, 178. Causes of its
appearance, according to the Japanese, 178.
Japanese inquiries as to the causes of, 178.
Appearance of the, in Yeddo, 224. The
members of the British Legation attacked
by, 225.
Christenings of the Japanese, ii., 273.
Christianity, introduction of, into Japan, L,
69. Proscribed, 70. Extinguished, 137; iL,
187. Influences inimical to the conversion
of Asiatics to, 294. Proscribed by the Chi-
nese Emperor Young-tching, 296.
Chrysanthemums, curious new forms of, in
Japan, i.,288.
Civilization of the Japanese, i., 172, et seq.
Of Europe and Asia, remarks on the, ii., 227.
Mode of estimating the degree of civiliza-
tion actually attained in a strange country,
239. Wants and primary necessities of the
semi-civilized Oriental, 309.
Cleanliness of the streets of Yeddo,!., 123. Of
the Japanese, 348.
Climate, influence of, on determining the char-
acter of a people's civilization, i.,91. And
on national dress or clothing, and the re-
quirements of modesty or decency, 91. Cli-
mate of Nagasaki, 97. Of Yeddo, 130. Of
Japan, 177,179, 354. The pleasant and gen-
ial months of October and November, 262.
Wet and hot days in May and June in Ja-
pan, ii., 63.
Clothing of the Japanese in winter, L, 132,
133.
Coal mines in Japan, L, 258. Japanese meth-
ods of mining, 258,259. Improvements re-
quired in working, 326. Coal mine near
Takeiwa, ii., 77. Japanese mode of mining,
77. Its bad quality, 78.
Coats made of rushes, ii., 258.
Code, the Japanese, probably the bloodiest in
the world, L, 8I.
Coffins, large earthen jars used for, ii., 108.
Colonial courts, curiosities of, iL, 24,25.
Color printing of the Japanese, i., 350.
Commandments, the Japanese five, iL, 267.
Commerce, statistics of, of Shanghae, from
1855 to 1860, L, 56, note. Leading causes of
mercantile depreciation and injury, 75. Bal-
ance of trade, 76. Treaties of commerce
concluded with the Japanese, 100. Sum-
mary of what was achieved in the first
treaty, 325. Commercial policy of the Chi-
nese and Japanese, ii., 292. Conditions un-
der which the extension and free develop-
ment of commerce may be attained in the
East, 308. Commerce an effective agency
in the civilization of the world and the fu-
sion of races, 309. But a revolutionary
agent, 313. Importance of commerce to the
national life of England, 319. Summary of
the reports of foreign commerce during the
first two and a half years from the opening
of the Japanese ports, 327. Value of the
whole trade of Japan with foreign countries
during 1861, 330. The currency question,
345, et aeq.
Compass, mariners*, known to the Chinese, i.,
2u8.
Concubines, Japanese, ii., 218, 219. Consid-
ered as a discivilizing agency, 220.
Confucianism of the Japanese, ii., 224, 268.
Period of the introduction of Confucianism
into Japan, 268.
Coniferse, richness of Japan in the, L, 280.
of Japan,!., 287,288; iL, 69, 401.
Constitution of Japan, summary of the, ii.,
410.
Consul, British, installed at Hakodadi, 1., 249.
Consular Courts, in the East, ii., 27-30. Sug-
gestions as to Consular jurisdiction, 28, et
neq.
Conventionalities, Japanese, i., 187.
Coolies, Chinese, i., 58. Japanese, ii., 258. In
Kanagawa, i., 398.
Coopers of Yeddo, i., 115.
Copper ware of Yeddo, i., 115. Smelting
works for copper in Osaca, ii., 121.
Corn, flails used for beating out the, ii-, 132.
Cotton grown near Yeddo, i., 262. And Kan-
agawa, 284. Mode of cultivation of, 285;
ii., 122. Weaving cotton in the villages of
Japan, i., 330. Grown in Kiusiu, ii., 83.
Mode of preparing the cotton for spinning,
83. And of reeling it, 84.
Council of State of Japan, the Great, or Goro-
gio, L, 150.
Courier, a Japanese, ii., 276.
Court dress of Japanese officials, L, 333,334.
Courtesans, their portraits hung up in a tem-
ple, in Yeddo, ii., 272. At their toilet, 276.
Courtier, a Japanese, ii., 250,253.
Courtship, a Japanese, iL, 258.
Crops, Japanese, ii., 66,69. Chief crops of the
district of Kanagawa and Yokohama, 397-8,
Craft, Chinese, diversity of, at Hongkong, L,
42.
Craigie, Captain, on the Suonada Sea, ii.,96.
Lands at Yeddo with an armed force for the
protection of the British Legation, 164. His
death, 96, note.
Cranes near Yeddo, i., 134.
Crape, Chinese, L, 208.
Crawfish in Nagasaki, i., 96.
Crimps, Chinese, L, 37.
Crops near Yeddo, L, 121. Abundant on the
road to Yeddo, 361. Cropping and rotation
of crops understood in Japan, 283.
Cryptomeria Japonica, the, i., 110,264. Hedg-
es of, 266. Its magnificence as a timber
tree, 355. Avenue of them, 355. Noble
specimens of, 377. Cryptomerias near Na-
gasaki, ii., 66. In Yeddo, i., 122.
Currency, Japanese, i., 145. Diplomatic
struggle with the Japanese respecting it,
146. The gold currency question again,
251. The remedy pointed out to the minis-
\ 2


418
INDEX.
ters, 252. Causes of the currency difficulty,
299, note. Bank-notes for small sums in
use in the country, H., 89. The Japanese
demands on foreign governments as to the
currency, 345,346. Origin of their gold and
silver currency, 347. Question as to the ex-
change with America, 347. Relation of sil-
ver to gold Japanese coins, 349. Copper
coins, 348. Attempts of the Japanese to re-
duce the value of the silver coins, 351, 352.
Remonstrance of the British Minister, 352.
Immense inconveniences occasioned by the
subsequent derangement of money prices
and of contracts, 359. Disturbance in wa-
ges, 359,360. Proposed change in the cur-
rency, 360. Proper use of the precious met-
als, 362. Remarks on the currency question
made at a meeting of British residents at
Yokohama, 371.
Curtius, Mr. Donker, the Dutch Commission-
er, his treaty concluded with the Japanese.
L, 100.
Cypresses in Yeddo, L, 122.
Daimios, or Japanese feudal princes, L, 112.
Their temples near Yeddo, 112. Their re-
linquishment sometimes of power, and re-
tirement into one of their temples, 112.
Their Yamaskas, or residences near Yeddo,
114. Their corteges of mixed horse and
foot, 115,135-6. The out-buildings for their
numerous retainers, 116,134. Their cos-
tumes of ceremony, the Kamisima, 136.
Their compulsory residence in Yeddo part
of the year, 138, 211. Obeisance paid to
them by their inferiors, 164. Their opposi-
tion to the treaty with the United States, 197.
Their consent obtained, 198. Violent reac-
tion, and its consequences, 200. Forces they
can bring into the field, 201. Great Coun-
cil of Daimios summoned to consider the let-
ter of the President of the United States
202. Their policy, 203. Gradually trans-
ferring all the powers of government Into
their own hands, 209. Their power of life
and death, 211. Procession of a Daimio
and his retainers going to the palace of the
Tycoon, 213, 306. Mode of estimating their
revenues, 282. Murder of the Regent, 304.
The pilgrimage to Fusiyama not consistent
with the dignity of a Daimio, 341. The
forced residence of all Daimios at the court
of the Tycoon, 345. Their mode of travel-
ing to Yeddo, 346. Dangers of meeting a
Daimio's cortege on the high road, 399,405.
Attack of the Prince of Satsuma's retainers
on a party of foreigners on the high road,
ii., 15, note. The Prince's mode of avoid-
ing sources of quarrel with other Princes,
15. Instances of their subjection in some
things, and pretensions of independence in
others, 78,79. Their limit of the right of
the Chiefs of the Diplomatic Missions to
travel freely in Japan, 80. Their thousands
of hungry and idle retainers, 89. Specula-
tions on the kind of life led by the Daimios
129. Their plottings, 129. Surveillance ex-
ercised over them by the government of
Yeddo, 130. Reasons for their opposition to
Diplomatic Agents deviating from the high
road in their territories, 131,132. Corteges
of the Daimios returning from the capital
to their territories, 136. Type of their cas-
tles throughout the country, 137,138. Their
policy as to foreign trade and intercourse,
189, 189, 210. The Kokushl, or Consulta-
tive Council of the Tycoon, 205. The Goro-
gio, or Administrative Council, 206. Great
power and immense revenues of some of the
Daimios, 209. Reasons for their desire to
exclude the foreigner, 217. Causes of the
hatred evident in their retainers against
foreigners, 360. List of the Daimios and
their revenues, 384 . List of the feudal
princes of the Empire, arranged according
to their revenues, 389.
Dairi, or Court of the Mikado, L, 210.
Dankirche, the linguist, assassinated at the
gates of the British Legation, i.,292. Es-
cape of his assassins, 294. His burial-place,
ii., 49,50.
Death punishment in Japan, i., 8O, 81.
Decima, Dutch town of, i., S7.
Deer, plentiful in Japan, i., 369. Price of a
large stag at Yokohama, 369.
Devil, Japanese belief in the existence of the,
ii., 225,267.
De Wit, Mr., the Dutch Consul General, his
journey with the British Minister overland,
ii., 62.
Dice, gambling with, in Japan, ii., 283.
Diplomacy in the East, i., 67. * Disinterest-
edness* of Treaty Powers, 67. Modes in
which it seeks to revenge itself on Foreign
Powers for the humiliation of receiving
their representatives, 329. Importance in
the East of seeming trifles in diplomacy,
329-331.
Diplomatic Agent, position of a, in Yeddo, iL,
48. Compared with Japanese gibbeted tor-
toises, 125,126.
Diseases of the Japanese, i.,178. The chol-
era brought over by the United States frig-
ate * Mississippi,' 178. Skin diseases, 179.
Itch, 179.
Divorce, letters of, written by the Japanese,
L, 184.
Dogs, great numbers of, in Yeddo, i., 124.
Japanese fancy, 277; ii., 110.
Doves, Japanese, i., 277.
Drake, the Mandarin, L, 277.
Drama, the Japanese, ii., 111. Plot of a Jap-
anese play, 112, et acq.
Drawings, Japanese, ti., 244,245,246,250,258-
260.
Dressofthe Japanese,!.,90,94. Influence of
climate in national dress or clothing, 91.
The love of dress undeveloped among the
Japanese, 179. Of the ladies of Yeddo,
238,239-, and of Hakodadi, 243. Of Japan-
ese officials at the court of the Tycoon, 333.
And of the Lords in Waiting, 334. Oil-pa-
per coats, 364. Dress of Japanese pilgrim?,
373. Winter dress of the Yaconins, 398.
The Kamisima, 136; ii., 16, note. Costume
of the women of Miaco, 273.
Drunkenness, Japanese, I., 82,123,185
Duality in all things in Japan, L, 81,82,162,
210.
Ducks, Japanese, i.j 277.
Duplicate system in all offices in Japan, L,
81, 82,162,210


INDEX.
419
Hutch, their settlement at Deeima, i., 87.
Their experience of the result of submission
to Japanese oppression, 88,89. Their peri-
odical reception by the Tycoon in Yeddo,
99. Conclude a convention with the Ty-
coon, 100. The Dutch language the only
European tongue spoken by the interpreters
of Yeddo, 109. Gratitude of other Europe-
an nations due to the Dutch for preparing
the way for the treaties, 193. Their last
treaty with Japan, 205. Two Dutch mer-
chants assassinated in Yokohama, 300.
Their custom of taking boat at Slmonoseki
on their way to the capital of the Tycoon,
li., 93. Conditions under which they were
allowed to remain in Japan, 185.
Dye for ladies* lips, ii.,257.
Earthenware of Osaca, ii., 110.
Earthquakes in Yeddo, L, 133. Frequency of,
in Japan, 174 . The great earthquake of
1783, 175. That at Simoda in 1854, 175.
One lately near Yeddo, 176. The asserted
Japanese discovery of the loss of power of
the magnet during an earthquake, 176.
Earthquake in 1860, 290. Chinese and Jap-
anese notions of the causes of earthquakes,
290. Familiarity with earthquakes in Ja-
pan, 302. Periodical partial destruction of
the city of Yeddo by earthquakes, ii., 240,
243,
Egg fruit, or hrinjalls, ii., 107.
Eggs, abundance of, in Nagasaki, i.,96. Ropes
of, 347.
n, Lord, pelted in the streets of Yeddo, i.,
Emigration, Chinese law prohibiting, L, 37.
Governor^*eihkwei*s repeal of the law, 37.
Enamels, Japanese, ii., 247.
English, oppression of the, at Canton, previ-
ous to the first war, L, 89.
Equality, popular notions of, ii., 283.
Equestrians, Japanese, L, 136. Fast riding
vulgar and low, 136.
Eructations after a meal of the Japanese, L,
187.
Espionage, elaborate system of, of the Japan-
ese, ii., 217,218. See Spies.
Eulenberg, Count, Prussian Minister in Yed-
do, his generosity and loyalty, iL, 45. Ob-
tains the signature of his treaty, 54.
Europe, diplomacy of, and policy of Asia, ii.,
286. Characteristics of European life com-
pared with those of Asiatics, 289. Causes
of the mutual repulsion of the two races,
290. All Europeans suspected by Asiatics
of being more or less tainted with the de-
sire for converting and proselytizing, 294.
Western Civilization aux prizes with Jap-
anese Feudalism, 301. Importance of Eu-
ropean relations with the far East, 302.
European, and Chinese, and Japanese civil-
ization contrasted, i., 192.
Evergreens, Japanese, ii., 66.
Execution, place of public, near Yeddo, ii.,
331.
Exports and imports of Japan, L, 325, 326; ii.,
328. Value of, at Kanagawa, 327, 328.
And at Nagasaki, 330.
Extortion of the Japanese who supplied the
Legation Vithneces aries, i., 158.
Fairs, pnblic, in Japan, i., 116,117.
Fairies, popular legends respecting, li., 248.
Fans, measurement by, ii., 127.
Farmers, place occupied by, in the social scale,
i., 282. In Thunberg's time, 83.
Farms, Japanese. See Agriculture, Japanese.
Fauna of Japan:
Bear, grizzly black, i., 277.
Boar, wild, i., 369.
Cranes, i., 134.
Deer, red fallow, i., 277,369.
Ducks, 1,277.
Fishing-hawk, i., 89.
Fowls, Bantam, i., 277.
Goats, i., 277.
Ibis, i., 134.
Monkey, the red-faced, i., 277.
Paddy-birds, i., 134.
Pheasants, i., 277.
Pigeons, L, 277.
Snakes, i., 376.
Storks, i., 134,271.
Wild-fowl of Yeddo, I., 134,272,273.
Ferns, common, of the Bay of Nagasaki, i., 89.
Festivals, frequency of the occurrence of, in
Japan, ii., 277, 283.
perpetual, in the gardens of the temple
of Asaxa, iL, 270.
Feudal basis of the government of Japan.
Sez Government of Japan.
Princes of Japan. See Daimios.
Feudalism of Japan, L, 113. Feudal institu-
tions of Japan, an agency against the real-
ization of any sanguine hopes of improve-
ment, ii., 217. Their antagonistic influence
on our present relations with, and future
prosperity in, Japan, 301.
Fibres, vegetable, of Japan, i., 387.
Fire-arms imported into Japan, i.,212. The
Japanese forbidden to carry, 272. Fire-
arms first used in an attempted assassina-
tion, iL, 363-366. A manufactory for re-
volvers established in Japan. 363.
Fire-bells of Yeddo, i., 126.
Fire-brigades of Yeddo, i., 126.
Fire-proof houses in Yeddo, i., 126.
Fires, frequent in Yeddo, L, 126. In Japan-
ese houses in winter, 133. Frequency of, In
the great imperial cities of Japan, 210. In-
cendiary fire in Yokohama, 289. Frequen-
cy of fires and deficiency of water in Yeddo,
302. Incendiarism in Nagasaki, 326. The
village of Yomotz destroyed by fire, 356.
Fire in the temple of Tozengee, ii., 20. Fre-
quent partial destruction of the city of Yed-
do by fire, 240, 243.
Fish, abundance of, in Nagasaki, L, 97. Dear-
ness of, at the Legation, 158. Of the Bay
of Hakodadi, 244. One of the chief articles
of Japanese food, 268. Fish caught in the
Bay of Atami, 380.
Fishermen and their families of Atami, i.,393.
Of Kanagawa, 400.
Fishing-hawks, i., 99. Occupy the place of
sea-gulls in Japan, 89.
Fishing summer-house of the Tycoon in Yed-
do, L, 108.
Fizen, Prince of, his power of life and death,
i., 211. His coal mines near Takeiwa, ii.,
77. Government restrictions over them, 78
-80.
Elgi
18
5


420
INDEX.
Flails, Japanese, L, 284; iL, 132.
Flagellants, sect of, in the fifteenth century,
Flora of Japan, Mr. John G. Veitch's notes on
the,lL,397,e**e$.
Flora of japan:
Azalea, L, 110; iL, 66,107.
Bamboo, i.,89,110.1-22,204; iL, 66.
ground, L, 110.
Brinjalls, or egg fruit, iL, 107.
Camellia, L, 89; iL,66.
Cherry, i.,264.
Cotton, L, 284, 285.
Cryptomeria, L, 110,122, 264, 266, 355,
377; iL,66.
—— Cypress, L, 122.
Egg fruit, iL. 107.
Evergreens, i.,266.
Gardinia, L, 89.
Honeysuckle, iL, 66.
Ivy, L, 89.
Jasmine, the Cape, iL, 66,137.
Maple, L, 110,264.
Melon, L, 122.
. Nectarine, i.,264.
Nettle, colossal, iL, 106.
Oak, evergreen, L, 110,122,264.
Orange, L, 122,264.
Palm, L,89,110,122; iL, 66.
Passion-flower, iL, 106.
Peach, L, 122.
Persimmon, i., 89.
Pine, L, 89, 110,122,189, 355, 350; iL,
66,400.
Pines, dwarf, L, 287.
Plum, L, 110,123.
Pomegranate, L, 89,264.
Privet, iL, 137.
Stiphelia, L, 89.
, Tea L 264.
Thistle, L,89,356; ii.,CO.
Thujopsis dolabrata, L, 356.
Tree-fern, L, 189.
Vine, wild, L, 248.
Wax-tree, ii., 66.
Wistaria sinensis, L, 266.
Flour, exports of, from Japan to China, L, 326.
Flowers without scent in Japan, L, 85; ii.,
137. Of the Bay of Nagasaki, 89. Of Yed-
do, 122. Fondness of the Japanese for, 287.
Food of the Japanese, L, 92,268. Cheapness
of, in Yeddo, 158. Of the people of Hako-
dadi,245. Their beverages, 268. Rice their
staple food, 268, 283. List of Japanese veg-
etables, 286. A Japanese breakfast, iL, 129.
Cheapness of it, 129.
Foreign Affairs, Ministers for, in Japan, offi-
cial visit to, L, 149.
Foreigners in Japan, all outlaws, L, 214.
Causes of some of the dangers to, in Japan,
164. Impediments created by the Japanese
to every semblance of liberty, 341. A party
of, attacked on the high road, iL, 15, vote,
366. No security forsthe lives of, 17-19.
An Englishman in Kanagawa in trouble,
23. Put upon his trial, 24. His punish-
ment, 24. Brings an action against the
British Minister, and recovers damages, 25.
Menace of a general massacre of foreigners
in Japan, 36. Assassination of Mr. Heus-
kin, 42. Conference of the Ministers of
Foreign Powers, 43. Their position at the
present time, 182. Laws of the Empire re-
specting, 186,193. The Queen's Orders in
Council as to British subjects in Japan, 333.
Prohibitive clause, 333,334.
Forfeits, games with, of the Japanese, ii., 282.
Foundling hospital, no need of a, in Japan, L,
125.
Fowls in Nagasaki, L, 96. Bantams, 96,277.
Fox, the, the incarnation of the Evil One, ac-
cording to the Japanese, iL, 225.
France, the Japanese treaty with, L, 100,205.
Frauds, Japanese, iL, 213.
Fruit, Japanese, L, 85,286; iL, 399. Peaches,
L, 286. Grapes, 286. Other fruits, 286.
Fruit-trees of Yeddo, L, 122,123. Of Japan,
L, 286.
Funeral, a Japanese, L, 295,296. Its similar-
ity to those of the Greek and Roman
Churches, 296. Public, of Mr. Heuskin, ii.,
47.
Furniture, household, in Japan, L, 107.
Fusiyama, meaning of the name, L, 170.
View of, from the suburbs of Yeddo, 340,
348. Pilgrimage of the British Minister to,
340. Periods of the year at which the as-
cent is practicable, 340. Map of the route,
348. Towns on the road, 348, et aeg. Veg-
etation of the slopes of the mountain, 309.
Huts, or resting-places, on the way, 369.
Limit of animal and vegetable life, 369.
Scoris? and lava every where, 370. Top of
the mountain, 370. Dimensions of the cra-
ter, 370. Estimated height of the mount-
ain, 372. Dress of Japanese pilgrims to,
373. Origin of the pilgrimage, 373. Last
recorded eruption of the volcano, 373. Jap-
anese tradition as to the otfgin of the
mountain, 373. Time occupied in the as-
cent, 373. Road from Fusiyama to Atami,
374, 375. View of the mountain from the
banks of the River Oigawa, iL, 141.
Gall-nuts, trade in, with the Japanese, L,
326.
Gambling, Japanese fondness for, L, 118; iL,
212, 283.
Game of the island of Yeso, L, 245. Forbid-
den to be shot within ten Re of the city of
Yeddo, iL, 334
.
Games, Japanese, ii., 277, et seq.
Gardens, Japanese, L, 110. Miniature gar-
dens of the Japanese, 346. Gardens of the
great temple of Asaxa In Yeddo, iL, 272.
Gardening, Japanese, L, 287 ; iL, 399.
Gardinias of the Bay of Nagasaki, L, 89.
Gauze surcoats worn at the court of the Ty-
coon, L, 334.
Geysers of Iceland, their capricious proceed-
ings, ii., 162.
Giosho mode of writing Japanese in Chinese
characters, L,166.
Girard, the Abbe, his assistance in forming
the list of Japanese verbs, L, 172. And the
two-sworded Japanese, 299, 300. His chap-
el at Yokohama, iL, 363.
Glass, little used in Japan for windows, ii.,
329. Glass articles of Japanese manufac-
ture, 329.
Glycirue sinensis, the, In Japan, L, 266.
Goats, Japanese, L, 190,277.


INDEX.
425
Japanese (continued):
story-tellers, public, i., 116.
beggars, L, 116.
jugglers, L, 117.
gambling, i, 118.
the social evil, L, 118.
■ . drunkenness, L, 123,185.
the Japanese a contented and happy
race, L, 12T.
the Samourai or Yaconins, i., 127.
clothing of the Japanese in winter, L,
132, 133.
. equestrians, i., 135,136.
Japanese diplomacy, L, 138. i
their foregone conclusions as to carrying
out the treaty with us, i., 139.
their currency, and depression of it, i.,
145, et seq.
their systematic extortion, L, 153.
their language, L, 160.
their fondness for the dual principle in
all things, I., 162.
. their absence of individuality and self-
assertion, L, 164.
their ceremonious and punctilious scru-
pulousness in giving offense, i., 164.
their three modes or systems of writing,
i., 165,166.
example of their straw-splitting charac-
ter, L, 171.
their diseases, i., 178.
ravages caused among them by the chol-[
era, i., 178.
tattooing practiced by them, L, 179.
their women, and their self-inflicted ug-
liness, i., ISO.
their perfect comprehension of the cour-
tesies of life, i.,187.
their conventionalities, i., 187.
■ humility of the inferior classes, i., 188.
a Japanese prostrating himself before]
his superiors, L, 188.
reasons for the Japanese repudiation of
their asserted right of seclusion, L, 191.
bitter fruit borne to all who took part in
the signature or negotiation of the treaty
with the United States, L, 200.
their civilization, i., 206.
their mendacity, L, 210; H.,213.
their insults and outrages on foreigners!
in Yeddo, i.,215. 1
. their murder of three Russians, L, 219,
their servility, and its probable causes,
L, 229.
■ their arguments as to the probable ef-
fects of their foreign treaties, L, 255.
■ their political economy, L, 258. evidence of plenty apparent among them,
L, 266.
Spartan simplicity of their habits, i.,
268.
their food and beverage?, i., 268.
their notions of the causes of earth-]
quakes, i., 290.
—- their funerals, L, 295.
the Regent murdered, L, 304.
the popular idea of heroism and justice,
I., 312.
pictures of Japanese life in stray leaves
from a journal, L, 316,317, et seq. their * emmet life,' L, 322.
Japanese (continued):
— are now what they were centuries ago,
i. , 322, 323.
— their indisposition to abrogate or adjust
old laws unless absolutely necessary, L, 323.
— their obstructive and retrograde policy
compared with that of England, L, 324.
—■ their policy of isolation and restriction
and its probable consequences on our future
relations, the great problem to be solved
between the Western Powers and the Jap-
anese, i., 328.
— marked want of respect shown to the
American Minister at his audience of the
Tycoon, L, 328.
— their fishermen ancestors, i., 338. their mode of expressing profound rev-
erence in the chambers of the Tycoon's pal-
ace, i.,339.
— pilgrimages of the poorer classes to Fusi-
yama, i.,340.
reflections on the government and civil-
ization of the Japanese, I., 354.
1 their reversal of all European notions, i.,
357.
— their character, i.,362. absence of Japanese ideas as to large
numbers, i., 369.
— Japanese accountants, i., 384.
— the Japanese an easily satisfied and
primitive people, L, 387.
their fondness for acupuncture and the
actual cautery, L, 390.
— their itinerant musicians, i.', 397, 398. peasants returning from market, i., 400,
— fishermen of Kanagawa, i., 400.
a blind gentleman, i., 401.
Japanese toys, i.,403.
mania of Japanese women for painting
and powdering their skin, L, 404.
— their complaints as to foreign inter-
course, L, 405.
indications of a hostile spirit among the
armed classes, iL, 13.
— restriction and hostility shown by the of-
ficials and higher classes of Japanese, ii.,21.
— their blood-feuds, iL, 24. their desire to found a military navy,
ii. , 35.
menace of a general massacre of foreign-
ers by a large band of Lonins, ii., 36.
— peasants of Kiusiu, ii., 70.
— their apparent poverty, ii., 75,89.
— ttieir frugal and penurious habits, ii., 89.
— Japanese sailors, ii., 98, 99,100.
— horror of Japanese landsmen of the wa-
ter, ii., 100.
— their superstition as to sleeping or being
I buried with the head to the north, ii., 108. a Japanese audience at a theatre, iL, 111,
112.
— unconcern with which they view scenes
of the grossest indecency, ii., 112,113,114
.
— their delight in deeds of valor and hero-
ism, bloodshed and immolation, ii., 114.
— a theatre-loving people, ii., 117.
— noisy peasantry near Osaca, iL, 123.
1 music of the Japanese, iL, 124,125.
I their oolitical economy and policy, ii,
1 134.


INDEX.
427
Kitchen, the, the hest part of an inn, L, 347.
A Japanese country inn, ii., 133.
Kites fiown by old men, L, 357.
Kiusiu, journey of the British and Dutch
Ministers across the island of, IL, 61. Flora
of, 66, 69. The sulphur baths of Urisino
and Takeiwa, 70,71. Character of the soil,
69, 75, 76. Coal mine in, 77.
Kockebecker, his destruction of the remnant
of the Christian religion in Slmabara, L, 71.
Kokou of rice, the, ii., 206,207, 384,397.
Kokura, city of, ii., 88. Approach to the city,
88. The people of, 88.
Kokushi, the, or Consultative Council of Da-
imios, ii., 205.
Koyonoski, town of, ii., 8T.
Laeor, economy of, in Japan, i., 284. Cheap-
ness of, in Japan, ii., 137.
Lacker-ware, i., 90, 278, 279; ii., 244. Of
Hakodadi, L, 246. Fabulous prices of, in
Osaca, ii., 109.
Land-tax in Japan, i., 283.
Land, tenure of, in Japan,!., 382; iL, 76. The
subject of the allocation of, in Japan, dis-
cussed, ii., 377.
Landlord and tenant, relative position of, in
Japan, ii., 397.
Language, Japanese, its softness, i., 94. The
teacher, Matabe, 161. The grammar con-
structed with his help, 161. Japanese adop-
tion of the Chinese language, literature,
morals, and ethics, 161. Their subsequent
system of phonetic symbols, 161. Absence
of gender in Japanese nouns, 161. No pro-
nouns to express any difference between he,
skf, and tf, 162. But words with various
significations of honor or self-abasement
supply their place, 163. Ease with which
the spoken language may be Learned, 165.
Its softness of sound, 165. Difficulties of
the written language, 165.166. The three
modes or systems of writing: the Chinese
character, the Katagana, and the Ilirngana,
166. The various methods of writing in the
Chinese character, 166. Contrast between
the Chinese and Japanese languages, 168.
Chinese characters used every where in
Japan as the written language, 169, 170.
The minute distinction and classification
of different forms of numerals, 170. Their
microscopic analysis and divisions of verbs,
171. Completion of the grammar, 172. As-
sistance rendered by the Abbe Girard, 172.
Lanterns, all persons bound by law to carry, .
i.,238.
Lathe, a Japanese, i., 380.
Laws, Japanese, hesitation to abrogate or ad-
just old, L, 323. Of Japan, code of, 354.
Their severity, 383.
Lawyers, absence of, in Japan, L, 85, 354.
Lead mines near Hakodadi, visit to the, I.,
246-248, 259.
Legation, the American, the first Protestant
service in Japan performed there, i., 303.
Threatened with an attack, ii., 168.
the British, the temple of Tozengee taken '.
for the, i., 112. Troubles of installation, 113.
A murder in daylight committed at the '.
gates of the, 292. Description of the Lega-
tion building, i1,144. Attack on the, 147.
The conspirators' bond, 149,150. Popular
rumors as to the attack, 151. The mode of
attack, 153. Number of the assassins, 155.
Their fate, 155,156. Visit to the killed and
wounded, 157. Means of protection taken,
'164,165. A tablet removed by the Prince
of Xendai from the temple of Tozengee, 285.
Second attack on the, 364.
the French, on fire, L, 295.
Legations, site marked out for the five, iL, 179.
Legends, popular, attached to some of the
Japanese mixed metal work, ii., 248.
Letters, how conveyed in Japan, iL, 239, 240.
Liberty, popular notions of, iL, 233.
Lies, historical, iL, 216.
Life not valued at much in Japan, L, 326.
Lilies, roots of, used as food, i., 280.
Linen, woven from the bark of a creeper, iL,
141.
Lip dye for ladies, iL, 257.
Lobsters caught in the Bay of Atami, L, 380.
Locks, Japanese, L, 357.
Logo, the River, the boundary for foreign
travelers, L,403. Mode of passing it, 403,
404.
Loneliness in a crowd, L, 158.
Lonins, or outcasts, L, 93,118. A Lonin read-
ing, 92. Class to which they belong, L, 220.
Menace of a large body of Lonins to murder
all the foreigners in Japan, ii., 36. Threat-
en the British Consulate in Kanagawa, 169.
Letter found in the house of four officers
of the Prince of MIto who became Lonins,
170. Japanese customs respecting Lonins,
170. Their similarity to the outlaws of
Anglo-Saxon times, 170, note. Stoiy of the
forty-seven Lonins and the Daimio, L, 313.
Loochoo Islands, sulphur of the, L, 246.
Lords in Waiting, dress of the Japanese, at
the court of the Tycoon, i., 354.
Lotteries in Japan, ii., 283.
Luxury, absence of, and of the wish for, among
the lower classes of Japan, i.,268.
Lying, the great vice of the Japanese, L, 187;
iL, 213, 214. Agencies encouraging, 8IT.
Macao, population of, L, 42,45,47. View of
the city of, 45. Its former greatness and
wealth, 45. Chance it lost of regaining its
important position, 46. Murder of Captain
Amaral, the governor, 46. Improvements
(f the present governor, Captain Guimaraes,
47, note. Scene on landing at Macao, 47.
Macartney, Lord, his embassy to China, L, 330.
Macdonald, Mr., and the-threatening Samou-
rai, ii., 22. His escape in the attack on the
British Legation, 148. Appointed as Equer-
ry to the Japanese Mission to the Treaty
Powers of Europe and America, 326.
Macgowan, Dr., his apology for the despotism
of the Japanese mode of government, L, 82.
Mackerel caught in the Bay of Atami, L, 380.
Mad-houses, none in Jupan, L, 271.
Magnet, alleged Japanese discovery of the loss
of power of the, during an earthquake, L,
176.
Maisaca, Bay of, ii., 140. town of, ii., 140.
Manake Simoosani Kami, Minister of Foreign
Affairs and President of the Gorogio, visit
to, L, 150.


430
INDEX.
Ordinal numbers in Japanese, i., 170.
Osaca, frequency of fires in the city of, i., 210.
Distance from Hiogo to Osaca, ii., 106.
Immense crowds of people in Osaca, 108.
Trade of, 108. Position of, 108. Shopping
in, 109. Manufactures of, 110. The thea-
tre of, 110, 111. Great number of rivers
and canals running through, 117. And of
bridges of enormous width and costly struc-
ture, 117. Visit to a temple near, 118.
And to the smelting works for copper, 181.
Friendliness of the people of, as compared
with the Yeddites, 121. Importance of
Osaca to foreign commerce, 121. Facilities
afforded by the river, 121. The Tycoon's
castle at, 122. Noisy peasants near, 123.
View of the belfry of the temple at, 242.
Osaca, Bay of, ii., 102. Excellent anchorage
at the, 103.
Ostler, a female, i., 402.
Ota, the interpreter to the Japanese Mission,
ii., 327.
Outcasts, or Lonins, i., 93.
Owari, Prince of, attack of his retainers on a
servant of a nobleman, it, 16. The result,
17.
Owari, Bay of, Ii., 137. Transit of the Bay,
138.
Oxen used only for agricultural purposes, i.,
190.
Pack-hobse traffic at Hakodndi, i., 248.
Paddy-birds near Yeddo, t, 134.
Paddy-fields near Yeddo, i., 261, 262; ii.. 83.
Pagoda, the Chinese invention of the, i., 207.
Paint abhorred by the Japanese, i., 103.
Painting, Chinese and Japanese, i., 207.
Palanquin, Japanese. See Norimon.
"Palissy" pottery in Osaca, ii., 110.
Palm-trees of the Bay of Nagasaki, i., 89.
Near Yeddo, 110,122. Near Nagasaki, ii.,
66.
Paper, Japanese, specimens of the various
kinds of, sent to the Exhibition, i., 171.
Oil-paper coats, 364. Manufacture of pa-
per at Atami, 384. Rags not used by the
Japanese, 385. Barks used in making pa-
per, 385. Plants grown for paper-making,
886. The 'Indian paper' of China, 386.
Toughness and tenacity of Japanese paper,
386. The three trees used in paper-mak-
ing, 386. Mode of manufacture, 386. Five
colors of paper made at Atami, 387. Rich-
ness of vegetable fibres in Japan, 387.
Paper-tree of Japan (Morus papyrifera sativa),
i., 386.
Pappenberg, the Christian martyrs of the isle
of, i.,77.
Papyrus legitima of Japan, i., 386.
Passion-flower, a new kind of, ii., 106.
Pawnbrokers' shops in Yeddo, 1,115.
Peach-trees near Yeddo, i., 122. Japanese
peaches, 286.
Pear-trees in Japan, i., 122.
Pearl River, the, at Canton, i., 35.
Peas grown near Yeddo and Kanagawa, i.,
284, 285.
Peasants, Japanese, i., 3S9. Their place in
the social scale, 282. Peasants of Kiusiu,
ii., 70. A peasant in his coat of rushes,
Peihkwei, Governor of Canton, his repeal of
the law prohibiting emigration, i., 37.
Peiho, arrival of news of the repulse at the,
in Japan, t, 154.
Penal code of the Japanese, its severity, i.,
383.
Perry, Commodore, his treaty with Japan, i.,
100. Objects of his fin>t treaty, 190. His
first and second appearances in Japanese
waters, 194.
Persimmon-trees of the Bay of Nagasaki, t,
89,286.
Perspective, Japanese, ii., 260.
Pheasants, various kinds of, in Japan, i., 277.
Physicians, Japanese, ii, 252, 253.
Picnics of the Japanese to the tea-gardens
near Yeddo, i., 123.
Pictures, Japanese, ii., 244,245, 246, 250, 258-
260. Color-prints, 245. Popular taste for
bright colors in pictures, 246. Wide-spread
taste for obscene productions, 246. Pictures
of courtesans in a temple at Yeddo, 272.
Pigeons, Japanese, i., 277.
} ilgrini Fathers, the, i., 77.
Pilgrimages, Japanese, ii.,266. Pilgrimages
of the Japanese to the sacred mountains of
Fusiyama, i., 341. Dress of Japanese pil-
grims to Fusiyama, 373. Scallop-shells on
their sleeves, 373. Origin of the pilgrim-
age, 373. Pilgrims on the road, 373.
Pine-trees near Nagasaki, i., 89; ii., 66, 70.
At the temple of Tozengee, i., 110.
Pinto, Mendez, his account of Japan, t, 32.
Pinus densiflora of the Hakoni Mountains, i.,
355.
Piracy, Chinese, i., 42. Causes of, 48. Rem-
edies for, 51.
Play, a Japanese, ii., Ill, et seq.
Plow, a Japanese, i., 263, 284; ii.,137.
Plum-trees near Yeddo, i., 122.
Political economy, Japanese, i., 258; it, 292.
Politics, a glance at, i., 190; ii., 344.
Polygamy of the Japanese, ii., 218-220.
Pomegranate hedges in Japan, i., 264. Pome-
granates of the Bay of Nagasaki, 89.
Pope, his pretension to supremacy and infal-
libility the determining cause of the down-
fall of the Roman Church in Japan, i., 72.
Population of Japan, evidences of the density
of the, ii., 139.
Porcelain, Japanese, i., 90. Of Osaca, ii., 110.
Of Okasaki, 124 . Prices of, 124.
Portuguese, their colony of Macao, i., 42,46.
Post, the Japanese, ii., 135, 239, 276. A Jap-
anese postman, 135. Their swiftness, 136.
Postal expenses, 136.
Potato, the sweet, cultivation of the, ii., 66.
Potatoes of Hakodadi, i., 245. Cultivated in
Japan, 263. Price of, 263.
Pottery, 1 palissy,' in Osaca, ii., 110.
Poutiatine. Count, Russian Admiral, his trea-
ty with the Japanese, i., 100,205.
Prawns in Nagasaki, i., 96.
Prices of Japanese produce, ii., 89.
Priests, Japanese, ii.,271.
Printing, the art of, known to the Chinese, i.,
208. Color-printing of the Japanese, 350;
ii., 245.
Prisons of Japan, according to Thunberg, i.,
80. A Japanese prison, 269. The interior
described, 270, 271. The inmates, 271.


INDEX.
433
of Nagasaki, i., 94. A steam-engine con-
structed by the Japanese themselves, 95.
Steinmetz, Mr. Andrew, bis work on Japan,
i., 177.
Stiphelias growing on the shores of the Bay!
of Nagasaki, t,89.
Stirling, Admiral, his visit to Japan, i., 100.
His stipulations, 100.
Stones, a rope of, ii., 128.
Storks near Yeddo, i., 134. In the lagoons
near Kanagawa, 271. Semi-worship of, by
the Japanese, 271, 272. Japanese admira-
tion and veneration for the stork, ii., 244.
Their pictures of it, 244.
Storm, behavior of Japanese sailors in a, ii.,
138.
Story-tellers, public, in Japan, i., 116; it, 282.
Straw, articles made from, i., 403.
Street-musicians and music, t, 93.
Street in Yeddo described, I., 229. Streets by'
night, 237. In the morning, 121. Of Yo-
kohama, 274.
Sulphur in the Loochoo Inlands, t, 246. In
the springs of Atami, 381.
Sulphur bathe, hot, of Urisino, U., 70, 71,
And of Takeiwa, 70.
Summer in Japan, i., 130,178.
Suonada Sea. See Sea, Suonada.
Surveys of the Japanese coasts, necessity of
accurate, i., 65.
Sword-makers of Yeddo, t, 115. The antique
swords shown as those of Taiko-sama, it, 94.
Taepings, their destruction of Shanghae in
1653, i., 53, 56. Impossibility of treating
with thera, 53. Have no government and
no head with whom to treat, 54. Acknowl-
edge no treaties and bound by no laws, 54.
The Taeping leader, Chin-a-lin, 56. Sketch
of some Taepings, 57.
Taiko-sama, the first Tycoon, causes of his
enmity toward the Jesuit fathers and their1
converts, i., 71. His foundation of the Ty-
coonat of Japan, 137. The name assumed
by Yoritomo, the first Tycoon, 209. His
power over the Daimios, 211. His swords
shown at Simonoseki, ii., 94. His castle at
Osaca, 107. Causes of hu usurpation of the
Tycoonat, 208,209.
Takeiwa, hot sulphur baths of, Ii., 70.
Takeno Votschie Shemod-Zeno Kami, firet
Minister Plenipotentiary from Japan to the
Treaty Powers, ii., 326.
Takimoto Dzoosiono Kami, one of the eight
Governors of Foreign Affairs, i., 332. Sent
express to the British Minister at Hiogo, ii.
103. Persuades him not to visit Miaco, 105.
Tattooing practiced by the Japanese, i..179.
Taxes, compared by the Japanese to the ac-
tual cautery, i., 391. Lightness of, in Ja-
pan, 391.
Tea drunk in Japan, t, 268. Amount of bust
nesa done in, during the first year after the
signing of the treaty, 325. Tea-chest man-
ufacture of Yeddo, 325. Tea one of the
chief articles of Japanese export, ii., 328.
Tea-hedges on the road between Osaca and
Yeddo, i., 265; ii., 127.
Tea-houses, gambling in, i., 118. Beauty of
the trees in the gardens of the, 122, 123.
Japanese picnics to the, 123.
II.—T
Tempests at Yeddo, L. 133.
Temples in Yeddo, visit ro some, t, 108. That
occupied by Baron Gros, 108. Those in the
Tycoon's cemetery, 108. The Temple of
Tozengee, 109. The temples near Yeddo
at the absolute disposal of the Tycoon's gov-
ernment, 111, 112. Temple porch at Osaca,
ii., 109. Visit to a temple near Osaca, 118.
View of the belfry of the temple at Osaca,
242. Pilgrimages to the chief Quanquon
temples, 266. And to the most eminent
Buddhist and Sintoo temples, 266. Temple
Saif in Sicousin, 266. Description of the
great temple of Asaxa in Yeddo, 269. Por-
traits of courtesans hung up in it, 272. The
temple of Tozengee and its patrons, 285.
Textile fabrics of the Chinese and Japanese,
i., 208. Of Arimatz, it, 139.
Theatre, a Japanese, in Osaca, it, 111. The
mise en scene, 111. The audience, 111, 112.
Plot of the piece, 112, et seq. Length of
Japanese plays, 112,117.
Theft, punishment for, in Japan, i., 226.
Thiers, M., his remark on the life and civili-
zation of the Chinese, i., 206.
Thistles growing on the shores of the Bay of
Nagasaki, t, 89, 356; it, 66.
Thujopsis dolabrata of Japan, t, 356.
Thunberg, his account of Japan, t, 78,80,82.
Tigers imported into Japan, it, 328,
Tiles, glazed, for drains, it, 108.
Timber, great amount of, growing at Yeddo,
t, 103, 394.
Timber-trees of Japan, i., 356. List of, grow-
ing in the vicinity of Yeddo and Kanagawa,
it, 400. List of coniferous trees, 401.
jTitsingh's 'Memoires et Anecdotes' of the
reigning dynasty, quoted, ii., 15,16.
Tobacco grown near Yeddo and Kanagawa,
t, 284, 285. Smoking universal in Japan,
285. Crops of, it, 128.
Toby,' death of the dog, i? 379.
Tocado, or great imperial high road of Yeddo,
t, 116, 345. Laws respecting the imperial
high roads of Japan, 395. Constant traffic
on the, 395. Its magnificence, it, 289. The
right of using the high road between Yeddo
and Kanagawa disputed by the Japanese
Government, i., 148,149.
Todo-idzu-mino-Kami, Prince of Itse and
Isan, his greeting of the British Ministers,
it, 131.
Tojin, or foreigners, in Japan, t, 111. See
Foreigners.
Top-spinning, a favorite game with Japanese,
old and young, ii., 277.
:Tortoises, live, hung on gibbets by the road-
side, it, 125. Their fate compared with
that of the Diplomatic Agents in Japan, 126.
Totsooka, town of, t, 348.
Towing, Japanese, it, 269.
Toys, Japanese, t, 403; it, 269.
Tozengee, visit of the British Minister to the
temple of, t, 109. Description of its beau-
ties, 110. Taken possession of for the Brit-
ish Legation, 112. (See Legation, British.)
Fire in the dining-room of the Legation, it,
20. Description of the building, 144. At-
tack on the Legation, 147,153. The former
proprietor and present patrons of it, 285.
Attacked a second time, 364.


434
INDEX.
Trade of Shanghai statistics of, from 1S55 to'
1860, 1, 56, note.* Dangers of inordinate
cupidity, 75. Japanese tricks of, iL, 213.
Traveling, modes of, in Japan, 104,105. Dif-
ficulties and expenses of, 342. Mode of
crowing a river, 350. Responsibility of car-
riers, 350. A Japanese traveling with his
baggage, 394. Various classes of travelers
on the imperial high roads, 395. Exorbi-
tant charges for horses at the roadside hos-i
telries, 396. Picture of one of the humbler]
classes traveling, 396. Usual rates of, in
Japan, ii.,239.
Treaties lately concluded with Japan, L, 100.
Commodore Perry's, 100. And others, 100.
Exchange of ratifications, 153. The trea-
ties with Japan, whether a benefit or an
injury to the Japanese, 200. The Russian,
French and Dutch treaties, 205. Treach-
erous quicksand basis on which our treaty
relations with Japan rest, iL, 132. Illegal-
ity of the treaties concluded by the Tycoon
with foreigners without the consent of the
Mikado, 132. The treaties rendered by the
Japanese systematically and persistently in-
operative, 176, Tragic events which have
followed the treaties with the Western;
Powers, 192. Objects of Commodore Per-
ry's first treaty, L, 190. Signature of the
Prussian treaty, iL, 54. Objects and Plans
of the Treaty Powers, 305, 306. Futility of
treaties extorted by force from Asiatics, 308.
Trees of the Bay of Nagasaki, L, 89. Of Yed-
do, 103. Japanese, 110,264. Dwarf, qf the
Japanese gardeners, 287. Trees on the road
between Osaca and Yeddo, ii., 133. List
of those growing in the vicinity of Yeddo
and Kanagawa, iL, 400.
Truth, the Japanese careless of telling the, L,
187; iL, 213, 214
.
Tslen-tche, the Chinese author, quoted, ii.,
293.
Tsoobo, or Japanese standard of superficial
measurement, L, 2S3.
Tsus-sima, Prince of, his humiliation by the
Russians, iL, 151. His mode of avenging
the outrage, 151. the Russians locate themselves on the
island of, ii., 171.
Turks, their notions of morality in women, L,
162.
*Two Journeys In Japan,* remarks on, L, 172.
Tycoon of Japan, his periodical reception of
the Dutch in Yeddo, L, 99. Concludes trea-
ties for trading privileges with various for-
eign nations, 100. His yacht, * The Em-
peror,' 103. His fishing summer-house, 108.
His cemetery, 108. Meaning of the word
* Tycoon,* 209, note; ii., 407. The Tycoon's
palace burned down, L, 251. Presents sent
by the Mikado to the Tycoon, 299. Grants
an audience to the American Minister, 328.
Grants him a second audience, 332. The
British Minister's audience, 332, et acq. De-
scription of his castle in Yeddo, 333. Drc?s
of the officials and Lords in Waiting at his
court, 333, 334. Personal appearance of the
Tycoon, 336. His present to the British
Minister, 338. His castle at Osaca, iL, 107.
His palace at Osaca, 122. And at Nangoya,
139. His autograph letter to the Queen,
urging the non-opening of more ports for a
term of years, 171. His titles conferred by
the reigning Mikado, and their derivation,
205. History of the title, 407. His title
during his minority, 408. Title by which
he is most commonly apoken of in Japan, 409.
Typhoons of Sept., 1860, L, 367. Loss of
H. M. &.* Camilla,' S67.
Unr Saeino Sameato, on metal fancv work,
iL,248.
Unguissu, the only bird in Japan which sing?,
li.,124.
Upholstery, Japanese, i., 107.
Urisino, hot sulphur baths of, iL, 70.
Uzino, town of, scenery of the, ii., 84. A road-
side shrine at, 84, 87.
Valiqnani, the Jesuit, in Japan, i., TO.
Valor and heroism, Japanese delight in deeds
of, iL, 114,
Vegetables, Japanese, either rank or tasteless,
L, 85. Grown near Yeddo and Kanagawa,
283, 285. List of vegetables grown, 286.
Vegetables of the district of Yokohama and
Kanagawa, ii., 398. List of the principal
vegetables grown, 398-9.
Vegetarians, the Japanese, L, 96.
Vehicles, Japanese:
Cango, i., 105.
Norimon, i., 105.
Veitch, Mr. John G., accompanies the British
Minister to Fusiyama, L, 342. His notes on
the agriculture, trees, and flora of Japan,
ii., 397. His notes on Japanese plants in-
troduced by him into England, 404.
Vengeance, Japanese custom of, iL, 16,17.
Venice of Japan. See Osaca.
Verbs, Japanese, microscopic analysis and di-
vision of, L,171.
Vessels, diversity of, at Hongkong, L, 41, 42.
Viands, Japanese, L, 97.
Victoria Peak, Hongkong, L,42. Its height,
43.
city, nongkong, oppressive heat of, L,
43. Secret of its prosperity, 44.
Village life in Japan, L, 379, 380.
Villages on the road between Osaca and Yed-
do, poverty-stricken appearance of the, iL,
133,14a Interior of cottage, 133. A straw-
shoe plaiting village, 140.
Vine, the wild, L, 248.
Visit to the Governor of Nagasaki, i.,9T.
Volcano of Fusiyama. See Fusiyama.
Volcanoes, evidences of former, on the road
from Osaca to Yeddo, iL, 127.
Vows, custom of making, in times of trouble
or distress, iL, 266.
Vyse, Captain, H. M. Consul at Kanagawa, his
notes on the agriculture of his district, i,
280. Threatened in Kanagawa by a band
of Lonins, ii.,169.
Watsaka Nakatstjkano Faya, one of the
Ministers to Foreign Affairs, visit to, L, 150.
Walpole, Sir Robert, his opinion of history,
L, 201.
Ward-gates of Yeddo, i., 116.
Ward-guards of Yeddo, i.,116.
Ward, Mr., American Minister, hia embassy
toPekin, i.,330.


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